So That All May Know

Love it. All right, we'll go ahead and dismiss our kids to little district. And for the rest of us, go ahead and grab your Bibles and open them up to the book of Habach. The book of Habach. It is good to be with you this morning. In the game of football, there's a play that every team runs called a screenplay.

And all this involves is the offensive line, which their main job is to keep the defensive line from getting to the ball, the quarterback, the running back, whoever's in the back field. This play actually is where the offensive line opens up and just lets the defensive line come through. And so, at first, it looks like it's a total failure on the offensive line. It looks like total chaos in the sense in which the quarterback is just about to get demolished. But right at the last moment, the running back will sort of sneak his way around this defensive line that is coming through. And in the last moment, the quarterback right before he gets hit will then dump the ball off to the running back for a substantial gain.

And so what at first looks like it could be a loss, a big loss, what at first looks like a setback in a way ends up becoming quite the gain for the offense. And that's one of the things that I want to talk about today is when culture when our world looks like it's getting through and it is winning and it is about to demolish the church or the word or the growth of Christianity. We end up seeing God do something amazing. We end up seeing God allow something to happen because maybe what we see today as a loss ends up being for us a victory tomorrow. As long as you are living, the play is not over. In the late 7th century BC, during a time of significant political turmoil and social upheaval in the ancient near east, there was a man by the name of Habach, a prophet, a faithful man of God, who was up against a culture that was increasing in corruption, increasing in injustice, increasing in moral decay.

And where Habach felt like evil and wickedness was winning through his own questions and even sometimes his own doubts, he continued to trust the plans of God and he leaned on the sovereignty of God. What was God up to? What was God's plan during this time? Where was God? And as what I like to think about often when it comes to our current cultural moment, our current day, is that the future is ancient. And what I mean by that is there's nothing new under the sun.

What's going on in our culture today across America, what seems like a loss has already happened so many times in the past where evil and wickedness continues to grow and continues to spread, continues to multiply. And yet God remains in his temple on his throne ruling and reigning. And there's nothing we should have to worry about in regards to that. In Habach's day, the people were turning to the worship of what they could create rather than the worship of their creator, which is the story as old as time. We are tempted as humans to worship what we create and also give ourselves credit or worship for the society that we cultivate, the society that we create. And Habach, what he did was he didn't run from this and hide from it, but he instead leaned into this culture with this message that we see in Habach 2 verses 18- 20.

Look at it with me. What prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it? A metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, "Awake." To a silent stone, arise.

Can this teach? That's his way of saying, "Can that preach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and yet there is no breath at all in it." Basically, he's saying, "What good is it for our people to create their own objects of worship that have no life in them? And then he refers to the one that he worships. But the Lord, the true God is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before him. I've titled today's sermon, so that all may know. So that all may know. Because in the midst of what felt like the world being filled with secular unrighteousness, Habach tells us the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas or as also the rains cover Indiana. I want to show you today why it is important for the morally decaying earth to be filled with the knowledge of God and also what our role is in that joyful endeavor. Because in Habach 2, the goal of God that we see in that chapter is for every nation and people to come into his holy temple and be silent in his presence.

That's verse 20. King David and even the sons of Kora, which the sons of Kora was this group of Levite musicians and temple singers. I mean, just what a great band name, right? Like the sons of Kora. Um, but King David and the sons of Kora, they even echo these same truths as Habach in Psalm 27:4, this is what David says. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

to be able to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his what? His temple. Psalm 46:10, the sons of Kora sing this, "Be still and know that I am God. That I will be exalted among the nations, that I will be exalted in the earth." So this message of being still before God, being silent before God, and then wanting and seeking to dwell in his presence, in his temple is the desire of every human that has ever lived. The issue is is when we don't have the knowledge of the true God, we then create or are deceived to create our own gods and build our own temples in which we dwell in those and worship those things.

And that's why the job of Christians, what he employs us to do is to spread the knowledge of the true God. So that what we are seeking after in the false gods, in the false idea of of finding his true presence and his true temple, we will then repent of that, give it up, and ultimately dwell in the house of the one true God, sitting still in his presence. Because being still and silent before the Lord is a sign of peace, refuge, security, satisfaction, and salvation. That's what every human that lives is striving for. That's what they want. That's what they're desiring.

