The Compassion And Wrath Of God

Good morning, Christ Community Church.

Welcome.

Greetings in the name of our precious and wonderful Savior.

Those were great songs for this sermon.

Yes.

They were.

It's like you planned that or something.

Almost like you were filled with the Spirit.

That's awesome.

If you're a student, you're dismissed, obviously.

And we're happy to see your faces.

And I'm happy to be back home.

Yeah.

Nice to be gone.

It's nice to be back.

Nice to be gone, and it's nice to be back.

And I was chasing my grandson over the streams of the Smoky Mountains for a week.

And um didn't didn't break anything.

So I'm thankful.

I got wet, but I didn't break anything, so I'm very happy.

Um there may or may not been one incident of slipping and falling on rocks, but just but I didn't break anything.

No, thank you.

That's all I think.

That's good.

That's good.

So anyway.

He was one of the first Old Testament prophets.

Um most of you know the story of Jonah.

But I thought I knew the story of Jonah too.

And what I've come to realize over the last five or six weeks is the parts of the story that I have known the best are the most unimportant parts of the story.

And the parts of the story that God really wants to speak into my life and to get a hold of me.

I I uh I never saw those before.

And so I'm very thankful that God is still speaking into our lives like He did into the lives of the people of Nineveh.

I mean, to me, that's one of the most important messages or lessons in this little book is that God speaks into the lives of people often when they least expect it, and he speaks messages that are disturbing, frightening, umsettling, challenging.

Yes, he speaks words of comfort and grace and compassion.

Obviously, he does that.

But he also speaks to us in ways that are unsettling, to say the least.

But when he speaks, what he says to us are words of life.

And I don't know of a more important message in the book of Jonah than the message that when God speaks to you, to you, I'm not not to the Pope or to the preacher or to the I don't know who it'd be, but uh, you know, well, of course the Lord speaks to the Pope or to preachers uh or to my my godly old sainted grandmother sitting on the front porch, you know, reading the Bible 24-7.

But he speaks to you.

But when he speaks, it's uh it's an act of love, but what I do with that which God says, it's a matter of life and death.

Not that God's going to punish me if I don't respond well or obediently, but what he's saying often is a word to veer me away from death toward life, and if I ignore that word that can lead me to life, the the result is that I go toward death.

And uh it's not a matter of God being mad.

Uh, we're gonna talk about that in a minute, but yeah, so do you want God to speak to you today?

Will you be disappointed if you get in your car and God hadn't spoken to you today?

Well I.

Okay.

Um you want to start us off, sister?

I will start us off, brother.

Just two little quick um poems from this book that Larry bought that I thought was gonna be like poems about Jonah.

What?

And they're good.

This one is called Hosanna, and it says, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, but not unless he enunciates the Lord's message.

Say that one more time.

I know, right?

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, but not unless he enunciates the Lord's message.

Then it's not a blessing.

Jonah doesn't want to say the Lord's message.

The Lord's message is very good to do.

He gives the bare minimum.

I mean, dang near doesn't.

I mean, it's five words in Hebrew.

So I mean he gave the bare minimum.

I'd like to know that tone, too.

You know, the tone of that.

Maybe that'll come up.

All right, this one's good too.

It's entitled The Fate of a Nation.

To every Middlesex village and farm, Paul Revere is credited with having carried his strident and silver-tongued warning to wake up and come to to come to and get going and make history.

He reveled at the upshot.

Jonah was more general and less urgent, not wishing his words to be heeded particularly.

All he wanted, this is great, this is gold.

All Jonah wanted was a receipt that he had done his duty and could lay off.

That's why I wonder what the tone is, right?

Jonah wanted a receipt.

All right.

It's like a kid, I might have said this last week, but it's like a kid who you make apologize.

You can make a kid a little kid, you can make him apologize.

And you can bribe them or threaten them enough to say, you know, you have to say I'm sorry, and then they'll say, I'm sorry.

Right?

Remember when we were in prep, Mr.

Crawford and Ms.

