Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I haven't gotten to meet you yet, I'd love to do that in the lobby after the service. Real quick, before I just dive in, I believe next week we're going to Mexico. Is this correct? Yeah? Raise your hand if you're going. Pipe down, Howard. All right. Good, good. We got a crew that goes. You need to cheer for something. It's not going to be UNC right now. I'll tell you that. Sorry. Sorry. That was not fair. That was uncalled for. I repent in dust and ashes, Howard. But this is something I failed to do. They're going. They've been going for years. It's a good core group of people every year. A couple new people go. But while they're here and while we can do it, let's just pause in the service and pray for them and their team as they prepare to go that God will do some incredible things in and through them as they go. So pray with me for our Mexico team, and then we will get started. Father, thank you for impressing upon the people of grace, the very heart of grace, your heart for others. Thank you for this Mexico trip. Thank you for what it means to us and the relationships that we've built there. Thank you for the people who are going for the first time and for the 20th time. I pray that your hand of protection would be on them. I pray that meaningful relationships would be developed and cultivated. I pray that your love would be felt both by the folks we're going to see, but also by the folks who are going, and that they would mutually minister to one another, and that it would be a good trip with great stories. We pray these things in your son's name. Amen. Speaking of praying for people as we dive into what I think is part five of our Gentle and Lowly series, something that happens almost every Sunday morning that most of you have no idea about is something that humbles me tremendously. Most every Sunday morning, there's a group of elders and resting elders. And resting elders is someone who served as an elder before, and they're not an elder now, they're a resting elder. They get together in my office at about 935, 940. Now, they didn't do it this morning, and all of you who normally do it are here, so I don't know what gifts. Maybe you just didn't care about this particular service. But almost every Sunday, not by my request, they get together in my office, and they pray for the church, and they pray for me. And being a pastor is a tremendously humbling experience in some ways because it is with great regularity that I look out on the faces that I see on Sundays or interact with you in the lobbies. The lobby, we don't have more than one. And just feel tremendously humbled that you guys choose grace, that you guys choose to listen to me. I don't take that for granted, and I don't take for granted the men and the women who gather in my office, each of whom I respect deeply, and they pray for me, and they pray for the church. And another thing that happens on Sunday morning that you probably don't know about is Aaron Gibson, Gibby, and I get here early. I get here usually beforehand, but we both get here early. And one of the things we do before we engage in our morning is we sit down in my office and we just say, what are you bringing in here this week? What do you got? What's going on in your life? What other things are you thinking about besides what job God has for you to do this morning of preaching or leading worship? Because I don't know if you know this about your pastors, but you guys have had the Sunday mornings where you're coming in here with your hair on fire. You and your spouse had a bad day yesterday. You're upset with each other. Things aren't good right now. Your kids are driving you nuts. I walked in the door this morning and there was a mom walking her children out to go next door. And I saw her and she's usually a pretty chipper person. And I said, hey, how you doing? And she goes, I'm here. It was one of those mornings. We've had those mornings where you're yelling at the kids, you're stressed out, work is hard, there's stresses in life that are impacting you, and you come in on two wheels and then you sit down and then you get a moment of quiet. Well, I have news for you. I don't know if you know this about your pastors, but we're people too. And we have mornings like that. We have Sundays like that. And I love knowing that my friend Aaron is going to pray for me and I can tell him anything that's going on in my life and, and he will pray for it. And I love him knowing that he can have whatever's going on in his life and I'm going to pray for him. And some days we'll look at each other and I'll go and one of us will go, I don't have it. And the other person will go, well, I'm feeling it. I got you. Let's go. And the spirit is great. He always shows up. He always gives us the strength when we don't have it. But I love knowing that I have him to intercess for me. And I love knowing that we have people who gather to pray for grace because it reminds me that it's not all on me. It's not all on me to preach a