Yahweh Is Slow To Anger

Moan, spouse.

Good morning, good morning.

You are if you're a student, you're dismissed.

And if you're not a student, welcome.

Happy to see you.

Glad you're here.

Bless you.

We are shortening the regular service time, hopefully by a few minutes, Lord willing, so that we can have a little time for some talking.

Hello.

Hello.

How was your vacation?

Oh, it was good.

It was good.

Twenty-two brands under one roof.

How could that not be good?

Twenty-two.

It was a lot of people.

It was a lot of people.

We did it.

We did.

We did it.

Now we're home.

Hooray.

Where there's only two people.

Yes.

And that's kind of nice.

Yes, very nice.

Noah taught us the way to do it.

So anyway.

No announcements, I guess.

So that's good.

That's a blessing.

We're in the middle of a study right now in Exodus 34, really 6 and 7, but primarily on verse 6, where God declares to Moses in a storm while he's in a cave up on the side of Mount Sinai, literally begging for the salvation and the forgiveness on behalf of his people, the Israelites, and begging God to show them mercy.

And God is hurting because he's just witnessed the betrayal of his brand new bride.

He hadn't been married just a few days, and his bride betrays him and rejects him and rebels against him.

And he's hurting.

But in the midst of this pain and I'll just say pain.

I would just leave it at that for right now.

He reveals himself to his people by saying these words.

Yahweh, Yahweh, a God of compassion, a God of grace, a God who is slow to anger, a God who is abundant in covenant love and in faithfulness.

And I wanted us to just take some time and look at those five words and what they mean, what God is trying to convey to us through those five words.

They were, as I've said every week, they're obviously very significant, those five words, because they're the most quoted verses or the most quoted statement, five attributes, in the entire Bible.

They're quoted well over 30 times, 33, 34 different times, and maybe even more than that, but at least that many times.

And so the other Bible writers saw those qualities, saw that statement as incredibly important and revealing in their understanding of who God is.

And that's what we're looking at.

Last week we looked at the middle phrase, God says I am slow to anger, and we're going to continue that thought today.

We learned last week that in the Hebrew way of thinking, to say that you are slow to anger, that's not what your, that's what your Bible says.

But in the Hebrew, the original way that Moses wrote that, what Moses wrote was, God is long of nose.

Or he is long-nosed, conveying the idea that it takes God a long time before his face changes, before his countenance changes to hot.

And we looked at that and what that means and why that's important.

But the Bible also says that Yahweh can become hot nosed.

That's the word for anger.

Yahweh can become hot nosed.

And we looked at a little bit about that as well.

God getting angry is a difficult idea for a lot of us.

We don't like thinking about God that way.

Some of it has to do with our culture.

Our culture would value calmness and tranquility and not being affected by your environment or by the actions of others.

We would place that on a higher level than we would anger.

We see anger as a negative quality, and our culture would convey that to us.

We also would struggle with anger, depending upon Sherry wouldn't struggle with it as much as I would, because if you grew up in a home where anger was often over the top, disproportionate to whatever the problem is that caused the anger, we would also struggle with anger and the idea that God would feel anger toward us.

It's a difficult idea.

It's a negative quality.

But just because our culture and maybe our personal experience would devalue or even view negatively the idea of anger or even the ideas of emotion, strong emotion, whether it's way over here on the good side or way over on the bad side, just because our culture, our personal experience would see that negatively, that doesn't mean that's true.

And I would tell you, like I did last week, that according to the scripture, emotion is not in and of itself bad.

Anger is not in and of itself bad.

It is uh it's actually, according to scripture, an aspect of someone that has healthy emotions.

In fact, you see that in the life of Christ, don't we?

You know, where the with the apostles, with the disciples, they ask the same questions over and over and over and over and over.

And and then he will deliver Jesus is long suffering, he is long in the nose, he delivers the the truth to them, and then they say, Yeah, but which of us is going to sit beside you in in heaven?

You know, they miss the whole thing.

He's very patient with these disciples who just won't listen or can't listen.

But then when it it comes time to show anger in the temple where people are abusing the temple, he's able to do that.

So we see that.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

That's a great example.

You know, God incarnate.

And that wasn't that Jesus took a step down emotionally from being happy and calm and peaceful to getting angry.

He didn't take a step down.

It's another facet of healthy emotion.

Anger is actually a gift when it's given in wise, balanced ways.

It communicates to us.

Uh my wife, when I say she rarely gets angry, um, I could probably count on two hands the times in over 40 years that you've been angry.

And I caused every one of them.

But when she does get angry, it communicates to me, if I'll allow it, wow, this is important.

This matters to her.