Crawford would send us if you went to the Orpheum to see a play, and you'd bring back the bulletin, you know, the the thing.

Um you'd get some kind of extra credit.

And um I would just go out front.

I wouldn't actually go into the play.

Imagine that.

But I would go you could stand up there as people, you know.

Anyway, just all I wanted was a receipt.

I just wanted the receipt, you know.

So and look what you missed.

I know.

Can you believe that?

Can you believe that?

Yeah.

Anyway, another?

No, well, I think that's all I had.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

I just love that thought.

Jonah's gonna do it.

He's gonna do it.

You know the story, he's gonna do it.

But what I really want.

Where's my ticket?

Out of here.

I just think that's about as human as it gets.

We'll talk more about this next week when we get into chapter four.

But I have to say this in response to that.

We started our study off thinking about what God asked Jonah to do was a difficult thing.

He had obeyed the Lord twenty years earlier, give or take, gone to the king of Israel, Jeroboam II, proclaimed a message of blessing and favor upon the king, and the result was Jonah experienced prominence, success, uh, uh reverence, probably reward and riches.

Twenty years later, he's asked to go to the most hated, feared enemy of his people with another message.

And he didn't want to go.

For numbers, number, uh, numerous reasons.

But what hit me was what Jonah wanted the most was fame, power, and wealth.

That's what he wanted.

That's what he had gotten the first time he obeyed.

Wonder what he would have gotten by going to the most powerful, wealthy nation in the world at that time to proclaim this message of salvation and deliverance of warning.

The very thing that Jonah wanted the most, God wanted to give him.

But he let his immaturity, his pride, his prejudice, his selfishness rob him.

Wonder if he'd have stayed in the city.

You'd have a whole city of people, filthy, rich, deliriously happy and grateful that they had been spared.

Who's responsible for this?

That guy.

Wonder what he would have received if he'd have responded with a good attitude.

The very and how many times, God, I long, I long for a good marriage.

I long for close relationships with my kids.

I long for blessings in my work.

I long for whatever.

I long for these things.

You do?

Well, then here's what I want you to do.

Oh no, I'm not doing that.

God had to drag Jonah, literally, to a place where he could have experienced the very things that he wanted the most.

But his prejudice, his unforgiveness, his grudges, his selfishness robbed him.

How many times do I have relationships that I wish were different?

I wish were better.

But the things that God asks me to do, I won't do to create that those very healthy, strong, wonderful, love-filled relationships.

I want it, but I'm not doing that to get it.

So it's a it's an amazing testimony to how broken and how blind we are.

Let me read.

Well, I we just simply don't believe that God really will do that, whatever that thing is.

You know, if I have to cross that threshold, forgiveness, grace, uh laying down a bias or prejudice, or trying or wanting to.

Um I just don't bel I think it's a question of belief too.

I just don't believe God's gonna I long to live in a city that's not filled with hate and anger and unforgiveness.

Wonder if we responded consistently, intentionally, definitively toward the people that we're around each day the way God wants us to?

I wonder if the city might become the very place that I want it to be.

You might say, well, you know, there's 75 people in here.

What can 75 people do in a city of a million?

What could one hard head do in the capital of the world?

Let me read.

We're gonna we're gonna look at Jonah 3 one more time.

I couldn't, I couldn't uh let us move on.

We'll go to chapter 4 next week no matter what.

But I had to, if you got a copy of the scriptures, I want you to look at Jonah chapter 3.

Jonah 3 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read it to us.

It's just 10 verses.

Then the word of the Lord, you know that's Yahweh, the word of Yahweh came to Jonah.

You remember his name?

Dove, son of faithfulness.

That's what his name literally means.

Faithful compassion, faithful tenderness, faithful mercy.

And you're like, well, that's not at all the way, that's not at all.

Jonah's name doesn't match who, how he lives.

Does mine?

I've been given a new name.

The Bible says that no one knows that name but Jesus.

It's a name that's just between me and Jesus.

Esther's been given a name that's just between her and Jesus.