great sermon, to be a good leader, to do all the things. I have people who care about this place wrapped around me and gathered around us that are lifting us up too. And I know that many of you pray for me and for the service and for the church. I got a text this morning from my dad, hey, praying for you. And I can't tell you how much it lifts you up to know that you're being prayed for. And I say all that because you also have someone praying for you. We see this person in Hebrews 7, verse 25, where the author writes, Therefore he, being Jesus, is able to save completely, or to the uttermost, those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Hebrews tells us that Jesus still has a job. And his job is to sit at the right hand of the Father and intercede for you. And the way that the author of Gentle and Lowly explains this, I think, is a beautiful way to understand it. Jesus is quite literally praying for you at all times. We have this misnomer of an idea that Jesus did his work. He came and he lived a perfect life and he died a perfect death and he hung on the cross for you and for me. And now he's just sitting in heaven, biding his time until act two, when in Revelation 19, he comes crashing out of the clouds and is coming to wreck shop and make all the wrong things right and sad things untrue. It'll be the greatest day in history. We have this misnomer, I think, sometimes without really cognitively being aware of it, that Jesus did the work then, and he's going to do the work later, and right now he's just chilling out. Certainly not blessing Falcons football. I'll tell you that's what he's not doing. But he's just hanging out in heaven. Not true. Hebrews tells us. He's an intercessor for us. He's actively praying for you. And I don't know how to explain in his divinity, his ability to pray for you and to pray for me and to pray for him and to pray for her at the same time in the same way. But that's what Jesus does. He prays for you constantly. He intercedes for you constantly. He's lifting you up constantly. And Jesus' intercession reminds us that it isn't all on us. Knowing that Jesus is praying for you should remind you in the same way when I'm reminded people are praying for me that it's not all on me. Jesus is praying for you. It's not all on you. Your marriage is not all on you. Your job is not all on you. Your parenthood is not all on you. Your friendships, your stability, your health are not all on you. Your success or failure is not all on you. Your moral goodness, your sanctification process, becoming more like Christ in character, is not all on you. Your moral goodness, your sanctification process, becoming more like Christ in character, is not all on you because we have Jesus interceding for us on our behalf, literally praying to God for you. And time, if he's your constant intercessor, that Jesus prays for you when you don't have the strength or the inclination to pray for yourself? Last week, we talked about Jesus is gentle with sinners. He's gentle with those who sin ignorantly and he's gentle with those who sin on purpose, the wanderers. Do you know that in your season of wandering, and maybe you're in one right now, And maybe you haven't prayed for yourself in a long time. Maybe you haven't prayed for your kids in a long time. Maybe it's been a minute since you prayed for your spouse. Maybe you've been floating for a while, not really spiritually engaged. Or maybe I was talking to a friend this week who told me that he was just dry. I want to want Jesus. I just don't right now. And I don't know what to do. Maybe you're in a season of dryness. Maybe it's simply been a minute since you prayed for the people and the things in your life, including yourself. And maybe when I say that and you go, oh, shoot. Yeah. Maybe it hits you right between the eyes. Maybe you can relate to it in part. But I think our reaction to that, to our attention being arrested to that truth, man, it has been a minute since I prayed for my spouse. It has been a minute since I prayed for myself. It has been a minute since I prayed for my kids. Do you know who's never stopped praying for those things on your behalf? Jesus. Even in your wandering, even when you're far off, do you know who's praying on your behalf that you would come back to the Father? Jesus is. Do you know who is your strength when you don't have it? Who says your prayers when you don't say them? Jesus does. And his prayers, I'm so grateful for the prayers of the elders and the resting elders. And sometimes I sit in and I listen to them. And I love hearing people pray who've walked with God for a lifetime. I love hearing people who have a generation or two on me pray. I love to listen to that. Sometimes they invite me to pray. I'm like, I don't want to. I just really prefer to listen to y'all pray. I want to hear how you talk to God. And I covet those prayers because they pray better than me, right? But do you know how much better than them Jesus prays? And he's praying that for you, over you. And it brings us to