Like a nurse child, content to be silent and even sleep in the presence of their parents. That's what we all long for. The idea of being still and silent is almost the total opposite reality of our culture that is anxious and loud. And Habach 2:20 says, "The Lord is in his holy temple." The idea of God being in a temple has shaped almost every religion that has existed in our history as a humanity. Mormons believe the presence of their God resides in their temples that they construct in a room known as the celestial room.

We actually before they opened up the temple up here on on 116 in Carmel uh for about two weeks before they christened it for about two weeks the unbelievers could walk throughout this whole thing could explore it. I'm like, I mean, we're basically defiling it according to them. But you could actually go into their Holy of Holies, the celestial room. I remember walking into it and they they were like, "This is the living room of God." I was like, I mean, that's a that's that's a good word. I like that phrase, but that's not what this is.

You literally just hired contractors to come and plaster this up weeks ago. What makes it the living room of God? What makes it the celestial room? But they believe it's the Holy of Holies. They need a temple in which they believe they can come into and be in the presence of God. Why?

Because that's what God ultimately prescribed. Yet, there are false gods using that story to deceive us to believe we are actually entering into the presence of his temple. Muslims pilgrimage to Mecca every year in order to be in the presence of Allah and receive divine wisdom from the temple they believe Abraham and not Isaac but Ishmael built ancient Egyptians and the aliens who built the pyramids whatever but they built them not just as tombs for the kings and pharaohs but also as sacred places for worship of their pagan gods. Listen to this. In an excerpt from ancient mysteries by Armando May, who is this Italian mathematician in 2013, he was conducting an investigation into mathematical proportional applications. You still with me?

All right? Like you don't need to know what that means. But Armando said, "There has been so much study done on the Great Pyramid that it is basically an open book. But the second and third pyramids are great mysteries. there's still a lot unknown about them. They haven't been inside them for whatever reason.

They've not been inside them. They don't know what's in there. What he ended up wanting to do was he wanted to apply mathematical proportional applications to see if there was any knowledge coded into the geoysical relations of the pyramids. Which again important but not important for you to understand what that means. I'll just say this. After doing the maths, he found that the great pyramid had a base of 11 and a height of seven and that the third pyramid had a base of 11 and a height of five.

So he was coming to this understanding that prime numbers have meaning here. All right, those are always important for math for whatever reason. Again, beyond my pay grade, but think about this way. He wanted to see if there was a message encoded in the scientific design of using math to to literally construct the pyramids. Is there a message here? And and and put it this way.

If you were to etch a message in stone, what happens over time? You lose it, right? Through wear and tear and weather or even destruction, that message will be lost. Take take the tablets of Moses, the Ten Commandments. All right? God etches them with his finger and stone and Moses coming off of Mount Si.

What happens to the tablets? Well, he looks at the people worshiping an idol. I mean, weeks after the Red Sea, we're talking they give up God for a created idol. I mean, we're that dumb. But Moses comes down, gets angry, and shatters the tablets. Okay, not a good choice, Moses.

But God gives him a second pair. And what happens? Those end up getting placed in the ark of the covenant, which ends up going getting placed in the temple. When the temple gets ransacked in 586 BC, those tablets are lost to history. No one knows where they are. No idea.

Not a good way of wanting to um pass down from generation to generation knowledge. So they were wondering, is there a different way? like we can't just write on the pyramids what the purpose of the pyramids were. Is there a different way in which we can pass down knowledge from generation to generation? So going with that mindset, he then applied that same math to the middle pyramid. And instead of get he was expecting to get an 11 base and then somewhere between a five and seven height.

What the numbers produced was 137 for the base and 137 for the height. wildly different than the other two and it and he was unsure as to why. What he ended up finding out is that 137 has lots of significance in science, math, religion, spirituality, and on and on. It's considered a perfect number. Many believe the number 137 is a gateway between science and mysticism or physical and spiritual. And so in order to sort of decode what 137 meant, he wanted to go to some type of ancient language.

He was like, I I need to go as old as I possibly can. And so the language he found that he believed would be able to decode it was the alphabet of the Cabala, which again, you don't need to know what that is. It's just a um it's an alphabet language of a Judaism. Um uh let me see if I have it in here. It's a mystical tradition in Judaism. And the number 137, if you were to break it down according to the alphabet of Cabala, it translates literally this to go into the Godhead for the dimension of life.

