Latest / The Grove Church / The Joy of Living for Christ

Transcript

The Joy of Living for Christ · The Grove Church

• 0:01
  Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to The Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you were joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
• 0:25
  You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us.
• 0:41
  Hey, good morning. If you are new, I'm Charlie, I'm the lead pastor here. Really glad you are worshiping with us today. Really glad all of you are here. And some of you who know me may have been like, hadn't seen him, where where was he?
• 0:54
  I'm actually not feeling very well today, and I didn't want to get anybody else sick, so I've been I've been hiding. But here I am, here to be with you guys for a little bit. So if you're new, I I really wish I could have met you, and we... You have a little thing in the back called First Step where we like to get to know new people. We have a gift we wanna give you.
• 1:13
  Mark, our small groups pastor, and some of our greeters, elders. There'll be some people back there. We would love for you to come back there and just say hi. Let us know that you were here. Any way that we can help you, we would love to know that.
• 1:26
  That's right after the service. One quick announcement. We started trying to do a better job. We're just kinda keep you guys updated anytime there's transitions of any kind. And so we have two different boards that kind of help oversee our church.
• 1:40
  We have an elder board that kind of governs the theological, spiritual side of the church, and a trustees board that oversees the more administrative executive functions of the church. And had a couple of changes here. Dan Rasmussen, who has been on our trustees board for probably at least twelve years, is transitioning to the elder board, a super talented guy who just has all the gifts, and we just really feel like at this season, we really need him on our elder board, and so we've invited him to do that. He's joined our elder board. And so we had to replace Dan on the elder board, and we have a guy named Jeff Meakins, who's a really awesome guy and falls into the very narrow category of people who have been coming to the church longer than I have.
• 2:24
  Our family has been here over fifteen years, and Jeff and Joy have been here even longer than that. And Jeff has recently joined our trustees team and really excited about the the gifts and perspective that he has to share. And so we share all this with you because we always want you to feel as part of our church that you have access to the leaders, that if you ever have questions that... About what's going on behind the scenes or concerns, and it feels weird or odd to bring them up to me or to Mark. I want you to feel like you've always got access to talk to people, and so we have our elders and trustees that is part of the function that they that they play.
• 3:01
  So right now, we are finishing up our series in Philippians. We'll finish it up next week, and we're about to do a two week run of two very popular... We're gonna get a hold of a whole lot of different very popular verses that are very often misused. So I'll have plenty of opportunities, fun little rants over the next few weeks. Like, I don't...
• 3:18
  You may not know. Like, there some verses in Philippians four that are like... If you don't know, that you'll you'll know, especially next week. There's there's some gold there. But what we're doing now is...
• 3:30
  I feel like in this section right here, the end of chapter three, the beginning of chapter four, we're really kind of getting to the to the heart of what it is that Paul was wanting to communicate to them. If you were here last week, Mark gave a very inspirational message about what... Just what it really means to be connected to Christ, and it ended with Paul talking about from his own perspective, like, I'm I'm putting everything behind. All these other things that I used to think were important, were valuable, everything... I I put all that behind, and I am just looking ahead to what Jesus has to do for me.
• 4:05
  I'm I'm looking only here. I'm only... I'm looking only to Jesus. It's a very inspirational kind of testimony of kind of what God is doing in him, and now we're about to transition to a point where he is going to talk about, well, now here's what you need to be about. And I feel like he's gonna lay out some pretty simple some pretty simple, if not difficult to execute, kind of principles for us on how to really thrive in the Christian life.
• 4:36
  And as I was prepping this message this week, I was just kinda mindful of just kind of... Just the way my brain works that... Like, it doesn't matter what the game is. Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:45
  I wanna introduce you to this new game, or you can make up a game. And I will just spend all the... Okay. Tell me all the rules. Tell me all these things, and I will come up with what I've...
• 4:54
  I... I'm pretty good at just coming up. What is the most effective strategy to win this game? Most games have an element of luck to them. My least favorite part of games is the elements of chance and luck, but, no, it is what it is.
• 5:05
  Like, what is what is the best strategy to the point to where I'm one of the most boring people to watch? So the... I'm I'm mechanical in what I'll do. Right? So I like I like I like to know how to win.
• 5:15
  And it's not just for games. It's for everything in life. And you wanna talk about a tedious way to have to live with me is I'm even like this on vacations. Like, how how... You may even think, I would never even consider the...
