Grace Community Church Clarksville, TN
From The Heart “Realities of the Incarnation" June 23, 2024
In the Incarnation, Jesus comes to be both fully human and fully God simultaneously. Looking closer at this central doctrine of our faith, we can discover that Jesus was coming to become like us so that he could better help us; believing this essential truth is to see his kingdom come to permeate every facet of our lives. Key Verses: Phillipians 2:6-11
(upbeat music) The following is a production of Grace Community Church. Check us out at graceclarksville.com. - Good morning, hey, welcome to Grace. My name is Jonathan and it's not an overstatement. When I say that it is one of the special privileges of my life to be able to work at this church and be one of the pastors here, I am really, really grateful that you're here today. I know nobody came because of me. I just want you to know I'm really glad you're here, okay? It really means a lot to me. Today we're gonna do what we've been doing all month of June. We're gonna get to hear something today, hopefully that comes from my heart. And I have mixed feelings about the From the Heart series. We do this every June. We've done it as long as I've been almost 10 years now. We kind of take a break from what we normally do, which is kind of a deep dive in three to four months, sometimes at a time, onto a part of the Bible or maybe profile someone in the Bible. But From the Heart is a chance for the people who talk, myself, Adam, Van, you heard last week, share something that is just kind of front of mind for them on their heart. I say that I have mixed emotions because I love one side of it. I find the other side of it a little more difficult. I love to hear other people talk from their heart. I love that question, what's on your mind? What do you want us to know? I have a harder time deciding what of the 10 billion things in my heart I wanna talk to you about for only 30 minutes, okay? I have a lot of things churning inside of me and at all times it's just kind of, I'm like the little duck feet underwater all the time, the things you don't see, just thoughts and thinking and what's going on. But I'm going to attempt, I promise in the next 30 minutes to come to one final thing to talk about something that has really been a burden for me. To do that, we're gonna go to Philippians chapter two and look at something that is referred to as the incarnation. This is when Jesus comes to earth and he is both fully God and fully man. And I wanna read Paul's words as he writes to this church of Philippi in Philippians chapter two. Let me read our text today and then I'll unpack a little bit about why we're doing this this morning. He says though he was God, this is Jesus, though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form he humbled himself and obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross. Therefore God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. In heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue declared that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But we have Paul saying in God's word for us today is that Jesus when he came, he was both God, he was God, he is God, and yet when he came he also became fully human. I'm kind of rewinding a little bit to the life of Jesus to go back to the very, very beginning. You might be familiar with the idea of or the words incarnation because we talk about it a lot at Christmas time. This is when Jesus comes to earth and I know that it is kind of a crazy mysterious paradox that God could be both fully God and fully human. I'm of the opinion that I don't think you're ever really supposed to fully understand that. That's what makes it a mystery that somehow he's able to do both of these things. Now, the reason why I find myself going back to kind of the foundational aspects of the life of Jesus is I have to tell you a little bit about what's just been going on in my heart and in my family these last three or four years. You know, my wife and I have three children and over the last four years I have watched two of them launch and leave my home, go to college. They've gone to trade schools and gotten jobs and they're doing well for themselves. And then my youngest, my daughter, who's obviously my favorite, my daughter, she's actually leaving in August. She's leaving my house willingly, she wants to go. And I've got to be honest with you, it's like the definition of bittersweet to watch your kids grow up and leave. Now, I know the empty nest may be empty, but it's still a nest and they're welcome back whenever life needs them to come back, okay? But I'm gonna be real honest, like it is so bittersweet. I am so proud of each of them. I'm so proud of the things that they're doing and the ways that they're pursuing things that are important to them. I love that their own personalities are coming out in so many of their choices. And yet at the same time, it is so hard to watch them leave. It hurts so much, it's like bittersweet. And what's happened as I've done this now, this is like every two years, somebody else is leaving my house and stars promise she's staying, like she's in it to win it, she's gonna be there to the end. But as everyone gets ready to leave every two years, I find myself as a dad going, did I do all the right things? Did I say all the things that needed said? Did I tell them the things that they desperately needed to do, did I protect them from the things that I should have, why they lived in my home? Are they prepared? Like, and I know that's a very dad way of thinking about it. Do they have all the tools that they need to live their lives? And of course, with