So this pyramid according to ancient Egyptian and the aliens is coded that all you have to do is figure out the algorithm, figure out the math. It then proclaims a message that will be passed down from generation to generation that the purpose of this place is for you to enter into it in order to be with God and receive life. And what's wild about it is that was the lengths they were willing to go in order to draw people to worship false gods, not even the one true god. And so one of the things that I think about when it comes to that is church, they invested in this extreme extreme scientific marvel for false gods. We've got to step up our game a bit because we know the true God. We know the one who actually created us.

Now, why talk about that? Because I believe what God says in Habach. I believe that we possess a knowledge that will fill the earth that people need to know in order to actually enter into the presence of the true God and to be silent and still for him. Everyone else is going to be giving themselves over to false gods and false worship because we're designed that way. We are designed to worship no matter what. It's just what is the object of our worship.

We either worship ourselves. We worship what we create. We worship money. We worship the gifts of our creation. We worship sex. And we worship um um just the good things that God has provided for us.

And we turn from creator to creation. And we give ourselves over to it. And then because we no longer know him, we then feel like there needs to be someone that we say thank you to. And so we start crafting our own idols, our own deities, if you will. And I believe the enemy, and when I say the enemy, I'm referring to Satan. I'm referring to the demonic world have done a phenomenal job throughout our history making us one degree off.

Instead of worshiping the true God, here's a false god. The one God who gives us life or brings the rain. Let's not worship that God who brings the rain. Let's worship Baal who is over the agriculture of the land. They're just recreating the same story but pulling us and deceiving us away. When it comes to sexuality, if the world worshiped God, sexuality would be according to God's design.

But instead, the world worshiped false gods like Ashra and Baal in the Old Testament and today worships the idea of self-discovery or self-identification, literally using their bodies to craft their own idols. When it comes to money, if the world worshiped God, our stewardship of money would be according to God's design. But instead, the world according to Matthew Matthew 6:24 worships mammon, a false god personified in materialism, wealth, and greed. There's always there's always going to be a pseudo knowledge behind the moral decay of our culture. They believe it's right. And it's the knowledge that will lead us to happiness.

I mean, we got it right in the constitution when we said the chief end is the pursuit of happiness. Everyone's going after it. Everyone is a hedenist. Everyone wants to be satisfied. It's just what are we using as knowledge to get us there. And that's why again Habach is so important because in his world that was growing in moral decay that was growing in wickedness and unrighteousness he believed that the answer to it was filling the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God.

They need to know who the true creator is. They need to know who the true God is. Everyone is pursuing it according to the knowledge they possess and believe will help them achieve it but unable to find it because they don't possess the knowledge that leads them to the correct gate door pathway which is Jesus. And here's the heart of God. The Bible tells us that God wants to establish a people from all peoples in order for them to dwell in the house of the Lord and enjoy the God of creation in this life and the life to come so that his name would be exalted among the nations. That's the heart of God.

So what do we do with it? What is God asking of us in light of helping the world find true peace in dwelling in his presence? Well, God's plan again according to Act 2:14 is for the knowledge of the glory of the Lord to cover the earth like the waters cover the seas. His playbook involves putting a team together of heralds who proclaim the knowledge to everyone they possibly can. And that team of heralds are called disciples. disciples who make disciples who make disciples teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded.

That's the knowledge of the glory of God. Paul Rivere was most famous for his midnight ride on April 18, 1775 during the American Revolutionary War. He rode through the countryside near Boston to literally warn colonial militia or militia leaders including Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were advancing toward Lexington and Concord. This act of bravery helped mobilize the militia and played a crucial role in the early stages of the revolution. If we want to see radical revival of people coming to know Jesus, we need to be more bold and brave. Paul revers who set aside their fears and spread the most important news this world needs to hear.

Like that news in the American Revolutionary War changed the game. It changed the game in our culture. What will change the game is the spread of the good news, the great news, the gospel of Jesus. And it is our job to get on the horse and take it to everyone telling them, "This is what you need to know. This is what you need to know. I don't have any authority or power to save you, but I do have authority and power to tell you this is what Jesus has done.

This is what he has accomplished. This is why he is good. Because why should we share the knowledge about the glory of God? Why should we tell them about Jesus? Right now, the world is telling you, you don't have a right to tell someone they're wrong. You don't have a right to tell someone that they need to follow Jesus instead of following whatever they want to choose in life.

