Deep Roots | Part 4 | Dave Gruhn

Speaker 00s - 2402.64s

Hey, good morning to Rivers Church ORG. Good morning. Hey, we're welcoming Amped, Blend, Rhone County GPE. Good morning to y'all out there. And good morning, Donne, Bearden PERSON, to you as well. If you don't know, if you're new to Two Rivers ORG, we have a couple other campuses, other venueshere on this campus. You might want to check those out sometime. We're in a series in Galatians, and this week does tie to last week. It ties to the big idea that Tim talked about last week, and that is that life begins with Jesus PERSON. It's all about the indwelling Holy Spirit. That that endwelling Holy Spirit is how life begins and how it continues in Christ. And so if you miss last week, this is the secondillustration to that point. And so I want to encourage you to go back and check that out. Now, I want to begin by talking about something happened to me 23 years ago. 23 years ago, ish. Here's something that happened in my world. My wife and I had our first child. And if you're like me, you may have been surprised that the only thing that wasrequired for you to become a parent was you had to have a car seat. Like all I needed, right? They didn't require that I had any special training, that I had a license, you know, like you have to get a license in this world to do everything. You know, you can't sell insurance without a license. You can't sell real estate without a license. You don't need a license to be a parent. You just need a car seat.All the hospital seems to care about is can you get this child home alive? All bets off, right, at that point. It's all over at that point. And so, like many of you, I learned about parenting. I'd never held a baby before I held my own baby. Some of you're like, what?How could that possibly be? I was the baby. In all of my family, I'd never held a baby before I held my own baby. Some of you're like, what? How could that possibly be? I was the baby. In all of my family, I was the baby. I'd never held a baby until it was my baby. And so, yeah, that was a shocking experience because the only way that we learn how to parent is through on-the-job training, and we were just winging it. We were just making it up as you go.And some of us bring our parenting ideas, either from our parents or our own experience of not really knowing what we're doing, and we put them on God as we come to the scriptures. Some of us have hard time thinking about God as a father because we had a bad father experience. Some of us us have hard time thinking about God as a father because we had a bad father experience.Some of us have a hard time thinking about God as a parent because we either had a bad parenting experience or we don't really view ourselves as that great apparent to begin with. And so we think God just must be winging it. As we come to God's story, sometimes it seems like God was just winging it.We have this first two-thirds of the book that really don't seem to make much sense to us, but then later shows up Jesus PERSON, and that seems to make sense to me. To me, that seems to make sense. But what's this whole first two-thirds of all these books of the Bible about? And what we're going to see this weekend is this big idea, that living gospel-centered is built on knowing God's story points to Jesus PERSON. And it's not just the New Testament, but all of God's story. And you've heard that before.And you'll also go online and hear people say, that's not true. And what we're going to do is we want you to see the links. It's worth the investment. What we're talking about knowing here is not intellectual knowledge. Intellectual knowledge that does not lead to transformation is dangerous. It begins with intellectual knowledge.It's not less than intellectual knowledge, but it leads to a transformation of who we are. And so the knowing that we're talking about is this kind of knowing, that when we claim to know something, we imply a high degree of certainty and reliability about our belief, which is supported by evidence or experience. That it takes the information that we learn and turns it into an experience with the God who created usto live in relationship with Him. Once again, tying to last week, it's all about the indwelling spirit of God that that's how life begins and that's how life continues. And that's the point of God's story. And so what we're going to do is this weekend, hopefully we're going to connect the dotsas we pick up in Galatians chapter 3 in verse 15. We're picking up with this so that. And so sometimes, I know I say this often, but sometimes these little headings in your Bible WORK_OF_ART, even if you're using a scripture journal, the little headings get in the way.And there's a little heading that's before verse 10 that says, the righteous shall live by faith. And then before chapter three, it says, by faith or by works of the law. And if you're coming at this text from just a common evangelical perspective, I get that.But it disrupts the actual literary structure of this text. Because the way that this text sets up, it begins with Paul PERSON saying, let me ask you one question. And then he asks a couple, because it's Paul. But he says, did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? He's