Sermons tagged with Revelation

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

Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. One of the things I... Welcome and all the things. Thanks for coming online, whatever. One of the things I really like about getting to be the pastor at Grace, one of the pastors at Grace, is just how familial we are. We just feel like a family to me. I don't know how we feel to you, but that's how I feel. And one of the things that reinforced that this morning is we moved, some of y'all will notice that we moved the offering around. So we did the offering a little bit different and we tried to pass it. As we're doing it, two of my friends who I don't want to impugn, so I'll just call them Carter and Liz, looked at me. I turned around. They looked at me, and they're like, this is weird. Why are we doing this? And I had to go around and talk to them. Jen goes, where are you going? I said, just give me a minute. And I go around, and I'm like, listen, one of the things that Gibby and I have noticed about the service is that at the end of the service, once I'm done saying what I'm going to say, and then we sing, when someone comes back up here and goes, y'all sit down for just a minute, the whole room goes, oh, Jesus. Nobody wants to sit down for just a minute. We're done. We're ready to go. So we're trying to figure it out. And so I said, just give us a couple of weeks. Like I'm explaining to them in real time why we're doing this. And once I explained it, they were like, okay, that makes sense. We'll give it a couple of weeks and we'll, we'll let you know. So I look forward to the review, you two anonymous women over there. But that is what, one of the things I love about Grace. Last week, we launched into our series called A Letter to Rome, Painting a Picture. And I told you guys last week, and I mean this, and this has come up in very fun conversation too. There's different people that have different feelings about West Wing, some positive, some negative. But I told you guys last week that this was going to kind of be a West Wing series, meaning episode two is really not going to make as much sense to you as episode one if you haven't seen episode one. So my encouragement remains, and I never do this because I'm certainly not going to tout the values of my own sermons. I'm not going to do that. I'm never going to say, hey, you need to listen to last week. That was great. Like I won't, I've never done that. I won't do that. That feels gross. But what I will say is you do need to listen to last week just so you can keep up with this week if it matters to you. So I hope that you'll carry along. Last week in Romans 1, we kind of established those two things. First, this is going to be a different series where it's going to build week to week. Second, more importantly, the theme of Romans 1, what Paul was driving at, we capture at the end of the chapter. And I'm actually just, I'm just going to read it to you by way of reminder. This is how he ends the chapter because he, he greets them. And then he says, and this is where he spent a lot of time last week. God has revealed himself in nature. So no man is without excuse. God's God's revealed himself in such a way that we can all respond to him. Everybody who's ever lived, even someone who's born in a country where they never hear the name of Jesus before living and dying, even they have been revealed. God has revealed himself to them and they are held responsible for their response to that revelation. In the conclusion of Romans 1, he says this, and this is a tough passage, but this is where he lands the plane, and this is where we ended last week, so it's where I pick up this week. He says in verse 28, furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, this is the people to whom God has revealed himself. So God gave them over to a depraved mind so 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. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy, although they know God's righteous decrees that those who do such things deserve death. They not only continue to do these very things, but they also approve of those who practice them. So this is a condemnation of society, essentially saying, and those are harsh words, but essentially saying, we are depraved. We are our own lords. We do what we think we should do. And what I said last week is this was true in 65 AD, around which this letter was written. And it is true now. This remains true of us 2,000 years later. That when left to our own devices, we will rebel from God and reject Him. Now, here's what's important. The Jewish mind responds to this with their heritage. So here's what to know about the letters in the New Testament. To whom are they written? We were talking about this in my Bible study on Tuesday morning, which if you're a girl, you can't come. If you're a dude, you can come. If you're a girl, you could come. It would just be weird. Okay. But 6.30 Tuesday morning, we meet right here. And it's my favorite hour of the week. Besides every minute that I get to spend with Jim. Besides that, that's my favorite hour of the week. And we were