So, why should we share with them if our world is against us doing that? Well, again, just for starters, he is our redeemer and savior. Christians believe that Jesus through his life, death, and resurrection reconciled humanity with God and provided salvation from sin. Literally offering to us hope and eternal life. That alone is worth sharing with somebody. They didn't know.

We didn't know until someone shared it with us. Jesus is also the example of love and compassion. Jesus exemplified perfect love, perfect humility and kindness. His care for the marginalized, the sick, the outcast serves as an inspiring model for how to live a meaningful and selfless life, a fulfilling life. He's also the teacher of truth. His teachings such as the sermon on the mount continue to inspire millions, emphasizing a countercultural movement, a countercultural idea as to what it actually means to be blessed.

Blessed is not filling your life with as much material wealth as possible. Being blessed is not being, you know, having the 10-minute abs that you see on the cover of magazines and you're checking out at the grocery store. Like, that's you could get it and then still be like, ah, what's what else can I do? Well, I need more. All right. I don't like my face.

Let me re rework that. He's the teacher of truth, and we need that. He's also the s source of hope and strength. Many find solace in his promises, his promises and his presence, especially in times of struggle. Like that's one of the most beautiful things that our culture doesn't understand is that God allows us to experience suffering so that it brings us not further away from God, but closer to him. Closer to him.

And they view that as him being an evil, mean God. And yet when you look at guys like Paul in the scriptures who has had just about every awful thing happen to him actually says, "Wait a minute. In experiencing suffering, I get to experience more of Jesus than bring on the suffering. Bring it on." He's also our personal transformation. Countless individuals credit Jesus with changing their lives, breaking chains of sin, chains of addiction, and then bringing joy, purpose, and peace to their lives.

Here's the reason why they're hostile towards it is because they don't know it. They don't know it. what they're putting their hope in, they believe will bring them salvation, will bring them to Nirvana. But we know from the enlightenment of the scriptures, the true truth that God has provided to us that the only way in which we can be transformed is by encountering the life transformation of Jesus Christ coming to dwell within us and to remove our heart of stone and give us a living, breathing heart that actually is able to come into his presence and worship him, to forgive us of our sins and clean us and clear us white as snow. And so, how do we share this knowledge? How do we share this good news?

How do we fulfill Habach 2:14 and fill the earth with the glory of the Lord? How do we fulfill Matthew 28 to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that he has commanded us and knowing that he is going to be with us until the end of the age. How do we fulfill Acts 18 where he says to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth? How do we be witnesses, faithful witnesses, proclaiming the knowledge of the glory of God and filling Indianapolis, our nation, and the nations with the glory of God? How do we do that? Well, this is myology, which is the study of missions.

It's the study of basically your approach to bringing Jesus to the lost. And I want to acknowledge something that I believe many of us are feeling in regards to this. Because if you're not aware, you've not been listening, but since January, just about every single sermon that we've been preaching is you sharing Jesus with somebody, has it not? I mean, we've been going hard at it. But what I've also experienced and witnessed in a lot of our conversations is the fear of the growing hostility towards Christians in our in our neighborhoods, in our culture, and even in our relationships. The growing maybe fear that we have and whether or not they are going to receive it, accept it.

They going to think about us. How are they going to interact with us? Are we going to ruin relationships that we've been building? Are we going to lose friends over this? Are people going to call us bigots and whatnot? Again, it's really I just want to acknowledge this.

It's really, really hard right now to be a Christian and share your view. It's just true in our culture today. It's really hard. Aaron Ren, who is this like modernday just philosophical giant, um he wrote a book titled Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an anti-Christian culture. In this book, he explores the idea of American evangelical Christians have transitioned to what he calls the negative world. The negative world.

And according to Ren, this is a cultural phrase um where Christian values are increasingly rejected and society views Christianity as a threat rather than a positive influence. And so what he's done is he's actually broken down eras of Christianity over the last maybe 80 years. And what he saw was from 1964 to 1994, Christianity was viewed as positive world, positive world. Which meant in society at large, it was a positive thing to be a Christian. So much so that even in one of his studies, one of the people that he interviewed, there was this region where if you wanted to get a bank loan, they would ask you what church you were a part of and then call the church to see if you were in good standing before they would trust to give you a bank loan. I mean, think about that.