Am I living up to the name that I've been given?

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.

Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message that I give you.

We know what that message is from chapter 1, verse 2, where God said, Go and proclaim to Nineveh that its wickedness has risen up before me.

We talked about that a lot last week.

Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord.

He'd just been spit out or vomited.

Literally, the word is vomited out onto the beach.

And so he's like, okay, I'll go.

That word vomit's going to become important next week.

You'll see why that's important.

That word is not there by accident.

It's a very significant word.

Um Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.

Now, Nineveh was a great city.

It took three days to go through it.

Jonah went a day's journey into the city and proclaimed, 40 more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.

And you know in English that's eight words, but in Hebrew that's it's five words.

Said the bare minimum, and as you suggested, probably with a bad attitude.

Let's see, the Nineveh listened, they heard this bare minimum word from God, they attributed it to God, and it says the Nineveh believed God.

A fast was proclaimed, and every one, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, he took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the dust.

And that probably suggests that he literally went to the main street and sat down in the middle of the main street and covered himself in dust.

This is the proclamation that the king issued in Nineveh.

By the decree of the king and his nobles, don't let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything.

Don't let them eat or drink.

Yeah, don't let them eat or drink, but let the people and animals be covered with sackcloth, let everyone call or pray urgently on God, and let them give up their evil ways and violence.

Who knows?

God may relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented or changed his mind and did not bring on them the destruction that he had threatened.

Thoughts?

Not yet.

Okay.

I have three things that I'd like to mention to you today that I want us to think about and to go home and spend a lot of time thinking about.

That this chapter really, uh, other than the things we talked about last week, there's three more things that really stand out to me.

Hello.

I'm not quitting that early.

Um of those things that stands out to me in this chapter is the incredibly clear but often missed message that the God of the Bible, not the God necessarily of your church, not the God necessarily of your culture or community or your upbringing, but the God of the Bible is a God who from the very beginning has always had a plan.

And that plan is to extend grace and compassion and mercy to all people.

Throughout the Bible, God has offered His grace to everyone.

There's this very, I want to say subtle, but it's not subtle, because I hear it all the time, that somehow God has this favoritism toward the people of Israel.

I love Israel.

I'm thankful for Israel.

I support Israel.

But just like I do Kenya, just like I do Nicaragua, just like I do Canada, just like I do Mexico, just like I do Russia or China or Afghanistan, the message of Jonah is so clear and powerful, and that is that God desires to offer his grace to everyone.

I read just the other day in my devotions in Psalm 117, praise the Lord all you nations, extoll him all you peoples, for great is his love toward all peoples.

All peoples, regardless of our color, regardless of our culture, regardless of our station in life, regardless of the ground that we were born on or live on, regardless of our age or our gender, our God loves you.

He created you in his image, and it is his desire that you know him as your father, as your brother, as your friend, as your husband, as your savior, as your king, as your master.

And that includes everyone on the planet.

Let me read to you just a few verses here.

Genesis 17 5.

God says to Abraham, No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude.

Of nations.

Not the father of one nation, but the father of a multitude of nations.

And then in 1 Kings chapter 8, the Bible says that Solomon dedicates the temple that he built.

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

And here's what he says: I dedicate this temple so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no one else.

God instructed Solomon to build the temple so that Israel would have a place to worship him.

No, that's not true.

That is not true.

Solomon understood this.

We don't.

We miss it.

We think that somehow God's got this special deal going on with certain people.

And that's not, and that carries over into not just Jewish people, but that God has certain people that He has favor toward and people that He doesn't have favor toward.

I just am declaring to you, as Solomon understood that the temple was a place that was built so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God.

Then in Isaiah 56, it says that the that says, even those that I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer, their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Now I don't know about you, but I had a professor in seminary that convinced me of something that I've never forgotten: the definition of all.

All means all, and that's all all means.

God created a place where all people from all countries throughout all the earth could come and worship him.

I'm not attacking or criticizing or saying anything negative about any specific group.

The very point, is Israel one of those people groups?

