Sermons tagged with Nature

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

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

All right. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see everybody's Christmas sweaters. Steve, it's nice to see your festive Christmas blazer. Thank you. This morning. If you don't understand what's happening on my sweater, that's on you. All right. This is from the movie Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase is up hanging lights and he pulls the gutter and a shard of ice shoots into their obnoxious neighbor's room, shattering the window and the stereo system. And when they get home, Julia Louise Dreyfuss' character says what's on Jen's sweater, which is why is the carpet wet, Todd, and to which he responds disgustedly, I don't know, Margo. So that's what this is. Just so you know, if you're looking at my sweater going, that doesn't make any sense to me, that's where it comes from, okay? And I just wish that you had as much joy in your clothes as I do in mine. This week we continue, as Haley just mentioned, which it is Christmas Sweater Sunday. It's not Christmas Overall Sunday. I don't know what you're doing, but it is. What was it, Christmas Knits, if that's not your love language? It is yours. So, yeah, very good. The series is called Here We Go, A Wassailing, and we're looking at Christmas songs that we sing, and we're seeking to understand them in a deeper way so that when we sing them at Christmas, hopefully they're imbued with greater meaning. As we approach this one, I have a sensibility or a standard in my life. I'm almost always consuming two books. I'm consuming one on the app Audible, which is a wonderful app, and that's where I consume nonfiction. Biography, sociology, often history, political stuff, that's where I do my learning because it's hard to sit down and read those books, at least for me. And then I try to always be reading a book in addition to the book that I'm listening to, and I read fiction. But the standard for me in the fiction that I read is I almost exclusively read classics because I kind of think, and I know that all of this sounds pretentious. I'm talking to you about how much I read and what I read and that I only read the classics and blah, blah, blah. Fine. I would assume that if you're not a reader, there is this belief amongst readers that we are somehow superior to non-readers. But what I would argue is that we just have more free time than you. You're busier than we are, and so we fill it with reading. Regardless, I read classics, because here's my thought. If it's been in print for over 50 years, then that author had something to say beyond just the story that is written. So if it's been around for a long time, I'm more apt to read it because I feel like it was written with purpose. And I feel like what is contained in those pages moves beyond just the story. And what I've found over and over and over again is that it really offers profound insight into the human spirit and human psyche. And it has a good commentary on life. And here's what's wild to me about the classics when you read them, is they were written in the mid-1800s, but the dynamics of human life persist today and are absolutely relatable. And so in literature, I have a proclivity for the classics because there's a reason that they've kind of billowed down through the centuries. And so this morning, I bring that up because this morning we arrive at maybe the most famous Christmas carol there is outside of Jingle Bells. And Jingle Bells means nothing. So we're not going to talk about that. But the one that does mean something is this Christmas carol, Joy to the World, that we sang at the beginning of the service. It was written by a pastor named Isaac Watts in the early 1700s. So the words of joy to the world that we sing every year are over 300 years old. It is very much a classic. And so to honor the classic this morning, as we focus ourselves on the songs that we sing at Christmas time, I want to go through this song, what's called exegetically. To preach exegetically is to go through a passage and just verse by verse, what does it mean, what does it mean, what does it mean? And so I want to take that practice and apply it to the song of joy to the world and go through it exegetically and understand what we're singing because I believe that there's something profound in each verse that may pass us by as we just sing it every year and we repeat with sounding joy and all the things. It's going to be really, really hard, I'm just saying this right now, for me to not sing parts of this song to you as I preach. I've been in sermons before where the pastor would just like pause and start singing awkwardly. And even if they have a good voice, you're still like, what are you doing, dude? So I'm going to really try hard not to sing to you this morning, but I don't know what's going to come out. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. So let's look at this wonderful Christmas carol written by Isaac Watts that we sing every year, and let's seek a greater understanding of what's going on when we sing it. Here's the first verse. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart. Where's Gibson? Gibby. In the original, in my notes, there's an apostrophe and the E, the second E in every. And one of the great things about our Christian heritage is that we apostrophize words that don't make any sense. And you've robbed us from this experience. I appreciate that you kept heaven, but every. Come on, man. Aren't you from Kentucky? Please don't fix it. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. So the first thing we see, he is actually going to go fix this as I preach to you. Let's just give him time. It's my fault. I made a big deal of it. There we go. Thank you. Now we've had the full experience, Gibberoo. Thanks, pal. The first thing that I want to point out is how it starts. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Every Easter, rather, I share with you this quote, and I'll share it again here as we approach Christmas. It's an Easter quote, but it's apropos today. It's from John Paul II, one of the great popes of the Catholic Church. And he said, For we do not give way to despair, for we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. And what he means is we serve a Savior that has conquered sin and death. We serve a Savior that gives us joy in whom we can rest easy. And so when it starts off, it's appropriately so. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. This person, this Messiah, this entity that will defeat sin and death has come. And so we can experience joy. And there should be no more joyful people in the Christmas season than Christians because we understand fully what it is for and what it is about. And make no mistake, we get into the hustle and the bustle of the Christmas season, but let us not forget that Jesus is why we are here, and he gives us joy. To the next point, in here it says, let every heart prepare him room at my last church my pastor a guy named Jonathan about every other year if not annually would preach the same Christmas message and I think that the point of it was an excellent one. We see it in Luke chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. Let's read this together. While they were there, there came a time for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. You've probably heard it. There was no room for them in the inn. And it's this idea that Joseph and Mary went down not for what they knew to be Christmas, but what we knew to be Christmas. Also probably in September, not in December, but that's neither here nor there. But they went down for the census and gave birth to Jesus. And they gave birth to Jesus in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn. That's the famous line. And so my pastor used to say in the Christmas season, let us make room for Jesus in our hearts. Let us not be like the innkeeper. And here's why that's tricky. This season has so many things that demand our time and our attention, does it not? Just yesterday, I was talking to Jen. What do you think we should get for John? I bought him this and this and this. We have this much money left. What do you think we should get for him? And so we're sitting there using our day talking about what we should get for our four-year-old who's eventually going to throw away everything that he gets in favor of other things that he gets when he's nine, which he will then throw away as well. It's an endless cycle. And she also shared with me that she was trying to buy some pajamas for Fammy Jammy Sunday because we got a match. And it's difficult to find. I'm just going to be really real with you guys. It's difficult to find pajamas I can preach in, okay? We would all be uncomfortable with the pants situation and all of the pajamas coming from Amazon. We don't want that. So it's tricky. And she's like, I've spent two and a half hours of my life trying to buy pajamas for us for this stupid thing at your stupid church. That's a loose paraphrase. She didn't say that. We have parties to go to. We have gifts to buy. On Christmas Eve, I've got to preach a sermon. You've got to come to a service. The band has to play music. You've got family things you're thinking about. You've got gifts to wrap. Santa has to sit in the living room and assemble things for Christmas morning. We have office parties to go to. We have friend parties to go to. We have regular gifts that we're getting, and then we have to think of the hilarious things to get for the dirty Santa party that we're going to that's going to be really funny. We have all kinds of things to think about in this Christmas season. And what happens so easily is that all of those different things that intrude upon our calendar and our schedule and our conscience invade the space that belongs to Christ and causes us to put him out of this Christmas season. For us to deprioritize him during the season that is meant more than any other to celebrate him and prioritize him. And so when we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. Reminds us if we let it. This is a busy season. There are lots of things being demanded of us. But the most important thing is to celebrate my Jesus. And I'll tell you this now more than ever. You've heard me, if you've been here any length of time, you've heard me say this a hundred times. There is no greater habit that anyone can develop than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. At no point in the year is that more important than the Christmas season. So let joy to the world encourage you to do that. Wake up early tomorrow. I promise you, I promise you, if you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do tomorrow, and you spend the first 10 minutes becoming cognizant and making coffee, and the latter 20 minutes reading and praying, that will be a better invested half hour than whatever you were going to gain by sleeping for that additional time. Let this season be a season that pushes you back to Christ as you prepare room in your hearts for him. The second verse. Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. And that says, let men their songs employ. The original version, and I think this is important, we'll get back to it, says, our mortal songs employ. And then it says, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Andrew, if you can leave that up there. Here's why I think it's important, the language that is used in the original line from 300 years ago, where it says, our immortal songs employ. Now, we don't sing that. That doesn't make any sense to us. That's not vernacular that we would use. Let men their songs employ seems to get the job done. But here's the deal with mortal. Mortal admits he is immortal. I am mortal. I am less than. It's a declaration of the beginning of the Bible where it says, in the beginning God created, establishing this fundamental relationship that he is the creator and I am the created. So when we say our mortal songs employ, what we're admitting is that we're not enough. This is the best we can do. The best we can do is sing to you with a pure heart and invite you in. It's not just let men their songs employ because that doesn't have the same bite that mortal does. Our mortal songs employ because we are insufficient and this is all that we can give. So when we sing at the end of my sermon, we will sing joy to the world again, and we will sing let men their songs employ, but I want your brain to go to mortal, understanding God, I am insufficient. You are God. I am not. I am mortal. You are immortal. By your love and by your grace and by your goodness and by your sacrifice and by the arrival that we are celebrating in this season, we become immortal from your love. But right now, as I sit in this seat, as I stand in that space, my songs are mortal. And I love you for making me immortal. Let men their songs employ. And then, these great lines, while fields and Jesus says in Luke chapter 19, verses 39 through again. There was a season in my life when I was quote unquote rugged. I went to REI. I shopped at the scratch and dent sales. I owned, listen, some of you will understand this. I'm looking at you, Jacob Farmer. I owned Chacos in 1999, pal. Do you understand? Like, I was OG on the Chacos. And if you don't know what Chacos are, you're not cool. And I would go hiking. I remember I would go on the Appalachian Trail. I went one time. It was February. It was freezing. I made the mistake in getting into my tent of knocking over my boot. And when I woke up the next day, I had to peel it off the ground because it was frozen to the ground ground and it was thawing out on my sock as we would walk that day. I remember one time we forgot water and I was mixing dry oatmeal, this is true, with my spit for sustenance until we could find a brook and a pot that we could boil water in so that we wouldn't die. I used to go hiking. I have not done that for years. But when I did, and when I would be at the top of a mountain or have an incredible view, and I've had this opportunity, God's been good to me all over the place. I remember I would feel the presence of God in those places. I remember there was one time in particular when I was in Quito, Ecuador. And we went out to this camp, this youth camp in the rainforest. And we had the opportunity to hike up the mountain. And so we walked for 60 or 90 minutes up this mountain at very high altitude, like 11,000 feet. It was a hard hike. And we got to the top. And as we got to the top of this mountain, I look around and there's mountains all around us. And this cloud moves in over us, literally, and settles into the valley from whence we came. And we walked down the trail, into the clouds, into the rainstorm that it created by moving over the mountain. And I remember in that space being awed at the glory of God. And if you're a hiker, and if you're a nature person, and you're a person of spirituality, I think it's undeniable that when you're in those places, you see the glory of God. You see his goodness. You see the wonders of his love. And when I'm in those places, I feel closer to him. I marvel at him. And so Jesus says, if we don't proclaim his praise, the rocks will cry out themselves. And if you're a person who's been out in nature and is moved by that, if you've been to the Grand Canyon as I have. You've seen the rocks cry out. You know that's true experientially. And so what praise is. Singing to God. Is an invitation. To participate. In what's already happening. Do you understand? It's not on you to praise God. It's not on you to proclaim His name. It's not on you to proclaim His glory and His goodness. And it's not as if we don't do it at grace this morning that it simply won't happen. No. all of creation is proclaiming the glory of the King and of the Creator. Romans 1 says that God has written Himself into nature so that we can see it and that no man is without excuse. Walk outside and God has written His glory in the sky so when we sing, we are not initiating something that's not happening. We are participating in something that's been going on for eons and ages. We're simply joining into the chorus of creation and proclaiming his name. So when we say that line, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, we are acknowledging that we are repeating the joy and the glory and the goodness and the praise that's going on outside of these walls all day, every day, in ways that we cannot comprehend. Do you get it? When we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come. When we sing repeat the sounding joy, are acknowledging. We're not initiating this. We're echoing in with creation, with what's been happening for thousands of years without us. Now the third verse. The third verse might be my favorite. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. And listen, I know that's a weird one to be my favorite. But I don't know how many years you've sang the song or you've heard it sung. And we get to that last line, far as, far as the curse is found. And then we sing it again. That's as close as I'm going to get to singing this one. And we just sing it. Thank you for your clapping. We just sing it because those are the lyrics. And it's like, it's almost comical because it's just like, happy joy to the world. You know, this is a happy song. And then we get to the third verse. And even this week, I went to Gibby once I was writing the sermon and I was like, hey dude, are we going to do the third verse? And he was like, no, that one's weird. And I was like, oh, can we do it? And I don't, you guys don't know how much trust I put in him. I never, ever, do I ever tell you to sing a song or do a thing? He's not, he's shaking his head no, because I paid him. But no, I never like, hey dude, we have to do this here, we have to do this song last, so I need you to sing this. I never give him instructions like that. But this week I was like, I need you to find a way to do the third verse. Because we get to that place where we just sing far as far as the curse is found. And I think we just sing it, but we don't think about it. And we might not even understand it. So let's understand it. Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 through 19 say this. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree, a fundamental sin of men. Just saying. I'm done listening to you, Jen. Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Because Eve ate of the apple, and because Adam listened to his wife, because he sinned too, there was a curse. And the curse was that there would be great pain and childbearing. And the curse for all of mankind was that now you have to work for your food. And it will be hard labor. There will be thorns and thistles that make it challenging. Do you realize that Adam and Eve were birthed into an all-inclusive resort? It was just, that's how they existed. Have you ever been to one of those? You just, there's just drinks in your room. There's just water in your refrigerator. And then you drink the water and you come back from going to the pool and there's more water in there. And then you go wherever you want to go for lunch. It's mediocre, but it's there and free. And then you go to dinner wherever you, there's no work involved. You're just reading and relaxing all day. That's what Adam and Eve were born into, but they sinned. They got that fundamental relationship wrong. God is the creator. We is the created. The serpent spoke into Eve's ear and said, you don't have to be like that. You can be like this. You can be as the creator and know what right from wrong. And so they chose to throw off the auspices of the original agreed upon relationship where God is the creator and we are the created. And they said, no, we want to be like the created. And so they inherited the curse. And the curse is that we have to work hard for our food. We have to labor. There are thorns and thistles. And if you want to read more deeply into it, the curse, more pointedly, is cancer. Cancer did not exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is disabilities. Disabilities didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is anxiety and depression. The curse is divorce. The curse is abuse. The curse is that hurt people hurt people. The curse is loneliness. Do you understand? The curse is hurt and tragedy and pain. And one of my favorite verses that I bring up all the time and I preach it at every funeral I ever do is in Revelation chapter 20, chapter 21, where it says, at the end of days, God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things, the curse have passed away. And so what this verse proclaims is it acknowledges that the curse is worldwide. But it says, That's the curse. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. He comes to expunge all of those things forever to make all the right things wrong and the sad things untrue. So when we sing the third verse of joy to the world, let us acknowledge that we know what the curse is and we know it's a result of sin and we know all the things are wrapped up in the curse. But when Jesus comes back one day and Christmas celebrates and acknowledges the fact that Jesus will come back and that he does keep his promises because God sent him and we acknowledge his reception and we look forward to his return. And as far as that curse is found, his blessings will flow and expunge. So we can sing that verse impugned with greater meaning when we understand the curse and we understand its healing. I didn't mean to rhyme those last four lines, but that was all right. Fourth verse. This one's great. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. I think this is an incredibly poignant and appropriate verse for us now in our current political climate. I hesitated to make this parallel because I truly believe that the things we talked about in each of the first three verses are meaningful and impactful or I would not have wasted your time with them. And I'm afraid that when I say what I'm about to say that we're going to lose the rest of it for this point. So please let's not do that. Let's just be grownups. But here's what I know about this room. There was an election in 2024. And some people in this room voted conservatively, believing that that candidate was most aligned with their values, and some people in this room voted liberally, believing that that candidate best aligned with their values. Some people didn't vote at all because there was no one that was representative of their values, and some people didn't vote at all because they're bad citizens. Well, I would say I'm just kidding, but I'm not. But we all had different reasons for the choices that we made that November. But here's what I know is part of everyone's reasoning. This candidate is not perfect, but they align with my values in this way, so I'm going to vote for them, and I'm going to overlook the shortcomings that they have as a person in their character. Okay? I don't think anyone here thinks that they voted for someone who was perfect in every way and was the ideal leader in every way. And I think as I trace back through my life, I'm 44, I've seen a lot of presidents. And I've seen a lot of elections. And you have too. And I don't think there's ever been a single time in your life when you voted or your parents voted and who they were voting for they thought was moral exemplar, ideal human on the planet, we have to make no exceptions for their character or their morality or their policies, but they're enough in line with me that I'm going to vote for them. Yeah? Jesus, Isaiah tells us, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And Revelation tells us this in Revelation 19, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. So in Revelation 19, there is this picture of Jesus crashing out of the sky. I've said dozens of times, if not hundreds of times in this place, that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and divine. He did what he said he did. He died and he raised again on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do, which is Revelation 19. One day he's going to come crashing through the clouds and he's going to reclaim creation for his father and for himself. And he'll be riding on a horse and on his thigh will be tattooed, will be emblazoned, righteous and true. And he's going to make all the wrong things right and all the sad things untrue. And he is going to rescue his creation. And then he will sit on his throne as king of kings and lord of lords. And he is one that no matter how we voted in the past, we would vote for him. And we would not have to make equivocations for him. I don't agree with some of his policies. Well, then you're wrong, buddy. We wouldn't have to make equivocations for his morality. One day he will lead. One day he will sit on the rightful throne of the universe. And when that day comes, for the rest of our days, we will follow him, resting easy in his leadership, trusting in his wisdom, finding peace in his sovereignty, and finding joy in worshiping him and him alone. He will be the perfect king of kings. And he will sit on the throne of the universe. And verse 4 proclaims that. He rules the world with truth and grace and he makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. So I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come back up. And we're going to sing joy to the world again. And if you don't mean it a little bit more than you did when we sang it at the start, well, I'm just a bad preacher. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your servant Isaac Watts who gave us the gift of this song. Thank you for how much meaning it has and how rich it is. Lord, your son's arrival brings joy to the whole world. It gives us a reason to praise and to sing. It gives us a reason to be happy and to be hopeful. So God, I pray that as we sing here in a minute, that we would remember what these words mean. That we would put meaning and passion behind them as we declare and proclaim your son. And we claim the joy of what this season is. Help us sing with meaning, God, and help us sing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here on this incredibly gross, hot Sunday. I heard somebody say it's like walking around in warm soup outside. I think that's pretty appropriate. I think we're going to take out the lounge areas next week and make more space for y'all. So we're getting the message. You're coming back to church, so this is great. These lounge areas are penalties for not coming in the summertime, so now we'll get back to normal. We've been moving through a series called 27 that we're going to do this summer and next summer where we're doing an overview of the 27 books in the New Testament to kind of give you an idea of where we're going for the rest of this summer and where we're going to pick up next summer. For the rest of the summer, I'm just going to go through the general epistles, the general letters that are largely in the back half or entirely in the back half of the New Testament. We're going to do Hebrews this morning. Aaron Winston, our children's pastor, did a phenomenal job covering James for us in July. So if you want to catch that one, you can go back and take a look at it. And then we're going to do 1 and 2 Peter together, 1, 2, 3 John together. Because I don't want to do three sermons out of 1, 2, 3 John that all say like, hey, if you love God, obey him. That's the message of 1, 2, 3 John. And then we're going to do Jude Labor Day Sunday. We decided that we would save the most overlooked book of the Bible for the most overlooked Sunday of the calendar. So that's going to be very appropriate when we do Jude and you guys watch online while Aaron and I work. But this morning we're going to focus on Hebrews. And deciding how to approach Hebrews and how to give you guys an overview of Hebrews was a little tricky because Hebrews is such an incredible book with so many good things and so many good themes. The overriding theme of Hebrews is to exalt Christ. The overriding point of Hebrews is to hold Christ up as superior to everything, the only thing worthy of our devotion and our affection, the only thing worthy of our lives. That's what the book of Hebrews does, and it focuses us on Christ, which is appropriate because we preached Acts last week. Well, I preached. You guys listened and did a great job at listening. I preached Acts last week, and we talked about how it's the Holy Spirit's job to focus us on Jesus, past, present, and future. And so once again, we're just going to enter into this theme in the text where the whole goal of it is to focus us on Christ. And so my prayer for us is that that's what this will do for us this morning. In an effort to exalt Christ, the author of Hebrews, who we're not sure who it is, the author of Hebrews starts out his book this way. Hebrews 1, 1 through 3. Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he had spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purifications for sins, he sat down at the right some of the most sweeping prose about our Savior that we'll find in the Bible. The only other place that compares is probably found in Colossians, which Aaron covered. Aaron, our worship pastor, covered last month as well. So from the very beginning, he exalts Jesus. He is the image of God. He is the exact imprint of his nature. He upholds the universe with his majesty, the sweeping picture of Christ. And then the author goes on to kind of build this case for the superiority of Christ. And the book is called Hebrews because it's written to the Jewish diaspora all throughout Asia Minor. As here, I know that you have a Jewish background. Let me help you understand your new faith by helping you understand your new savior. And he goes to great lengths to explain to them why Jesus is superior. And he does this through four major comparisons. He compares Jesus to Moses. He compares Jesus to the angels. He says Jesus is superior to the high priests. And he says that Jesus is a superior sacrifice. And he goes through and he tells them why Jesus is superior to those things. Now, to the Jewish mind in the first century A.D., all of those comparisons would carry a great deal of heft. They would matter. The Jewish mind would immediately know what that meant, would immediately be taken aback by the boldness of the author of Hebrews, and feel the weight of the comparison that they were being asked to make. But for us in the 21st century in America, those things don't resonate with us like they did with the first century Hebrew mind. We know, even if this is your first Sunday in a church in two decades, you probably already know that we're of the opinion that Jesus is a bigger deal than Moses. Like, we got that one down. You know that already. You know that we think that Jesus is superior to angels. No one's getting confused and worshiping angels. Aaron's never gotten a request for a praise song for angels. Like, we've never gotten a Gabriel praise song request. So we know that. Nobody has any misgivings about me being superior to Jesus. We know Jesus is the superior priest. We know he's the superior priest to everyone that's ever lived. And that's a really hard concept for us to hold on to, I think, when we see it in Hebrews that he's the great high priest. That's a difficult one for us because most of us in this room have never really even had a priest. Most of us in this room have had pastors. And pastors are different than priests, take on a different role than priests, have historically been viewed differently than priests. So that's a tough one for us. And then the sacrifice, none of us in this room have ever performed a sacrifice. If you have, I'd love to talk with you about what led you to do that in your life. I'd like to hear that story. I don't know if I want to commit to a full lunch because you're crazy, but maybe just out there, you just tell me about that time with the goat, okay? But these things are difficult for us to relate to. They don't hit us the same way. So a lot of my thoughts and energy this week went into helping us understand why these are such weighty comparisons, why they are so persuasive, and most importantly, why they're still important to us today in 21st century America so that the book and the message of Hebrews can be just as impactful for us as it was for first century Jews. So I think, as we think about the overview of Hebrews, the most interesting question is, why did those comparisons matter to me today? Why are they important to me today? So we're going to look at them and we're going to ask, why does it matter that Jesus is superior to these things? So the first one that we see, I'm doing kind of a combo platter and you'll see why, but Jesus is superior to Moses and the angels because his law and message is greater than theirs. In your notes, I can't remember if I put it there or not, but there should, it'd be helpful to write above these three points and be bracketed by the text. Jesus is superior because, superior to blank because. So that's, that's the question that we're answering. He's superior to Moses and the angels because his law and message are greater than theirs. Okay. Here's why I kind of combined those two. We probably all know, the Jewish mind certainly knew, that God's law came from Moses. God brought the law down off of Mount Sinai and presented it to the people. Now we often think that just the Ten Commandments were written on those tablets, but those tablets were covered front and back. So we don't know what all was on there, but most certainly more laws. And if you read through the