• 5:29
  What the phrase would even mean. I need to win at vacation. But it is possible to win a vacation. It is possible to lose a vacation. I'll give you an example.
• 5:37
  The first time my wife and I went to Mexico to one of these all inclusive resorts was... I'm trying to remember first service. Hey, Is it ten, fifteen years ago, let's just say? And we're walking through the airport, and we had arranged for transportation to take us to our hotel. And so we get past customs and everything, and there are all these people here help...
• 5:58
  Theoretically, are according to the signage to help you get connected with transportation. And I needed that. I didn't know where this person was going to be. And so I thought these people were there to help me because that is what the signage says. It turns out they are there to scam me and to make me buy transportation that I have already purchased and to also purchase things that I don't already need.
• 6:17
  And so we started off this vacation. I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated. I have already lost. I've already lost vacation.
• 6:24
  And I'm telling you, it it it stuck in me. We have to go back to Mexico if for no other reason that I can win airport. Okay? Now it has played out in its most significant way in my life with our family's connection to Disney World. For those of you who do not know, we are Disney World sorts of people.
• 6:47
  We like to go very often, and the older we get, the... We we tend to go more often now than we did when we had younger kids and you just have less resources and things are more chaotic. We we love to go, and I'll always remember that first trip that we went on. It's in 2003. Our older two daughters were just little little kids at the time, and our youngest Layla was not even around.
• 7:09
  And someone else planned the trip, and it was good. We had a good time. We had a good time. But I found myself walking around here thinking, we could have done this a lot better. There's actual...
• 7:20
  This... There's actually a pretty... There's a system here that if you figure out how to how to game this system, you could just dominate this whole thing. And it isn't that I didn't have a good time. I did have a good time.
• 7:34
  But even coming back, I was like, like we it's left something on the table. Right? It was like, there's something else we can do. And it stuck with me for a while until finally in 2006, we were able to go again. And let me tell you, we dominated that.
• 7:53
  We crushed that. I mean, like, we're... And you think, how do you win vacation? Well, you know, I'm doing it better than them and them and them and them, and you just like... You and feel it.
• 8:01
  I I I could talk about this all day, as many of you know. There was this one time... I'll think about it all the time. We're on the bus, and this one family, they are just exhausted and then frustrated. It's like, man, we were in the park all day, and we only did three attractions.
• 8:18
  And we had done 15. Right? And, yeah, we're... You're trying to be sympathetic, but really, you're just kinda low fiving everybody around there. We we won.
• 8:27
  And and then we've continued... They keep changing the rules. They keep changing the rules. They keep changing the system. It doesn't matter.
• 8:33
  You tell me this, we still win. And on this most recent trip that we're about to go on, somebody asked me very recently, it's like, have you been planning? I was like, I don't need to plan. It's in here. It's here to have it.
• 8:47
  Right? And so when I think about the Christian life, and I think about who it is that God has called us to be, I think very often we can struggle with what is the big picture. What what is it I'm supposed to do? And sometimes we can oversimplify it, and sometimes we can make it overly complicated. Like, what is it that God wants from me and why?
• 9:12
  And what is the perspective I need to have? Like, God has, you know, saved me. I I I have accepted Jesus. I have he's forgiven my sins, and now I've I'm I'm I'm now a Christian, but what does that mean? What what...
• 9:28
  But but now what? We can talk a lot about receiving Christ and and starting to follow Christ, but what does it really look like? And sometimes I feel like we suffer from a really... A a real lack of a comprehensive understanding of what the Christian life is supposed to be. And I think Paul is is feeling that somewhat with the Philippians.
• 9:51
  And so, again, we kinda finished up in the middle of chapter three with Paul kind of giving... Really inspiring them with what he has gone through and his perspective and is now trying to put it, I think, in some really simple terms for them to help them understand this is what you need to be about. And we'll finish it up next week. Paul has an ask that he is going to ask them to do for him. But right now, this is him kind of, here is the perspective you need to have in order to...
• 10:21
  My perspective when normal people's perspective thrive in the Christian life. And we'll start here. We're gonna break it up into little bits. We'll start it here. Philippians chapter three verses fifteen and sixteen.
• 10:39
  All of us then who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Pause here real quick. I have this group of guys. We study...