this principle that I think is foundational to Christianity. It's a quote from the book. Dane puts it like this. It is the most counterintuitive aspect of Christianity that we are declared right with God, not once we begin to get our act together, I'm going to read it again. We have this mindset sometimes about pursuing the Savior, about our spiritual health and journey, that we kind of need to get our act together before we can really go to the Father, before I can really go to small group, before I can really start to consistently go to church, before I can really engage in any sort of service. I really have to get my act together. I have to clean myself up before I can go to Jesus, because if I go like this, I'm not going to be good enough for him. So I have to make myself a little bit better so that I feel better about going to Jesus. It's this silly idea. We treat it. We treat sometimes going to Jesus like I do going to the doctor. Now, listen, I'm going to say some things here. And what I don't want is 30 moms momming me after the service about my need to go to the doctor. So please don't make me regret this. Okay. I'm 44. I'm, I'm getting old. And those of you who are older than me and you think, Oh, that's not old. I mean, what are you calling me? I'm not calling you anything. I'm just telling you I'm old. Okay. Matter of fact, this week, um, I met with our architect, which by the way, there's going to be an email coming out this week that's going to share about the progress that we're making towards getting this building built around the corner. I know that there hasn't been a lot of information coming out, but there has been a lot of work being done trying to get some certainty around what we can share. And so that's going to come out this week and then hopefully more news after that. But I saw our architect this week, and I hadn't seen him in about two years. And the first thing he said to me walking down the hall, I said, hey, Jim. And he goes, hey, you got a few more grays in that beard, don't you? Thanks, buddy. Good to see you. This dude's like 75, whatever. I just want to be like, Jim, you're just blanket old. Like, I'm getting there. You just, anyways. I'm getting old is my point. And I know that at 44, I need to go to the doctor. I didn't have, you're not going to believe this, some of you will. I did not have a primary care physician until I was 39 years old because I had to go for the gout, right? I had to go for that. But after I had Dr. Mann until I was 18 years old. And then after that, nothing. I went to urgent care like twice to get a Z-Pak for a cold. No doctors for me. I'm not doing annual checkups. I hate going to the doctor, but I'm getting old and I know that I need to go. But here's my thought and here's why I haven't gone. If I can just lose a little bit more weight and do a little bit more exercise, then I'm going to have a better blood pressure and all my levels are going to be good and I'm going to get a clean bill of health and that's what I want. So if I can just get myself ready a little bit, get my act together, then I can go to the doctor. I don't have anything to worry about right now. If I go to the doctor, he's just going to be like, you're fat and sedentary. And I'm going to be like, yeah, I know actually not anymore. Cause I've lost a lot of weight since last year, but that's why I didn't go last year. Cause I was trying to lose the weight. Now that I lost the weight, I should probably go. But he's, he, he's just going to say you're sedentary and out of shape. Like you need to do things. And I know that I need to do things. So my thought is, let me just do the things and then I'll get a good bill of health, right? And I think we treat Jesus like I treat the doctor. I just need to take care of some stuff and then I will go to him. Then I'll be ready. Then I'll be acceptable to him. Now here's the difference. I can actually get myself in better shape and get a better doctor's report when I go. That is possible. It is not possible to clean yourself up to make you adequate for Jesus to get a good bill of health from him. The only way to go to Jesus is to finally put down your sword and admit that you can't get yourself in good enough shape to go see him. We have to fall helplessly into his arms and say, Jesus, I know that I'm not enough. We sing that song. I'm broken, but I'm not forsaken. I am who you say I am. Jesus says we're a child of God. He says he loves us. He says, as Aaron pointed out, that he calls us and he purposes us and he knows who we are and he knows where our shortcomings are and he intercedes for those things. We are who he says we are. But we will never get ourselves there by trying, by white knuckling and being try-hards. We have to fall into the beautiful, glorious, comforting intercession of Christ. So, Christians, those of us that would seek to pursue righteousness need to know that our pursuit of righteousness begins and ends with our pursuit of Jesus. Our pursuit of righteousness begins and ends with our pursuit of