books of Moses, the first five in the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, you'll get somewhere around 620 some odd laws depending on which rabbi or scholar you're talking to. And so those were the laws of Moses. And those were the laws around which their religion was framed. Those are the laws around which their culture was built, around which their entire life was formed by following those laws well. And Hebrews is earth shattering to them because it says, hey, Jesus's law is superior to Moses's law. You can cast Moses's law aside. It doesn't mean there's not some good ideas in there. The one about like not committing adultery, we should probably carry that principle forward. But those laws are done. It's now Jesus's new law that he gives us in John. Jesus tells us that in these two things are summed up all of the law and the prophets. Everything that Moses or the prophets ever wrote or writings that's ascribed to them can be summed up in loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, amen, and loving your neighbor as yourself. Jesus tells us that early in his ministry. But then at the end of his ministry, he's sitting around with the disciples and he says, this new command I give you, there's this new thing I want you to do. I'm going to add to the, I'm going to sweep away those commands. I'm going to give you this new command. Follow this. I want you to love your neighbor. I want you to love others as I have loved you. It's this new command that Jesus gives. And so that command is superior to all of the commands that came from Moses in the Old Testament. It's also superior to all the commands that come after that. His message is superior. This is what it means with the angels really quickly. According to Jewish tradition, it was the angels that took the tablets from God and delivered them to Moses as God's holy and anointed messengers. So what we're seeing in these two comparisons is Jesus' message is greater than any message that's come before or will come since, and his law is the greatest law, superior to all other laws, and it's the only one worth following. This is incredibly important for us because we live in a culture and we are people who are incredibly vulnerable to the insidious slide towards legalism. We are incredibly vulnerable to reducing our faith to a list of do's and don'ts. Okay, I know I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself. Like, I get that. But is it a sin if I do blank? I hate that question. Is it a sin if I do this? Is it a sin if I watch this? Is it a sin if I go there? Is it a sin if I have this? That's an immature question. It's almost irrelevant. Is it a sin? And we even do it in the early stages of our faith. Am I in or am I out? When I die, am I going to burn forever or dance in the streets? Which one is it? I just want to make sure I'm praying the right prayer so I don't burn forever. That seems like a bummer. So I'm going to believe in this. Am I in or am I out? Is there an unforgivable sin? Is there something that if I do it, I'm going to lose my salvation and then I'm out? And we try to make it about the rules. We enter into Christianity kind of asking the leader, like whoever's in charge here, can I just have my personnel handbook? I just need to know when my vacation days are. I need to know how many Sundays I can miss in a year and still be like, good. You know? I don't want to have to feel that out. We want our policy handbook. And when we make that our faith, we pervert it and distort it into things that it ought not be and was never intended to be. When we try to make the Bible basic instructions before leaving earth, have you heard that? If you haven't heard it, sorry, because it's stupid. And I just told you it, now you know. We try to make it God's handbook for life. There's a rule for everything, we just got to find it. And when you do that, the people who know the rules the best and appear to follow them the best are the spiritually mature ones. Meanwhile, the people over there who don't follow what we think are the rules super well are actually getting busy loving other people as Christ loved them. But we don't value them because we value the rules. So it's important to let Hebrews remind us that Jesus' law is superior to the laws that we add to his law. Because we love to say yes and. We love to turn Christianity into an improv class. Yes, that's true, and this. Yes, to be a believer, what does God ask of you? That you would love other people as Jesus loved you. Yes. And also you shouldn't watch shows that are rated MA on Netflix. You should not do that. Yes. And you should love other people as Jesus loved you. And you shouldn't say cuss words. Because we got together in a room at some point, and we decided that these words that are spelled this way are bad. And you can't say them. And they're very offensive. And they offend the very heart of God. Jesus didn't make that law. We do yes and, and we start to build other rules that are requisite for our faith. And at the end of that is legalism. And some of y'all grew up in legalism. I know my parents grew up in legalism. My mom went to a church outside of Atlanta where you couldn't, if you're a girl, you were not allowed to wear skirts above the knees. They all had to be to the knees or below. And if they weren't, you're a sinner. You couldn't go, you weren't even allowed to go to the movie theater. If you're going to see a Disney movie, you cannot, you cannot go to the theater. You were not, your family was not allowed to own a deck of cards because with those cards, you might gamble and offend the sensibilities of God. And what happens when we do that is people like my mom who grow up in that, when they grew up in that, in their adolescence, they're riddled with all this guilt of things that they're supposed to do and shame for not being able to do them. And that shame isn't coming from Jesus because you've offended his law. That shame is coming from rickety old deacons because you offended their sensibilities. And it's not right. We should always choose love over law because that's what Jesus asked us to do. And here's what can happen when we do that. At the last church I worked at, there was a policy, and some of you are familiar with policies like these. They're particularly prominent in the South. There was a policy that you could not consume alcohol in public. You had to privately foster your own alcoholism. You couldn't consume it in public. You can have it in your house. You can have it with trusted friends. But you can't consume it in public and you can't be seen purchasing it by someone from the church. It's absurd policy. Be all in or all out. Just say don't drink it. That's way less hypocritical than drive to DeKalb County to get it and then drive back. So one day, I'm cutting my grass. I'm relatively new to the neighborhood. And when I finish up, my neighbor, Luis, comes out. He says, hey man, hot day. I said, yeah, it's hot. He goes, you want to have a beer with me? Now that's against the rules. I'm not allowed to have a beer with Luis because I don't want to, I'm not going to get into it. According to the rules, this is bad. But he's my neighbor and we know what do you want to have a beer with me means. He's showing me hospitality. He wants to talk to me. He wants to get to know me and I need to love him. And it's not very loving of me to be like, I'll be right back. I'm going to go get my water. That's just not what you do. So I said, sure. I had a beer, an illicit, an illicit beer. God, I'm still sorry. And we talked and we became buddies. And Luis had a stepson and two sons that lived with him as well, him and his wife as well. Gabriel, Yoel, and Yariel. And over the course of the next six years, I got to be their pastor. And I got to baptize all four of those guys in the church. Now, if I had said no that day, could that still have happened? Sure. But, I chose love over law, and God used it. We should be people who choose love over law, understanding that Jesus' law is the superior law. And just in case you think I'm letting people off the hook to do whatever you want under Jesus' law, as long as you're loving others, it is absolutely impossible to love others as Jesus loved us without being fueled and imbued by the love of the Holy Spirit. We cannot love others as Jesus loved us if we do not know Jesus and love him well. That the two things that sum up the law and the prophets, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, amen, love your neighbor as yourself. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself. You cannot love your neighbor as Jesus did if you do not love God with all your heart, soul, mind, amen. It takes care of everything. And suddenly there's times when you shouldn't watch that, or you shouldn't do this, or you shouldn't have that, or you shouldn't shouldn't go there or you should do this or you should do that, but not because it offends some law or sensibility that we've added to over the years, but because to do that or to not do that is the most loving action to take. That's why it's important for us to still acknowledge that Jesus's law is the superior law and that Jesus is a superior messenger and the angels. Now your notes are out of order. The next one we're going to do is priest and then sacrifice. So I'm sorry about that. But it's important to us to understand that Jesus was superior to the priests because Nate is broken. It's important for us to understand that Jesus was superior to the priest because I am broken. When we were running through the slides before the service started, we got to this one, and the band and the tech team laughed at me. They're like, Nate, you think we don't know that? We haven't pieced that one together. And I said, well, my mom's coming. So this one's for her. Sorry, mom, this is news to you. I know that you don't need me to tell you that I'm broken and that I'm a human. And that I'm going to teach you the wrong stuff sometimes. The way I think about faith and the Bible and God and Scripture and all the things evolves. It changes. There's things I taught when I was 30 that I'm so embarrassed about now. And there's things I'm saying to you right now that when I'm 52, I'm going to be like, oh, what a moron. I just know that's true. I'm broken. And even though you guys know that, and you guys know not to put pastors on pedestals, and you would probably all say that you have a pretty healthy idea about that, and I consider it part of my personal ministry to you to act in such a way where it's very easy for you to not put me on a pedestal. That's my ministerial gift to you guys. You would probably all say that you know better than that. But we still get the jokes. Those still happen. I had a friend, a good buddy, still a friend of mine named Heath Hollinsworth. Heath had three brothers. He still has three brothers. Jim was the oldest and Jim was an associate pastor at the church that Heath and I both worked at. So we all worked together. And then Ryan and Hunter worked construction. So they're a little bit less important in the kingdom of God than me and Heath and Jim. Which is the, that's the point I'm making. And whenever they would be around their dad