• 10:51
  We have Bible study on Fridays, and we recently, I think it may be a year ago, we studied Philippians. But we're we're... We've gone through a lot of Paul's letters. And there's this kind of thing that they've kind of drawn out of it that that that, you know, some people are like, you shouldn't say stuff like this. It was like, one of things you talk about is like, Paul's a pretty arrogant guy.
• 11:10
  Right? And there's just several things where he just kinda throws out little things, and we'll see another one here where it's kinda, that's arrogant. So he just tells you what his perspective is. Right? And before, and he goes, and if any of you are mature, you're gonna agree with me.
• 11:23
  And if you shouldn't, ask God, and he'll fix you. It's just just it's just it's just great. And I'm not saying that it is bad... That it that it is in a bad way. He is a very confident, self assured person as far as the per...
• 11:36
  His... The perspective that he has, but there's just little glimpses of this. But this is what he's saying. This perspective that God has given me about life. When you're mature, you'll understand it, and you'll agree with me.
• 11:47
  And if you don't, God will God will help you get there. What is that? And he says it here. Verse 16. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
• 12:01
  Let us live up to what we have already attained. Now to me, that is a very powerful, simple way of describing what it is that God has called us to. You have attained something. God has given you the gospel. God has given you Jesus.
• 12:24
  You have experienced forgiveness. You have life with him. You have overcome the penalty of sin. You are overcoming the power of sin, and you're going to be with him forever because of what Jesus Christ has done for you. You have been given this, and it is free.
• 12:40
  Now I want you to live up to that. We'll say it this way, and I'll just kind of explain it a little bit more. You have something great. Live up to the thing that you have. Now I've been at this a while.
• 12:55
  We have been... As a family, we have been in the career of professional ministry for almost thirty two years. And the longer you do it, you just see more and more things, and you just see people all the time falling away one way or another. People that were just seem very committed, very passionate about God, and one way or another that through some sort of moral scandal, through a slow drift, through some sort of burnout, they just... They fade away and are not passionate followers of Jesus anymore, and it's it's sad every time that I see it.
• 13:33
  And the longer I go and the more I see is kinda, again, this is way my brain works. I'm I'm collecting data. I'm trying to figure out what what are some of these common threads, and I am becoming more and more convinced that putting our minds and hearts around this spiritual concept that Paul has, again, very simply explained, but this can be difficult to execute, that understanding this theological concept is probably one of, if not the most important, spiritual practices and things that we need to understand if we are going to long term thrive in our relationship with God. And he says it very simply. Live up to what you have attained.
• 14:13
  Because what very often happens is that people will struggle in one of two ways. This says live up to what you've attained, and what some people can hear is that you need to earn what you have been given. God gave you something for free. Now you have to go and earn it. It is never that.
• 14:33
  It has never been that. When God says something is free, it is free. It is not 0% down, walk away with it today. It is free free. Too often, I think, spiritually, we kind of get into the mind of the rent to own, I don't wanna say scams, but just problematic things, where it's like, you can walk away with a TV today with zero money down.
• 14:54
  You have a free TV today, and all you have to do is pay $10 a month for the next thirty seven years, and you can have a free TV. Right? You get it for free, but then you have to pay it back. You can have this for free. Asterisk, terms and conditions may apply.
• 15:10
  And too often when we talk about what Jesus has done for us, we say that it is free, but it feels like asterisk terms and conditions may apply. This is not you owe God anything. You do not owe him any... He has given you something for free. You do not have to pay him back.
• 15:30
  And then what that then does... Well, okay. If that's not if that's not true, then what must be true, it doesn't matter what we do. God is a bro. I gave you this for free.
• 15:40
  So no matter how you live, you'll be fine. And it is neither of these two things, but we seem to only have these categories because these people over here who are trying to earn back, to pay back to God, will realize that that is impossible. You can never be good enough to have earned what God gave you freely, and you will burn out and fade away. These people, it doesn't really matter. God saved you from sin, that thing that was killing you from the inside out.
• 16:16
  I'm just gonna keep doing it. It was killing you. It will continue to. Moral failure and just continuing to pursue sin is always very destructive. And somewhere with neither of these two, there's a third point of a triangle.
• 16:35
  Live up to what you have been given. Another way to say it is you do not owe God anything. You don't owe God, but you owe it to God. And you may think that's the same thing. It's not.