the importance that faith is in the life of me and their mother, a question has often come back to, have I communicated to them the most essential things about my faith? You know, my kids have been in church for as long as they've known, long as they've been alive. I worked in church before and church environments before I ever even had a kid, almost 25 years now. And I've seen a lot of good, and I've seen some bad, and my kids have seen a lot of good, and they've seen some bad, they've been a part of all of it. And some of my questioning has been, what does it all mean that they got to come to church and be here for so many Sundays, so many events, so many camps, if I were to distill down all the truth, what am I left with? Now, I hope I'm not being presumptuous, but this goes beyond just being a dad. I feel a lot of the same dad vibes towards you, our church. I have a lot of these same concerns for what would be this flock, like as a shepherd towards this organization, these people, you guys, I want you to get the most essential things, and I want you to hold on to those things throughout all of your life, through the things that are hard, the things that are wonderful and we're celebrating all of it, I want you to hold those truths. And so that's kind of where I'm coming from today, okay? And I would say maybe the better way to say this is it's not so much from the heart, is it's what feels like a really heavy burden to me right now. Is to try to come to a good answer to what is the reason that Jesus would ever come in the first place, which becomes kind of the fuel for so much of our lives as a family and so much of the way that we lead this church. What does it mean that Jesus would come to earth and become fully human, while also being fully God? Well, it means that one thing I think that you guys could probably guess, it means that we have the opportunity to be like Jesus, but maybe more importantly and preemptively to that, we know that Jesus has come so that he could be like us. Now, I know you're kind of familiar with this idea because we just read in Philippians about it, how that he comes and he doesn't think that he has the privileges of deity because he's gonna take on all the full human form, but Hebrews pits it to us much better. And Hebrews chapter two, I wanna read about this because in Hebrews, he's talking a lot about Jesus is our high priest and we know that Jesus is incarnated, the incarnate word, he comes to earth to be fully human, he lives a life, he dies, crucified, he is resurrected from the dead, he spends some time with his followers and then he is ascended to heaven, it means he goes up to heaven. And now we know that he is our intercessor, he intercedes on our behalf between us and the God, he sits at the right hand of the throne of God. And this is what Hebrews is talking about this high priest that we come to know. Look what he comes to see about a God who would come down here to be like us, he says this, he says we also know that the son, he's speaking of Jesus, did not come to help angels, he came to help the descendants of Abraham. Jesus did not come because there was a problem in heaven, he came because there was a problem on earth, you and I are the descendants of Abraham. Therefore it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters. So that he could be our merciful and faithful high priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested. Now, this is a really profound deep thing, if you'll take the time to just kind of meditate on this truth for a minute, I'm gonna help you kind of walk through this because the fact that Jesus would come in his primary purpose, and in fact, Hebrews says that it was actually something that was necessary. In other words, before he could ever redeem, before he could ever pay a sacrifice, before he could ever be resurrected, ascended or an interceded for us, what was necessary was for him to become like you and I. I know that most of us, even without even thinking, we have a high view of God as we should be, right? He is God, he's all knowing, he's all things, he's in all places at one time, he creates the world, all of these things are true, and yet all of that deity becomes all human flesh when he's on earth. There was a devotional that I read just this last couple of months, and it really kind of brought home some of these thoughts and things, it's funny how sometimes you, I'll read devotionals from time to time, or book from time to time, and you read something, and you're like, I have been thinking about this very thing, like it's like God brought me to this thing to read, and it's a devotional by Jackie Hill Perry, and she writes about the incarnation, and it was perfect for me, and I wanted to just bring it to you and show you what she has to say about this incarnation. In the incarnation, Jesus became just as needy and as dependent as we are. Well, let that sit with you for a minute. We all fight so hard to not be vulnerable in this way. What's interesting about it all is that the projection of needlessness is in essence the mimicking of a deity, an attempt to be seen as a God without needs. We covet being something more than what we are, and the ironic part is that the incessant rejection of vulnerability, instead of being something that makes us strong, it ends up being completely exhausting. It's funny that we can sometimes buy into the illusion that the more competent we are, the more like God we are, that the less needy we are, the more like God we are, and yet we have this thing in Hebrews and in Philippians and in the Christmas story that tells us that Jesus actually came to earth to be needy, to