talking about Thessalonians, and someone said, to whom is this written? Is this written to Jews or Gentiles? It seems it's written to Gentiles. And something that the New Testament letters have in common, so there's the Pauline epistles, Paul's letters, and the general epistles, the general letters that are not written by Paul, but they're still written to people, they're still written to churches. All of them have in common this fact that was true in the ancient world. Most of the churches, Rome, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Colossae, all of them were founded by Jewish people who, because of the diaspora, they found common community. But then they began to add Gentiles to their church. And so when a letter is written, almost always, and I can't think of any exceptions, it's written first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. It's written first to the Jew, and this is really important to understand. It's written first to the Jew and then to the Gentile, but this brings up one of the fundamental tensions in the New Testament. You cannot understand your Bible without understanding this tension. The fundamental tension of the New Testament is for the Jewish believer to say, okay, we accept Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise to our father Abraham. We don't know all the ramifications of that, but we're open to learning them. I mean, place yourself in 40 AD when there's not 2,000 years of liturgy and history and theology, and you're trying to figure this faith out. What we don't think of enough, I think, as Christians is this is not a new religion. This is a continuation. Where you and I sit is a continuation and a confluence and a completion of what began as the Jewish faith. Now, I would not refer to the faith that Abraham had as Jewish. I would refer to it as faith. So do we have faith. It's the same. And if we read Hebrews, we find that to be absolutely true. And as we read Romans, we will find that to be true as well. But here's what we need to understand. We think of, I believe, as Christians, and Americans probably, we think of the Jews as another religion. They're another faith. The Jews are Mormon, They're Buddhist. They're Hindu. They're Muslim. We're closely tied, but they're different. No, I don't want to get into delineating the details of that, but here's what I want us to understand. What we would call the Christian faith is simply a continuation and completion of that faith that began. And in that faith, here's what we need to understand. In that faith, they had laws. They had traditions. They had things that they did all the time. They had ways that they grew up. They had gender roles. They had responsibilities. They tithed. They had festivals every year. One of the worst series I've ever done at Grace was when I made us go meticulously, you remember, through the festivals of the Jewish calendar. I made us do that one September. If you weren't here then, count your blessings, okay? Because I made us do that every Sunday. What a mistake that was. And at the time I was like, oh, this is so great. Anyways, I'm not going to get into it, but I regret it. But I made us do it. Kristen, what's the score? Overtime? Okay, overtime. Hey, no one else needs to say anything. Y'all shouldn't be checking your phone. It's her responsibility. We delegated this to her. Everybody else, you pay attention. Liz, that's twice. Gosh, I've totally, what was I talking about, Aaron? Juice? Yeah, okay. I got it. Thanks. Would y'all be quiet? I'm trying to start back. Gratia, we're too familial now, okay? Everyone needs to calm down. We need to take this more seriously. No, but here's my point, is they had all of their traditions, and those traditions weren't based on their preferences. They were based on what they believed to be law, what they believed God was preaching to them, what they believed God told them to do. So they're living out their traditions wasn't a matter of this is just how we do it in our family or how we do it in our country or how we do it in our culture. This is what God demands of us. So when they would have these festivals, they did it out of a sense of duty and ought and righteousness. When they had house rules, when they had gender roles, they didn't do it out of a sense of preference. They did it out of a sense of duty and ought and righteousness. And it's really difficult for us to think about this tension because what they were tasked with, and I don't think we can respect this enough, what they were tasked with as Jews was, hey, this whole new influx of people is going to become a part of your faith and you need to figure out how to integrate them. That's a huge tension in the New Testament. But that was what they were facing. There's going to be a whole influx of people into your heritage and your faith and you need to figure out how to integrate them. And what we find a lot in Paul's letters is him addressing this tension where the Jewish people, the Jewish congregation, rightly so, not to their fault, just it makes sense, are going, what do they need to do? What should we require of the Gentiles? They need to be circumcised. That