Yes.

Does God love the people of Israel?

Yes.

But he also loves you.

Wherever you're from, whoever you are.

And then in Revelation chapter 7, at the very end of the story, it says this after these things I looked.

Revelation 7 · chapter mention

This is John speaking.

And behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and all peoples and all tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb, they were clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands, and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

I just felt like it was so important for us to see that if the book of Jonah declares anything, it declares that God loved Israel.

Jonah represents the people of Israel.

His heart, his attitude, his values, his way of responding to God.

He represented all of the Israelites.

And how can you read the book of Jonah and not walk away going, wow, God loved Jonah.

He's chasing Jonah wherever Jonah goes, whatever Jonah does, however hard Jonah says, no, thank you, God.

That doesn't deter God one bit.

Jonah, I love you.

Just like having a little kid that's three years old stomping his feet and falling down on the ground saying, I will o not, I will o not, I will or not.

Panch never loves a kid.

He just waits him out.

And that's what God does with Jonah, and that's what God did with the people of Israel.

And to miss that is to miss a huge point.

But don't miss the other point.

God loved the people of Nineveh, the most heartless, cruel, base, evil people living on the planet at that time.

God loved them.

And he wanted them to know him as his Savior.

And I just wanted us to be reminded that no one, no one is beyond the grace and the love of God.

There's no one too bad that cannot receive the love of God and the grace of God.

There's no one so good that doesn't need the love and the grace of God.

And I want to, before I leave this point, I want to ask you a question.

Because we all don't look at me like, well, I don't know anybody, liar.

Don't be a stinking liar.

Not in church.

That's double bad karma if you lie in church.

Okay?

So here's my question.

Who is it in your life that is beyond the grace of God?

They'll never get saved.

God could never soften their heart.

God could never redeem them.

Who is that?

You've got them.

You've got them.

President Trump, President Biden, Putin, your ex, your old boss, your dad that disappeared and abandoned you.

Who is it?

Who is it in your life?

Who is it in my life that at the end of the day, they're beyond the redemption of God?

The story of Jonah declares that there is no one beyond God's redemption.

And for me to believe that there is someone that God could not redeem speaks more about me than it does them.

Who I'm really speaking about is me.

If I believe that, that there that person could never be saved.

And the point that there's sometimes we have hatred for a people group or for an individual who has hurt us or hurt somebody, such that we don't, kind of like Jonah, we don't want them to be saved.

It's not that God's grace can't reach them.

Maybe I'm I'm willing to believe that.

I don't want that.

I don't want that for you.

You don't deserve that.

And it is and I think that that that's where Jonah is too.

Absolutely.

He's seen it happen before.

God save an entire group.

Um, yeah, I don't want that.

Because you're my kid.

Or because because um you injured and killed a person minding your own business.

Or your group of people did this in the Holocaust.

Or whatever.

Doesn't matter.

It's I think that's a line too.

Yes.

Yes.

I believe it.

I just I don't want it for you.

That is a that's where Jonas sits, I think.

I I well, in fact, we'll talk more about that next week.

He says that.

He literally says those words in chapter four.

See, love's an interesting thing.

Hate is too, but love is an interesting thing.

It doesn't have to be, it does not demand reciprocity.

And if it does, it it is reciprocal.

We get love from God, but that's not that doesn't seem to be enough for us.

So the love that I give, I want to see in return.

And if I don't, I want to pay off, yeah.

I just I need to see it.

And and so if if I don't have that love, something else has to fill that void.

It's it's not like that I can just be an empty vessel.

If I'm not gonna love, then something else is gonna come in there.

Thank you.

Second thing that I want us to think about today is this.

You read Jonah chapter three, and it's very clear that the king and his nobles, it says, and the people of the city, they heard the word of the Lord and they repented.

They repented.

It's one of those words that we all heard, but most of us, I would suggest, don't know what to do with that word.

What does that mean to repent?