This is a big deal.

For her to get angry, it communicates importance, it communicates seriousness, it communicates love and care.

We get angry about the things that we care the most about.

If nothing else, and um, August, I appreciate what you said about the study we're in.

To me, one of the things that I've taken away from this, the bigger study, uh, is just the reminder that God is not a force.

He's not a power, he's not an idea.

God is a real person.

He has real emotions, including anger.

Now, his anger is never capricious, it's never random, it's never uncontrollable, it's never abusive, it's never disproportionate.

And that's that's the where we have our struggles with anger, I think, when anger is disproportionate, when it's abusive, when it's manipulative, when it's capricious, when we don't even know when it's coming or when it's uncontrollable.

Um but the point that I want us to think about today is just the declaration where the Bible says that God is slow to anger.

It doesn't say God doesn't get angry.

God does get angry.

God gets hot of nose.

Now it begs the question: when does God get angry?

And that's what we're going to look at today.

Um, I can go on and summarize it for you.

God gets angry when he sees those that he loves hurting themselves or hurting others.

That's when God gets angry.

God didn't get angry when you dent his car or drop.

Um, you know, I usually get angry.

I'm ashamed, but you know, my daughter has got a zillion wonderful qualities.

A zillion.

No kidding, I've counted them.

Um being careful about not knocking over her drink at mealtime, that wasn't one of them.

And literally got to the point where at some point I would just go on and I would pray over the food, and then I would knock the drink over.

I'd say, got that out of the way.

Now, now we can move on, you know, because it was gonna happen.

And I was sitting there tense, waiting to see when it's gonna happen, you know.

She just um God doesn't get angry about, and that's the issue.

God gets angry.

He just doesn't get angry over the things that we normally get angry about.

He gets angry when he sees those that he loves hurt themselves and hurt others.

I mentioned last week, and I'd love more time that we don't have today, but just I think it's worth you hearing one more time.

There are exceptions to what I'm about to say, but they are rare and far between.

They're few and far between.

The overwhelming majority of the time, when the Bible talks about God being angry and punishing people, 85-90% of the time, if you'll read the passage carefully, there are exceptions, I yield, but if you'll read the passage carefully, what it says is God turns, in God's anger, he turns people over to what they want anyway.

God does not express his anger by zapping people, sending plagues, hurling lightning bolts and floods and earthquakes and pestilence and oh, I got cancer, God must be mad at me.

So God sent that disease on me.

That's what we think God's doing when he's that is not the that is not the pattern of God's behavior when it comes to his anger.

God actually overwhelmingly expresses his anger by just releasing us to getting what we want.

The way the Bible says it is, he turns us over to our own desires.

He just says, Okay, it's like it's not that God gets mad and shoves us over the cliff.

We're struggling.

I want to jump, I want to jump, I want to jump, and God's holding us back in the slowness of his anger.

He's holding us back.

But finally there comes a point when God gets up and says, Dead come it.

And he just lets go.

He says, if that's what you want, you knucklehead, dang you.

And he lets go.

And we go over the cliff.

God didn't push us over the cliff, he just lets us have what we want.

Proverbs chapter 1 says it best.

Proverbs 1 · chapter mention

They would not listen and spurned my rebuke.

This is God speaking.

So they will eat the fruit of their own ways.

God begs us.

This is the way to life.

This is where you'll find joy and peace and satisfaction.

But we will not have it.

I want this, I will, and finally a day will come when God says, okay.

And he lets go.

It's not that he doesn't love us, it's not that he changes his love for us, as Chris's song reminded us earlier.

It's just that he says, okay.

Have it your way.

Paul says it this way.

Three times in Romans chapter 1, Paul says this.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

God turns us over to the consequences of our own rebellion and our own selfish choices.

God doesn't have to punish.

We do such a good job of doing it ourselves.

And I want us to understand that.

So, in the time we got left, God has slowed anger.

But he does get angry.

He does get hot nose.

And I think it begs the question: what does God get angry about?

If God gets angry, what does he get angry about?

I'd like to know, wouldn't you?

I mean, to me, that's a good thing to know.

It's interesting.

Why does Yahweh get angry?

In the scriptures, I find it very, very interesting.

Actually, more than interesting, I find it significant.

God does not get hot in the nose one time in the book of Genesis.

Oh, yeah, well, you know he gets hot nosed in the book of Genesis.

Adam and Eve must have made him mad when they said, God, we don't trust you.

We don't trust your love for us.

We think you're trying to pull a fast one over us and gip us of the really good stuff, so we're gonna take matters into our own hands, and we're gonna, by God, we're gonna get us some fruit that'll help us know what's really going on around here.