at the the very least, needs to happen. That, which is, if we made that the measure of conversion now, we'd have a lot fewer converts, I think. But that's what they said then. They need to be circumcised. They need to follow our rules. They need to do what we do. And I bring up circumcision because that's what the Jews clung to as proof that they were reconciled to God, which is a fundamental idea in Romans chapter 2. Because the Jewish mind says, yes, everything that you said about humankind in Romans chapter 1 is true. All of that stuff, that hard group of verses that I read, that they have no love, they have no mercy, they slander and all the things that's accusatory of humankind. The Jewish mind goes, yeah, but I'm saved. That would be our words. Yeah, but I'm circumcised. Yeah, but I'm Jewish. Yeah, but I have my heritage. And so what we need to understand is the Jews believed they were reconciled by their heritage. And I'm intentionally using that word reconciled because in Christendom and in Christianity, we tend to use the word saved. I'm saved. Saved to what, from what? I don't think that's the most helpful word. I think the most helpful word is reconciled. Because of my sin, because of my rebellion, I have created a chasm between God and I. And now, if I want to spend eternity in his presence, I have to find out how to reconcile myself to him, how to fix that gap, how to close it, how to make things okay. And God in his goodness, and this is what we'll find in the rest of Romans, said, you can't reconcile yourself. So I'm going to send my son to reconcile you for you. But the Jewish mind says, well, because I'm circumcised, which is to them a sign that you are committed to following the law of God. Which basically says, well, because I'm born Jewish and because I follow the rules, I'm in. That's what's reconciling me to God. And the point of Romans chapter 2 is to tell the Jewish people, no, you're not. It is not circumcision that reconciles you. It's actually this in Romans 2 verse 12. This, I think, in my opinion, although it seems obscure, would be what I would look at as the summary verse of the idea that Paul is trying to communicate in Romans chapter 2, which is this. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. Now, I know that feels obscure, but here's the point. The Jewish mind says, because I follow the law, I'm good. I'm reconciled. Everything that God said, everything that Paul said about the condition of humanity doesn't apply to me because I'm reconciled to God because I follow the law. And Paul says, no, you're not. The Gentiles can be held accountable for the law, too. They respond to it in their heart. They follow it just like you do. You just have the blessing of greater knowledge of it, but it's not what saves you. It's not what reconciles you. It's not what brings you back to God. And the point of chapter 2 is to help that Jewish mind reconcile itself with the fact that their heritage does not redeem them. It is their faith. And that's what we have to learn from it too. So let's backtrack a little bit and apply that to our thinking. So the first thing I would do as I'm preaching through, and this is one of the things I'm trying to do in this series, is just do justice to the chapter. One of my favorite verses in this book is this here, and I'll get to it. So he's just, we've just read, remember with me, if you will, the finishing verses of chapter one that I read at the beginning that accuse us greatly of being, theologians would say, totally depraved. Here's what he follows with as he begins chapter two, and we land on a verse that I'm about to use, okay? Thanks. Shut up, you're a hypocrite too. That's what he's saying. Hey, pipe down. You're a hypocrite too. You do these things too. So maybe take it easy. That's what he's saying in these first three verses. And then he follows it with this, and this is the one I love. Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? Here's why I like that verse. We have this, I think, sometimes picture of God that he sits in heaven and he judges us. And we disappoint him. And he's angry with us. And if we were, sometimes I think about, if I were to see God face to face right now, what would his countenance towards me be? And most often I answer that question with disappointment. Because if you were my God and you watched how I served you, wouldn't you be disappointed in me too? So I just assume that he's disappointed. I don't know what you think God's countenance is towards you. But I think most of us think it's probably negative. He's angry. He's disappointed. He's wrathful. But what's true is that that's not true. He loves us. He loves you. He loves you in this moment as much as is possible for anyone to ever be loved. No matter what you've done, no matter what the state of your repentance is, no matter what you brought in here, God loves you fiercely and absolutely. And so this verse reminds us of that because despite that love, all of us have some repenting to do. Don't we? All of us have something in our lives we need to fix. We need to apologize for. We need to own. We need to be better. We need to