Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] Amen.
[00:00:19] So about 10 years ago, there was a really famous 60 Minutes interview with Tom Brady. So if you're familiar with Tom Brady, some of you love him, some hate him.
[00:00:32] But Tom Brady says this, and I thought it was a really profound quote. Maybe you've heard this before, but I just thought, gosh, that's a really good.
[00:00:40] That's just a really good illustration of where so many people are today, not just people outside the church who are not yet Christians, but even us as followers of Jesus. This is what he says. At this point, he had only won three Super Bowls, so he went on to win four more, but at this point, he had only won three. But three Super Bowls. It's an incredible feat for any athlete, specifically a football player.
[00:01:01] There's, like, nothing higher that you aspire toward than winning a Super bowl if you're a football player. So this is what Tom Brady says. He says, there are times where I'm not the person that I want to be.
[00:01:14] Why do I have three super bowl rings? And still there's something greater out there for me.
[00:01:20] I mean, maybe a lot of people would. Maybe a lot of people would say, hey, man, this is what it is.
[00:01:26] I reached my goal, my dream, my life.
[00:01:30] I think, God, it's got to be more than this.
[00:01:34] I mean, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be.
[00:01:38] I mean, I've done it. I'm 27, and what else is there for me?
[00:01:42] And so as he's saying this, the interviewer says, well, then, what's the answer?
[00:01:47] And Tom Brady replies, I wish I knew.
[00:01:50] So that's a sad interaction for those of us who are Christians who know the answer to that question. Like, what's more satisfying than a Super Bowl? If you're a football player or a lot of money or a comfortable life or good health or a good marriage or good kids or whatever. Whatever the thing is for you or for me, what's more than that? Well, we know the answer to that question is Jesus, because that's what the whole book of Hebrews is belaboring to communicate to you and I this morning is that Jesus, the person of Jesus, is the supreme satisfaction for the soul of man.
[00:02:26] There will be nothing in this life that you attain or seek to attain that will satisfy your thirst and your hunger of soul than him.
[00:02:37] There's nothing higher than him. There's nothing better than him. Jesus is the supreme satisfaction for the soul of everybody person who's ever lived for all time. That's what the book of Hebrews on one hand is about the book of Ecclesiastes, which is an Old Testament book written by King Solomon late in his life, before his death. Says, then I considered all that my hands had done. King Solomon had everything. He had women, he had money, he had prestige, he had platform, he had power.
[00:03:11] He says, I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it. And behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind.
[00:03:23] So Solomon's acknowledging at the end of his life, I've had money, I've had jobs, I've had women, I've had pleasure, I've had power. And it's all vanity.
[00:03:36] That's like there's no other ancient document in the world that speaks to the human heart like that, human experience like that. Because it's true, isn't it?
[00:03:45] We know this experientially. We know that the thing that we think we need the most, when we get it, what do we want?
[00:03:53] We want more like that thing just never fully does what it promises to do or what we think it's promising to do.
[00:04:03] This is what Tom Brady's getting at. This is what Solomon is getting at. This is what you and I know experientially lives is. Nothing on this side of heaven will ever give you the satisfaction that you crave, but the person of Jesus. And so I want you to consider this question this morning as we get into this discussion that's really more. It's not so much about money.
[00:04:24] If you're here and you're a guest and this is your first time, maybe back in church, you're like, oh my gosh, I come one Sunday and they're talking about money. Not so much.
[00:04:31] It's not so much about money as it is about pleasure.
[00:04:36] So you can substitute that word money for anything. But here's what I want you to consider as we're thinking about this idea. What do you find yourself running to?
[00:04:48] To give you quietness of heart.
[00:04:52] All of us want a quiet heart.
[00:04:55] Would you guys agree with that?
[00:04:57] Everybody wants a quiet heart.
[00:05:00] We just don't want to feel anxious, we don't want to feel worried, we don't want to feel fearful.
[00:05:06] Our desire is contentment.
[00:05:11] So what is it or who is it that as you come into this place this morning, you're running to to find that?
[00:05:20] Where are you running to? To find the quietness of heart that your soul craves.
[00:05:26] Because that's what the Holy Spirit through the author is going to get at with us this Morning. Where do we find quietness of heart?
[00:05:34] What does that look like?
[00:05:35] To cultivate that.