for a meal and it came time to pray for the meal, Heath was in charge of the service. He was program director. It was a big church. So he had positions like program director. Here, Aaron does that. But whenever it came time to pray for a meal, their dad really didn't like praying in public, so he would always get one of the boys to do it, and he'd kind of look them over, and he'd be like, Jim, why don't you lead us today? You're the closest to the Lord. You have the most direct line. And Heath would be like, I work at a church too, and I'm sure it flew all over Ryan and Hunter. But he would joke about it. It didn't really make him mad. He just thought it was the stupidest thing because Jim was ordained and Heath wasn't. His dad thought he had a more direct line to the Lord. And as stupid as that sounds, you guys say that to me. I know we don't really believe it, but we keep saying it. When I golf with y'all and I hit one in the woods, which is rare, but when I hit one in the woods and it comes bouncing out just miraculously, just a squirrel throws it and it just lands in the middle of the fairway, somebody is going to say, got that pastor bounce, somebody's going to say it. We make the jokes and we think the things, and I can tell you from personal experience, we exonerate pastors too much. We honor pastors too much. We think too much of them. We have too great an expectation for them. I am not to be exonerated. My job in God's kingdom is not more important than your job. My gifting is not more valuable than your gifting. And listen, your character is not less important than my character. A lot of us have more expectations for me and what my character should be than for ourselves. And that makes no sense because you're a royal priesthood too. If it's okay for you and not okay for me, then you either need to raise your standards for yourself or lower them for me. Probably raise. And I don't mean to hit that too hard, but the church has a long history of making the people who stand here way more important than they actually are. And we've got to knock that off. While I'm here, and just kind of kicking you guys in the gut, let me kick you in the teeth. The other thing I was thinking about with priests and why this is important is the historic role of the priest. Do you realize that for a vast majority of Christian history, from the first century A.D. to now, for the vast majority of that, Christendom did exist under a priesthood. And that those priests were the sole arbiters of the truth of God in the lives of their people. Do you understand that? The people, for much of history, were largely illiterate. The vast majority of people were illiterate for much of church history. And before the printing press, a Bible was so expensive that it took the whole town to raise money to get one, and then they'd put it up on the lectern in the church or in the pulpit, and they would literally chain it so that nobody could steal the Bible because it was that valuable, and it's the only one that existed in the town, and because everyone's largely illiterate, the only person who can read it is the pastor. Do you understand how easy it is to manipulate when that is true? Do you understand how vulnerable that populace was to the malice that might be in their pastor? Do you understand how limiting it is for your faith if there's only one person who can explain to you who's reading scripture on your behalf and then telling you what it says and then telling you what you should do about that? That's how we got indulgences and we paid for St. Peter's Basilica because they manipulated the masses in that way. Because I'm the only one in the room who can read this and I get to tell you what it means. That's incredibly harmful. And now, we live in a time when Bibles are ubiquitous everywhere. You all probably have multiple Bibles in your home. You probably have more Bibles than you do people. If you'd like to add to your collection, take one of ours. You can download it on your phone. You can look it up on the World Wide Web. You have universal access to the scriptures of God. And yet, I see so many of you, so many Christians, walking through life, functioning as scriptural illiterates, trusting your pastor to spoon feed you truth twice a month for 30 minutes. And that's all you know of this. People have fought and people have died and people have lived to make this available to you. And yet as Christians, many of us live our lives as functional illiterates who still rely on our pastor or spiritual leader to spoon feed us the truth twice a month? How can we be Christians and be so disinterested in what God tells us? How can we call ourselves passionate followers of Christ and yet not read about him? How can we have access to this special revelation of God and the inspired and authoritative words within it that tell us not basic instructions for life but about our wild and wonderful and mysterious father? They tell us all about that and we have access to it all the time. We can read it whenever we want. We can do all the research we want. We can even, you can download professors walking you through this as you explore it on your own. And yet we function as illiterates still acting like the only source of truth is our pastor for whatever sermon they want to give that day. Jesus is your pastor. He's your source of truth. And he made sure that this got left for you so that you could learn about him. I'm here to augment the work that you're doing. I can't do the work for your whole life. Neither can your small group leader. It's important to know that Jesus is our high priest because we have the freedom to go to him and to pray to him whenever we want. We don't need a go-between. We don't need someone else to spoon-feed us truth. He makes it available to us here. Now, let's end on a higher note than that. It's important for us to know that Jesus was the superior sacrifice because he was enough. It's important for us to know that Jesus was a superior sacrifice because he was. This is important to mention. Because the old sacrificial system, you had to perform a sacrifice, and then you were good until you messed up again, and then you had to go back and you had to sacrifice. Like I wonder about the people who like went to the temple for a certain festival and they performed all their sacrifices and they're good. They're good before God. If they die, they're fine. And then they like take a wrong turn or there's traffic getting out of Jerusalem and they say things they shouldn't say. Like, I guess we got to go back to the temple and do this again. But Jesus is a superior sacrifice because we need one for all time. That's it. We're done. We don't have to go back and keep making sacrifices. And yet, we do the yes and thing again where we go, yeah, Jesus died for me and he made me right before God, but now that I'm a Christian, I keep messing up, so I need to do more and I need to better, and I need to perform my own personal sacrifices to get myself back in good graces with God. And we make Jesus' sacrifice not enough. Yeah, that was good then, but I know better now, and I need to keep working harder and keep being hard on myself and keep making my own sacrifices to then get back into the good graces of God so that he will love me more and approve of me more. And we live our lives, I do this too, as if Jesus' sacrifice wasn't enough. And now God in his goodness and glory and perfection requires me, Nate, to make greater sacrifices to supplement the insufficient sacrifice that Jesus made for me. I think that we would do well to wake up every morning and remind ourselves, even if we have to say it out loud, what Jesus has done for me is enough. God loves me as much as he possibly can and ever will. There is nothing I can do today to make God love me less. There is nothing I can do today to make God love me more. And there's nothing I can do today to make myself more right before God. Jesus was enough. He did that for me. And then walk in the goodness and freedom of God. From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. Walk in that fullness. Walk in that grace. Walk in that gratitude by allowing the sacrifice of Jesus to be enough. That's why Hebrews can still, that's how Hebrews can still resonate with us today. By acknowledging that Jesus is superior to the law and the message of old, that he's the superior priest that gives us unfettered access to him, and we ought to passionately pursue that, and that he is the greatest sacrifice because he's enough for us once and for all. We don't have to keep supplementing that with our insufficiency. And to do all of this, as we're reminded of all of this, and we start with the sweeping prose about Christ, and then we see the comparisons, he starts to close his book by drawing this conclusion, and I think it's a great place for us to stop and put our focus on today as we prepare our hearts for communion after the sermon. But he starts to summarize his book and to wrap up by telling us to do this. I preach about this lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, my Bible says, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. In light of all that we learned, in light of who Jesus is, the image of God, the very imprint of His nature, and in light of the ways that Jesus is superior and serves us and sacrifices for us and is our high priest, in light of the law that is to love Jesus with all our heart, in light of the law that is to love other people as Jesus loved us and then so in turn love Christ and be fueled by that love, in light of all these things, what are we to do? What are the rules that we're supposed to follow? How are we supposed to live this Christian life? Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Run your race. Go out there and run hard. Pursue Jesus with everything you've got. Go love other people with your whole heart. And to do it well, you've got to throw off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles. And we don't do that by white-knuckling it. We don't do that by trying to be our own sacrifice. We don't do that by supplementing the work of Christ in our life. No, we do it by focusing our eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. If we'll do that, we will follow God's laws. We will pursue Jesus hard. We will love others well, and we will have run a good race. That's the point of Hebrews. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for who you are, for how you've loved us. Thank you for your son. Father, I pray that it would be critically important to us to acknowledge the superiority of Christ. That it would be critically important to us to pursue Him, to love Him, to know Him. Father, if we are not in Your Word, if we're not pursuing You on our own, would you light a fire in us to do that? If we've spent too many years not knowing your Bible well, would you let this be the year that fixes it? If we've spent too many years adding to your law, would this be the year that we let that go? If we've spent too many years supplementing your sacrifice, would this be the year that we finally accept yours? And God, as we go from here, would you help us run our race? It's in Jesus' name we ask these things. Amen.