turn. Remember, repentance isn't just agreeing. Confession is agreeing with God about our sin. Repentance is to turn and walk away from it, to turn the other direction. All of us have some repenting to do, especially Charlie Healy. I can see you right now. All of us have, which is, you're a Panthers fan. All of us have some repenting to do. But I think that sometimes when we think about repentance, we believe that we need to respond to this God that's angry with us and coalesce to him. And that's really not the way that God has postured himself. We are told it's your kindness that leads us to repentance. And this verse, I told Jen right before I got on stage, I said, hey, I'm going to talk about you a little bit. And she goes, oh gosh, what? And I told her and she was like, okay. Arguing with Jen is like kicking a puppy. You can, don't grow too, I don't kick puppies, Elaine. I'm stubborn. I don't know if that's easy for you to believe, but I am. I'm hard-headed. I like to, I actually, I'm one of these weird people. I was talking with my friend Emil about this this week. I'm one of these odd people that I like conflict. One of the reasons I watch, I love West Wing is because they yell at each other the whole time. And I think to myself, I wish I could work in an environment like that where I didn't have to try to be so nice all the time. I wish I could just give it full throttle. I like conflict. When I come at you, I want you to come back at me. And here's why God blessed me with my wife, because she will never do that. If I go at her, she's like, you're right. I'm sorry. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not how this is supposed to go. So then what ends up happening when we have disagreements, which are scant, they never happen. And they're very surfacy and they don't matter a lot when they do. But when we have disagreements, also I'm kidding. When we have disagreements, it's her kindness that brings me to repentance. It's the fact that if I just say my piece, she goes, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And then I'm the one talking more going, no, no, no, that doesn't make sense. I'm actually sorry for this and this and this and this. And then I start to own all of the things that I should own. Then I start to take responsibility for my actions. And it's not because she told me to. It's not because she convinced me to. It's not because she got mad at me and argued with me. It's because she was kind and gracious and good. And in the face of that kindness and that goodness and that grace, my instinct is to go, okay, I'm sorry. Here's what I should do. This is how God's kindness leads us to repentance. I've said before, you will win every argument you ever get into with God. If you want to argue with God, you'll win. He will not insist upon you. You just don't want to win those arguments. You're wrong. He'll be gracious with you, and His kindness will lead you to your own repentance. Does that make sense? It's not God being hard on us that leads us to repent and follow him. It's his kindness and his disposition towards us and his love for us that makes us go, okay, okay, okay, I'm actually sorry. I'll do this different. I'll do this better. So I love that verse because we are reminded that it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. Now I told you the Romans 2.12, that is, I think, the clarifying verse where it talks about the Jewish mind and what they have to do. But here's why I bring that up and I think it's important for us, is I think it's important for the American church to think about what do we believe reconciles us to God? What are we clinging to? This is actually the big question from Romans chapter two is what are you clinging to? What are you clinging for your reconciliation? As we think about this confrontation that Paul has with the Jewish people, and he says, hey, we're totally depraved. Everyone's sinful. And the Jewish mind goes, well, not me, because I'm a Jew. I follow the law. They cling to their heritage to reconcile them and solve this problem. I wonder about you, American church, when you hear that group of verses at the end of chapter one that talks about the state of humanity, what happens in your mind to excuse yourself from that? What happens in your mind to go, yeah, that's Paul talking about other people, not me. What are you clinging to? Because I heard a pastor named Alistair Begg, who has a Scottish accent, so everything he says sounds smarter and it's not fair, Say one time, if you were to show up at heaven and they were to ask you, why should we let you in? If your answer begins with me or I, then you don't understand. Because let me tell you what you should be leaning on for your reconciliation to God. This. Nothing you've done. It's not a prayer that you prayed when you were six. It's not getting sprinkled or dumped. It's not singing the songs. It's not coming to church. It's not reading your Bible and praying every day. All those things are good. But do you know what puts you in right standing before God? What happened here? And that's it. The conclusion of the story with Alistair Begg, and I'll do it in greater