[00:05:38] So let's look at verse five again. The book of Hebrews is about the supremacy of Jesus and the call to endure. If you're a follower of Jesus, you're not called to a one time prayer. You're called by the grace of God to endure to the end.
[00:05:53] That's a truly successful life. Not one that has a lot of followers or platform, but one who, by the grace of God has finished their race. Well, that's a successful life and that's what the book is about. So when we get into verse five, he starts off by saying, keep your life free from. Okay, so before we get into the money section, let's just start with this first phrase, because this is the command, keep your life free from. Another way to say this could be make sure that your character is free from.
[00:06:27] So he's telling you, he's telling me to do introspection on yourself. Make sure that your character, which is the impetus of who you are as a person, is free from. He says another way to say it would be, don't be obsessed with the love of money.
[00:06:45] Be obsessed with the love of money. Make sure that your character is free from. Isn't that amazing that Jesus came to give us freedom, like actual freedom from enslavement to things that can never satisfy us?
[00:07:01] So he's saying, make sure that your life, your character, is free from the love of money.
[00:07:07] So here's what he's not saying.
[00:07:11] He isn't saying that money is bad.
[00:07:14] We talked about this last week with sex, and it's no coincidence, as is nothing in the Bible is coincidental. All placed there by God, perfectly placed there, that sex and money are right by one another in Hebrews 13.
[00:07:28] Because again, what's underlying both of those things, both of those gifts is pleasure.
[00:07:36] And so he's saying, hey, don't lust after sex to make it something that it isn't and to do it in a context that God didn't intend for us to do it, namely outside of marriage between one man and one woman.
[00:07:50] And he's saying the same thing about money. He's saying, keep your life free from the lust for money.
[00:07:56] Okay? Lust is motivated by covetousness. It's I want that thing over there.
[00:08:03] I deserve that thing over there.
[00:08:05] That's what it means to lust after something. And so he's saying, keep your life free from the lust of money. Money, like sex, is not gross, nor is it God, meaning that it's not inherently bad. We shouldn't have this kind of theology of money that says every dollar we make, we should feel guilty about, and it's bad. That's not what the Bible teaches about money. There are all sorts of places throughout Scripture, many of them in the Book of Proverbs, that talk about money as being a gift. And what do we do with a gift?
[00:08:40] We steward it. We're called to steward it for the glory of God. We're called to be generous with it to the glory of God. These are. And then. And then we get to enjoy it.
[00:08:51] So again, there's a context to enjoy sex.
[00:08:53] There's a context and a right way to enjoy money.
[00:08:57] It's not gross. It's not God. Money is a gift.
[00:09:03] Sorry, I've got, like, a cold type thing going on, so forgive me.
[00:09:08] I was a part of a cohort before we planted Redemption Hill. And one of the exercises that they had us do in this cohort was to write down our money story. And it was just a really interesting exercise to look back over the course of my life and to see how has my belief in money today been shaped through my past?
[00:09:26] And we all have one of those. So we all think about money in different ways, by and large, based on the experiences that the Lord has providentially allowed us to walk through over the course of our life. Some of us are afraid of money. Some of us crave money. We're all over the place in this. Some of us look to money for comfort. Other of us don't care about it at all. Okay, so we're all over the place in that spectrum. All of us have a money story, but the short of it is to say that money is not gross. It's not God. Money is a gift.
[00:09:56] So he's not telling us to hate money. What he's warning against is this idea of the love of money or the lust of money.
[00:10:07] Jesus in Matthew 6:24 says, no one can serve two masters.
[00:10:15] So listen to what he's getting at.
[00:10:17] For he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
[00:10:27] You cannot serve God and money.
[00:10:31] So again, he's not saying money is bad, but Jesus knows something about. He knows everything about the human heart because he created it. But if you read the teachings of Jesus, it's like the best surgeon in the world who's just surgically working through to get to the inner recesses of our heart in a way that nobody else can.
[00:10:49] And he's drawing out this idea that so often for us, our deepest passions relate to money.
[00:10:57] Why?
[00:10:58] Because money brings stability, it brings comfort, it brings ease. And we just generally hate pain.
[00:11:08] We crave comfort. And money is one of the ways in our minds that we get comfort or that we get ease. And so Jesus is getting at that. And he's saying, in the kingdom of God and as a follower of me, you can't have one foot in and one foot out.