saying, what was your experience? And then he begins to say that it was by faith. And he begins to unpack it all. And he uses a bunch of the Old Testament, do it like Tim pointed out last week. But then he ends with this in verse 14.So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles NORP. Write the word nations next to that, okay? So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham PERSON might come to the nations so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. He's just said the whole point was that you were going to receive the Spirit by faith. And many of us, if we've been through the Book of Galatians WORK_OF_ART before,if we've read through the book of Galatians LANGUAGE before, or we're just mildly familiar with the concept of fruit of the Spirit, we might know that that comes in Galatians LANGUAGE, or we might have typed that into Google ORG and said, where's to talk about for the Spirit. And it says in Galatians LANGUAGE, We think that's where the Spirit is.But Paul PERSON is already arguing about their experience that it was about putting their faith in Jesus so that the active presence of God himself would come to dwell inside of God's people. And that sets us up for verse 15. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant,no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham PERSON and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offspring, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ PERSON. If you highlight that verse, it does not say two offspring, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. If you highlight that verse, it does not say two offspring, but referring to one who is Christ PERSON. This is what I mean.The law which came 430 years afterward does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham PERSON by a promise. He's drawing a distinguishing marker here,that he's saying that there was a promise made to Abram PERSON, who later becomes Abraham PERSON, and then there was a law code that was given. And we'll talk about what he's saying here. Verse 19 says, why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring, right in your margin, Jesus PERSON, until Jesus PERSON should come to whom the promise had been made,and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now, an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Highlight that one. Verse 22. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.So then, the law was our guardian until Christ PERSON came in order that we might be justified by faith, but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus PERSON, you are all sons of God through faith. Underline, circle, highlight, star. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ PERSON have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek NORP, there is neither slave nor free,there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus PERSON. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham PERSON's offspring, heirs according to promise. So as we jump in here, we're going to begin with this concept of the law. And I want to just straight up, okay, for a little bit here, we're going to go to school, unapologetically, okay, we're going to go to school unapologetically. Okay, we're going to go to school because there's a huge concept that we need to understand.And we're going to talk about the law because I'm going to take a poll. Please play along. How many of you, when it comes to the law, it's a little bit confusing to you? Okay. How many of you, when it comes to the law, is it a lot a bit confusing to you? It's a lot of it confusing. And the reason that is, is because it's a lot confusing.Because in the New Testament, the authors use the same English LANGUAGE word multiple ways. The law can refer to multiple things. And the first thing that the law can refer to is the whole Old Testament. Sometimes, in the New Testament, as the authors are talking, even Jesus PERSON himself. And John 1034 records Jesus' response. As Jesus is accused of blasphemy, he quotes from Psalm 82 LAW saying, of blasphemy. He quotes from Psalm 82 saying, is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods? He's quoting the Psalms WORK_OF_ART. Now, I'm going to force you to remember back to the series that we did back in January where we were talking about the Old Testament WORK_OF_ART and we went through someBible project videos about what is the Bible, what is the Old Testament WORK_OF_ART, the whole Testament, the Hebrew NORP scriptures. You're going to have to remember that there are three divisions in the Hebrew scriptures, that there's Torah WORK_OF_ART, that there are the prophets, and there are the writings. And the Psalms WORK_OF_ART fall in the writings. And so in these three categories, when Jesus PERSON is saying, does your law not say and then quotes a psalm, he's referring to the entireOld Testament as the law? Paul does the same thing in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 EVENT. He references the prophet Isaiah and then says in the law, it is written. And then he quotes the law and the prophets. And so does that refer to the law? And the answer is yes.And so sometimes the authors are talking about the whole