Jesus. Our pursuit of righteousness begins and ends with our pursuit of Jesus, of joining in with him in that intercessory prayer, of agreeing with him what he must be praying over us and over our families and over our children and over our careers and over our friendships and over our relationships and over our marriages. If we want our marriage to be better, it begins and ends with our pursuit of Christ. If we want to be better grandparents, if we want to be better parents, if we're realizing, oh my goodness, I haven't prayed for my kids in a long time. I haven't prayed for my spouse in a long time. Where do you think the impetus to pray for others comes from? It comes from a pursuit of Jesus so that he is filling you up so that your cup now spills out on those around you. I love that verse. I remind you of it often. And from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. It's like Jesus is so full of grace that it spills out of him and onto us. And if we are there for it, if we are there to receive it, if we will pursue him, if we will be in relationship with him, our cup will be filled to overflowing and we will pour that grace out ourselves on others. And so what I would say to you gently and a non-accusatory way, because it certainly applies to me too, if it's been a minute since you've prayed for yourself, since you've prayed for your children, since you've prayed for your spouse, since you've prayed for your friends, if it's been a minute since you intercessed on someone else's behalf, perhaps it's because you have not been pursuing Jesus consistently either, and so your cup is not full. If we want to be the kind of people who reflect Jesus's intercession for us and pray for others in our life that we love very much and pray for things that matter a lot to us. If we want to be people of prayer, the impetus to pray begins and ends with our pursuit of Christ. So if we're dry there in our prayer life, my suspicion is that we are dry here in our pursuit of Christ. And then maybe we're just trying to lower our blood pressure just a little bit more before we go to him. Our pursuit of righteousness, of all things good in life, begins and ends with our pursuit of Christ and leaning into his intercession. But this morning, I've coupled two things together because Jesus does not just intercede for us. First John chapter two, verse one tells us of another role of Christ that I think is all the more encouraging. John writes this, my dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He says, I write this to you so that you don't sin. But if you do, we have in Jesus advocacy. If you do sin, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, not simply interceding for you, but he is advocating for you in the places where you do sin. And when I say he's advocating for you, there are times in my house when I have to advocate for John because Jen is just mean to him and I have to defend him. John is four and a half. He's four and a half, right? Sure. He's four. I don't know if we've gotten to half yet. Half years matter a lot under 10. But he's all boy, man. He just like, if he doesn't run around enough, he just kind of gets, like have you ever seen a dog get the zoomies and just buzz around a room? Which is another reason why they're dumb. John gets this energy coursing through his veins where he just has to scream. This is not something that we experience with Lily. Lily, when she was four, sit down and color for like an hour and let mommy and daddy talk. John, no chance. No chance. That kid is annoying. He is there all the time. And we love him. He's hilarious. But he just has this energy. And one of the things that he loves to do is show you how hard he hits. And he's been told, just hit daddy. You can hit daddy whenever you want. Do not hit your sister. Do not hit your mom. Just hit me, whatever you want. And so he'll come up, and I can see it in his face. I know that he's just about to get me. And he just, I kind of, you know, I kind of turn and just kind of let him get the leg and he just will roar and beat on my leg for like 30 seconds. Stick around. He'll probably do it after the service today when he sees me. But sometimes he and Lily get to horsing around and Lily's playing with them and they're having fun and they're laughing and giggling. then that just boy rage will come up and he'll just start wailing on her. And then she gets mad and she'll cry or she'll cry out and she'll play act like it hurt and then you have to put up with that and like whatever. Watch you stub your toe harder than that. But it's all a big deal. And before she can react, because he's about to get walloped, you know, he's about to get taken out. Before she can react, I'll have to jump in and I intercede for John. I advocate for him. And I say, Lily, he's four. He's not trying to hurt you. He's not trying to be mean. He's playing. This is how he plays. This is how boys play. So don't be mad at him. Be nice to him and just know that he doesn't understand what he's doing. And then I have to