[00:11:25] You can't be a follower of Jesus and have one foot in.
[00:11:30] Part of my hope is in money, and another foot in and say, part of my hope is in Jesus.
[00:11:35] He's always working in our lives by the person and power of the Holy Spirit to free us from this thing over here, this comfort of money, which is an illusion.
[00:11:46] It does not provide true comfort.
[00:11:48] It comes and goes.
[00:11:51] So when people commit suicide because the stock market crashes, where's their hope?
[00:11:55] Okay, it's an illusion. It's not real. It doesn't provide actual comfort and satisfaction. Jesus does.
[00:12:03] And so he says, you can't serve both God and money. And then he goes on in the following verse, and he relates money.
[00:12:13] He says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.
[00:12:16] So in light of the passage about money, don't be anxious about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
[00:12:29] So Jesus is saying that if you lust after money, you're going to be an anxious person.
[00:12:37] If your primary affection and love and hope is in money or in anything else that you're seeking to give you a quiet heart, then you're going to be an anxious person. And so when we get into this passage in Hebrews 13, verse 5, more than likely the author is addressing the reality that these Christians that many people believe was a house church in Rome, that these Christians had already undergone many of their possessions being taken away by force in an act of persecution. He addresses this in chapter 10, verse 36. And so these Christians were fearful of that happening again.
[00:13:16] And so he's telling, he's encouraging them. He's not berating them, he's not getting onto them. He's lovingly, gently pastoring them. And he's saying, hey, don't let. Let your life be free from the love of money, even if they take your possessions again because of your faith in Jesus, don't lose hope.
[00:13:33] Don't quit on Jesus, because your life and your hope doesn't lie in those possessions. It lies in Jesus.
[00:13:42] And so it says, keep your life free from the love of money. And this is how they and we are to do it.
[00:13:52] Keep your life free from the love of money and be content.
[00:13:56] That's how we're to do it.
[00:13:58] So what's the combatant to the love of money? It's contentment.
[00:14:05] That's the means by which he's telling us to fight against. By the power of the spirit, the lust after money or lust after anything that you're seeking to give you a quiet heart other than God himself. So contentment. Here's what contentment is. And this is a definition given by a guy by a Puritan named Jeremiah Burroughs, who wrote a book.
[00:14:28] I don't remember the name of the book. Cause it's one of those mornings he wrote a book about contentment. And here's what he says.
[00:14:34] He says, contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit.
[00:14:41] That sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.
[00:14:54] So in other words, contentment is about having a quiet heart.
[00:14:59] It's what it means to be content.
[00:15:01] If we have a quiet heart, then what results from that quiet heart won't be a craving after more things.
[00:15:12] So contentment is a quiet heart. Paul talks about this in Philippians 4, 11, 13. And if you know anything about the apostle Paul, you know that Paul, in a loosely similar way to King Solomon, had many, many things.
[00:15:27] Jesus saved him as he was on his way to persecute Christians.
[00:15:31] Jesus speaks to him from the heavens, knocks him off his horse, sets him on a different trajectory in life, by which Paul spent the rest of his life as a church planter and missionary, going and preaching Jesus. And Jesus told Paul this after he saved him. Or he tells Ananias this after he saves Paul, who was one of Paul's first accomplices. He says, I'm going to show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.
[00:15:56] So Jesus saved Paul from a life of comfort that was all an illusion.
[00:16:02] He took him over and made him a follower of himself, by which he was going to spend many, many, many days suffering for the sake of the kingdom, so that he could have actual freedom.
[00:16:15] And Paul says this in Philippians 4 about contentment. He says, not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
[00:16:28] I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. And I just want to encourage you to lock in on those two words any and every circumstance.
[00:16:43] I have learned the secret, because it is that it's a secret, it's a mystery, this thing called contentment.
[00:16:51] I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. So that's not a verse about winning a football game. That's a verse about contentment.
[00:17:05] Paul saying, one of the most amazing mysteries that you and I could ever grow in in life is this thing called contentment. It's like an art.
[00:17:14] Nobody, none of us in the room on this side of heaven will master it, by the way.