Well, it's good to see everybody here. It's good to see or thank you for joining us online. I don't know why, but I feel compelled to share this with the church. Every week, I thank folks for joining us online, and I think that this is actually pretty fun. So, I think it was Christmas Eve. It was either December 23rd or 24th. I got an email from a woman in Chicago named Heidi. Good morning, Heidi. Thank you for watching. And she said, I've been wanting to write this email for a long time. It's about time that I tell you that you're my pastor. She said that somehow or another, she found us online in the summer during quarantine and started watching sermons and watching worship and things like that, and told me that this had been her church for a long time. She is a partner of Grace. She lives in Chicago. She watches online every week. We are now multi-state, so no big deal. Yeah. So thanks, Heidi. If we could all long-distance high-five you from a safe social distance, we would, but we're glad that you're a part of the family. This morning, we are starting our new series called Greater. It is a study through the book of Hebrews, and it will surprise you to know that I am particularly excited about this series. I love the book of Hebrews. I have an adoration for this book that I've always wanted to cover it, and it just hasn't worked into the rhythm of our series, and now here we sit, and I'm so excited to do it. I've been planning this one since the fall, even in how we would approach it. And in Hebrews, what we find, and we'll talk about this more, but what we find in Hebrews is this soaring picture of Christ. What we see there in the book is this high view of Jesus, where the author goes through a very carefully crafted argument and presentation to share with us exactly who Jesus is and exactly why he's worthy of our dedication. And he does this through the lens of really four big comparisons. He compares Jesus first to angels and then to Moses and the law, and then he compares Jesus to priests, and then he compares Jesus to sacrifices. And his conclusion in each of these comparisons is, this is why Jesus is greater. And so we're going to move through those comparisons. And then we're going to take two extra weeks to pull out two big themes, one big theme in the book of Hebrews, and then we're going to end in what is one of my favorite passages that I circle back to, both in the way that I pastor and in my private life all the time. So I'm really thrilled to get into this series with you. And as I approached the series and did the requisite research that, you know, half-decent pastors are supposed to do before they just get up here and wing it, as I dove into the research, it became apparent to me that there was really kind of two ways to approach this series and this book. And they're this. We could choose to mine Hebrews for application for ourselves, or we could make it our goal to understand the book of Hebrews. We could make it our goal to simply mine applications from the book, to open up the book and read it. Or we can make it our goal to understand the book of Hebrews, to be inspired by the book of Hebrews, to really let it move us and shape us and articulate our view of Christ. And hopefully, hopefully, and this is where we'll spend our time today, it will leave us with this soaring majestic picture of who Jesus is and who we serve. And it's okay to mine scripture for meaning sometimes. It's okay just to, when you mine it for application, what you do is you just, you grab a verse, you pull it out, we read it together, we look for application to us, something that can help us in the moment, we apply that and we go on. And we really don't have a working knowledge of the book of Hebrews, but we are inspired to move closer to God and he's exalted and that's all right. But sometimes it's worth it to do the work to understand what we're doing. And to do that work, you've got to understand the context and the background of this letter. You have to know who it was written to. You have to know the best you can the intention of the author when they wrote it. We've got to understand some cultural things going on around the recipients of this letter if we're going to begin to appreciate the message of this letter. And so I think it's worth it for us to take a morning and dive into understanding the background to this book and the thrust and intention of this book so that we can appreciate it as we move through it together. My hope is that you wouldn't just hear it from me on Sunday mornings. My hope is that maybe you'll talk about it in your small groups. My hope is that you'll read along with us. If you've been a part of Grace for any time at all, you've heard me about a year and a half ago, and I preached on reading the Bible, and I kind of issued a challenge. I said, you know, it should be a rite of passage for every Christian to have read the Bible cover to cover. If you've been a Christian for any amount of time, I know that feels intimidating. I know some of you are like, oh gosh, I could never do that. But listen, I'm just telling you, set it as a goal to work towards. And if you've already done it, do it again. It should be a rite of passage. I met a guy for drinks this week and we were talking and he was talking about how he makes his steak and I was talking about how I make my steak. And we said, what was the deal? And listen, my dad's going to watch this and whatever. But I said, what was the deal with our dads growing up that thought you made a steak by just throwing it on a grill and charring it and then slapping some A1 sauce on it? Like, steaks in the 80s were terrible. I don't know what was wrong with people and why we didn't take more pride in how we make steaks. But he said, man, making a good steak, that's like part of your man card, right? Like, you need this. That's something every man should be able to do. And it's true. I see some young fellows over here. Learn to make steaks, boys. It's going to serve you your whole life. It's the same with reading through the whole Bible. It should be a requisite for every believer that this is something that we have done. And so he responded to that challenge, and he emailed me, and he said, Nate, it's been, I was trying to read it through in a year, but it got to the point where I realized I was just doing it to check a box and not to really understand what was there. So I slowed myself down intentionally, but it's been about a year and a half, and I've read all the way through it, and it's been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. So I would encourage you to begin a practice, to take back up the practice of reading Scripture every day and praying every day. We have a reading plan online, graceralee.org slash live. If you're watching online on our webpage, it's just down at the bottom of that page. It's a reading plan through the book of Hebrews. I would encourage all of you to be reading along with us as we pace it through the series. But we're going to this morning, as we approach this book, make sure that we understand the context and background of what's going on here. And so the first thing that's important to know is who it's written to. This book is written, the recipients of this letter were Hellenistic Jews under persecution. The recipients of this letter, this book is a letter, just like a lot of the New Testament, it's a letter, and it is written to Hellenistic Jews who are enduring persecution. Now, that may be the first time some of you guys have encountered that phrase, Hellenistic Jews, or maybe you're in a Bible study where somebody who was fancy used that term, and you just nodded your head like, yes, the Hellenistic Jews, and you had no idea who they were. Well, I'm going to help you out, okay? Hellenistic Jews are simply Jewish people who live in a Greek context. So it's basically, at this time, it's Jewish people who weren't from Israel. Okay, they were born in the surroundings. It's called the diaspora or the diaspora, the cities surrounding Jerusalem. There's Jewish communities in these cities or surrounding Israel. So as far over as Rome and even over towards Iraq, there's different cities. And inside those cities, they were all Greek-speaking cities because of the preponderance of the Roman Empire, and these Jews grew up in these Greek-speaking cities. So they're already a little bit out of place. They have their own religion. They are practicing Jews. We call that faith Judaism. That's them, okay? So it's just Jews outside of Israel, and they were believers. And so it's the case for most of these Jews that they grew up as practicing Jews. They grew up practicing the faith that is detailed for us in the Old Testament. And then right after the death of Christ, were compelled to believe in him and have now transitioned to becoming Christian Jews. We call them now in our culture Messianic Jews, but that's what they were. The only ones who didn't have this experience were maybe some of the younger bucks in the different tribes and in the different groups who were actually born into a family of Christian Jews. But for the most part, these are people who have all had a conversion experience in their life from Judaism to Christianity. They're also under intense persecution from within and from without. Now, I'm going to tell you why I'm saying that in a second, but they were under intense persecution. In the first century AD, in the years immediately following Christ, the Roman Empire was particularly hostile to this new faith. They were violently opposed to it. We've heard the terrible stories of Christians getting thrown into the arena and lions eating them. There was one emperor that used to tar Christians and use them as torches to light the path into Rome. Nero persecuted them heavily. They were a heavily persecuted church. In fact, the author of Hebrews gives us some insight into what it was like to be a believer at this time and even addresses some of the persecution that they were receiving from