Never once does it say God got mad or angry.

God got angry with the flood.

Not once.

Never once does it say that God got hot in the nose over the flood.

God surely got angry over Sodom and Gomorrah.

If he's ever gonna get angry, he's gonna get angry about that.

Never once did he get angry.

Never got angry over uh Abraham and uh, oh, what's that?

What's that woman's Hagar?

He about, you know, Abraham and Sarah, I'm gonna give you a kid.

Just trust me and be patient.

I've got this.

I've got your body parts, Abraham, I've got your body parts, Sarah.

Just trust me.

Nope, we're not trusting you.

We're gonna handle this ourselves.

We can do a better job than you can.

So they tried their best to mess the whole thing up, but never once does the Bible say that God got angry.

God never once does it say that God got angry at Isaac, Jacob, Jacob says how they treated hello um how they treated um Joseph, never once in the book of Joseph.

I hate this thing.

Um let me get this other thing.

That's the most aggravating thing in town.

Uh give me just a second.

Never once in the book of Genesis.

But when we come to the book of Exodus, you actually have to use Yeah, I got you.

Lord help me to be long of nose.

Um, but in the book of Exodus, God gets angry three times.

I find those three times very significant and very convicting.

Let me just for the sake of time, let me let's let's look at them real quickly.

Do you know the first time God gets angry and who he gets angry at?

Okay, is it she doesn't?

I don't think she knows this.

Is it is it about the Ten Commandments when they That's the third time.

Oh, then no, I don't know the first time.

First time God gets angry in the Bible, and it happens to be in the book of uh Exodus, it's in chapters three and four.

God gets angry at Moses.

God gets angry at Moses.

Striking the rock?

Oh Lord.

Okay, I'm done.

I'm done.

I'm done.

No, no.

I'm done, I'm done.

Uh um God comes to Moses.

So you don't have to hold your own.

Sure, sure, pal, let me.

There we go.

God bless you.

God bless you.

God bless your ministry.

Um got it upside down.

There you go.

It's upside down.

There we go.

I'll hold this.

You can do it.

Okay, good.

Okay.

Okay, there you go.

All right.

Um Moses has been supernaturally, if you will, delivered from death by Pharaoh.

Mom puts him in a little basket, saves his life, winds up with the best of both worlds.

He gets to be reared by his Hebrew mom, hearing all about Yahweh and God's promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and, you know, the whole deal.

But he also gets to be reared in the finest schools and culture of Pharaoh's house.

God did that.

Only God could do that.

Moses realizes at a very early age there's something unique about my life.

God has a purpose for me that is different and special.

And he was getting glimpses that it involved delivering God's people.

So he sees a soldier killing or beating a Hebrew slave.

Moses steps in at the wrong time and responds in the wrong.

He's also hot of nose, but he shouldn't have been, and uh has to flee Egypt, goes to the very part of the world where he's gonna one day lead God's people so that he can get to know the land and how you survive in this very rugged uh environment.

And um God continues to bless him and help him and protect him and guide him.

One day God appears in a burning bush to Moses.

Summarize this whole thing real carefully, or real quickly.

God says, Moses, I have been here, I have heard the cries of my people and your people long enough.

I'm done.

I can't stand it anymore.

You and I are gonna go to Egypt and we're gonna set my people free, me and you.

And Moses begins this long, Lord, I can't do it.

They won't listen to me.

I don't even know what name to call you.

Uh I'm not skilled, I'm I'm not a good speaker, um, uh, I there's no way I can over and over.

God, I cannot participate in what you're doing.

I you I and what God basically says over and over again is Moses, will you not trust me?

Have I not demonstrated to you from the from your birth to this day, eighty years has there been a day I wasn't faithful?

Has there been a day that I wasn't trustworthy?

Has there been a day that I've let you down?

One day, why won't you trust me?

Moses continues, there's no way I can do it, God.

There's no way I can do it.

And finally the Bible says this God got hot in the nose.

God got angry.

Because Moses would not trust him.

Moses rejected God's strong invitation to participate in his redemptive plans for his people.

Second time God gets angry, you would know this one.

He gets mad at Pharaoh.

God sends Moses, because the truth is, God loves Pharaoh every bit as much as he loves Moses.

God loves the Egyptians every bit as much as he loves the Jewish people.

So he sent, if he didn't, why didn't he just go down there and go smush all the Egyptians and Pharaoh and save all that time and those frogs and the lice and the flies and the blood.

Skip all that and just smush them.

No, no, no.

He loves everybody.

And so he sends Moses to Pharaoh and eleven times God threw Moses as Pharaoh.

This is what I'm doing.