Old Testament WORK_OF_ART. Other times it can refer specifically to the first five books called the Torah WORK_OF_ART. Or in evangelical circles, we call it the Pentateuch. It just means the first five books of the Bible WORK_OF_ART. I told you before, if we were in Germany, we'd call it first, second, third, fourth, fifth, Moses PERSON, okay?The names of the books of the Bible WORK_OF_ART, do you know this? The names of the books of the Bible WORK_OF_ART are different in different languages. Like, this book isn't necessarily, this is what the name is. It's just in your English Bible WORK_OF_ART, it's what they call the name of the book. And so the first five books in the Hebrew Bible begin with the first words of the book. And so it sometimes refers to Torah, which was across Judaism GPE, it's the undisputed scriptures.Like everybody would agree Torah, the first five books, the books of Moses PERSON, that they are scripture. And Paul in Romans chapter 3, when he's talking about a righteousness apart from the law, he says it this way. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. There he's saying, Torah WORK_OF_ART and the prophets. And often when someone in the New Testament WORK_OF_ART refers to law and prophets, biblical scholars would say they're really referring to law, prophets, and writings.It's just shorthand. And so he's made a distinction of those first five books as the law. So sometimes it's the first five books. But other times, law can refer specifically to the mosaic or Sinai LOC covenant. And you'd be like, why did you use both of those words? Why do you call it the Mosaic NORP covenant? Why do you call it the Sinai covenant? Because it's two names of the same thing. You can call it either. For those of youwho have been to Israel, you'll know that there's a lake called Lake Ganeseret LOC. It's also called the Sea of Tiberius LOC. This is the same place. Does anybody know Lake Ganeserite LOC, if you haven't been there, you may know it as the Sea of Galilee LOC. Well, which is it?Depending on who's writing, how they're referring to it. What's the name that they use for it? And so in this case, it's all about how we view it. If we're talking about the relationship that Moses had with God's people, we might call it the Mosaic NORP covenant. If we're referring about the place where it happened, we'll call it the Sinai LOC covenant. All referring to the same thing, and this is what's really important. Paul PERSON here is referring to this covenant.When he says 430 years later, the law came, he's talking about the law code that the children of Israel were given beginning at Sinai LOC. Okay? So this is a piece of the greater law, but the entirety of the law, all of Torah especially points to Jesus PERSON. Okay? So it's all pointing to Jesus PERSON, but this little specific part, he wants to narrow downand talk about specifically this law code, and he's going to call it something called a guardian. In a book called reading Moses, seeing Jesus, it's out of print. You can get it on Kindle ORG. You might be able to find a free copy and a PDF online. It says, for Paul PERSON, the law, including the Sinai covenant with its commandments, as part of a larger story called the Torah, whose whole purpose is to lead us to faith in the Messiah PERSON. And in that book, they only use law, they're going to try not to confuse you. they only use law to refer to law code, and then they use Torah to refer to the first five books, and then they use Old Testament WORK_OF_ART or HebrewBible, actually, to talk about the entirety of the book. So when we distinguish it about that, it's all about clarity, but if somebody were to call each one of them the law, it's still correct. Some of you were confused. And the reason you're confused is, it's confusing. Specifically here, Paul PERSON is arguing about this thing called the law code. And so what is it? So why the law code at Sinai through Moses? Why did God give that? Paul PERSON gives us an incredible amount of clarity into this. And so because of that, we have to understandhow the law code works. It wasn't just random. And if we go back and we read it now, it can seem just random. So why don't I boil a goat in its mother's milk? What's that all about? Why? Why are these rules given this way? And so let's use a human example to use Paul PERSON's world as a parent. use a human example, to use Paul PERSON's world as a parent. You don't give your child every rule at the beginning. It's not like you've written a rulebook and you hand it to them and you say, in order to live in this family, here's the book. You give rules when they step out of bounds. And you're like, well, how do they know where the boundary are? So we set the boundaries and thenwith kids, they like to push the boundaries. And so what we have to do is then we have to change what the boundary is. And so I'll use the example of a curfew. Many of you, if you didn't give your child a curfew, your child would never come home. We've never had a curfew in our house. I don't know.My daughter's in bed by 10 o'clock. I don't know. It's just not something in our family that we need it. And so if we pay attention to the way the law happens through the Torah WORK_OF_ART, the way