the Roman Empire. He writes this in chapter 11. He says, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. This was their experience. That first sentence, it says that they were flogged, they were beaten and tortured, and then they refused release because they wanted their torturers to just kill me now so I can go to heaven. They were stoned. In that culture, when you got stoned, what it meant is they tied your arms behind your back and pushed you off a cliff and dropped big rocks on you until you died. That was getting stoned. They were sawn in two. Did you catch that part? That's what it was to be a believer then. To publicly profess a faith in Christ was to invite that violence on yourself and your family. To do what I'm doing this morning is to invite this kind of violence on yourself. To do what you're doing this morning, to attend a gathering where we're going to preach and honor and worship Jesus, and by gathering, implied in your attendance is your approval of the message that I'm giving you, you now are at risk for persecution. I have a tremendous, that word doesn't even really cut it, admiration for the Christians in this time. Because if you ask me, Nate, would you continue to preach the gospel? Would you still have your job if this is what was at stake to have your job? If you might be tortured like this, would you continue to preach the gospel? And I could play you the tough guy card and say, yeah, bring it on. This is my calling. He is my Jesus. If I need to die for him, I will. And I don't even know if that's true. It's probably not. I would probably cower like a sissy. I would probably run away and hide. But then you start to threaten Jen and Lily if I do this? No. No, I'm not doing that. But they did. That's what it took to be a believer. That was just the persecution from without, from the Romans, from the Greeks that surrounded them. But they were persecuted from within as well because they've converted away from their Jewish community. So now the people that they grew up around, to the eyes of their family, they have betrayed their faith. To the eyes of their childhood friends, they have betrayed their heritage. And now they're ostracized within their own community. They have a hard time getting jobs. No one's going to come to their shop. No one's going to want to hire them. They have just their Christian brothers and sisters. So please understand that in this time, to choose to be a believer was to invite violence on you and your family, and it was to choose ostracization from your culture and choose a life of poverty and loneliness. That's what it took to be a believer. It's worth noting, and you can Google this, this is a tracked fact, that the church thrives the most when it is under the most persecution. Within a couple hundred years, Christ was, he was the center of the Roman Empire. Constantine ushered him in, made it legal, made it the predominant religion, and over half of all Romans worldwide claimed to be Christians within a few hundred years of this. It's amazing how the gospel exploded out of this environment. Under the most intense persecution, the church always does the best. Why? Because the barrier of entry is so high. There's no room for casual Christians in this time. If you're kind of on the fence, if you're not really like on fire for Jesus, if you don't have this thing that burns within you to love him and to obey God, then you're not going to church. The church actually historically does the worst. Grapples for power, becomes hypocritical, gets infiltrated by people who don't really believe, lets the doctrine wander in their heart for Jesus, wane when it's in positions of cultural prominence and the barrier of entry is incredibly low. That's when we begin to invite corruption and ego and everything that's so far from the Spirit of God. One of the things that we fight in the American church is that the bar of entry is so low that you can come to church for decades completely casual in your faith. I wonder what would happen to our churches if we began to be persecuted like this. We've heard cries over the last couple of years that the church is being persecuted. No, it's not. That's dumb. We're not being persecuted. And if we were, we'd shrink. I don't know if you guys would have a pastor. I don't know how many folks we'd have coming in if we were under this kind of persecution. But they were. And their faith was strong. This is the audience that the author addresses. This is the audience that he's writing to, this beleaguered and shrinking church. And I say the author because the reality is that no one knows who wrote the book of Hebrews. No one knows who wrote Hebrews. The early church, the very early church began to attribute it to Paul, but as early as 135 AD, we see record of those pastors and leaders beginning to question that. Because basically, if Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, then for just this letter, the Holy Spirit inspired him to write 400% better and more eloquently than he had in any of his previous writings. So it's probably not the case. Most scholars today no longer believe that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews. Whoever it was, was very likely a Hellenistic Jew, which is important because it gives them an intense knowledge of the inner workings of the Jewish faith because you cannot begin to understand this book unless you have an intimate knowledge of the Jewish faith. Unless you know the practices and the beliefs and what they hold dear and what they hold sacred, then this book really doesn't hit you like it should. It's a very good argument for why it's important for Christians to also study the Old Testament. It's a very important argument for why it's worthwhile to spend five weeks in the book of Ecclesiastes or four weeks in the book of Ecclesiastes, why we go back to Elijah, why we study the festivals in the Old Testament for a series. We need to do it so we can understand our New Testament better. And so the author was likely a Hellenistic Jew who had a good working knowledge of these things. They were very likely someone who was referred to as a second generation Christian, meaning they didn't receive the gospel from Jesus himself. They would have interacted with Jesus at some point in their life if their book is included in the canon, but they received their faith from somebody else. Somebody told them about Jesus. So it's actually one of the first products of witnessing and evangelism, which is pretty cool. And we don't know who wrote it. There's different theories out there. Some people say Priscilla, which I think is a pretty cool option. Others say Barnabas, which I think is just thrown in there because his name happens to be in the Bible. And so we say Barnabas, but there's really no compelling evidence to suggest Barnabas. Another one is Clement of Rome. And then I would put my money on Apollos when I can't wait to get to heaven and for Jesus to tell me that I am wrong and that my dad is right. I can't get my dad off of believing that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews. He will die in his ignorance one day and then in eternity it will be Apollos. But we don't know who wrote it. We don't know who wrote it. And if we read it, what we find is that there is a sweeping, soaring view of Christ. It's the best picture of Jesus, of the majesty of Jesus that we find in the whole Bible. The only thing I think that even compares is a little bit maybe John 1 and then some pictures of Jesus in Revelation, but Hebrews on the whole paints such an incredible picture of Jesus. And it's interesting to me that it paints this picture of Jesus because you would think, as you read it, and I have for years, that the reason for writing this book is to give the early church a solid picture of who Jesus is. Because we've talked about this a little bit before in here, that in these early years, before the Old Testament was done and in every church and everybody had access to it, the New Testament rather, there was some murkiness around Jesus and what to believe about him and exactly who he was. And so it would make sense that he wrote this letter, that the author wrote this letter to the Hebrew people in the diaspora to give them a more accurate view of who Jesus is. And it's true that that was in part his point. He did that. He does write to give an accurate view of who Jesus is, but that is just something that is serving the greater intention, which is this. The author's intent is to compel a persecuted church to remain true to their calling and persevere in their faith. He doesn't write just to give them a good picture of Jesus. He writes to compel a persecuted, beleaguered, shrinking church to remain true to their calling and to persevere in their faith. The church was shrinking. There were people who were looking around at what was happening to their friends and loved ones and going, I don't want that for me or my family. And so they would shrink back. Maybe they shrunk back and embraced Christ privately. Maybe they devoted themselves to him in secret and not in public. That would be very easy for us to do if we were faced with these choices. But they were falling away in numbers because of the violence that was being enacted on them. And their Jewish teachers, their old rabbis, and their families were continuing to make arguments against this Jesus and for the old way, for the old faith. And so they're being tempted not only to escape violence, but also tempted by being welcomed back into families and embracing an old faith. And they're receiving these arguments against this Jesus guy. And so the author of Hebrews writes to compel them, to compel the Jewish audience, no, no, no, no, no, please understand. This faith that they're trying to get you to come back to, this Judaism that they're trying to lull you back into, you need to understand that Jesus is the right and good fulfillment of all the things that you were taught when you were growing up. You need to understand