Sermons tagged with Service

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

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

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.

Grace, good morning. This is a really special morning because we have the founding pastor of Grace, Craig Holliday, who's going to be sharing with us for the sermon. In 2017, when I came to Grace, I reached out to Craig because he was the founding pastor and I wanted to learn more about his experience and his relationship with Grace. And from the very start, he's been so gracious to me and so kind. He began to come back to Grace and refer to me as his pastor, which is incredibly flattering and generous of him. He said he wanted to help in any way that he could, served as a greeter and an usher, and I've always been so humbled by his participation in Grace. Back in March of 2020, he was scheduled to share with us and preach his first sermon back since leaving Grace, and I was so excited for that, and then COVID hit, and then the son of a gun moved to Costa Rica, which wouldn't we all love to move to Costa Rica? And several weeks ago, I was talking to Craig, and I realized that I was going to be out of town this weekend, and there would be an opportunity for someone to to speak in my stead and I thought it would be a great chance for Craig to come back and share his heart with us. So I've asked him to share his heart for Grace and his experiences that he's had and his heart for what he hopes happens at Grace in the future. So I'm really excited for you guys to get to hear from Craig. I'm excited to watch it. I hope it blesses you. I know it will bless me. Let's welcome Craig. All right. Well, to say I'm excited is an understatement. I remember back 27 years ago was the first time I stood to preach in front of this congregation, and I was excited then, and I'm just as excited today. Nate asked me to speak a couple of weeks ago. He said, you know, we're not in the middle of a series or anything. I don't need you to cover a certain topic. So what I'd really like to hear from you is, why are you excited about grace? Why have you been excited? Why are you? What are you expecting and looking forward to about grace? And that was an easy one for me. It took me straight to the mission statement of this church. And we'll go into that in just a moment. But Nate has been very generous to me. We've had a great relationship. Actually, he didn't give you the full story then just a moment ago. I've been offering to preach for quite some time now. Yeah, been offering to preach. And, you know, he first got in town, and the church was smaller and didn't have the full staff. I was like, Nate, you know, I want to help you in every way I can, any way I can. I'd be glad to be a greeter, be glad to preach. And Nate thought about it, and he said, well, that's very generous of you, but I know that you haven't been preaching a whole lot lately in these last years. Well, they went through some times with other associate pastors and interim pastors, and now I've been here. Craig, to put it bluntly, they've gotten used to a certain standard. And I'm just not so sure after all these years you're quite ready for it. But, you know, maybe you can go preach some other places and get it back under your belt, and then we'll have you back. And I said, great, great. So a couple of years go by. I have another chance to meet with Nate and let Nate know, you know, hey, Nate, I have been getting to do some preaching in some other places and been really good. I'm feeling pretty good about things. I would love to fill in some time for you. Surely you need a vacation or a break or anything else. He said, well, I'm sure that you have probably gotten a little bit better. It's come back to you a little bit, but we've got this really, really high standard. See, it's not just me preaching now, but Erin Winston's come in, and she's been preaching, and well, I mean, you know, they expect a lot, and I got the picture. Got the picture. You know how this goes. Came along a couple of years later. Nate, I know I'm ready now. I'm ready. Don't you think I'm ready? He said, well, now I got Gibby. And so I just don't need you, Craig. I just don't need you. I mean, we've got three really high standard people. And, you know, I don't want you embarrassed in front of the church that you started. And I said, well, Nate, think about it this way. If you give me the chance to preach, at least then the congregation's going to realize just how good they do have it with you. And he thought about it for a second. He said, you know what? You got a point there. You're ready to preach. So here I am. Well, of course, none of that's true, but what is true is how gracious Nate has been to me. Many times when a pastor leaves a church for whatever reason, they go on and are at other churches because they don't want to get in the other pastor's way. And I had done the same thing for a number of years after having to leave Grace. And when Nate arrived, one of the very early things that he did was to have me to lunch and said, Craig, you know, enough time has gone by. If you want to come to Grace, you're more than welcome. And I can't tell you how much that meant because this is home. Always had been. No matter where I was, this is home. And so I'm glad to be back again, and I'm so thankful to Nate, to the church, to