it gets unfolded is the children of Israel GPE push the boundaries, they step out of line.And so then God brings them back into alignment and then establishes something in order that they would understand what it looks like to live in relationship with God. So essentially, Moses PERSON is given over a span of time to the children of Israel 613 progressive commands that form guardrails to live right with God. This is what it looks like to live in right relationship with God while God's people waited for Jesus. They had no idea what they were waiting for. In fact, in Judaism, they believed that it was actually the opposite, that God PERSON was building his case and these 613 progressive laws that these were forever. And so the message that Paul PERSON isgiving to the children of Israel GPE is radical. It's not something that's just easy for them to go, oh, okay, I get it. They thought that this is going to be forever. And Paul PERSON is saying, no, that was temporary. That was always meant to be temporary. So I'll give you an example.In Numbers chapters 13 and 14, the children of Israel GPE, they're on the edge of the promised land and they're going to send some scouts out. They're going to send 12 scouts into the promised land. Ten of them come back and they say, no way. There's giants in the land. We'll never do it.We can never overcome it. Two of them are like, yep, let's go. Let's do it. And the people don't go. And so what was the penalty? The penalty was that there was going to be an entire generation of the children of Israelwho were going to force to be wandering in the wilderness until they died. And that generation then the next generation then would get to go into the promised land. And then in Numbers chapter 15 LAW, all of a sudden there's this law that shows up about tassels. Why? Why would they need tassels? Well, it says that it's a reminder, and it connects it back to the story of their rebellion against Godand their disobedience against God as they were looking to send spies into the promised land talking about, okay, I want you to remember your faithfulness to me. And so he gave them a tangible reminder that they would be able to touch and say, oh yeah, we have to be faithful to God. He is our God. Yahweh PERSON is our God.And so he gave them, okay, now you've stepped out of line. Here's the tangible reminder. And so this is how God works. He's working through the children of Israel GPE to point them in a trajectory of what it looks like to live and write relationship with himself. And so knowing that Jesus PERSON is the point of God's story means that we must know God's story. And I know that it can seem overwhelming.And so we don't have to know everything about God's story because nobody in this room could ever possibly know everything there is to know about God's story. There's so much. This is a lifetime endeavor. It's a lifetime of reading and reflecting and meditating and learning. And so this isn't something that you can go, oh, no, I know that. I got that down.It's discovery and learning over time. But there's a common thread that I do believe that we can all know, and we've been learning, two rivers shirts, we've been learning over time. And it all goes back to Genesis WORK_OF_ART. The common thread is the seed. Okay, so let's talk about this just for a little bit. It all ties back to Genesis. And if you use a Bible Project ORG as a resource, and we hope that you do, we use Bible project as a resource because we believe that it's accessible to pretty much everyone that you probably have access to an online platform that can help you fall more in lovewith Scripture WORK_OF_ART. And that's a great resource to do that. They don't get everything right 100% of the time, okay? Nobody does. But it's a great resource to do that. They don't get everything right 100% of the time, okay? Nobody does. But it's a great resource. And if you use that, you know everything ties back to Genesis WORK_OF_ART.They always go back to Genesis. You know why? Because everything ties back to Genesis WORK_OF_ART. And especially this does. And so the common seed here is this idea of the seed. The EESV PRODUCT uses the word offspring.The word, that's a great translation, by the way. There's nothing wrong with the translation, offspring. Great translation. But it's a literal seed. And in Genesis chapter 3, we see it that humanity rebels. Okay?Humanity rebels against God. They commit the first sin, which was rebellion against God. God gave them a command that they weren't supposed to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not an apple tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the command was, don't eat. You can eat from any tree, just not that tree.And so the serpent comes and basically says to them, God can't be trusted. He's holding out on you. And when the man and women saw that it was to be desires and that it would make them wise, they ate. And there was a punishment for that rebellion. God had said that the result was going to be death.And then God says something to the servant. In Genesis chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go,and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. It's not talking about you.It's already