This is the plan.

This is the truth.

This is the way.

This is the life.

Please participate.

Please participate.

I'm inviting you.

I'm inviting you to go from being the enemy to the superstar.

I'm inviting you to move from being a tyrant to being a tool of God that is used to change history for good.

Sound right?

Sound good?

Want to prove?

No.

I will not.

I will not.

Okay.

And the Bible says that God's nose burned.

Doesn't just say got this time.

It says God's nose burned hot toward Pharaoh.

The third time the Bible or Exodus says that Yahweh got angry, that his nose burned hot is in Exodus 34.

Exodus 32, 33, and 34, where the people of God, they've just married Yahweh.

Yahweh's just opened up his heart, given them his life, made them all these covenant promises, revealed all these plans for the future, and literally before the ink on the marriage license is dry, they're out committing adultery.

And the Bible says that Yahweh, his nose burned hot.

God invites Israel into an eternal covenant relationship, and Israel responds with rebellion, rejection, and betrayal.

We would sit there and we would go, man, that's bad.

That's bad.

It's bad that Moses wouldn't trust God.

It's bad that Moses would say, no, I'm not going to participate in your redemptive plans for others.

That's bad, isn't it?

How about you?

How about me?

How often is God inviting us to participate in his redemptive plans?

Maybe the neighbors next door.

Maybe a coworker.

Maybe somebody on the side of the street.

Maybe somebody down at the mission.

Maybe a family member that you've spent 20, or seems like 22 days, spent seven days with 22 people.

And God wants you to be the one that shows love to the one that nobody else really, that everybody else just puts up with and endures.

God says in Numbers 23, has God ever spoken and failed to act?

Has he ever promised and not fulfilled it?

It's bad that Pharaoh would reject God.

That he would just say, no, I will not give in.

I will not yield.

I will not submit.

After God repeatedly said, Pharaoh, I'm warning you, I'm warning you, I'm shining my light in front of you to show you what's ahead if you embrace my plan and what's ahead if you don't.

And Pharaoh says, no.

Solomon saw this in Proverbs 29.

He said, He who continually rejects instruction and rebuke will suddenly and permanently be destroyed.

Again, I have to ask myself the question.

I can pretend all day long that I'm some Bible quoting, prayer mumbling, whine, uh pusher away, or if there's another word for it.

But uh uh, you know, I'm a pretty nice person.

But how often have I known very clearly what God wanted me to do?

And I said, no.

I don't verbalize it, but my actions and my choices scream loudly.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna forgive you.

I'm not gonna go and show you love.

I'm not gonna change my behavior.

I'm not gonna go and get the help that I need so that I can change my behavior.

I'm not gonna sacrificially invest in God's kingdom if it means not getting to do what I want.

I'm not gonna do it.

I'm not.

It's terrible that Israel would look somewhere else for satisfaction, for contentment, for fulfillment, for excitement, rather than looking to their relationship with Yahweh.

That's terrible.

The Apostle John spoke of it in Revelation 2.

He said, I have this against you.

You have departed from your first love.

And again, I have to ask myself, surely she knew me when I first became a Christian.

Man, there was nowhere in the world I'd rather be than the house of God.

You couldn't have asked, you couldn't have offered me another activity and pulled me away from the house of God.

You couldn't have stopped me from reading this book on a daily basis.

You couldn't have stopped me from praying.

You couldn't have stopped me from doing the things that I knew God was telling me to do.

But you know, over the years, that youthful excitement and that that youthful enthusiasm, and you know, but you you get over that, right?

Sort of like you get over your honeymoon feelings with your mate.

And then one day, hmm, maybe there's something else out there.

This is sort of, maybe there's something else out there where I can find some excitement and some fulfillment and some satisfaction rather than looking to the places that God created me to look.

Oh.

You mean I might be making God angry?

Maybe it's not just Moses, maybe it's not just Pharaoh, maybe it's not just Israel.

You may, could I do anything that would stop God from loving me?

No.

No.

But we can get angry with people that we love.

In fact, I would even suggest, could you can you really get angry at people you don't love?

Do they matter that much?

But the people that we love the most, they're the ones that we can get angry with.

And I matter a lot to God.

Therefore, maybe I can make God mad at me.

The Bible doesn't reveal, as I've said before, the Bible doesn't reveal the God that I want.

The Bible reveals the God that is a God who gets hurt, a God who feels betrayal, a God that gets angry.

And he gets angry when I will not trust and participate.

He gets angry when I won't listen and repent.

He gets angry when I reject and I betray and I turn away from it.

And that's something that I needed to be reminded of this week as I study these things.

But the good news is, and we'll end, God is slow to anger.