[00:17:19] But we're all called as followers of Jesus to grow in this thing called contentment, this quietness of heart. Paul says, no matter what the situation is, whether I have a lot of money or I have no money, whether I'm in prison or, or I'm out freely sharing the gospel with people, whether I have a lot of friends or I have no friends, whatever the case is, I've learned the secret of having a quiet heart.
[00:17:44] The author of Hebrews, I think, gives us three things that help us cultivate contentment.
[00:17:53] So I want you to keep that thing locked in your mind of what or who do you run to? To. To. To gain or cultivate a quiet heart, whatever that thing is. And then I want you to contrast it with the rest of the verse in Hebrews 13.
[00:18:08] He says, Keep your life free from the, from the love of money and be content the first thing with what you have.
[00:18:17] How do we cultivate contentment? We're to first be content with what we have. This is all about the provision of God going to give you three P's, okay? Number one, the provision of God, be content with what you already have.
[00:18:40] Before I became a Christian, about a year and a half before I became a Christian, I had my first panic attack. I was a senior in college, visiting my grandmother. Woke up in the middle of the night, had a terrible dream, had a full blown panic attack. And if you've ever had a panic attack, then you'll, I hope, relate to this. But it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I mean, I felt like I was having a heart attack. I felt like I couldn't breathe, I was sweating, I was pacing the room.
[00:19:06] I thought, in that moment I have lost my mind.
[00:19:09] Like this must be what something like schizophrenia feels like, I don't know. But I thought I had lost my mind. And so I thought, I'm going to Go to bed and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and feel different. But I didn't. I woke up the next day and I felt the same. I felt worse, actually. And that went on for about two years.
[00:19:23] And so in the middle of that time, the Lord Jesus saved me, snatched me out of darkness and delivered me into his kingdom. He forgave me of my sin all. And so I was growing in joy. But I still struggle deeply with anxiety. And so I only share this to say that I understand there are people in the room who battle anxiety on a deep and profound level. And it's a.
[00:19:45] It is a terrible thing to have to deal with. It's very, very, very painful.
[00:19:50] I do believe that much of our anxiety, though I know it's more complex than what I'm about to say. Much of our anxiety derives from what's called the what if analysis.
[00:19:59] Anybody familiar with the what if analysis?
[00:20:02] What if this happens? Then that will be the result.
[00:20:06] Okay, what if I lose my child?
[00:20:09] What if I lose my spouse? What if.
[00:20:12] What if we go bankrupt?
[00:20:14] What if this ministry endeavor doesn't work?
[00:20:17] What if that person betrays me?
[00:20:20] Like, on and on and on it goes. We play this what if analysis in our mind, and that induces this thing called anxiety or worry. It just leads us to worry.
[00:20:32] And so I sympathize with that. I understand the pain that that causes. But what the author's really wanting to encourage us with is to recognize our propensity toward the what if analysis and then look to what we already have.
[00:20:48] Just spend a little bit of time looking to what you already have. There's a story of Korean orphans during World War II who were all packed into an orphanage.
[00:20:59] And these kids would freak out before they went to bed because they were worried that they weren't going to get bread the next day.
[00:21:06] So they'd get their food on a day by day basis. They'd get their food and then they'd go to bed. Or they weren't able to sleep because they were freaking out, worried about whether or not they were going to get food the next day. So the leaders of the orphanage did this brilliant thing. They started taking a small piece of bread from the following day and they started giving it to the kids to sleep with.
[00:21:24] So they could be reminded with that little piece of bread that, hey, we're going to be taken care of tomorrow.
[00:21:31] In infinitely greater measurements. This is what the Father has done for you and I through sending his son.
[00:21:38] The Father has given up everything by sending his only begotten son Jesus into the world who is himself the true bread.
[00:21:50] I love that Jesus refers to himself as bread and water. I love that because it, it tackles our senses a little bit and reminds us that, yeah, we can relate to being hungry, we all feel hungry. We can relate to being thirsty and being parched. And Jesus is like, hey, if you really want to be refreshed, believe in me.
[00:22:14] If you really want to be fed and you really want true sustenance, look to me.
[00:22:21] The Father has given us everything in sending us His Son, but He hasn't just given us his son. I mean, that would be enough.
[00:22:29] But look at what you already have. If you have a roof over your head, you should praise God for that.
[00:22:35] If you have food on the table, you should praise God for that.