be weak, to suffer, to do the life that you and I live every day, that's why he came. I think that this idea that she talks about is needlessness in this kind of projection of needlessness. It's like the hiding of vulnerability, that we buy into the idea that the more we hide our weakness, the more like God we're becoming, because obviously Jesus didn't have any weakness, he didn't sin, but that's the point of Hebrews. He did have weakness because he was just like you and I. Now, I think we kind of generally know that vulnerability has its advantages. One of the things that is fun to watch with young adults, because one of the first things you learn as you figure out, as you kind of mature and go out on your own, is to figure out the things that you're not good at, right? Sometimes they're the things that you think you're best at, but you're not good at them, right? And you're kind of learning who you are. Now, there's some things you're gonna discover you're not good at, that you need to be better at, and you get some training and get some learning under your belt and get better at the things you're not good at. But as you get older in your 30s and 40s and middle age, you for sure realize that there are just some things that don't bring me energy. And there's other things that I am completely energized by, because what you've learned to know yourself. You know your own weakness. And when we are at our very best is when we can recognize our weakness and go begin relationships or lead organizations or do our jobs in a way that we can backfill our weaknesses with other people's strengths, right? We've got to know ourselves. It actually makes us stronger to know what our weakness is. But this also plays out in relationships. I have a friend who is a dear, dear friend, one of my best friends. And I'll tell you that he is incredibly wise and he has a gift for saying the right thing at the right time, which is such an unappreciated gift in people when he says the right thing at the right time in the right way. And I love that about him. And we have so much in common as dads and is raising our families. We have a lot of the same hobbies. We get along, we laugh with each other, we've traveled with each other. I love him dearly, but can I be honest, the thing that has really made our friendship deep is that we've seen each other's weaknesses. He's watched me sob and cry when I felt so disappointed and hopeless about things that have happened in my life. I have sat with him and he's been in the midst of things that are so incredibly hard that the only thing you could even say is like, I'm so sorry, that's so hard. And that being vulnerable with each other, it has made our friendship deeper and richer and more meaningful, not because we hid what we were bad at, but because we were honest and vulnerable in front of each other. This also begins to affect even the relationship we have with God. If you come to God and you think that he's one who can't possibly tolerate your weakness, then you're kind of coming to God and you're disbelieving his mercy. You're coming to him with this idea that he can't really love me, he really knows me, he won't get it, he won't understand, he's gonna be disappointed in me. Jackie Hilperi goes on to really kind of ask this question on the devotional. She says that you can really tell a lot about God when you think about him in the midst of when things aren't going right. So I want you to think for a minute. This is your chance to think about your sin, you're welcome. I want you to think about a time when you've just really colossally messed up. Maybe you got caught. Maybe you came clean on your own. Maybe the mistake, the choice that you made to take an easy path actually caused harm to somebody that you love. But I want you to put yourself in that place, remember a time that you have been really wrong, you send. In that moment, how do you remember Jesus? Do you remember him as one who sits above in judgment, disappointedly looking at you thinking, "I did it with no sin, what is your excuse?" Why can't you figure this out? Why are we back here in the same place again? Why do we keep having this same conversation? How many times do I have to show you? Is that the Jesus that you remember in the midst of your sin? Or could you possibly remember a Jesus who says, "I 100% get what it means to be tempted." I know what it means to want to choose what is easy and not what is right. I know what it means to be confronted with injustice. I know what it means when someone lies to me. I know what it means to be betrayed. This is kind of the beauty of a God who would come and say, "I want my son to be fully human so that he could most identify with the weakness and the neediness of creation." This is a really kind of a beautiful thing that we have in Jesus. In Hebrews, chapter four, I don't have it on the screens because I want to read it slow enough. I don't want you to be distracted. But in Hebrews four, he kind of goes into this even in more explicit, implicit details. He says, "So then we have this great high priest who's entered heaven." He says, "Jesus is the Son of God and we hold firmly to what we believe." But look what he says here. He says that high priest he's talking about. He understands all of our weaknesses. For he faced all the same test and he did not sin. Because this is true, he gives us verse 16. Because he understands our weaknesses, we then can come boldly to the throne. We come to a gracious God who will receive us with mercy and we will find grace in our time of need. I know that none of us, we love to say, "I don't want your sympathy," right? And yet the reality