He is long-nosed, not hot-nosed.

At his core, God is not hot-nosed, he's long of nose.

That's why the psalmist says in 78, but God being compassionate forgave their iniquity and didn't destroy them.

And he often restrained his anger and wrath.

Paul said in Romans 2, do you think lightly of God's rich kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance?

And then Peter says in 2 Peter 3, God is not slow about his promises, as some people count slowness, but he is patient towards you, not wishing that any would perish, but that all will come to repentance.

Last verse and we're through.

Ephesians 2.

Paul says, we all, that includes me and you, we all used to live like unbelievers, selfishly doing what we wanted, just pleasing ourselves, and like the rest, we were by nature deserving of God's wrath.

But because of God's great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our sins, for it is by grace we have been saved.

Hooray that God is slow to anger.

Anything you want to add, friends?

Just amen.

I love you.

Okay, we're gonna take the Lord's Supper.

You didn't believe that would never happen, do you?

Okay.

Um, John, you and Rachel want to come help me.

And um, Tim and Esther, y'all want to help me, please?

Y'all can come on one side.

We're gonna take the Lord's Supper before we have a little chat.

And uh, as you hear me say on a regular basis, we celebrate the Lord's Supper, the symbols of Jesus' body and blood every week for different reasons.

There is no reason more important than to celebrate God being slow to anger, and his willingness to pour out his anger ultimately on his son.

Rather than pouring it out on those deserted, God has poured out his anger, his wrath on his son, and let Jesus suffer my demands to get my way and the consequences that created.

God poured that out on his son so that I could experience the blessings, the joy, the favor, the forgiveness, the healing, the redemption of the Son of God.

Jesus took what I deserved, and I got, I was given what Jesus deserved.

That's the best news any of us will ever hear.

That's the gospel.

Jesus took what we deserved so that we could experience what he possesses.

What he possesses.

If that is your hope today, if that is what you're trusting in, the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, if that is your hope for the future, then I invite you to come and to take bread.

You can, there's cups, open cups, and you can pull some bread from here, or there's covered cups that have the wine and the bread inside them.

But are you come and eat and drink and give thanks that the God of the Bible truly is slow to anger?

Y'all can be seated.

Thank you, Christopher.

That was great.

That's one of your best.

Um Shirley and I were gonna, we wanted to share with y'all just for a couple of minutes.

Um of you that are newer to our church, ten years ago, almost exactly, um, a handful of people that are in this room came and chatted with me and with us about starting a new little church.

And um I felt like that was the right thing for us to do, and they wanted to do that, and so we began that, and we for a year we met in three different homes.

I think that's right.

And then we met for nine years or eight years, whatever it was, at the Botanic Gardens, and uh, and then we wound up meeting here, and um this little church um has been a very unique little spiritual community of people that, in my opinion, in my observation, really have, as a community, have sought to know and love God, and know and love his word, and know and love each other, and we're trying to know and love the community that we are a part of, the Memphis community.

And for ten years, God has been incredibly faithful to provide for us, to protect us, to bless us, to meet every need that we have ever had, every need.

We have never had a need that our church did not experience God's provision.

I'll give you just an example.

It makes me so proud.

I've got a little friend named Guy that is in the Methodist Central Hospital, and he didn't have anybody in this city that cares or knows him, cares about him at all.

He's up there by himself.

And um I was, I've been, I tried to go see him every day, every morning.

And I was out of town last week with Sherry Lee on vacation, and I couldn't go see him.

And so I sent out a little text to um, I don't know, five or six, seven people, and immediately filled up the whole week so that he got a visit every day this past week while I was out of town.

That might not seem like a big deal to you, and it isn't a big deal if you have people that are loving on you every day.

But he doesn't have anybody.

And it's a big deal for somebody to walk in his room with a smile on their face and to show him some love and read the scripture to him and pray over him.

That's a big deal to him.

And I'm so thankful to be a part of a little church that cares about that kind of deal.

And I would just tell y'all that for the last 10 years, being a part of this church as its pastor has been the best ten years of my life.

It's been an incredible joy.

There's never been a pastor that was more blessed than I have been being a part of this church.

It has just been, y'all have been very kind to me and patient and um long of nose, and um, and I'm grateful.

I really am.

God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams here.

During COVID, I began to recognize that God was wanting me to retire.

I have not had a day that I can think of where I didn't have a job since I was 14 that I can remember.

And um the idea of not having a job is a deal for me, it really messes with my mind because it's who I am, it's my identity.

And I know that's not what you're supposed to say, but I I can't help that.

But it is.