It's what it says is that the people of Nineveh, the king down, from the highest, greatest to the lowest, they fasted, they put on sackcloth, they covered themselves in ashes, fasted, sackcloth, ashes.

They prayed, they called upon the Lord, and they stopped their evil behavior.

Five things.

And the Bible says that God saw what they did.

Isn't it significant that he didn't, it doesn't say that he saw their faith.

It says he saw what they did.

And he relented of the destruction that he had warned them about.

Only in the West do we make a distinction between what I believe and what I do.

Nowhere else in the world would people think that way.

That's a Western luxury that we can have mental assent about things without that impacting how we live.

Nowhere else in the world would they believe that.

If you believe something, it will affect how you live.

By example, I have impeccable taste in movies.

I mean, it's pretty, yeah.

And um, so I believe that John Wayne is the greatest actor that's ever lived.

But I don't just believe that intellectually.

Every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, if I get through all my chores, I go into the bedroom, shut out all the football.

He shuts out the footballess that she's watching, and look for a John Wayne movie.

And I don't always find one, but if he's on, I'm watching it.

My behavior matches my belief.

Now, my wife, Lord help her, likes college football.

Indeed, she does.

I cannot fathom that, but she does.

And her behavior on Saturday afternoon matches her belief.

That makes perfect sense to all of us, but when it comes to spiritual things, we take incredible liberty.

Oh, I'm a Christian.

I believe in forgiveness, but I'm not forgiving you.

I believe in charity and helping people in need.

But now, what's the bare minimum?

What's the bare minimum?

I believe that I should treat my wife like Christ treats the church.

But now, does that mean like emptying the dishwasher?

Is that what that I I was good like if Vikings attacked, I would, you know, I would be the first one, front line with my sword.

If ever Vikings are attacking, I'm your man.

But I don't want to empty the dishwasher or do laundry or play with the kids.

You see my point.

The Ninevehites, the Bible says, believed what the Lord said, and it impacted their behavior.

They had visible expressions of their belief.

Fasting, sackcloth, ashes, prayer, stopping wickedness.

My question for you and for me is the people that know me best.

John Hall knows me very well.

Tim knows me really well.

My bride knows me better than anybody on the planet.

If you ask them, what are Larry Ray's acts of repentance?

He claims to know Christ as his savior.

And I do.

What are the visible manifestations of my faith in Christ that I display regularly?

On Saturday afternoon, you can take it to the bank.

I'm laying in my bed or on my bed looking for a John Wayne movie.

That's because I believe he's the greatest actor that ever lived.

But if you ask me, are you, do you have faith in Christ?

And I say yes, what are the things that you could observe that you would attribute?

He would only do that because he's a Christian.

He's a follower of Jesus.

Because many of the things that we would say, oh, I'm a Christian, I do that.

You probably would do it anyway because that's the way you were reared.

They're not things that are directly attributable to your relationship with Christ.

If he didn't exist, you'd probably do most of the things that you do.

Because that's just who you are.

It has nothing to do with your faith in Christ, your relationship with Christ.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Does that make sense?

Any any?

No, I think that's no, I've got no comment on that.

I think that's exactly it.

Uh maybe part of it is because the things that we need to do to repent are not always so visual.

You know, maybe that's part of it too.

It's like it's easy to ignore it because we're not in a culture that throws ashes on our head.

Right.

That's a great point.

And I'm not suggesting, in fact, I am suggesting that BB, your manifestations of repentance, your manifestations of behavior because of your relationship with Christ, that they're going to necessarily look just like mine.

How, how, Jim, you display your faith in Christ in visible ways could very well look very different than the way mine are.

And that's that's very important.

Your dad, by example.

Y'all know, if you come to church here at all, that you know he was he was solid.

He's one of the finest Christian men that I've ever met.

And he lived what he believed.

And one of the things that he believed with all of his heart was that a Christian man shouldn't drink.

Now, when I tell you he believed that, he believed it like you nobody in this room believes anything any stronger than he believed that.

I don't necessarily agree.

In fact, I don't agree with him.

I don't drink, so I can say this.