We're not in that culture right now, are we? But that was 1964 to 1994. It was seen as a positive thing. Actually, if you weren't a Christian and you did not attend church, you were the person that people would want to avoid. It would not help you in anything in your life. And then from 1994 to 2014, and I'll get to why 2014 was kind of the cut off for it.

It moved into what he refers to as neutral world. Christianity was neither praised nor criticized. And this was where kind of different strategies started to come in. This is sort of the the Tim Keller movement of engaging culture but kind of in a neutral way. This is like the rise of relevant magazine if anybody remembers that um when it came out where it's like how do we um like because Christianity isn't the main positive thing anymore. Now it's just the neutral thing.

How do we remain relevant? How do we remain at the top? And it started kind of shifting. And so where it wasn't positive and it wasn't criticized, this is where you start to get like Larry King where he would have a Buddhist and a Hindu and a Christian on and they would just debate and everyone would agree to disagree and they would go home and it wasn't hostile. But then in 2014, Ober Burgerfeld happened and homosexuality as far as marriage is concerned was legalized and that's when they say that the the tide shifted once again and it became negative world because Christianity is now viewed as the hostile ones especially by cultural elites. And here's the issue.

In positive world, there was a clear understanding of the missional strategy to reach the lost. And it was primarily the rise of the seeker sensitive movement. And then in 20 or 1994 to 2014, it was again this kind of Tim Keller Gospel Coalitionesque um let's let's let's engage the culture and discuss kind of the philosophical movements that are going on and use that as a strategy to be able to kind of pick holes here and there. And there was just a mutual respect in that debate that was going on. But as soon as 2014 hit and then for the last 10 years we've been in negative world. Here's what Aaron Ren found in all of his just I mean this guy goes deep into research and study.

He says there has not yet been a clear missional strategy for engaging the negative world. What he means by that is we're just continuing to run the plays of the 90s to the 2000s and no one's seeing results. We're trying to go even further back to the secret sensitive movement and yet we're still seeing a decline in church. We're still seeing a decline across the US. what he kind of gets to towards the end of the book to um if you were planning on reading it, I'm going to ruin it for you, but what he gets to the end is is sort of his take or his stab at what it would look like to begin engaging the current cultural moment. What do we as Christians need to have and possess in our artillery in order to go after this?

And he broke it down into three things. And these aren't necessarily tangible things. Brokenheartedness, just a deep compassion for the lost. Number two, burden that it's my responsibility to get them to Jesus. Secret sensitive movement. You could just expect the programming of the church to do it.

94 to 2014, you could you could just expect kind of the the network engagement of Gospel Coalitiones S type um um partnerships like those going on, you know, um MSNBC and and promoting the Christian viewpoint or whatever. even even honestly going to the voting booths like still kind of hanging on to that moral majority over the last 50 years was sort of our engagement burden. It's got to be our responsibility. As I've said over the last few weeks, we have to have the mindset if I don't do it, nobody will. If I don't do it, nobody will. And then boldness to proclaim the truth.

Boldness to proclaim the truth. What we found in some um interviews and and and sound some polls that were conducted amongst non-believers was would you rather respect a Christian that never shares his view or a Christian that speaks the truth even if you're willing to be hostile towards them? and they said, "Well, I'm not going to like it if they tell me what I'm doing is wrong, but I'll respect them telling the truth more than I would one that hides." There needs to be a boldness of us willing to call sin what it is and tell them the invitation Jesus offers. And when I look at those three things, I I really do believe that that's going to be a shift in our current culture is that individually we are going to have to get back to literally a first church mindset in the Roman Empire that literally like Christianity was not legal and in order for you to preach and proclaim against what they believe is right, would cost you your life.

Getting back to this idea that you know what? Yeah. culture currently has taken ground and has won and has plundered the territory and the remnant of Christians that are actually left the true ones because I think over the last decade there's been a few events that have happened that have revealed who's true and who's not. And now we didn't necessarily experience that in the life of our church. But when COVID hit, and here's again why you can actually put it in this category of negative world versus positive world. When 911 hit, what happened?

The churches blew up. I'm a product of that. 911 happened. We're driving down the road and my father says, "This world's going to hell in a hand basket. we need to start going to church. He pointed at one and that's the church we went to and we stayed there for I mean they're still there.

You can go right now. They'll greet you at the front door. Churches blew up. COVID happened. You're not allowed to go to church. Negative world.