the elders, and to all of you for having me today. So what's so good about grace? As I said, I could start listing a whole number of ministries I could go through. I could talk about the children's ministry. I could talk about what happens up here in worship. I could describe for you a week of one of the mission trips. I could tell you about the Bible studies. There's so many things and people and events that I could tell you that excite me about grace. And of course, there's one hanging up on the wall out there, a picture of a new facility. What excites me about grace? I'm glad grace is going to a home. And by the way, just let me remind you briefly, you're not building a church. You're building a home for the church. That's just going to be the facility. You are the church. We all got fooled as kids in Bible school when they told us that thing, here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors, here's all the people. That ain't the church. That's the church. You are the church, and you're just going to be blessed by the chance to be in a new space to do ministry. What really excites me about grace is the right focus. Always has been, always will be, and that focus is Jesus. Is Jesus. Keeping our eyes on Jesus. And all the decisions we make and all the movements we have and all the things that we plan, keeping our eyes on Jesus. And in doing so, this church has made it a priority to see that first we want a commitment to Jesus from each individual person, for everyone to make an acceptance of Christ into their hearts, to grow deeper in that relationship with Jesus, not just to get saved, but to continue to grow and mature and learn as a disciple of Christ. And finally, in that same statement of connecting people to Jesus, we't help all of the members learn how to bring others to know Jesus as well. Whether that's directly telling the gospel story, whether that's inviting people, any number of ways, it's the entire church's job to multiply those who know Jesus. That was the Great Commission. Go into the world, make disciples of all nations. So our mission is connecting people to Jesus and connecting people to people. I want to take you through two Bible stories today of people connecting with Jesus and connecting with each other and see how they might apply to us. And the first one comes to us in the book of Luke. And I've got this up on the screen because for this, I'm using the New Living Translation. I usually use the NIV, but the New Living Translation. Let me just read it to you. A woman in the crowd had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding. She could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe and immediately the bleeding stopped. Who touched me? Jesus asked. Everyone denied it, and Peter said, Master, the whole crowd's pressing up against you. But Jesus said, Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me. When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble, and she fell to her knees in front of him. And the whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him, and that she had been immediately healed. Daughter, he said to her, your faith has made you well. Let's step back and take a little deeper look at this passage and understand about this woman who comes to an intimate, deep connection with Jesus. She suffered with bleeding, probably some menstrual issues for 12 years, and we learned in some of the other Gospels that she has been to multiple doctors. She's probably used up all her financial resources, and she can still find no cure. And for this woman in that day, it goes far beyond the physical issues that she's dealing with. It becomes a social issue. It becomes a spiritual issue as well. Because you see the law of Leviticus that was being lived out in those days was that if any woman going through that time was not to be around others, they were considered unclean. And so this woman, instead of being unclean for a few days or unclean for a week, had been unclean for 12 years. You can imagine what that means for her life on a daily basis, walking down the street with everybody knowing, moving away from her, no one to say hi to, no one to interact with. You can imagine what that does to her faith, feeling, Lord, you've left me in this position. Why? Why? And yet she still believed in Jesus. She had heard that Jesus was coming to town. The news had gotten around about the healings that he was doing, and he was probably coming to do more, and she was intent to be one of those out there to be healed. It says, coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. She knows the power of Jesus so well from what she has learned and heard and experienced that she doesn't even need to meet him. She doesn't have to have a hug. She doesn't have to even talk to him. She says, if I can just touch the hem of his robe, I'll be healed. Perhaps he's not wanting to get Jesus unclean either by touching him. If I just touch the hem of the robe, I'll be healed. What faith. And immediately the bleeding stopped. And when it did, Jesus says, all of a sudden, in a big crowd who have been following him around everywhere he's been going, all of a sudden Jesus stops and says, who touched me? One of the other disciples are like, come on. He says, look, we're packed in here like sardines. Look at all these people around. What do you mean, who touched you? Lots of people have