of what we read in Hebrews four is that Jesus is empathy for us. It precedes his mercy. His sympathy for our situation, for what it means to be human, it holds hands tightly with the grace that he gives us. Now, I mentioned it earlier because I think one of the more obvious things that you expect a Christian to believe is that Jesus came so that we could be like him. And it's true, but maybe being like him begins with you learning to be comfortable with you first. That is your weakness and your things that don't work out so well and your frustrations with life that actually become the place for Jesus to show his most strength in your life. But there's no denying the fact that in that weakness that he enters into, it is an ultimate purpose here that Jesus has. And this is where we see it kind of played out in the crucifixion of paying the sacrifice and the resurrection of raising from the dead in the ascension to heaven and the interceding that he has done all of this for a purpose that's so that we can actually become like him. In the first Corinthians 11, there's this kind of, there's still a sentence at the beginning of the chapter where Paul tells this early church. He basically tells them that they should imitate him. And I always find that crazy because I feel like the last thing I would wanna say is imitate me. Sometimes I feel like I wanna say imitate me and do everything opposite maybe of what I've done, right? But Paul says imitate me. But the reason why he speaks boldly is the very next thing. He says imitate me as I imitate Christ. To become like Jesus is gonna require us to actually, first of all, know a little something about this life of Jesus. But it's also gonna require us to take steps that involve us imitating him. I'm gonna read you a quote from a guy that was so incredibly smart. Surin Kierkegaard was a Danish theologian. He was a poet. He was the first existential philosopher. Guys, I'm reading you something today that you can go away and say like you read something from a philosopher today. Like this guy was so, so smart. But there's something I wanna share a quote he said because he also was, he had a deep abiding faith. I mean, an incredibly deep faith in Jesus. And he's wrestling with this 300 years ago. Look what he says about this imitating of Jesus. He says to be truly redeemed by Christ is therefore to impose on oneself the task of imitating him. As man, Jesus is my model because as God, he is my redeemer. Christianity can be defined as a faith together with a corresponding way of life. Imitation of Christ. Unlike the admirer who stands simply aloof, the follower of Christ strives to be what he admires. Without this essential condition, all attempts to be a Christian are fruitless. Kierkegaard has come to something that I think a lot of us have come to at some point in our life of having to make a decision of will we be an imitator of the way of Jesus? Or will we simply be an admirer of the way of Jesus? You know, when I was a kid, I was a part of a phenomenon that kind of swept the world and especially evangelical subculture. And I got to tell you, I'm right in the middle. I am Gen X through and through, okay? I graduated high school in 1994. I am a '90s high schooler. That's all, that was all. I lived through some of the most ridiculous, crazy, evangelical times that ever existed. And they're highlighted by this one thing that kind of swept through all of our high schools and it was the, "What would Jesus do, bracelets?" Do you guys remember these things? WWJD, question mark. And it's really terrific. It comes from a book written in the '70s called "In His Steps" and "What Would Jesus Do?" And it kind of, it was created as a way to, especially for, it's crazy, I even read about it this week. It was created for teenagers to kind of push into youth groups and churches. Now, my wife and I were talking this week that we did not wear them in high school because we had friends who wore them because they claimed it said, "We want Jack Daniels." And we didn't want to be a part of that crowd, okay? And now some of you guys are gonna wanna go get the bracelets. I get it. You do want Jack Daniels. But no, we were like, no, we were even too pious for the, "What would Jesus do, bracelets?" But the idea was very, very simple. I think the idea on the surface was that it would be kind of front of mind for us of what would Jesus do in every particular situation. Now, as a teenager, there was one particular thing that was talked about a lot. And we'll just say that if you were confronted with pushing the boundary in some way, that the idea was that you would stop and see this thing on your bracelet, on your wrist, and you'd be like, "What would Jesus do?" He would not push this boundary, "Now I won't." Or maybe you're confronted to cheat on a test or you're confronted to lie about something to make yourself look better. And you're confronted with, "Wow, what would Jesus do?" Well, he wouldn't lie and he wouldn't cheat, so I won't do those things. And let me hear me say, "Yes, Jesus would not cheat on those things, okay?" If you're confronted with murdering someone in the bracelet saves you from doing that good for you because Jesus would not murder somebody, you know? And what happened is the bracelet's kind of pushed us towards like a piousness and they took on a tone of like morality, which is fine, okay? That's fine. The problem with what they eventually became is they were simply skimming the surface of what it meant to live our lives. I don't think that many of us wrestle over whether to lie or tell the truth. I don't think many of us wrestle or whether to rob a bank or not