You are allowed to riot. You are allowed to protest. You are allowed to go and get abortions. You are allowed to gather in those types of settings, but to gather with the family and worship, you're not allowed. That's negative world. What we don't realize is that Roman Empire type culture and and whether where you know they had their Roman mythology and Greek mythology and so forth, we just have today again sort of a Joshua mindset.

We have whatever's right in our own eyes is what we want to do. And that's what we're going to worship and that's what our culture is going after. So we are a culture of many gods. And the ones who are worshiping the true God, if we tell them that you're worshiping the wrong one, they are hostile towards us. You just need to know that's going to be the reality because you need to know sort of the defense that you're working with. If we're going to make offensive moves, we need to know the defense that we're working with.

And in order to get to them, we need to have a brokenheartedness, a compassion for the lost, a burden that it's my responsibility to get them to Jesus. And again, you don't have to get to a certain level of education to be able to start sharing the gospel. You don't need to get to a certain type of myology to where you're like, "Okay, here's my like very specific strategy. I'm ready to go." Why do you follow Jesus? Why do you treasure Jesus?

Tell someone. Tell someone why you follow Jesus. Show them in the scriptures. This is what he's done for me. that when I when I realized that I was a sinner, 1 John 1:9 tells me that if I confess my sins to the Lord, he is good. He is faithful and just and will forgive me of my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

You know how much hope, you know much peace that's brought in my own life? I want that same peace for you. I just want you to know that you you might not like what I have to say, but the only reason why I say it is not because I want to debate you, but it's because I just I love you. Like, I love you. And maybe even just throw it out as a hypothetical thing. What if I told you something today that could actually change your life and lead you to the peace that you're striving after?

Lead you to the satisfaction that you're longing for, lead you for literally the ability to be able to sit in peace and silence and not be anxious. What if I could tell you something that would change the trajectory of your eternity? You might not believe in eternity. You not might not believe in heaven. But what if I tell you something that brings that to light and then you believe in it and then actually get to go to heaven and be with the God who created you? Would you be willing to listen to that?

I've yet to find someone who says no. One powerful example is the story of Dietrich Bonhaofer who's a German theologian and pastor during the rise of Nazi Germany. He opposed the Nazi regime and its manipulation of cre Christianity through the German Christian movement which sought to align the church with this Nazi theology or ideology. Boldly proclaiming the truth against opposition, he helped found the Confessing Church, which stood against the regime's efforts to control and corrupt Christian teachings. He publicly denounced Adolf Hitler's policies, particularly their treatment of the Jewish people, and he worked in resistance efforts, including a plot to even overthrow Hitler. I mean, this man, he had some boldness.

Bonhaofer's faith drove his courage and he emphasized that true disciplehip requires costly sacrifices. I think that's the issue with Christians today is we're just not willing to sacrifice things. We're not willing to give up. His commitment ultimately led to his imprisonment and his execution in 1945 just weeks before the wars end. His writings, including the cost of disciplehip, continue to inspire Christians to stand for truth and justice in the face of profound cultural opposition. I want you to dream with me for a moment.

What might it look like for you to do two things in the next two weeks? Two things in the next two weeks. I want you to think about this room. What might this room look like if you do these two things in the next two weeks? Bring someone with you to Easter. Ask someone to read the book of John and begin discussing it over coffee or dinner.

Those two things. find someone and bring them with you to Easter so that they can hear the truth about what Jesus has done for them. And secondly, find someone who, and I'll even say it, who you know well that would be willing to do a small little book study with you and just say, "Hey, over the next few months, like could we would you be willing to just read the book of John?" I know that might be weird if you've never read the Bible. Have and you've walked away from it or whatever. Can we just together like I'm not even giving you my thoughts, but can we read the book of John together and just discuss it and so maybe hey in the over the next week let's read the first three chapters and then let's get coffee together and talk about it.

Underline what you think was interesting, what you think, what what you have questions about, maybe what you found was profound. Maybe underline what you didn't like, but would you be willing to read through it with me? And then in a few months, we'll baptize those people. What might that look like? Father, we thank you so much this morning. God, you're so good to us.

God, it is your desire for the knowledge of your glory to fill the earth as the waters cover the seas. That means everywhere. God, we know that that mission has been granted to us, been given to us to be able to take your message, your teachings, your truth, and to spread it to as many people as we possibly can. That we can control. That is our responsibility. And it is a I pray that it becomes a burden on our hearts that it I I pray Lord that you would make it hard for us to go to sleep at night without a strategy of bringing Jesus to the lost in our lives.