And um, but I during COVID, I began to realize that I've been I've been pastoring for 40, over 40 years, and I just it was time.

And so I began to think about that, pray about that, and uh I began to meet our church is led by a little group of people that I call the the C3 leadership team, and uh seven people, and um I began meeting with them and telling them, this was I guess two or three years ago, I said, guys, I feel like it's it's getting close to the time when I need to retire, and y'all need to be um coming up with a plan to transition from me to someone else.

And I just began to realize, and I every day since I began to realize this back during COVID, the realization has become more clear and more powerful in my life.

God's word, God's Son, God's love, uh, God's spiritual community, those things don't change.

The gospel, it never changes.

But the way the church presents the gospel, teaches God's word, impacts its community, the way there comes different seasons when the church needs new vision, new direction, new leadership.

The church, our church, and every other church, we're facing new challenges, a new culture, new needs and opportunities that require new methods and new leadership.

And to be honest with you, I'm not trying to sound humble, but the needs that this church faces to enter into this new season, they're beyond my Things.

They're beyond my strengths.

They're beyond my training.

I'm not able to lead y'all like you need to be led.

And again, I'm not trying to sound humble or anything like that.

I'm just telling you the truth.

And so I began to meet with the leadership team about creating a new transition plan.

And they have spent the last couple of years doing some very serious research and investigation and prayer and discussion.

And they have worked very faithfully to create a new plan and a new direction for our church.

And Zach Smith and John Hahn, who are a part of the C3 leadership team, they're going to come up here.

Y'all can come on up.

They're going to come up and talk to y'all about this new plan.

But I just I just wanted y'all to know I'm going to be retiring this fall.

And they'll tell you more about that.

But uh Shirley and I aren't going anywhere.

This is our life.

I mean, this is where this is this is my life.

And I'm not going, we're not going anywhere.

We're going to be a part of this church.

And I'm just going to transition from leading it to being to participating in it.

And I just wanted y'all to know that.

I just I want to serve the Lord with you rather than leading you to serve the Lord.

And uh, like I said, we're not leaving, going anywhere.

Um just gonna be a new role here.

And uh I want you to listen to them and they can tell you a little bit more about the plan.

Uh I just would tell you what they're gonna share with you is their plan.

It's the leadership plan, it's not my plan.

Um I I did not come up with this.

This was them.

I think it's a good plan, and I'm gonna uh commit my family to the plan, but it's their plan that they felt like God wanted.

And uh anyway, I hope that makes sense, and um, yeah.

So thank you, Larry.

Will the members of the leadership team come up and join us?

Come on.

I know in this moment we all want to express to Sherry and Larry how much we we love and appreciate them, but I've got the mic, so um Larry Ray, I'm my life has forever changed because of your ministry.

Um we could go around the room and everybody would say that their life has changed because of God's work through you.

So thank you.

Um we're glad that you're gonna be participating here with us.

So I plan on serving alongside you till the day one of us is gone.

So let's do this.

All right, on behalf of the C3 leadership team, I can report that we have unanimously chosen a new pastor.

So our emotions are mixed, obviously.

We're certainly sad that Larry's time as pastor is coming to an end, but we're uh very thankful and incredibly excited about our new pastor.

So Zach's gonna introduce him in just a second, but before he does, we believe it's important to share some key elements of the process that led us to this moment.

So Larry talked a little bit about the timeline of when he notified us, and again, his intent in giving us an early notification is so that we would have ample time to find the best man to lead C3 into the future.

So more than a year ago, we went to work looking for a new pastor, and we want to highlight three important details about the process.

So, first, before ever interviewing a candidate, Tommy led us through what proved to be a foundational exercise in identifying and committing to the character traits of the leader who is best suited to lead C3.

Second, Larry did provide general guidance regarding the structure of the process, and he was certainly praying for us, but he did not participate in recruiting, interviewing, or selecting the new pastor.

And third, we zeroed in on one candidate and one candidate alone, who we believed was the absolute best man to lead C3.

And God gave us our man.

So, C3's legacy of loving Jesus, loving others, and loving the study of God's word will be in good hands.

So, with that, I'll turn it over to Zach.

You gave me the fun job, I didn't have to do all that.

Uh and I'll I know that for the rest of us, like John said, Larry, just thank you.

Thank you from everybody in this room.

We really appreciate it.

Uh, Colin, if you'll do that, I'm not gonna drag it out.

Um, we've decided on Colton Seegers.

A lot of you have probably seen his face uh around.

If you've not, you've probably heard his name because he is married to Larry and Sherry's wonderful daughter.

Um I personally have known Colton for about 16 years.