or to slander. Like some of us, I think we live our lives. We live genuinely thoughtful lives. We think about people around us and that keeps us doing a lot of the same things Jesus would do. But in the book from the '70s, the idea, in his steps, what would Jesus do? Had a much more deeper profound implication. Now remember, if the goal is to imitate Jesus, then maybe asking what Jesus would do involves asking some harder questions. What would Jesus do with the rampant consumerism in our society today? What would Jesus do with an environmental crisis that threatens the things that we leave to our children? What would Jesus do with the conflict, the confrontation and the hate and the anger that happens online and on social media? What would Jesus do with the depraved forms of entertainment that we put into our minds and our hearts? What would Jesus do with your wallet and your budget and your money in a world where people still die of hunger? Like these are really much deeper questions than should I lie or tell the truth. And yet to imitate Jesus requires us to kind of walk into these areas. If you think about a lot of the things we've talked, I just said, we all know what I meant by them because they're a part of our everyday lives. Really thoughtfully using the life of Jesus to become the lens or the filter, if you will, of how we see the world and how we live within it. Now to do this, it's gonna require us to know a lot about Jesus. I'm convinced that one of the reasons why we have four gospels is because the life of Jesus is so important, it's worth hearing it in four different perspectives, from four different men, for four different reasons, that it's really important that we look at the life of Jesus. If you're someone who's kind of struggling to know, where should I start reading my Bible? Start there, pick up the gospel of John. Just start in John, read about the life of Jesus, read about the way he interacted with the people in his life, his mother, his father, his brother, the disciples, the people around him who were sick, people that were demanding things of them, even up to his trial, as a betrayal. Just look at the life of Jesus, it's fascinating that you'll see the things that Jesus is wanting us to learn from his life. If you look at the Sermon on the Mount, specifically in Matthew, you'll see that he's kind of prophetically speaking of a kingdom that is to come, and it's a kingdom that we actually are living in now, even on earth. And one of the big things, and I'm not trying to boil down everything Jesus ever said, but I feel like this is an important enough point to say, that one of the things Jesus seemed to be kind of pushing as a prophetic thing for what he wanted his kingdom to be, was a dividing line that existed between sacred and secular being completely taken down. That he was advocating for a spirituality in which everything was sacred. That there wasn't a way for us to just hold some things off to the side as Christian, and this is my Christian part of my life, but what God would have to say doesn't apply to all of these other parts of our life. Now, I know that it is not wrong if you have a job and you want to put like a fish on your work truck, so everybody knows you're a Christian. That's fantastic, wonderful, good for you, I love it. I have no problem with that. But let's also be clear, being a Christian plumber doesn't necessarily make you an any better plumber, okay? That's my experience anyway. And sometimes telling people you're a Christian plumber doesn't even guarantee me that you're not gonna rip me off like a non-Christian plumber, you know? Like whatever you put on your truck or whatever you say and trying to kind of like fragment this part of your life, but I know what you're doing, you're thinking like, I am a Christian plumber, I want people to know I'm a Christian. Super, it's wonderful, I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is if we start to fragment our world and think that because I'm a Christian, that there's all these other things that my Christianity doesn't apply to. It's all sacred, all of it. He has come, Jesus has come not to fragment our world into different phases and different things that matter, but he wants all of it to be that yes, I am a Christian and I am a banker. I am a Christian and I am a teacher. I am a Christian and I am a mom. It's all sacred, all of it is sacred. Now, let me tap in here in these last few minutes to my dad heart for a minute. Because where a lot of this comes from, comes from a few fears that I have. Now, before you think for any minute that I'm picking on my kids, I'm not, because I have fear, the fear exists for you guys as well. And here's the fear. That if we don't really come to grips with the realities of the incarnation, then there's a couple of traps that we fall into. One of them is that we create a disappointed deity. If we don't see Jesus as one who's come to actually know your weakness, to actually know the temptations that lead you to your worst versions of yourself, then what happens is you've got a God who's always disappointed in you. And you've got to somehow hide your weak parts and your vulnerable parts from him. And you can't even be truly honest with him because you think that if you do, he's just gonna come down on you because he couldn't possibly understand. And just like the quote that I read early from Jackie Hilperi, "It's an exhausting way to live your life." But here's the other danger if you create a disappointed deity. It most likely becomes the deity that you're most likely to imitate. You begin to think of yourself as better when your sins are less maybe than