pointing to Jesus PERSON. Already here. In Genesis chapter 3, God's story is already pointing towards Messiah PERSON. Gospel WORK_OF_ART is already being proclaimed. Okay?Now, this is not hyperbole. We could spend an hour drawing the links from here to where we're going to go to, but we've got 30 seconds to get there, okay? There's a lot more that happens in the human rebellion against God. There's heavenly rebellion, human rebellion. It's the forces in the heavenly spaces, okay?This is a cosmic battle that gets set up through the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis WORK_OF_ART, all leading to the disinheritance of the nations by God, giving them to be ruled by the gods of the nations until he chooses one specific guy by the name of Abraham PERSON, to Abram PERSON at the time, to give a nation to the world that would reveal who he is. And we looked at it last week. Genesis 12.Now the Lord said to Abram PERSON, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Paul has already quoted this earlier in Galatians chapter 3, back up in verse 8. We looked at it last week,where it says, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the nations, Gentiles NORP. Nations by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham PERSON saying, And you shall all the nations be blessed. This is the gospel, that it was always pointing to Jesus PERSON. God's plan was always to bless the nations through Jesus PERSON. This is God's plan.Already in Genesis WORK_OF_ART, gospel is being proclaimed. Good news is being proclaimed. And that is Jesus PERSON is for all people. We've already talked about this as a big idea through the series. Mark Hoffman PERSON talked about that the gospel is for everyone. And everyone means everyone. Be like, I know that. No, who are the people you don't think it's for? The world right now is pumping a message.Christian NORP churches are pumping message that the gospel isn't for everyone. The gospel's for everyone. We're going to let God sort out the enemies of God stuff, and we're going to proclaim good news. This is good news. The nations, for the nations, this is people groups.This is every ethnicity. It's talking about all the people. Is it talking about countries in the world today in nation, states, and borders? No. It's talking about countries in the world today and nation, states, and borders? No. It's talking about people. That all people, the good news is that the way that they'll experience life is through Jesus. And for the children of Israel GPE, he gave them a gift and something calledthe law that Paul PERSON calls a guardian. And so this is super cool. and we have no example like it. In fact, you may hear somebody say it was like a school teacher. The problem with that is it's not, okay? It's not a school teacher. In fact, in the Greek English LANGUAGE lexicon, it doesn't often say, hey, be danger. There's a danger in going with what you think this means in English LANGUAGE.It does, in this case, because it's the word pedagogue or pedagogue. And that is, if you look that up later, it's a really strict teacher. That is not what this is. This is a slave who was a guardian for a son as they were going to school. I know this is radical for us to think about this, that you would have a household of different servantsdoing different things. There would be cooks doing cooking things, but there would be someone who took your child, your sons in this case, that they would take your son. And so it was a male servantwho would take your son to school. And they were the guardian to make sure that they got there, to make sure that they learned. And as a side benefit, they would get to learn as well. Over time, they would become really, really smart people. For those of you who are teachers, some of you right now are like, oh, this would be awesome.You mean parents send along a disciplinarian? It's built in the system that sits next to them in school and when they're out of line, bam, get back in line. Teachers are like, this is awesome. We could go to school like half the year or get all the same work done. And so one of the things that we talk about is the teaching team is sometimes we canoverplay metaphors. We can take metaphors too far. But in this case, it's awesome. And it's important that we would know that it's not a teacher. Why? It's pointing us to the teacher. It's guarding us so that we can learn from the teacher. Ultimately, it's pointing us towards the offspring who is Christ PERSON. It's not the same thing. It's pointing us towards thethe teacher. And so in this case, we want to make sure that we understand that God really made us to be a guided people. He never just sent the earth into motion and was like, whoa, let's see how this turned out. Well, that went wrong. Let me see if I can fix that. Oh, hey, I didn't see that coming.Let me fix that. No, he always had a plan for us to be a guided people. We all need a guide to see our need for and follow Jesus PERSON. We need that. We know that we can't just find God on our own. The point is that the nations will worship the one true king. But in order for the nations to worship the one true king, they need to know who he is. And so still to this day, while it's no longer the 