justice later, is he pretends that he's a person going to heaven. And they said, why should we let you in? And he says, I don't know. He just said that I could come. I didn't do anything. He just said I could be here. So I think it's important to stop and understand that the Jewish people looked at their heritage. The American church, we look at our rule following. We look at a prayer that we prayed. We look at things that we say or actions that we do or we lean on ourselves in different ways. But it's important to remember that, no, no, no, just like the Jews, the Jewish people in Rome, sometimes we can lean on things that are not actually reconciling us. And what reconciles us to God is the cross. Here's my last thought today. And then I'll wrap up because it's in chapter two, and I think it's important. At the end of chapter two, there's this statement, and I think it's a profound statement. I'm going to start reading in verse 21 because he's talking to the Jewish people. He says this, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law as it is written? This is the point. God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. This is a hard truth. And here's where it hits home for us. I'm going to do a sermon about this either the week after Easter or I'm going to do a four-part series in September about this point because I think it's important for us. And before I do it, Kristen, we just won. USA. Great. Perfect timing. Thank you, Kristen. Please put away your phone. That statement there, and this is just something for us to think about as church members, as church people. God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, Paul says. Now, here's where that touches me. The American church, the public opinion of the American church is at an all-time low. People are leaving the church in droves. Kids are growing up in the church and not coming back. We, as a whole scale institution, are failing. And the church is seen as an agent of judgment, of wrath, of harm, not healing and not love. Now, I'm not going to tell you how I think the American church should position itself within our current culture because I think that's tricky. I might tell you later, but not today. But what I will point out is this statement, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, speaks to us. Jesus's name is resented amongst the unchurched because of us. Our tendency is to look at people who don't go to church, to look at people who don't have faith, and to blame them and to say, it's your fault. You don't want a Lord. You're not humble enough. You won't follow the rules. You can't get in line. And we kind of blame them for their lack of faith. And what this verse says and what it says to us is, no, no, no. It's our fault. It's the church's fault. And here's why I'm going to linger here for an entire Sunday or a series. Because I think, church, we need to own that. I think we need to own that fault. It is because of the church that Jesus' name is resented amongst the unchurched. It's not their fault, it's ours. So what do we do about it? Here's what I think we can do. I believe this with all my heart. It is what I would admit to you is the primary reason I continue to pastor at Grace. And don't go make more money and have better vacations and a nice mini van. Because I believe that the American church has gotten it wrong. But I also believe that with the people we have here, with the staff we have, excluding me, with the leadership we have, excluding me. We can get it right. And I think that we have an opportunity in this little corner of the kingdom to which God has entrusted us to restore people's faith in Jesus and restore people's faith in church. And I want to do that together. And we do that together by loving people well. And there's so much more to say about that. But I'll leave it there. I think we have a chance at grace to restore people's hope in what church can be and to do things the right way and for it to not be true of us that the Gentiles blaspheme God's name because of us. I think we can lead ourselves in that way. And I hope that we'll be on board with that moving forward. I'm going to talk more about this in the future. So as I finish, let me land the plane on Romans 2, what Paul is getting at, which is we're evil and we're sinful. We need to be reconciled with God. On what are you trusting for your reconciliation? Let me pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word. Thank you for Romans and what it is. God, we pray that we would be led to repentance by your kindness, that we would trust in that and that we would see that. God, we pray that the Gentiles, that the people who don't know you, that the unchurched would not blaspheme you because of us, that they would not resent the name of your son because of us, but rather they would be drawn to you because of how we love and how we obey and how we repent that your kindness leads us to. Let us be a reflection of your love onto this world and let grace be a church that restores people's belief in what this can be. We pray these things in your son's name. Amen.

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.