somebody else's. And instead of identifying with the weakness of somebody around you, you don't identify with their weakness at all because you think God can't identify to your weakness. And so you then become some kind of subculture of special righteousness that can look down on anyone who's not like you. Tell me I'm not the only one who sees that in the world today. We have a God who came to be like you and me. He needed to know what it meant to be tempted and suffer. Why would I keep my weakness from him of all people? He gets it better than anybody else in this room. But there's another really big fear that kind of dovetails on the back end of this. Sometimes we think that imitating Christ involves doing things that really have nothing to do with Jesus. And we put these things on a list and we say, well imitating Christ looks like doing this thing or that thing or this thing. You know what I mean? Going to church, being a nice person, being kind most of the time, if not all the time. We just kind of figure out a categorization of what we're comfortable with what Jesus had to say. And we do those things and not really all of the things. And here's what happens when we do that. We've taken the message of Jesus and we've just dropped it into a bag of good ideas as another good idea. We've not let it permeate every facet of our lives. We've not applied the life of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus and the kingdom that he talked about to everything that we do. Can I tell you what I find myself sometimes pleading with my kids is to say, do you understand that Jesus actually cares where you go to college? He actually cares who your roommate will be. He gives deep thought to the kind of relationships and the people you date and the people you tie your life to. He cares deeply about the job and the career and the thing that you choose. He is not standing aloof watching you. He wants to be involved in all of it. We don't have a sacred part of our life where we do sacred things like sing songs or give money or listen to sermons or go to a small group or go to summer camp. And then we have all the rest of our life over here that involves us getting up and going to a job to just pay the bills. No, it's all sacred. And we have to be really, really careful here that we don't turn the beautiful message of Jesus that one would come to be like me so that I could be like him into just an ideology that is just one of many ways I can choose to live my life. It's my fear for us as a church that we give ourselves sometimes too much credit for the things that we think we should get credit for and then we don't leave ourselves open to God actually moving in our hearts. And that kind of leads me to like what do we do with this? I think that, you know, one of the first things you would do and I would just like plead with you to do is please, please, please, please keep your heart soft to the way of Jesus. You've got to keep your heart soft to the things of God. Over and over again, Jesus did it, Paul did it, Peter did it, this warning to God's people, don't harden your hearts. Allow your heart to be open to whatever it may be that the Holy Spirit is leading you towards. Listen, I recognize that coming to church is a big ask and I know that I've talked about it 'cause it's what we're doing right now. And I know that step one for you was probably setting an arm last night and step two is that you put your feet on the floor and got out of bed and you did all these things, right? And then you come here and I have this real worry for our churches that we think sitting in that seat, we've checked the box of connecting with God. And yet if your heart, your heart is hard, it's not gonna matter that you're here. It's gonna be bouncing right off of a hard heart. All the things in our life where we need Jesus to permeate, they're not ever gonna make their way because we're stubborn, because we're disobedient, because we don't think it's for us, because we think that God has disappointed in us, because I feel good enough about the things that I've already done today and my heart stays hard. And so I'm pleading with you, please, keep your heart open to the ways of God. Take time even away from this space to turn off a radio in a car and just ask Jesus, hey God, what do you want me to know today? What should I be aware of as I go throughout my day? Better yet, open a Bible, read one verse and just read it again five more times and just think about that verse for the next two minutes and that may be all you need to do to keep that heart soft in that moment. But please keep your heart soft, put yourself in situations, put yourself in places where even the hardness of heart can be broken down. And I recognize that sometimes being here is you doing that, you're putting yourself in a place where you're giving the Holy Spirit just a chance, a chip away at a heart that has lost its passion, that has lost its meaning for what all of this is, whatever this is. But there's another thing that we can do and I'm reluctant to say it because I worry that by saying it, you're gonna put me in a box because you expect me to say it, but James said it really well. James in his letter kind of makes it clear. He says, hey, there's gonna come a point that you're gonna believe and believe and believe and believe that that point is gonna be expressed by actually doing the things you believe. To imitate Jesus is gonna require obedience. It just is, there's no way around that, you guys. You are saved by grace through a gift of the Holy Spirit that you can have relationship with Jesus, but you will never be able to live a life that evidences