I'm not hedging my bets.

Okay, um, I don't drink.

But I don't believe that not drinking is a visible indication of a relationship with Christ for everybody.

I don't believe that.

But he lived it because he associated that with his walk with Christ, his journey with Christ.

You see what I'm saying?

Other people will have different manifestations of their faith in Christ.

But what are yours?

That's my question.

What are mine?

And one, I'll end this point and we'll move on real quickly.

I'll just say this.

I do think the visible manifestations of a personal relationship with Christ will look different for Peggy and Brenda or Barbara.

But I would challenge all of us to consider this.

What were the visible manifestations of a personal relationship with Christ in the lives of those who knew him best?

The people that spent three years with him every day.

What did their lives look like?

The people who knew his heart, his passion, his priorities, they didn't just hear him on the written word or through the spirit.

They literally heard him and they watched him live out a life that belonged to the Father.

What did those people say?

Or how did they display this is a life that declares I have a relationship with Yahweh?

Well, how could we know that?

Plagiast, it's written down in the book of Acts.

Read the book of Acts and see what the people that knew Jesus best knew him personally.

How did they live their life?

Those might be some things that we might consider adding to our lives as manifestations of a personal relationship with Christ.

So I have, um if you know me, you know that I teach high school, therefore teenagers.

Therefore, the language evolves all the time.

The language changes all the time.

And so the current language at this moment is I identify as, and then there's a just a plethora of things that you just is as many different things as you can think of, people identify as.

Well, so I try to use the language as far as an older woman can use the teenage language and not look like a buffoon.

Um and so I have started to say, if anybody asks me, um, I identify as a Christian.

Now this is super interesting because for me it is very different for me to identify as a Christian and to then be like, I come from a Christian family.

It's this is a Christian culture, or I've grown up in a Christian culture.

For me, those are two different things because when a person says I identify as, then they begin to act like that.

They begin to dress like that, they begin to think like that, they gather with others who identify as the same, right?

So this is happening, we see this happening.

Um, it's not new.

But it's it's new language.

So what would it be like to say I identify as a Christian?

Like put it on your shirt.

What then would that be?

Because that that makes it more of a choice than a cultural state of being.

Somehow that language is important.

It's different than just saying I'm a Christian, therefore I live a good life.

I'm a good person.

I live a good life.

What does that even mean?

Versus that I'm living a life that identifies with Christ.

I am a follower of him.

Yeah.

And I'll say one more time and we'll do the third one some other time.

Y'all listen to way too slow.

But I want you to notice again the impact when that king, the most powerful man on the planet, who had everything to lose, he believed what God told him.

And it affected his behavior.

And the Bible says that he got up off his throne.

Don't you know when he stood up?

I'll bet you half the crowd in that palace was going, oh buddy, he's about to throw that, he's about to call the guards to cut that guy's head off, Jonah.

And instead he took off his robe, covered himself, he said, I want some sackcloth.

And he covered himself in sackcloth.

Nobody is, I'm not gonna eat, and I don't even know when I'm gonna eat.

I'll let you know.

And he went out into the street and sat in the middle of the street and covered himself in dust and began to call upon the Lord for mercy.

And I'm not saying that we ought to try to live lives that are showy.

That's not what I mean.

Her daddy was the most unassuming, quiet, private.

He did not do anything for show.

That is not who he was.

But if you watched him, and I watched him for 50 years, he lived what he believed.

He believed his relationship with Christ should affect the way he talked, how he spent his money, what he put in his body, how he treated his wife and his kids, his relationship to his church, how he treated his employees, people that worked for him, I know that worked for him for 40 years, they wouldn't leave that company for nothing.

There was no, when I tell you there was no turnover, there was none.

None! Because the way he treated them.

And the impact that that had on people, I'll tell you one that, and I'm not trying to poke at y'all.

I'm just telling you that our choices on how we live as followers of Christ, as who I identify with, they have such power.

And I'll tell you one of the things that I'll never forget.