pull John aside and say, this is why we don't hit the girls. We hit daddy. When you feel that, you hit me. Okay, Daddy. And then he hits me. But I have to advocate for him. Hey, Lily, he doesn't know what he's doing. Let's calm down the anger. This is what Jesus does for us in our sin. And I think that that's remarkable because it is in our sin when he advocates. It is when we mess up that he somehow doubles down on this intercession and is in the ear of God saying, hey, I've covered him. I've covered her. They're good. They're righteous. They're lovely. They're your children. They don't know what they're doing. There's that famous advocacy when he's hanging on the cross, when he looks at the Roman soldiers and he says, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. This is a picture of the advocacy of Christ. And the thing that I love, and I would just make this point real quick. So the way that we think about it is intercession is proactive and advocacy is reactive. Intercession is proactive. It's always happening. He's always praying to the Father on your behalf. It's ongoing. Advocacy is reactive. Advocacy happens when you sin. It doesn't happen when you're healthy. It doesn't happen when you're righteous. It doesn't happen when you're walking the right path and you're doing the right things and your cup is overflowing and you're giving grace out to everybody around you and you're praying for everybody around you and you're following Jesus' intercessory model for the people in your life. That's not when he advocates. He advocates when you're low. He advocates when you mess up. The mornings that you wake up and you feel like a failure and you don't want to look anybody in the eye and you don't want to look in the mirror. Those are the mornings when Jesus is fighting for you the hardest. Those are the mornings when he advocates for you most. I write this so that you do not sin. But if you do, you have an advocate in Jesus. Someone who is in the ear of the Father advocating for you, Father, forgive them. They're your child. We love them. And I thought about this this week, too. And maybe some of you have gone there in your head. Why is it that I need an intercessor and an advocate between me and God the Father? Is God the Father so disposed towards wrath towards me that I need Jesus there to be running interference the way that I get in between Lily and John when John's taking things too far? Is God so predisposed towards justice and wrath and anger that he needs Jesus to talk him off the ledge when he watches us do the thing again? And this is where the Bible gets really tricky and understanding the person of God gets really tricky because it's difficult to understand. God can't fully explain himself to us. God can't fully explain himself to us any more than I can explain literature to John. I just got done. This is going to, I almost decided not to share this because it sounds like I'm bragging, but I just got done reading a book. Okay. Like a whole book. I read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. And I love reading the classics. I love reading books that have been in circulation for more than 50 years, because if they, if they are, there's a reason. And the thing I love reading books that have been in circulation for more than 50 years because if they are, there's a reason. And the thing I love about old literature, about books that are 50, 200 years old, whatever, is the incredible insights the authors have into the human psyche. The incredible things that they have to say in those books. The commentary on humanity that's so nuanced where it will sometimes articulate thoughts that I've been loosely aware of for a decade and then here in a paragraph it's lucid and detailed and cogent and helpful. And it articulates things in a way that I would have never done on my own. It teaches me. If you guys were to ask me what was East of Eden about, I could give you probably a longer answer than you actually wanted, so I would not advise that. But if John asked me what it was about, how much would I have to dumb down the plot? How much would I have to simplify it for him to get even an iota of an idea of what that 650-page book was about? That's been in circulation for 75 years. Right? John can no more understand literature. And trust me, my understanding of it is incredibly rudimentary. I regret that either I didn't take English literature in college or I didn't pay attention. I can't remember which one it was. But I've never sat in a classroom with a professor telling me how to plumb the depths of literature. How to really, what was happening in the author's life and what the point was and what the critics say and how deep you can go. I have a very rudimentary understanding of it. It's just kind of, I read it and what I think is what I think. How much less so can John understand literature at the age of four. The gap of understanding between me and my son is infinitesimally small compared to the gap of understanding between us and God. So sometimes God is left