that it's not a different religion, it's a continuation of the same one, that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the things you were taught growing up. Let me show you how. And then he makes those comparisons. And then for those tempted to fall away from persecution, he just exonerates Christ and continues to hold him up. It's actually pretty amazing to me how he chooses to start this letter in an effort to compel them to stay true and to stand firm. If you were tasked with writing that message, understanding what those people were going through at the time, I wonder how you would start your letter. I wonder what you would lead with. I wonder how you would form it. I'm not sure how you would. I'm not sure how I would do it. But he begins by painting one of the most sweeping pictures of Jesus I think I have ever read. And it feels different than the rest of the New Testament. The only statement I can think of that kind of compares is the way that John opens his gospel. I think it was last spring or spring before last, we went through the gospel of John. So you might remember that the gospel of John opens up like this. He says in John 1, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made. It's this assertion right out of the gates that Jesus is God. He is king of the universe. He is part of creation. Without him, nothing was made. Through him, all things were made. He is the very word of God. It is this really bold assertion at the beginning of John's letter, but yet it, to me, pales in comparison to how the author of Hebrews opens up his letter. Listen to these words with me the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels, Man, I love that passage. Every time I read it, I get the chills. Every time I read it, I just kind of want to put my Bible down and let it kind of wash over me. When I sat down to begin to prepare for this week, as is my habit, I open up the Bible on Sunday afternoon or Monday and read the passage that I'm going to preach on and go ahead and get my brain kind of working on it a little bit. And when I read it this time, I just sat it down on my desk and looked out the window at the sky for a little while. I love this picture of Christ. And I think that one of the things that we do when we think of Jesus that does him a huge disservice is we think of Jesus like this. This is, I think, the image that we usually think of when we think of Jesus. This white dude with well-conditioned brunette hair and a well-trimmed beard and blue, compassionate eyes who was just meek and mild. Looks like he was just kind to everybody. That guy, by the way, was incapable. The way that that goofy guy looks, he's pretty incapable of fashioning a whip and clearing out a whole temple. But, you know, whatever. That's usually how we think of Jesus. Or we think of him maybe as beaten and bloodied on the cross for us. But we don't think of him as the author of Hebrews describes him. We don't think of him in those grand terms. And I love that sentence in the third verse. I love it so much. It says, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. He's the radiance of the glory of God? He's the exact imprint of His nature? I wanted to do some work this week to help you better understand what that meant. To come up with a metaphor or a way to explain what it means to be the exact imprint of the nature of God. To be the radiance of his glory. What is that like? How can we wrap our brains around that? And so to try to unpack that a little bit more, I started opening up the commentaries and read what people smarter than me wrote about it. And they wrote pages on these sentences. And I get into one of them and there is, he writes five pages alone on just verse three. And there's like this comparison chart of parallels with words that are used in other places in the Bible and cross references and dissecting out the Greek words and the tenses and the participles. And it's just all these pages of systematizing this great sentence. And man, it was gross. I hated it. I shut my commentary. I put it on the shelf and I thought, why do people read these dumb things sometimes? It was gross. This is maybe the most well-written book in Scripture. The author said what he meant. And he doesn't need my help explaining it to you. And it wasn't meant to be systematized like that either. We shouldn't write four pages on it to try to understand all the nuances of it. We should just let it wash over us. And so when he writes that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, that may not be something that our minds can fully wrap themselves around. That may not be something that our mind adequately comprehends, but I've decided that that's okay because our soul does. Our soul feels the weight of that glory. Our soul knows that that's our Savior, that that's our Jesus, that our Jesus gave up the radiance of that glory for a little while to come, and it says there in verse 3, to make purifications for our sins, to come die on a cross and cover over us. And then he went back to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, where he sustains the universe with the power of his words. The only thing close we get to that version of Jesus is in Revelation 19 when he comes crashing down out of heaven on a white horse with fire coming out of his eyes and righteous and true tattooed on his thigh and he's coming back to wreck shop. It's the only thing close we get to that picture of Jesus that the author paints in Hebrews. And I think that we need to start thinking about Jesus more like that than like the Burnett ski instructor that we put in all of our pictures. And it's interesting to me, the centrality of Christ in Hebrews. It's interesting to me that this is what he chooses to hang his hat on as he tries to compel the church to stay together, to hold the line, to persevere. He doesn't have this, he doesn't guilt them into it. He doesn't try to win them over with this starting off with these sound arguments. He doesn't start off by threatening them. He just shows them Christ right out of the gates with who this Jesus is. He is the radiance of the glory of God that he holds up the universe with the power of his words. He is the imprint of his nature. He starts with Jesus. How does he compel and inspire a shrinking and fatiguing church to come back to faith? By showing them who Christ was. By painting for them the best picture of Christ that may have ever been painted. And it speaks to me a little bit about folks in our life. If we want people who we know and love to come to know Jesus, then maybe we should simply show them who he is. If we have people, neighbors, family members, friends, coworkers, and we want them to know Jesus too, maybe we should simply show them who Jesus is. That's what the author of Hebrews does. Maybe we should show them in our words and in our action and in our spirits the majesty of our Savior. Maybe we should compel them with the picture of Christ that our life paints so that they're as compelled to follow Jesus as these Hebrews were. And it begs the question, how, and this is me included, this is a very intentional we here. How can we compel people with a picture of Jesus if our picture of him is so very impoverished? How can we compel others with the majesty of our Savior if we aren't swept up with him as well? How can we compel others with the majesty of Jesus if we're not reading through the Gospels every year? How can we compel others with the majesty of Christ if we don't know it ourselves, if we don't pursue it ourselves, if we aren't enlarged and fulfilled by Jesus ourselves? If we only think of him as the meek and mild teacher that broke bread and handed it out to people, and we don't think about him as the radiance of the glory of God. And I don't mean to demean the person that Jesus was. I'm just saying that that's a limited view of who he now is. He came and he did what he came to do. He purified your sins. And then he went back to be who he is. And we forget about that Jesus. How will people ever see him in our lives, in our words, in our actions, in our thoughts, in our spirit, if we aren't swept up with who Jesus is too. So that's my prayer for you. It's my prayer for me. That as we go through this series, as we look at the book that paints a soaring picture of who Jesus is. That we, like the Hebrews, would be compelled by this letter. My prayer for you is that your view of Jesus is enlarged this spring. My prayer for you is that by the time we get to Easter and we talk about him as the greatest sacrifice, that your heart is soaring knowing that that is your Savior and that that is your Jesus. My prayer for grace is that the book of Hebrews would work in us to so enlarge in our view of Christ and our desire for him that we will be different for having gone through this book. And I've got more points to make in the sermon, but I don't want to make them. I just want to finish there. Let's make that our prayer for ourselves. That like Hebrews, like the author intended, we would allow this portrayal of Christ to so enlarge and enliven our hearts that the people around us would see him in us and that they would be compelled to look towards him as well. Will you pray for that with me? Heavenly Father, thank you for your son. Thank you for who he is. Thank you for what he did. Thank you for the purification of our sins, Jesus. Jesus, we repent of our paltry view of you, of our limited view of who you are and what you did and what you're doing. Father, if there are Christians wandering from you who for different reasons entirely, but much like the Hebrews, are tempted to fall away from you, are fatiguing in their faith, would you use this exploration of this book to draw them near to you? Would we be compelled by the picture that is painted of Christ on these pages? And Lord, would you give me the words and the wisdom to do justice to such a great letter? Enlarge in our hearts towards you. Change us forever. And it's in Jesus's name that we pray. Amen.