• 16:48
  It's subtle. And depending on how old you are, spend the next ten to seventy years of your life trying to figure it out. I don't owe God anything, but I but I owe it to him. He's he's worthy of my obedience. He is worthy of me living the life that he's called me to.
• 17:08
  This is an old movie, but it still seems to be something that, you know, people have seen. And I'm an old guy, so I know old movies. There's a scene in saving private Ryan, and I don't know if you can spoil a movie this old. I will try not to regardless. It's about this guy.
• 17:22
  All his all his brothers have been killed on the field, and they don't really want an entire family to be wiped out. And so they're trying to figure out how can they get him off the field back home to his family. And so this this this delegation is kind of set to go and find him and bring him back. And you can well imagine it is it is it is very complicated. It's hard.
• 17:43
  It's difficult. There's a lot of sacrifices involved. And there's a scene where one of the other main characters, he is about to die, and he looks at private Ryan, who he... Who is now... He knows he's gonna be okay.
• 17:57
  I'm gonna die, but you're gonna be okay. And, basically, he says this very same thing to him. Live up to this. There's nothing he can do to pay back the people who died to save him. But there was something so significant that was done for him, he felt a compulsion to live a certain way, not out of obligation, but out of devotion and love and freedom.
• 18:29
  Verse 17. Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters. And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. Again, this is something my guys in my Bible study pointed out. It's like, hey.
• 18:47
  You're struggling with this? You know what you should do? You should just do what I... Whatever it is I do. Do what I do.
• 18:52
  And maybe you don't know. You you can't see me right now, but if you see anybody that reminds you of me, you can follow them too. Right? And it's just like, there's something about this guy. But, I mean, here's a very confident guy, and and he he had confidence in who he was.
• 19:10
  And he's like, man, if you could I I feel like God's done something really cool in me, if you will just figure this out. It's it's... And again, I struggle with this because in fact, I was talking to Spencer, our youth pastor. We're kinda doing some training with him on how to speak. He's doing a great job with our youth, and he's actually gonna get his first shot here on this stage here in a couple weeks and teaching him on how to speak and everything.
• 19:31
  I was telling him about stories. Right? You wanna tell stories about your own life, but you don't always wanna be the hero in your own story. Right? It's important for you to kinda talk about things that you struggle with, but you don't always wanna be the villain in your own story too.
• 19:45
  You wanna show that, hey, I've I've seen God do some things. I think I struggle with talking about being the hero in my own story. Paul does not. I mean, he just doesn't. He's like, I have overcome this.
• 19:58
  I have the right perspective on this. You should join me. You should follow me. And then... And there's actually something admirable about that when it's true.
• 20:08
  Right? And so what... But what he's saying here regardless, regardless of how that might come across, what he's saying here is really powerful and really good is that we have been called... Like, if we want to live up, if we wanna figure out how we're gonna do this, how am I going to live up to what the the the God has given me? One of the first ones is is to follow godly examples.
• 20:31
  Best... One of the best ways to live the life that God has called us to is is is that he's given us each other. He's given us each other. Like, you're better at something than I'm at. I'm better than something that you're at.
• 20:43
  When you need help, I can help you. When I need help, I can come to you. And we have each other who are spiritually or physically or family stage of life, whatever, a step or two ahead of us, and we have each other to kind of help us do better to... If I've gone through something and you haven't, then I can help you. Here...
• 21:07
  Here's what this is like, and here's how you can navigate it. Here are things that I wish I had known ten years ago when I was where you are now. And we actually had a really cool opportunity with a family. They don't go to this church. They're part of a ministry that Heidi and I are connected to.
• 21:24
  And they they would say, hey. We went together. We just wanna talk to you. They have four kids, and their oldest is a girl and has just become a teenager. I didn't have any follow-up questions at this point as to what it was that they wanted to talk about.
• 21:38
  I knew exactly what they wanted to talk about, and we knew exactly what it was that they needed to hear. Because that is a very difficult time. You have you have this precious baby girl who is this way for ten years, eleven years, twelve years, and then at some point, hormones enter the picture, and everything begins to change. Their personality changes. Their perspective changes.
• 22:02
  Their their social circles are becoming really stressful. School is becoming stressful. And all of a sudden, you you you think, how how did she become this? And parents can start to think, I'm failing. And it can become very stressful.