613 laws of the Sinai covenant of the law code, it is still God's story saying, wow, God has always desired to end well his people in order that they would live in right relationship withhimself. It's always been the point of the story. He made us to be guided people. And so three guides that are still at work today. The first one is scripture throughout all time God has revealed himself ultimately through writing. It's not my choice. It's God's choice. The way that we know him is he has told us his story through human authors, he's given us a gift so that we can know who he is. But it requires an investment on our part. We can't know God's story without an investment on our part. And so often in my life, it was just like, all I need is Jesus PERSON. I don't need to know all the other stuff.And to Rivers, I'm excited about this year. I'm really excited. We're going to go to some cool places. In my mind, they're cool places. In your mind, initially you're going to be like, we're doing what? I don't care about that.But the more that we understand about it, and the more that we take off of what we thought we knew and we're like, oh, this is helpful. Because a lot of stuff that you heard growing up, maybe it's a little bit off. Maybe it was just given overly simplified. And it skews God's story. And we have a hard time then drawing the link from these first five books called Torahto Jesus. And the scriptures were given so that we would know that. When Timothy, when Paul PERSON writes to Timothy PERSON and says, all scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness that the man of God might be complete equipped for every good work, he's talking about the Old Testament WORK_OF_ART. This is Paul, running to Timothy saying all of the Old Testament WORK_OF_ART is profitable for a follower of Jesus PERSON.For a long time in my life, I just disregarded that. Also with Scripture, sometimes God can just use that by itself to lead people to Jesus PERSON. I heard stories. I don't know anybody in real personal kind of way, but I've heard people tell stories of just being in a hotel room where they pull out the drawer and there's a Gideon Bible in that hotel drawer and they open it and they read it and in a night came to faith in Jesus PERSON. I don't know a lot of those people, but I've heard it a couple times. That's amazing that the power of God is at work. And we also know that that that requires the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit functions, uses Scripture WORK_OF_ART,but also functions as a guide in other ways. So four ways that the Holy Spirit guides us to this day. The Holy Spirit guides us to the truth, right? He guides us to Scripture WORK_OF_ART. It's called illumination. That helps us understand and apply Scripture WORK_OF_ART to our life. The Holy Spirit also convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment.This is in John Chapter 16 WORK_OF_ART, that there's this internal working of the Holy Spirit that leads to life transformation, that leads to this new heart that Jeremiah 3133 LAW refers to, that we would no longer be a people with the law out there, but God would transform us and that his law code would be written on our hearts in order that we would be a people transformed to look like Christ. The Holy Spirit empowers and gifts followers of Jesus PERSON for service within the body of Christ and in the community. They're called gifts, spiritual gifts, grace gifts that God has given withinthe community of faith in order that we would exercise those to be an encouragement to other followers of Jesus PERSON. Two rivers. We say all the time, right, that we would exercise those to be an encouragement to other followers of Jesus. Two rivers, we say all the time, right, that we need each other, we need we, we need each other because we need each other. We need to have the opportunity to build our faith by exercising the faith gifts that God has given us.In order for that to happen, we have to be engaged with other followers of Jesus PERSON, as we're going to talk about it in a second. The Holy Spirit also produces spiritual fruit in the life of a follower of Jesus PERSON, and that we're going to talk about later in this series. Okay? That's where this letter goes.We're going to talk about spiritual fruit later on. So here's the thing. Both the law code and the Holy Spirit function as guardians. But the Holy Spirit, okay, is the better option. It's the completion of the story that it would be that by faith in Jesus PERSON, we now become a transformed people where the Holy Spirit is our guardian.The Holy Spirit guides. The Holy Spirit directs. The Holy Spirit empowers us to be people who live out the transformation that Jesus PERSON brings. And then finally, God uses other people. God uses other people significantly uses other people to guide us to and help us follow Jesus. The goal is transformation. As Paul PERSON writes to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 EVENT, he says that we all with unveiled face beholding the gloryof God are being transformed into the image from one degree of a glory, from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. God uses the Holy Spirit and people to transform us into the