been touching you. He says, no, someone deliberately touched me. It wasn't a casual bump. It wasn't an accidental. It was something that had been planned out, thought out. She, with purpose, had touched him, and I felt healing power go out from me. She'd heard about Jesus. She'd thought about Jesus. She'd acted on what she'd heard and thought and knew by reaching out to Jesus. When the woman realized she couldn't stay hidden, she began to tremble, fell to her knees in front of him. Here's the unclean woman that's been ostracized by the community. And Jesus not only heals her, but he goes one further step. He says, I'm not only going to heal you, I'm going to use you to minister right now. As the whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and had been immediately healed. And then Jesus does something beautiful here. He looks at her and he says, daughter, daughter, you won't find that word used anywhere else. It's not woman. It's not child of God. It's not Mary. It's daughter. It's that intimacy of you are mine and I am yours. We are one together. Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go. Go in peace. See, folks, when Jesus enters into our lives, he is about so much more than simple salvation. Well, I shouldn't say simple. He's about so much more than salvation. Jesus wants to be a part of every aspect of our life. His care for us goes into every aspect of our life. All the joys that we have, all the lows that we have, the highs that we have. Let me ask you a direct question. If Jesus were here sitting next to you and looked over at you, would he call you daughter? Would he call you son? Too many times we find that churches are filled with people who know all about Jesus but don't know Jesus. And if that mission statement of this church is going to be true, connecting people to Jesus, it has to start with the people who are sitting right in this room, the people who call Grace home, the people who are partnering and even watching online right now. It has to start with your personal relationship with Jesus. As I said, the woman in the passage had heard, she decided, she accepted, she acted. Now, I'm not going to go into all of this right now, but there's so many different stories and ways of how we come to know and accept Jesus. Some of you can't remember a time you didn't love Jesus. You grew up with Jesus in your family, and Jesus is just part of it. Some of you, like myself, had a dramatic experience where you're off at a camp, and there's an altar call, and you raise your hand, and it's a specific moment in time, and you get the goosebumps and all the things that goes with a dramatic story. Folks, neither one's better than the other. The question simply is, if asked right now, is Jesus your Lord and Savior? Have you made that known to him? I choose you, Jesus. Grace's church mission to connect people to Jesus has to start with us. That we don't just memorize the menu of what it looks like to be a Christian. We actually taste the feast and participate in what it means to be in that relationship. And then we have to connect deeper. We have to continue to grow that faith. The mission of grace about Jesus is not just to connect people to Jesus. It's also connecting us to each other in our deeper relationship. And there need to be ways and parts and programs of the church that help us do that. Because as we connect with other Christians, we're growing deeper in our own faith. My challenge today is for you to grow in seeing that your life needs to influence others to grow in Jesus. Whose life has changed because they bowed you? Whose life has been influenced to draw closer to Jesus because of you? I'm seriously asking the question. And for grace to be healthy, not only as it is now, but moving into the future. That's continually got to be one of the questions that is part of this mission. How is that happening? How are each of us doing it? If we asked your coworkers, would they even know you're a believer? If we asked the buddies down at the golf club, would they recognize that Jesus is in you? Whether you verbally shared it or not, Jesus needs to ooze from everything we are. Jesus needs to just be part of our being. So we needed our mission, as it says, to connect people to Jesus. The second thing that we need to do as a church and seek to do is we seek to connect people to people. As I've said to you, we grow deeper in our faith often when we're growing with others. There's so many ways in which being with other people is so important, and I'm going to give you another story from the Gospel of Mark about how important other people can be to our faith. Mark 2. When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room even outside the door. And while he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him into Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, my child, your sins are forgiven. But some of the teachers of the religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, what is he saying? This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins. And Jesus knew immediately what it was they were thinking. So he says to them, why do you question this in your heart? Is it easier for me to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven or stand up, pick up your mat and walk? But so I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins. Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, Stand up and pick up your mat and go home. And the man jumped up and he grabbed his mat and he walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, we've never seen anything like this before. We'll go verse by verse, but let's pick up some of the highlights through that passage. As Jesus has returned home, it says the news has spread quickly and the crowds were continuing to grow around him. He's at a house teaching one day when this event takes place. He often was. He would be in people's homes and he'd be in common areas. And he's at somebody's house to preach. And the crowd has gotten so large that they don't all fit in the room. They don't all fit in the house. There are people outside the house as well. And in those days, the homes were made of stones on the walls, but the roofs were mainly thatch and mud. They weren't nearly as solid as the sides were. They often also had a set of staircases going up to the roof area as if it was a terrace or a big porch up top. So that's the setting where we find that this is taking place. And Jesus is preaching God's word to him. Now, off somewhere else is a paralytic. A paralytic who needs what's happening over there, but can't get there. Now, there's a part of the story that's here I don't know the answer to. I wish I did. I don't know whether he willingly went or whether he was being taken there against his will. But for however it happened, these other men knew what he needed and knew that what he needed was Jesus. Knew that what he needed was Jesus. And so they've picked up this mat and they've carried them over to this home where Jesus is teaching. They've likely gone up the stairs and then it says they lowered him through a hole in the roof. That had got to be some kind of scene. Jesus sitting there teaching and crumble, crumble, crumble. Jesus teaches a little bit more, and that side caves in. I wonder how many people started moving out of the way, thinking maybe this isn't the right teaching going on here. But eventually the hole opens, and they lower the man down to Jesus, where he says, your sins are forgiven. See, the man needed to be healed from his paralysis, and he was. But the greater thing that Jesus came to do was to forgive him of his sins. He needed to give him the full treatment. Jesus wants to enter into our lives and give us the full treatment and be involved in all the aspects and areas of our lives that need help. This is one of the few places where Jesus in this gospel is called son of man as a title for himself. Usually when healing is taking place, it's the son of God to say, you know, God has these miraculous powers. But they wanted to also emphasize that here, this person who empathizes with humanity because he is one, the son of man, the one who knows what it is to feel bad, the one who knows what it is to come up against struggles, he is the one also who is forgiving you and taking part in that with you. Our faith is not meant to be lived on a solo basis. Can you be a Christian on a solo basis? Absolutely. Should you be? No. That's not God's intention for us. God's intention for us is that we live out our faith in community. And there's so many obvious benefits of living out in community and reasons we would want to connect people to people. We learn from one another. We encourage one another. We may challenge someone. We may even feel led to convict someone where we see something going wrong in their lives. We're there for each other in a number of ways, and that happens in life without Christ, but even more so is it important with Christ that we interact with each other. Let me give you just another simple example of why connecting us with each other is important. I think worship's a lot better with people. Now, the singing gets better and better. I would take a guess that those of you watching at home online probably are not singing out with gusto during the songs. Anybody been at home and done that? I would bet that those of you watching online, and I'm not saying that's not a good thing sometimes, but I bet some of those of you who are watching at home, when there's a prayer time, that's a time you're shuffling around or grabbing something else. You're not really engaged and focused in. But when we come together as a community, worship is better. The singing's better. The praying's better. We feel better being around other people and other believers. COVID exploded online worship. And at the time, it was a great thing. So thankful we had it. But since that time, across the country, church attendance is down 30%, in large part because of people continuing to worship online. And what I want to say very directly to you, those of you who are here and those of you who are in that camera, it's time to get your butt back in church. Online is when there's something that prevents you from getting here. It's not the easy out, the easy choice. Come back and be a part of this fellowship. One thing that I want to highlight for you as what I see is the best way for us to connect to people and within our community is small groups. Small groups. I cannot say enough good about small groups. Those of you who have been in one or are in one know what I'm talking about. Small groups where you intentionally are getting together with a smaller group of folks and you're intentionally sharing the faith, you're intentionally sharing scripture and