Give us a broken heart, a compassion for the lost. Give us this burden to be able to see that if we don't do it, nobody will. And Lord, give us boldness to take those steps, to invite someone to be able to come and hear the preached word of of Jesus and what he's done for us, his life, his death, his resurrection, all to pay our penalty, our cost for our sin. We ask Lord for your grace and your mercy to be poured out on this community around us. I believe Lord there is a people among this people of Indianapolis whom you have called whom you will justify. you will sanctify them and ultimately glorify them in your name.

Thank you that we get to play a part in that work. It's in your name we pray. Amen. As we come to this time of communion, I want us to be reminded of the great cost that Jesus paid. I mean, we talk about Dietrich Bonhaofer. I mean, that that that was that was a bad dude who did some amazing things for the work of Christianity and the spread of the good news.

But he didn't do what Jesus did. It cost him his life, but he did not take on the wrath of God. He didn't take the wrath of God. Dietrich Bonhaofer didn't die because of his sins. Jesus died because of our sins. And when we come to the Lord's table every single week, we're coming with the reminder and the worship that this Jesus who lived a perfect life and did not deserve death, who was the standard and measure of righteousness, who is the true God, became our sin on the cross.

The way God viewed us in our rebellion, he placed it on Jesus so that we might become his [Music] righteousness. Jesus did that. And there is nothing that will break our hearts quicker or burden our souls faster or give us greater boldness than seeing what Jesus did for you and me, sinners who were enemies of God. And while we were still enemies of God, he laid down his life for you. Man, that that is fuel for the mission. That's fuel for the mission.

And that's why we partake of this every week because it reminds us of what he has done. So that when we take that message out and we want to bring people to Jesus and we want to see them get saved and we want to see them get baptized. Baptism is where one is joined with the many. The Lord's supper is where we all as the many are joined with the one. Jesus himself in what he accomplished for us. We come together and are unified in that message.

He lived, he died, he rose, guaranteeing for us forgiveness of our sins and a future of a glorified life with him for all eternity. Would you stand with me as I read this and invite you to communion? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already. That's why we got to get the message to them.

They're already condemned because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. We got to get that name out, that truth. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light. That's why we are in negative world again.

Lest his works should be exposed. How are they exposed is through the knowledge of the glory of God. Whoever does what is true. How do they do what is true? Because they've come to know what the truth is and they follow it. So that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God alone.

If you believe Jesus lived the perfect life, died on the cross for your sins, and three days later was resurrected, you believe that, you follow that, that's the banner of your life, then I invite you to come down and be filled with this spiritual meal as we remember the sacrifice that Jesus did for us. At the end of the song, we will partake together. [Music] [Music] I was a [Music] rich lost [Music] [Music] [Music] For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, he took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and he said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and you drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Father, once again, we come to you and we thank you. We come into your courts with thanksgiving. Father, I pray this morning you've been honored by our songs of praise to you, our hearts poured out to you. God, I know that there are people in this room who come in with anxious and weary souls. others who maybe come in feeling um rejoicing, happy, joyful, regardless of how we came in this morning.

I pray that you move in our lives to engage the mission that you've called us to, each one of us. Because regardless of our circumstances, what actually brings us greater joy is spreading the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what the Apostle Paul said when he was referencing his joy being complete was the work of seeing the gospel transform lives and seeing more people come to know the savior Jesus Christ himself. Lord we thank you. We worship you. Help us every day to be witnesses in Indianapolis, our nation, and to the nations.

It's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. You can be seated for a quick moment. Again, just thank y'all so much for joining us, worshiping with us um this morning. Few announcements for you, some upcoming things that we have going on.

uh big couple of weeks as I mentioned in the message of just the Easter happenings that are going on in our church. Um you can see again some of those details and the email that goes out each week usually on Wednesday at 12 depending on my week. Sometimes it's Thursday that's totally fine but if you're not getting those emails um let me know and uh and we'll get them out to you um soon as possible. But also in those emails, the events that we have coming up, couple of them that I want to highlight. This coming Saturday at Arsenal Park, which is a few blocks over, uh from 1 to 3, we will be again just engaging with our community in an Easter egg hunt. Um where we are also, as most of you have probably heard, through community groups, providing gift baskets for those who find the golden eggs.