Um I've done a lot in ministry with Colton, uh, between the multiple jobs he's had and the work that God has done in his ministry and personal growth uh is a testament to where he is, uh to the tools that God has given him.

Um it's amazing to see where he started to where he is now.

I think he, I know he is going to be a wonderful leader uh for this church and this church family, this collective group up here.

Uh spent a lot of time with him, lots of questions, lots of love, uh lots of prayer, and it's it's wonderful.

So um I'll kind of run through some of the highlights of what Colton has to bring.

Uh 13 years of ministry, Chicago, Wisconsin, New York, and Memphis.

Again, that's all over the map.

And I know personally he learned a lot of unique things at each of those places uh that gave him a really good skill set to take us uh into the future.

Um he received his mastery from Trinity in Illinois.

Uh, went up and visited him a couple times when he was there, and him and Rainey uh did that together.

So Colton has been married to Rainey for 12 years.

Uh I got to be part of that wedding, got to be there with the the Rays and the Brands and the Seagers, and great time.

Um Rainey also had brings a unique skill set.

I know we've gotten very accustomed to Sherry's wonderful words.

Uh the pieces that she brings to support Larry, uh they in it from a household that is very similar.

Rainey is a wonderful, wonderful human being.

Uh brings a lot of talents and a lot of her own ministry to this equation.

So I think we as a church are going to be very, very excited to see them together lead us.

Um Rainey works at St.

Mary's, so again, very much like Sherry Ray, they work side by side daily.

So um they also have Teddy, and they wanted me to mention that Teddy's seven, and you could tell he hates taking photos.

So they said uh that's the best they could get for this this round.

So again, uh we're very excited, Colton Seekers.

Uh, he'll be here in the next couple weeks as a guest speaker.

Um, and so you guys get to see him firsthand.

Please go talk to him.

Please come say hey.

Uh Larry and Sherry are gonna be on vacation.

So it was a perfect alignment of you get guys getting to meet Colton in person.

So thank you all uh for the trust you put in this team.

Thank you for Larry for leading us and giving us guidance and wisdom.

So oh, you want to cover that part?

Yeah, Tommy.

Yeah, I'll let Tommy cover that part.

Um, the the the the overall plan uh time frame, and this has been a major discussion.

Uh we wanted to make sure that we transitioned well uh for Larry's sake and for Sherry and for Colton and for Rainey uh to that.

So we went over the calendar, looked at several options, bunch of dates, weeks, things of that nature.

So this is the way that uh that it's gonna work itself out and unfold over the next several months, okay.

Um Larry will uh he's announced his retirement, but will not be actually retiring until the end of October.

Okay.

So Larry will remain in the capacity that he has functioned in over for 10 years, and actually for 40 years.

Okay, so the end of October will be Larry's final Sunday, the last Sunday, with us as the lead senior pastor of C3.

Okay, and he will continue speaking.

He will uh lead us in the study of scripture as he always has till that time.

Um Colton has uh uh informed his church of his desire to become a lead pastor.

So uh he will be joining our staff in the first week of August on the pastoral staff.

Larry will remain as the senior pastor, okay?

And Colton will join the pastoral staff at that time to give him time to kind of get a feel of uh who we are.

He knows a lot of you already, but to kind of uh look through the ministry, what we do, all different aspects, our kids' ministry, our um music ministry, our small group, all those things, give him a chance to kind of work behind the scenes, if you will, okay?

But he will be joining our staff in the first week of August.

And uh at that point, he'll be joining uh with us, and then when Larry retires in the end of October, Colton will become the lead senior pastor the first Sunday of November at that point.

Okay, so that's kind of the timeline, uh, just so you'll know.

So Larry's um he's stuck here with us uh at least until the end of October.

So go nowhere with us, uh, and it will continue to lead us uh to the end of October, okay?

Okay, we're gonna close uh we're gonna go ahead and close, but um, we want to pray for Sherry and Larry and for Colton and Rainey, and we're gonna do it Larry Ray style.

So um, if we can get some folks to come stand with Sherry and Larry, let's put hands on them and let's pray for them.

Okay.

And then Fatty, would you come sit here and you're gonna be Colton?

And Rita, join in, Rainey, you'll be Rainy.

And let's get some folks around them.

And uh Tommy's gonna pray for Larry and Sherry and the Seigneur's.

Then after we uh pray for them, then uh we'll be uh dismissed.

Okay.

Let's pray.

Father, we have um we've come to a unique time in the life of C3.

Bless Larry Ray.

He has reached into a lot of lives, and of all the things that can be said about a pastor, I think the most important is the love of the word of God.

Um we have seen that uh over these 10 years, some have seen that longer.