prayer, but you're also intentionally sharing life. That's when we can influence and mold and meld with each other. And I will tell you that this church is going to get bigger and bigger. Not only is it growing because of the health of the church and the great ministries that are here. When you open up the doors just up the street, people are coming just because they want to see what's there. This church is going to be growing. And that's nothing to be scared of. In fact, be encouraged by it. Because here's the truth, folks. In a given church or any community, you may know at best, I'm going to be generous and say you might know a hundred names. You might have a casual interaction with maybe 50 people. No matter the size of the church, you've probably got about 20 that you would call, yeah, they're pretty good friends. No matter the size of the church, you've probably got three to five people that you would say, yeah, that's who I'm tight with. That's who I'm tight with. Are you tight with three to five people from this church right now? If not, you need to be. Are you not only getting that for yourself, but are you giving of yourself to three to five people in an intimate relationship? If you're not, you ought to be. Our mission is connecting people to Jesus. Our mission is connecting people to people because people connect Jesus to other people. Life can be so fun sometimes. It can be so difficult at times. I've asked this question in years gone by, and I'll ask it again. If something, a tragedy comes, there's an emergency that happens in your house tonight. There's somebody who's had something they need to go to the hospital for. Who from this church are you going to call at 4 a.m.? And it can't be Nate. Who are you going to call? Who have you developed a relationship with that you can say, I need you to come over and keep the kids because I've got to take Lucy to the hospital? Who have you developed that kind of relationship when there's been a death and you need to say, I just need somebody to be with me. Can you come over? Who are those three to five that are yours? If you're not that tight with others, you need to be, you need to get involved and connected in small groups. Bible study is great. Mission servant teams, great. Worship teams, greeters, all those great. Do they make connections that are deep? Not usually. And that's why I'm saying to you, in addition to all that, small groups is where it's at. The paralytic man found himself in a position where he couldn't do for himself what needed to happen. He needed other people to get him to Jesus. I share with you this part, and I chose that parable because being a Christian does not take away all life's problems. But scripture says in your life you will encounter many problems. And I can think of several events in my own life. I had to leave grace when I became disabled from a neck injury and had some personal issues going on as well. It was not long after that that I went through a divorce. Add to that depression. Boy, was I in a whammy of a space. I couldn't get myself where I needed to be. But thank God I had a group of tight friends and believers from the church community who were there with me. Said, we will get you through this. We will carry you. And I'm going to tell you, it didn't make those things go by quickly. But I can't imagine having to have gone through those without a group. Part of my story that some of you know, some of you don't, is that I lost a son in 2019. He just turned 17 years old. People ask me, was that a crisis of faith for you? And I say, no, actually. From God's mercy, it was not a crisis of faith, and here's the reason it wasn't. Number one, I knew my child was saved. We'd had a direct conversation about that less than a month before. The second thing was that I know God's got the big picture and that he's going to get me on. But the third reason that really got me through that time, and you never get over it, you just get better, got me through that time once again was my community of friends and believers who were there whatever I needed. Sometimes even when I didn't know I needed it. They were there to pray. They were there to bring meals. They were there to let me cry. They were there to help me have a fun time and learn that it was okay to be enjoying life again. I don't want to end on such a downer, but I use it to say to you folks, this connect to people to people is real. Take hold of it for yourself and want it for others. Want it for the people who are already here amongst you. Want it for the people who are yet to come. Keep Jesus the focus. And this church is going great places, greater than it's already gone. What's so great about grace? Jesus. Let me pray. Father, I'm thankful for this church. I'm thankful to be able to call it home. I'm thankful for the brothers and sisters here who also call it home. It is a great church. But we know that before we can give ourselves any credit for that, it first and foremost goes to you, the glory and the honor and the praise. Before we can say it's because of this or that that we get good or accomplished or any particular program, we have to know it's because of Jesus. You've kept that the focus in the years gone by. I pray your blessing on the years ahead that'll be one no less than one that focuses on Jesus. In his name we pray. 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.