And so just kind of taking a play out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Um and it'll be great. But um that's a time for us to get to know our neighbors and and just meet as many people as possible. Here's what I also want you to do in regards to that. I want you to show up and help us with that. Uh if you have any questions as far as how that serving is going to look, uh reach out to Bri um because she knows way more about it than I do, which is fine as well.

Um but reach out to her and ask her, "Hey, how can I serve in this event? What can I provide? What can I do on the day of?" All that good stuff. But spread the news about it. All right?

Not everyone's on social media, but if you are on social media, you can go to our church's page, which has the post on there, and you can share it. You can send it to people, you can post it on your stories and whatnot, just to again just spread the news about that. The reason why I say that is because negative culture um we have produced some ads in order for our community in a two-m radius to know about it and they've already gotten flagged as being inappropriate for community engagement. Um so I don't know if people are seeing it. What I do know is Facebook is still charging us for these ads. Um but we're unknown as to what that's going to look like.

So you have the burden on your soul of taking responsibility and letting people know that, hey, we're going to have a big Easter egg hunt. So any family that you are aware of, let them know, come out. And the these cards right here that Bree's holding up in the air right there, um, is the best way for you to invite people to the things that we have going on. Um, and so this coming Saturday and then also Easter. I'm going to say this about Easter real quick. It's Easter.

It's the celebr I mean, every Sunday is Easter. I know we always say that cliche, but again, studies show that people who don't usually go to church are willing to go to church on Christmas and Easter. Um, here's the beautiful thing is we're not just going to roll out the red carpet. We're going to do what we do. We're going to preach the word of God. I'm not going to dumb anything down.

We're going to preach the word of God because we want the knowledge of the glory of God to be spread. They're going to hear the message about Jesus Christ. And that's a message worthy of inviting people to come and hear. But here's also the thing. There's something weird about I think it I'm just going to say I think it's the culture behind me or the generation behind me that you go home like you travel back to your families as if Easter is like a family holiday versus like a Jesus holiday. And so I'm just going to throw this out there and just ask, would you stay?

That might make mama upset, but would you stay? Because it'll be weird or um uncomfortable to invite people and then you're not here. Historically in the life of a church plant with young generational people, Easter is a low attendance Sunday. It's just true. We've only had one Easter, I think, that was like higher attendance over the nine years than a normal Sunday. So, I have a lovehate relationship with it.

But I will say this, the message is worth inviting people to. Even if you try to change the plans and you absolutely cannot change your plans of travel, invite anyone and everyone that you possibly can to be here to hear the message. All right? So get as many of those cards as you can on your way out and invite them. Last thing I'll say is also next week, April 13th, the Well Women's Ministry is going to be having their monthly brunch downstairs covering chapters two and three. And so make sure you can see in the email the sign up for what you can bring for that brunch.

Um and then also again engage in chapters two and three of Jen Wilkins book in his image which you can get a copy out there if you don't have a copy of that. Again, that is we we want to go wide with inviting and getting the message of Jesus out. We also still want to go deep with disciplehip as well. And so that's what our women's and men's ministries um engage in is deeper disciplehip for our individuals. Um our men's ministry, the King's Table, is um I'll just say sort of for the Marines if you will. Um we we are and what I mean by that is we have it's a for a select few people but if you have interest in that and what I mean by that is we put a lot of ask on the men who are a part of that what you read the accountability the engagement of one another we are setting the bar high because we believe Jesus sets one high for us and so we want to deeply engage in that if you have interest in that come and talk to either myself or Tyler Tyler's heading that up for us and doing a great job with that.

Um, but we have a big ask for that, which is why you haven't seen promotional materials in regards to the King's Table anytime recently. Um, but if you want deeper disciplehip, then reach out to us and and ask about that. Last thing is April 27th at the end of the month will be our spring member meeting for those who are covenant members of our church. Um, if you're not a Covenant member and unsure if you're a Covenant member, just ask me and I'll let you know. Um but covenant membership for those who have gone process of what that looks like. We will have a meeting on 27th to just kind of cover um business of the church, the last quarter, the future, the next quarter, all that good stuff.

But that'll be at 5:00 Sunday night here at the church April 27th. All right. Love y'all so much. You're dismissed.