• 22:19
  And so we had some really, really good advice for them about how to navigate this. A lot of people say, hey. This is just... This is normal. Here are the things that she's going through.
• 22:27
  Here's why it's coming out the way that it is. We had some things they didn't wanna hear, things like, and it'll get better in approximately seven to nine years from now. But the great thing is is that we are on the other side of that, and we can say, now we've got great young women as daughters who work their way through it. And here's here's how we navigated it. Here's how we wish we would have navigated it.
• 22:55
  And here's the things that we're trying to do now that we're reloading with another 14 year old. And it's just helpful, whether it's parenting or marriage. I mean, if you're trying to figure out, like, I live in the corporate world. I own my own business, and I'm trying to figure out how to follow God in that. Don't come to me.
• 23:14
  I don't know. I haven't had a real job ever. But there are people here that have. If you wanna come... If you if you need help on how to navigate that same situation, but with teenage boys, absolutely don't come to me.
• 23:28
  I don't know anything about raising boys. I have nothing but negative things to say about boys. They smell bad, and and and they distract my girls. I don't like them. But there are people here who have navigated that and can help you.
• 23:43
  Marriage, work life balance, parenting, spiritual disciplines, all these sorts of things. You're surrounded by people who can help you, help you do better and to grow, and let's take advantage of that. It is an incredible gift that God has given us. Continue on here. Verse 18.
• 24:07
  For as I have often told you before and now tell you again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Now in a different world where we are taking twenty weeks to go through Philippians rather than seven, we would spend a whole week just looking at this passage. It is deep.
• 24:54
  It is rich. I encourage you to go back, spend some time this week just meditating on the details of this. But for us, this is just one of kind of three points that we're making to explain how we can live up to what God has called us. But, basically, what he's saying here is like, listen. Here's here's why you need to follow good examples.
• 25:17
  You need to follow good examples because there's a lot of people out there, and a lot of these people out there have a very wrong perspective about life. And if you look at them, you'll see, I mean, that they they are they are opposed to what Jesus Christ did, and their destiny is destruction. They have not they have not experienced the freedom that comes from the cross. They have not experienced forgiveness. Their lives are still pursuing sin, and ultimately, they're going to be destroyed.
• 25:47
  Not only is the destiny of destruction, but their god is their stomach, and what an interesting choice of words here. Their god is in their stomach. What what they value, what they worship are the things that they consume, literally and metaphorically. Food, drink, you know, just the consumables, the things that you can buy, wealth, experiences, things that you you do, and then they're done. You go see, and then it's over.
• 26:18
  You eat, and then it's gone. This... The thing that... The cravings that they have, the things that they want, the things that they consume, that is their God. And ultimately, they glory in the thing that that that should in fact that in fact brings them shame.
• 26:34
  They are most proud of the things that they should really be the most embarrassed by. You need to follow good examples because there is a lot of that out there, but you need to do something different. You need to put your focus up here. So we'll say it this way, keep your heart and mind focused on Jesus. There's a lot of people here who are focused on this stuff down here, what this world has to offer.
• 27:02
  And he's saying, you... You're different than that, so follow better examples and keep your focus up here on Jesus and what Jesus is going to do for you now and what he is ultimately going to do for you in the future. You do not want to be consumed like these people whose all their attention is here on earthly things. And if you've been here around long enough, you are probably anticipating at this point, oh, here we go. He's gonna give us another lecture on how we need to stop ranting on social media about political stuff.
• 27:34
  I'm not gonna do that today, but if that is the takeaway that you want to take from this, you feel free. I feel like we need to mix it up a little bit, because it's really talking about something a little bit different. I mean, yeah, sure. What... Many of us are getting distracted by what is a very ugly world out there in our political climate.
• 27:55
  But this, the God is our stomach. What I value is what I eat, what I consume, what I take, where I go, what I do. This is everything to me. And so life is found with more and better and different physically experiences, food, consumption, stuff, money. And, again, I'm not telling you that that these things inherently are bad.
• 28:27
  I just told you we go to Disney World all the time, which for a lot of people is a is a luxury item. It is not that those things cannot have some value, but when we make that the God, when we put our heart there, when I can only find life and contentment, when I am pursuing that and more of it, I'm going to continue to struggle. So then he goes from here to the very first part of Philippians four, and we're just skipping over this where he's talking to some very specific people. You guys got some conflict. You need to you need to get aligned here, and we we cannot have division here.