faith if you don't obey. I am convinced that there's just some things that you can't fully understand until you obey. I think about forgiveness as an example. Forgiveness is such a warm sentimental idea. I don't think you have to be a Christian to understand that forgiveness is more good than bad. Then when people hurt you, you should say you're sorry. I think how many times your kids have done that and you've screamed at them, say you're sorry. Like we even kind of know that innately, right? Like we should say you're sorry. We know forgiveness matters and you can know it and I know a lot of people who know the truth of forgiveness. And yet they've not acted out forgiveness with obedience. And it is only when they take the courage and the bravery needed to actually obey the command to forgive, they come to understand the power of forgiveness. You just can't understand the power of it, thinking about it, you have to obey and move in that direction. The same is true of a generosity, of giving to the local church. You can talk, I mean, you guys, the Bible's so full of stuff about money. It's crazy how much there's stuff about money in here. Jesus himself said that it was blessed for you to be more blessed to give than to receive. But you know what? You're never gonna fully understand the expression of what Jesus was saying until you obey. And sometimes obedience is gonna come in spite of what you think you should do anyway. Sometimes obedience is not gonna make sense. You're gonna feel like, but I know that this is right. But that obedience, it's gonna bring health to your marriage or even your potential marriage. That obedience is gonna bring health to the way you parent your kids, to the way you manage your money, to the kind of worker you are at work that we express ourselves in obedience. Let me close with this idea and thought. I wanna be clear about something. I know that there are very few problems that can be solved in a guy like me talking for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning. I just, I know that that's the reality of the way life is, because I know that represented in this room, there are a lot of different paradoxes even out here in this room. There are things in your life that have never worked out the way that you thought they would. They're just disappointing. Maybe they're the decisions you made or decisions that have been thrust on you by others and you battle resentment and frustration and life just doesn't feel fair. I get that, I have some of those too. But I also know that in your life, there are probably things that worked out way better than you could have ever imagined. But there are things in your life that there are worth celebrating. If not even just the breath in your lungs and maybe the person that's sitting next to you. And so I know that I speak to an audience of people that have this one thing in common with Jesus. You know about the wonderful parts of what it means to be a human and maybe the wonderful parts of what it means to be in the community. And at the very same time, you hold the things that are really, really, really hard and not fair and don't seem like they've worked the way that God would have ever wanted them to. And I say all that to say, Jesus gets that too. He knows the paradox of your life that there is good and bad and hard and easy and frustrating and joyful. Because his life was all those things. I wanna close by just kind of praying a prayer of blessing. I worry sometimes as a person who grew up in church that when the pastor says he wants to pray, that usually means like he's hanging up the phone with God, you know, like we're kind of cutting off communication and we're gonna go on and do our thing here. And I know that obviously that means I'm coming to an end because I'm gonna pray at the end. But I wanna just pray a prayer of blessing over you if you'll let me. I'm gonna try to hold back a little bit, but I wanna be clear, like I feel like I want to just pray the blessing of a father on you today. Let me pray for us. Dear Heavenly Father. Oh God, thank you for the gift of your son who comes in perfection, fully God, and yet somehow comes to be fully like us. God, I pray that that reminder today, that it just marinate in our heart and in our soul, that we can begin to be like you when we first realize that you came to be like us. Father, I pray for the people in this room. I pray for just a blessing on their life to be able to sense and know when the Holy Spirit is moving things in their heart to break away the hardness that maybe has kept you out. Father, I pray for the children in this room. I pray that your Holy Spirit will just bring them the dreams and the hopes of heaven for their futures and what lays ahead of them. For the moms and dads and uncles and grandparents in this room, Father, I pray that you just give them the encouragement and the hope that while they follow Jesus, that they do it in a way that says imitate me as I imitate Christ. Father, I pray and beg for the blessing of your Holy Spirit on our lives today. That as we leave this room, as we go on to the next part of our lives, as we go on to the next things in our week, that the Holy Spirit would be sticky in our hearts and our mind and that it would stay with them and stay with us. Father, I pray that they'd be blessed as they leave this place today. That they're blessed because they are your brother and sisters in Jesus' name, amen. I love you guys, have a great day. We'll see you back next Sunday, I hope. (gentle music) - Thanks for listening. For more about Grace Community Church, check out graceclarksville.com. (gentle music) (gentle music)