lie in our lives to look more and more like Jesus PERSON. This is awesome. Okay. This, if you feel like that's a burden because I could never look like Jesus PERSON, you're nevergoing to look like Jesus PERSON, okay? But the goal is to keep being shaped to grow deep roots so that you can live gospel-centered. And living gospel-centered is looking more and more and more like Christ so the nations would know. So the nations would know. We need people for that to happen. We need to be open to the guidance of other people. You see, being guided begins with being open to guidance. Many of us as parents, we try to teach this to our children.It begins, you might see us, in our house, we say coachable, okay? I think, and probably if you were to ask one of my two daughters, coachable is probably a dirty word in their mind, close to cussing. We use it that much, probably overuse it. This idea of being a person who's open to guidance. And as parents, you know, you come to this point in your kids' life where they're not really open to guidance. And so one of my daughters, she was in a religion class in high school. And when she was in that religion class in high school, she kind of struggled a little bit.And she gets to the end. And my wife is like, they know she's the math teacher. I'm not really sure they know what I do for a living. She's like, you could have actually asked your dad a question. She's like, yeah, but this was about other religions. He might have an idea.He might know a little bit. Well, this was about like Islam, Judaism GPE. He might know a little bit about those. You might ask him. And she's like, oh, yeah. Well, now they grow up and they change.And now she's doing something that I used to do. And she is wide open to guidance. She calls me on the phone about cool stuff that she's learning along the way. And she calls me on the phone and like, hey, can you help me with this? Help me understand this. I learned this thing. It's kind of confusing me on the phone and like, hey, can you help me with this? Can I help me understand this? I learned this thing.It's kind of confusing to me. I'm like, who is this? This is great. When we're open to guidance from scripture, from the Holy Spirit, from other people, God can shape us. God uses us.He transforms who we are. And so as we talk about next steps this week, it begins with turning to and trusting Jesus PERSON. We're never going to find this life apart from knowing the point of the story. And some of you are like, well, when I learn more about God's story, then maybe I'll place my trust in Jesus PERSON. Here's the way that it works. You place your trust in Jesus. He gives you new life through the power of the Holy Spirit. Then you begin over the rest of your life to understandmore and more of God's story. Only spiritual people indelved by the Holy Spirit can truly understand spiritual things. It requires the active presence of the Holy Spirit in us in order that we would be able to understand all or more of God's story. And so that's where it begins with believing that Jesus PERSON was crucified, raised, and is now alive in order that we could have new life in him. That's where it begins. You have to choose to trust Jesus PERSON. Turn from your own personal path and go,I'm going to go God's way. I'm going to turn and trust Jesus PERSON. For some of you today would be a great day to begin that journey. And for those of us who are on that journey this week and live it out, I'm going to ask you to go ahead, turn your bulletin to that inside page where it says, live it out, a daily discipleship guide. And in that, I want to encourage you that the go ahead, turn your bulletin to the inside page where it says, Live It Out, a daily discipleship guide.And in that, I want to encourage you that the bulletin isn't the best way to do Live It Out WORK_OF_ART, in my opinion, I think the best way to do Live It WORK_OF_ART Out is to go to 2RC.tv slash Live It Out and do it online because all these are links right there. It'll read to you. If you click on the scripture, there's a worship song that that'll click to YouTube. At the top, Tim and I did a four-episode podcast on answers to questionswhat the Bible WORK_OF_ART says about, but they're not answers. They're just responses because we really know all the answers. We knew very little answers to very complicated topics. And we would encourage you to engage, but there's a question that you're going to do on Monday. And we would encourage you to engage. But there's a question that you're going to do on Monday. Ask Jesus PERSON, what does it look like for my story to point to you? If God's story, right?If the point of the story is Jesus PERSON, then the point of our story is Jesus PERSON. And so to engage on Monday, that's what we're going to ask you to do. But right now, we're going to worship. That's what we're going to do. And all of our's what we're going to ask you to do. But right now, we're going to worship. That's what we're going to do. In all of our venues, we're going to ask you to stand because the God who has revealed himself through Jesus PERSON is worthy of worship.Father, in this moment, we pray that your spirit would lead us as we worship you. In Jesus PERSON' name, amen.