I grew up in this church in Whitehaven, and it was a lovely little spiritual country club kind of a place, and we were taught to love each other and be nice and you know follow the golden rule, and you know, and that was about it.

I never remember anybody telling me anything about God.

I'm just telling you.

But one of the things that I remember growing up when the lady song leader would stand up to do the music, not a man in that building would sing.

Because men don't sing.

What would they sing about?

That's for like women and people that work in Broadway, but real men don't sing.

Right?

We while the wives and the children sing.

I'll never forget that.

I become a Christian, I got saved.

And I started going to where her dad went to church.

And the the the brother uh Ron, he had a toupee that started here and it went all the way over to you.

I'll never forget that guy.

I was like, man, that is a deal right there.

Literally.

It started, I bet his hair came down to here, but he would flip it over.

But he would stand up and he and he would say, turn to page 192 in your hymn.

And I was Mr.

Brand was standing right there, uh, her mama was standing right there, Sherry was standing right there, and I'd stand right here.

And I'd look down, and Mr.

Brand was singing his heart out.

He was singing his heart out.

Because he believed that somebody that identifies as a follower of Jesus, somebody that has been rescued from wrath, somebody that has been adopted into the family of God.

If you asked him, who do you love?

First thing he'd say is, I love this woman right here, my wife.

And I love those two kids.

First thing he'd say is, I love those people.

Well, at church, you said, Who do you love?

He associated singing with declaring, I love that God.

I love that God.

And him being a man, it it so clearly it impacted me that a grown man would sing love songs to the God that they identify with.

And it affected me.

It convinced me that that God was real, not just some principle or power, or, but that he was real.

And I'd listened to him sing Power in the Blood and all those songs, you know, and uh it affected me.

And I I just I just wanted to remind us all that it is important that we be good.

But that's not that's that's not that's that's not what that's not what these people did.

They let their faith affect how they lived their lives and the identity that they displayed.

And it made God happy, it pleased God, it affected God.

And I believe that when that king and those nobles did that, it affected everybody else in the kingdom.

And uh, you know, I I know Beck and Chuck and me, we want our, you know, our kids are gone.

You know, that's too late.

We've done what we've done, you know, good or bad.

But I want my grandson to identify with Jesus.

And I know y'all do too.

Your grandchildren.

And um how we live, our behavior.

That's a that's that is a very powerful thing.

Okay.

Um y'all wanna come help me?

Brandon?

You and August want to come and yeah.

We're gonna celebrate the Lord's Supper.

And as I say all the time, we celebrate the Lord's Supper every Sunday, but we celebrate it every Sunday for different reasons.

There's many, many, there's endless reasons why we take that which represents the body and the blood of the Son of God and eat it and drink it together as a community.

We do it because we're in awe.

We do it because we're humbled, we do it because we're thankful, we do it because we're looking forward to what's ahead.

We do it to experience fresh grace.

I don't know.

I invite you to come.

Actually, Jesus invites you to come.

It's his supper.

And he invites you to come and take bread and juice and eat and drink.

I don't know why you might come today.

But he invites you to come as a way of identifying with him.

This afternoon, my wife and I are going to eat.

And guess what?

We're gonna eat together because I identify with you.

You're mine, and I'm yours.

And so we we eat together as a community and we eat together with the Lord.

He says, there I am, when two or three of you are gathered together in my name, I am there in your midst.

And so if today you're like, you know what, I'm just not in a good place, or I'm not even sure if I believe in this God, I'm not sure if I do identify with him, please, you know, you keep your seat if that's what you feel like you ought to do today.

I'm not trying to pressure anybody.

But if you if you're wondering, well, why do we always go up there and eat that bread and that drink?

Why do we do that?

We're doing it to identify.

It's a visible way of declaring, I belong to the Son of God.

He's in my light, he's my Savior.

I'm thankful.

And I want to live this week for Him.

And if that's sort of close to what you're thinking and feeling and wanting, then I invite you to come and uh uh on this side or this side and get in the bread and the wine and eat and drink and give thanks.

You come.