to explain himself to us Neanderthals, and he's limited by what he can do and say and express. And so the more I thought about this question and the way that God is choosing to express it through Scripture, depicting Jesus as an intercessor and an advocate, I do not believe the point of that is to remind us that God is predisposed towards wrath against us. I do not think that the point of it is to point towards the Father and his character at all. Rather, I think it's simply to get across to us the very heart of Jesus towards you and the heart of your Savior, of your gentle and lowly Savior on whom we are focusing this fall. his heart is predisposed towards love and grace and mercy, so much so that he never ceases to intercede for you and pray for you on your behalf, so much so that when you are at your lowest, he doubles down and advocates for you. I do not think that those two truths are placed in Scripture to depict to us what must be the character of the Father and leave us to determine that. I think they are left in Scripture so that we would know the heart of Jesus towards us. So, what do we do in light of his intercession and advocacy? We pursue Jesus. First and foremost. The beginning and end of our pursuit of righteousness is our pursuit of Jesus Christ. What do we do in light of this wonderful Savior whose job is not done, who still works every day praying at the right hand of the father for you and at your lowest advocates for you. What do we do in light of that? Well, first of all, we mimic it as his followers. So we intercede for others. And if we're not interceding for others, maybe we should start interceding for ourselves so that we might be filled up with grace and then begin to proactively pray for others out of the overflow of our hearts. We advocate for people. We see the best in them. We hope the best in them. And we speak the best of them. But we can never do any of that if we don't pursue Jesus. So what I want to leave you with this morning is, how can you leave here and pursue Christ? What can you do? What step can you take? I say often, I haven't said it often enough lately, that the single most important habit anyone can develop in their life is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in prayer. So if it's been a minute since you had a quiet time, start tomorrow. If you don't know where to start, these are in the lobby of the information table. This is a daily devotional guide that I wrote up last year. It just gives you a practical approach. I want to have a quiet time. What do I do? If that's a question you have, pick this up. I wrote this to answer that question. It's not as long as East of Eden. You can get it done today. If you don't even know what version of the Bible you want to read, I get that question sometimes too. I wrote a translation guide so that you'll understand the options that are out there. I do not advocate for one over another. I just put in front of you, this is how you can understand translations. So maybe there's one out there that would work better for you. But those are out there. So the first thing if we're going to pursue Jesus is we read his word and we pray. In a minute, we're going to have a chance to sing again, right? Yeah. We're going to have a chance to sing again. Call out to Jesus. Praise him. Rest easy in his intercession. Be present with him in that moment. Engage in your small group. Engage in church. Come ready to hear from God. And here's a big one. Invest in spiritually nourishing friendships. Lean into the people in your life that encourage you spiritually. And maybe for some of us, take a step back from the people in our life that don't. Lean into the ones that refresh you and give you life and make you more desirous of Jesus when you're with them. I don't know what you can do to begin to pursue Jesus today. But as I'm praying, I hope that he'll put something on your heart and I hope that all of us will move with obedience towards him as we go from here. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful for the way that you've chosen to depict your son. We don't imagine, God, that you are angry with us, that you're disposed to wrath. But, God, we are grateful that your son prays for us, that he advocates for us. God, I know that there are those in this room that even right now need that intercession desperately and are reflectively grateful for what's already been taking place. As he pleads to you on our behalf. God, those of us who have been brought low by poor decisions we've made. God, thank you that your son advocates for us in those moments. That he doubles down on the intercession and he raises us up in front of you. Help us be people who mimic those things, who pray for the people around us and who think the best and speak the best of the people who even may have wronged us. And God, as we go from this place, we pray that you would develop in us a hunger and thirst for you and for yourself. So much so that we would overflow with your fullness of grace upon grace. In Jesus' name, amen.