Uh but his devotion and passion to the word, we are very grateful for because that has worked its way into the lives of everyone sitting here this morning.

Your word is eternal.

The values that it teaches are eternal, they're not temporal things.

And we are very grateful and thankful for the hours of study, the hours of preparation, observation, all of the elements that go into preparing a sermon every week.

Every week.

It's a tough challenge, and he's done it for years and years faithfully.

And we thank you for um his pastor's heart, all those texts that he sends out to multiple people every day, some early, maybe some late, but nonetheless, when my phone dings, and I'm when I know who that is, it's Larry, sending a passage of scripture for encouragement, and his love for the word and his love for your people are evident in the way that he has uh uh played into our relationships, and we are grateful.

There's a lot of pastors that can speak well, there's a lot of pastors that can do relationships well, he does both well because he loves you more than anything else.

And we are grateful for Sherry Ray.

Being a pastor's wife is a tough challenge.

There are expectations sometimes that come along with that that sometimes get unfair.

You didn't call her into the ministry full time, you called Larry into the ministry, but along with that comes responsibilities.

And Sherry has been a faithful partner in this work with him for years and years and years.

And we're grateful for her faithfulness, first of all, to you and to him and to his work.

She has been a model pastor's wife, and we are grateful uh for her.

And while we are sad to see this transition occur, we know that this is not the first time that you have taken your church, this particular local assembly of people, and you move people's lives.

People come, people go.

It's what you tell us in Ecclesiastes.

And so we ask, Lord, that um uh we ask you to bless Larry and Sherry as they transition into a new direction in their lives.

He says the word retirement, we know better.

He's not retiring from teaching the word, living a life that's led by the scriptures.

You never retire from that.

And that's his passion, and it will remain so.

It's just going to take place in a different way, that's all.

But we are grateful for his leadership into C3 and to our people for 10 years.

And we are grateful for that.

Thank you for your spirit that has guided him, protected him.

There's been some uh challenges and some difficulties as every ministry has, but he has never one time ran away and hid from the challenges.

He has stood on faith that you love your church, that you died for this group of people, and that Larry Ray followed that example, and he loves these people as well.

So we are so grateful for him and for his life.

Uh so we're there for him.

We're there for him.

He still wants to be a part of what we're doing here, and uh that's such a great thing.

And so we look forward, uh Father, to what uh you're gonna have in store for C3 as we move ahead.

But before we do that, we are grateful for Larry Ray.

Thank you for his faithfulness.

We pray for Colton and Rainey as they transition into uh becoming the lead pastor at the first of November.

It'll be a different thing for us.

It'll be a different person who will do things differently.

And we ask, Lord, that you will give us an accepting hearts toward Colton, that we would be patient, that we would be understanding, that we would use discernment in knowing that Colton is not Larry.

That you will lead Colton in a way that will lead uh lead us.

But what I do pray for Colton is that he remains true and have the same passion in the word that Larry Ray has.

Methods may be different, approaches might be different, but the faithfulness to the word must stay.

And we pray that uh that passion uh that Colton has already talked with us about that is his passion.

He wants to teach the scriptures.

And so we ask uh as we move forward that you would give him guidance, that you would give him wisdom, give him patience as he deals with people that can be cantankerous sometimes, that can be uh fun to be around, but we're like everybody else.

But we need guidance.

We are sheep, and to put it bluntly, uh sheep aren't very smart.

You tell us that, even Jesus says that.

So we need a shepherd.

And in your physical, literal absence in this world as the body, you have chosen pastors to stand in place.

Colton has a big responsibility as teachers.

You tell us in the book of James that there's going to be a stricter responsibility, stricter judgment for those who teach the word because your word is eternal, it is the difference of life and death.

And so we ask for Colton, uh, we pray that your spirit would give him guidance, and we pray as a leadership team and as a congregation that we would be there for him, just as we have been for Larry and Sherry, that we would give him our support, and that we would be able to uh help him in the way that not only do we benefit from him, but that he benefits from us.

It is a two-way street.

So we want to be the right kinds of people during this time.

But Lord, we're gonna need uh a lot of patience and a lot of faith and a lot of a lot of work in different areas.

So I pray that you would bear upon the hearts of these people faithfulness to your word.

A change of people, a change of leadership does not necessarily mean an ending time, but a time to move forward.

If there's any critical time that we need to stick together and depend on your spirit, it's now.

Thank you for Larry Ray, thank you for Colton and Rainey.

Bless these people.

These are your people.

This is not Larry's church, this is not Colton's church, this is your church, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we seek to follow your will and all that you do.

And we'll be careful to give you the praise and the honor.

And thank you for this special day.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

You are dismissed.