[00:22:41] Thousands upon thousands of things that we take for granted and or overlook on a daily basis for the sake of focusing on the hard things.
[00:22:48] And this isn't a power of positive thinking kind of thing. This is just baseline Christian gratitude that we're talking about.
[00:22:56] And so he says, be content with what you have.
[00:23:00] That's an antidote against anxiety.
[00:23:03] And the second thing, he says, be content with what you have. For he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. So if the first point of cultivating contentment is, is the provision of God, the second is the presence of God, he says we can confidently say.
[00:23:28] Or he says he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you.
[00:23:34] This is the message of the Bible.
[00:23:37] The primary message of the Bible is God with us.
[00:23:40] That's the primary message, that through the person of Jesus, God has entered into human history, taken on human flesh, lived the life that we couldn't live, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the grave three days later as a person, fully man, fully God. God has entered in with this resounding message, I'm with you.
[00:23:59] So what the whole Bible is about. From Genesis 28:15, God tells Jacob, behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. Joshua 1:5. God says to Joshua, just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you.
[00:24:20] Matthew 1:23. Christmas text Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
[00:24:31] And then in Revelation 21:3, at the end of time, we get a little picture of heaven that says that the dwelling place of God is with man.
[00:24:39] God himself will be with them.
[00:24:42] This is the message. God, God with us.
[00:24:47] Joni Eareckson Tada is one of my favorite authors. And after she's a paraplegic, became a paraplegic when she was 13 through a diving accident and much older in life. Later in life, she was diagnosed with cancer. And on her way back from the diagnosis of cancer, she's with her husband in the car. And she just kind of comes to this realization.
[00:25:07] It's like we think all the time and we pray toward this, though maybe we don't use these words that we want heaven on earth now.
[00:25:14] And the way that we often think about heaven on earth now is how it's circumstantial.
[00:25:20] Like heaven on earth means nothing bad happens to me or my loved ones ever. That's heaven on earth, okay? But she says it's like the Holy Spirit just kind of brought this to mind. And heaven on earth now is not better circumstances. It's the presence of Jesus that's heaven on earth.
[00:25:40] And that, friends, makes you free.
[00:25:45] That makes you free to not have to strive after perfect circumstances, that you're never going to get on this side of heaven, which is idolatry, by the way, keeps you from that, Keeps me from that and reminds us that come what may, low, plenty, lot of money, no money, spouse, no spouse, kids, no kids, on and on and on it goes, that heaven on earth now is attainable to all of us in the person of Jesus.
[00:26:17] Jesus does not snatch Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego out of the fire, does he?
[00:26:23] He enters into it with them.
[00:26:27] And so the author's telling us, be content with what you have and be reminded of this, that God has promised you, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.
[00:26:38] So it's the presence of God. And then the last thing that cultivates contentment is the protection of God, says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me?
[00:26:57] The Lord is my helper, I will not fear.
[00:27:01] What can man.
[00:27:03] What can man do to me?
[00:27:06] You ever think about.
[00:27:08] I don't know, I think about these things can get a little bit analytical sometimes, how God protects us.
[00:27:15] Because if we think about that logically, sometimes we're like, okay, well, Christians are being killed all over the world.
[00:27:21] Like right now.
[00:27:23] It's happening all the time.
[00:27:25] Okay, so is God not protecting them or even us in our own lives? Like, bad things happen to us sometimes.
[00:27:35] Is God not protecting us? In those moments. So what does the Bible mean when it says that God is our protector? And so because God is our help, we need not fear? What does it mean? This is what I think it means, that nowhere in the Bible are we promised that God will protect our bodies.
[00:27:54] But everywhere in the Bible, we're promised that God will protect and preserve our souls.
[00:28:00] We're not promised easy circumstances, but what we are promised is a God who will never leave us, who will never forsake us, who is himself our helper. He's our helper.
[00:28:13] And so I'll just close with this quote, and then I'll repose the question to us and just want to kind of invite us to a little bit of an extended time of reflection as we think about these things.
[00:28:25] John Patton, who was a missionary to the New Hebrides Islands, filled at the time with cannibalistic people.
[00:28:32] Okay. He saw the need. He knew these people don't have access to the gospel. They don't have access to Jesus.
[00:28:39] I gotta go do it.
[00:28:41] Okay.