• 29:06
  And then he ends this section that we're looking at here with a very popular verse. Philippians four four through seven. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all.
• 29:21
  The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Again, I would very much take... Give a whole week to this if we were going through it slowly, But in part, I don't want to give it a whole week, because I think we have we have elevated this verse in this passage to say things that he doesn't...
• 29:51
  It's not really saying. We've we've turned it into this magic elixir that I don't think that Paul ever meant for it to be. You're trying to figure out how to navigate life. You need to look to God example... Godly examples.
• 30:04
  If you're gonna live up to it, keep your eyes not here, but here. But I know that this is gonna be stressful. It can be difficult, but rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. I'll say it again.
• 30:18
  Rejoice. No matter what you're going through, the Lord is there, and rejoice in that. And I know that there are times that you're gonna get anxious. You're not going to know what to do. You're gonna be stressed.
• 30:35
  It's gonna feel like it's too much. I don't know how to win here. I don't know what God wants. And even if I didn't know what he wants, I don't know how to do it. And I can feel overwhelmed.
• 30:47
  I can feel like a failure. I can feel... Again, I I can feel lost and distracted, and it can make me feel anxious. And Paul's like, don't be anxious. No matter what this world throws at you, don't be anxious because you're trying to do it alone.
• 31:02
  Don't do it alone. Pray. Pray. God's peace will come because he's with you in this. Now this passage gets overused sometimes, and I think for our purposes, we wanna make a distinction between feeling anxious about something and what has come to be known in our society as anxiety to the point to where your brain chemistry has been altered, and you're experiencing things in a completely different level than just, I'm feeling nervous about this.
• 31:39
  So I do not want you to get to the impression impression that no matter what you're going through, if you just chose to not be anxious and prayed, you won't be anxious anymore. Paul's not talking about anxiety in the way that we now talk about it, But he is talking about just kind of that everyday anxiousness that we feel. I don't know what to do. I don't know. I don't know.
• 32:01
  I I I keep messing up. I'm confused. This is hard. I'm I'm I'm struggling. That's because you're taking it on yourself.
• 32:11
  You think you have to do this. You don't have to do this. You've got all these godly examples. Put your focus on Jesus, and then and then just reach out to him. I'm feeling anxious about how to navigate this situation with my wife.
• 32:25
  I'm feeling anxious about this job, this this transition... This job transition I find myself in. I'm anxious about our finances. You just just pray, and the and the promise isn't. Answers will come.
• 32:42
  Things will suddenly be easier. Life won't punch you anymore, But the promise is something greater, a peace that protects your heart. The most vulnerable part of us in a very dangerous world is protected by the peace of Jesus Christ. Because we start... We kinda we kinda start this passage with uncertainty.
• 33:12
  How am I supposed to live? Who am I supposed to be? And God gives us some direction, framework. Live up. Live up to what you've been given.
• 33:26
  But he gives us more than that. He gives us each other to help us, to navigate it, someone who's just a little bit further ahead than you to help you where you... Where where you're weak. He gives us perspective. Stop living according to the world's values where consumption is where life is found.
• 33:44
  And ultimately, pursue peace. And what you will get, what you will... What you need more than anything else is this peace. We want answer... We want simple answers in a world that is complicated.
• 34:06
  We want things to be easy when things are difficult. When things are difficult, they can't be easy. When things are complicated, they can't be simple. But what we can have no matter what is each other, perspective, and a peace that protects our heart. Let me pray.
• 34:37
  God, thank you. God, thank you for what we've been given, the life that we have through your son. And, God, I pray that we'd be people who can rest in that, that we could... We can know that you have given this to us freely, and we can rest. And at the same time, not to pay you back, but to honor you, God, that we would live up to it.
• 35:14
  And, God, thank you that you've given us each other, that you've shown us a perspective on life other than consumption. And, God, we humbly come to you asking for peace, And we're so thankful that all of this is possible, that your son, Jesus Christ, and what he did for us. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
• 35:43
  Thanks again today. I'm that. I'm that. Glad topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed.
• 36:06
  However, you found this particular podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove. Thank you so much for joining us.