[00:28:42] So filled with joy in Jesus that he thought, even if they take my life, even if they kill me, it's worth it. Because Jesus is worth it. He shares this story.
[00:28:52] He says while he's on the island, he says, my enemies seldom slacken their hateful designs against my life.
[00:28:59] However calmed or baffled for the moment, he says, a wild chief one time followed me around for four hours with a loaded musket.
[00:29:10] And though often directed toward me, God restrained his hand.
[00:29:15] I spoke kindly to him and attended to my work as if he had not been there, fully persuaded that my God had placed me there and would protect me till my allotted task was finished.
[00:29:33] He says, looking up an unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus. I left all in his hands and felt immortal till my work was done.
[00:29:43] Trials and hairbreadth escapes strengthened my faith and seemed only to serve me for more to follow. And they did tread swiftly upon each other's heels.
[00:29:55] You hear what, what he's saying there? Fully persuaded, fully persuaded that none of us in the room are going to die early.
[00:30:04] Not a single one of us are going to die early, before our time, before the foundation of the earth. Whether you're a Christian or not, God set your days.
[00:30:15] He determined your days.
[00:30:18] He doesn't just know the outcome. He determined it and listen. And I just want to reason with those who are not yet Christians in the room. I hope that you see that as a better alternative than a random, meaningless universe.
[00:30:32] A loving God, a God who is himself love, determined Your days and mine, which means this. You and I are immortal until God says it's time.
[00:30:43] And that ought to lead you and I toward what the author is calling this church to. I will not fear.
[00:30:51] What can man do to me?
[00:30:53] He can take my life.
[00:30:55] He can malign me. He can make fun of me. He can call me names. He can misrepresent me. He can. Whatever, whatever, whatever. The thing is, I'm not going to fear man because ultimately, man has no say over my soul. My soul is forever protected by God in Christ. And the same is true for you. So I just want you to reflect upon this question this morning again. What or who do you turn to for a quiet heart?
[00:31:21] Where are we turning to for a quiet heart?
[00:31:24] The invitation to a quiet heart is available to you. This is not an unattainable thing, which is one of the things I love so much about Jesus.
[00:31:32] Jesus doesn't give us empty promises.
[00:31:35] He doesn't say, you know, you can do this, but really nobody can do it.
[00:31:40] That's not what he does.
[00:31:42] He invites us to believe upon him, to trust him.
[00:31:46] Some of you in the room need to trust him for the first time. You've never trusted him before. Maybe you're brand new to church. And we, gosh, we've prayed and prayed and prayed that God would continue to bring in people who don't know Jesus. What a joy.
[00:31:59] I remember being 21 and not knowing Jesus and knowing that Christians were praying for me during that time and that God loved me during that time. It's just an amazing thing to think about. You're here for a reason.
[00:32:12] And maybe you're here because you've never put your faith in Jesus and you need to do it today. We're going to baptize in a couple of weeks, and that's your time.
[00:32:18] If you're like, I don't know if it's my time, it's your time. If you've never been baptized as a Christian, that's your time. In a couple of weeks, like, just accept it. You're here. You could be a thousand other places. I passed by baseball game after baseball game after baseball game this morning, coming to church, you could be a thousand other places, but you're here at church because the Holy Spirit's working in you.
[00:32:40] Accept it.
[00:32:41] Jesus is amazing. There's nobody better than him.
[00:32:46] And for those of us who are Christians in the room, be reminded of that today.
[00:32:50] Let's spend a few minutes repenting.
[00:32:53] Let's spend a few minutes, man. If you want to come up to the altar. There's nothing weird about that. I'll be up here. I've got things to confess from this week.
[00:33:01] Places that I've run to to give me quietness of heart and peace of mind and comfort that are not Jesus. I need to confess that this morning. You need to confess that this morning.
[00:33:13] And then to be reminded that he's never left you.
[00:33:15] He knew that you were gonna look to those other places. And you're here because he loves you and because he's after you. And so let's enjoy the gift of forgiveness together this morning. Does that make sense? All right. I'm gonna pray, and then the band is gonna come up, and I'm going to invite you to respond as the Spirit leads you to respond. And. And then we'll take communion. We'll come get the elements, we'll go back to our seat, sing a song, and then we'll take communion together. But let's just spend a few minutes praying and responding to the Lord.
[00:33:59] Sam Sa.
