SPEAKER_00: All right, good morning, church family.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: I know what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Two things.
SPEAKER_00: You're thinking, what is he gonna say about the Aggies?
SPEAKER_00: And then you're thinking, does he know it's before Thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_00: We can't start the Christmas series before Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: All right, there we go.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to begin our Christmas sermon series titled Why He Came.
SPEAKER_00: If you do not have a Bible, there is a Bible in the PureC in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Please take that as a gift from us to you.
SPEAKER_00: You can keep that so that you can have a copy of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: We put those there so that you can have them.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I was a kid of the early 90s, right?
SPEAKER_00: I was a preteen in the early 90s, and I remember a certain summer when a huge new blockbuster hit movie came out.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm old enough to remember when uh box office hits would come out during the summer, and you would kind of take the whole summer to uh around that.
SPEAKER_00: But Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2, okay?
SPEAKER_00: A cyborg from the future comes to Earth on a special mission.
SPEAKER_00: My cousin and I and my uh and my brother, we begged our parents, could we please go see this in the theater?
SPEAKER_00: And they talked about it, and my dad and my uncle took us all, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And it was amazing, all right?
SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
SPEAKER_00: This huge action movie blockbuster hit of the summer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the reality is, is uh my recollection of that movie, I only remember two things from that movie.
SPEAKER_00: The saying, I'll be back, and hasta la vista, baby.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's it.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's all I remember about that.
SPEAKER_00: In in fact, uh if you were a child of those times, you know that you would work in I'll be back or hasta la vista, baby, every chance you got.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the kids, they say six, seven, and then they just giggle, they think that's so funny.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime they say six, seven, well, that's what we did.
SPEAKER_00: We just said hasta la vista, baby.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: But if you were to ask me, well, what was the actual plot of the movie?
SPEAKER_00: To this day, I would tell you, like, I don't know, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why did Arnold come from the future back?
SPEAKER_00: Why did he come?
SPEAKER_00: I got no clue.
SPEAKER_00: Really, I really I don't.
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, when it comes to Christmas and the coming of Jesus, how much of our culture can only quote fun snippets, missing the true meaning of why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, I know that most of us in this room would say, well, he came to die on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: But did you know that Scripture says that he came to destroy the works of the devil?
SPEAKER_00: Or to seek and to save the lost, or as we will see this morning, that he came to glorify the Father.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to listen as I read in Romans chapter 15, verses 7 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to listen and I want you to listen for why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes, therefore accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the Father, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: As it is written, therefore I will give praise to you among the Gentiles, and I will sing your name.
SPEAKER_00: Again he says, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.
SPEAKER_00: And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise him.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah says, Uh, there shall come the root of Jesse, and he who arises to rule over the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles hope.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Will you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, as we have gathered to sing your praises, as we have gathered in the mighty name of Jesus, Father, your word says that you inhabit the praises of your people.
SPEAKER_00: Your word says that when we gather in the name of Jesus, that you draw near, that your spirit draws near.
SPEAKER_00: And we beg you right now that through the power of your word and the preached proclaimed word, that you would open the eyes of our heart to see your beauty and magnificence, to see your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive us and reveal to us how so many things that distract us, how so many things that we chase after in life, how they are not worthy of our attention in light of you.
SPEAKER_00: God, do a work through your spirit to allow us to see with clarity the magnificence of the mercy of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: In 1731, the king of Sweden was gifted a lion as a pet.
SPEAKER_00: And he loved this lion.
SPEAKER_00: He spoiled this lion.
SPEAKER_00: He he uh gave it, you know, extra attention.
SPEAKER_00: But sadly, the lion passed away at a young age.
SPEAKER_00: The king deeply mourned his pet for a couple years.
SPEAKER_00: After a couple years, he decided that he wanted to send the uh send the lion.
SPEAKER_00: All he had left was the bones and the carcass, but that he wanted to send it off to a taxidermist, to have, you know, his his friend remembered.
SPEAKER_00: So he found a uh world-renowned taxidermist, and he he sends the pelt and the bones to him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the only problem was the taxidermist had never seen a lion before.
SPEAKER_00: And it's 1731, right?
SPEAKER_00: You can't just Google it.
SPEAKER_00: But he has a reputation to uphold, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't want to disappoint the king.
SPEAKER_00: So, both comically and tragically, this is what he produced.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that is not the majestic king of the beasts.
SPEAKER_00: It looks more like a confused donkey, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Now, to this day, that stuffed lion is in a Swedish museum.
SPEAKER_00: A monument to what happens if someone tries to recreate that which they've never truly seen.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, that lion is a picture of human religion and our imagination of who God is and what he is like.
SPEAKER_00: By man's impressions are distorted, they are false, they are ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00: But then Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: And as Colossians 1 15 says, he is the true image of the invisible God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature, Hebrews 1.3.
SPEAKER_00: He came to make the Father known and to reveal his character.
SPEAKER_00: So, church family, the first point that I want us to see out of our text this morning is that Jesus came to glorify the Father.
SPEAKER_00: See it there in verses 7 and 9.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus came to glorify the Father.
SPEAKER_00: But this is a repeated theme throughout the New Testament, and especially in the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to listen to John chapter 12, 27 and 28.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus speaking.
SPEAKER_00: He knows he's about to go to the cross, and he says, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?
SPEAKER_00: Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour.
SPEAKER_00: Father, glorify your name.
SPEAKER_00: And then a voice came out of heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.
SPEAKER_00: And I could overwhelm you, church, with about 15 verses about how it is expressly stated that God's purpose in sending his son is that we would see the glory of God in the face of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's 2 Corinthians 4, 6.
SPEAKER_00: And that Jesus' purpose, his aim was to glorify his father.
SPEAKER_00: But I want us to slow down for just a second.
SPEAKER_00: I think you know what glory is.
SPEAKER_00: And you think you know what glory is, but it's worth our time to kind of peel back the layers and to focus in.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus says he came to glorify the Father, that even that was his highest aim was for you and I to see the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: You see, glory is only glory if something is seen as beautiful, spectacular, as a bride on her wedding day, full of beauty and awe and splendor.
SPEAKER_00: Like a camper that is drawn to the warmth and the light of a fire in the coolness of the night.
SPEAKER_00: Glory is only glory if God is seen as irresistibly true and great and satisfying.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to listen to an array of the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 16, 11.
SPEAKER_00: In your presence there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 17, 15, as for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 63, my soul thirsts for you.
SPEAKER_00: My soul will be satisfied as with lavish food, and my mouth with will praise you with joyful lips.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 73, whom have I in heaven but you?
SPEAKER_00: And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
SPEAKER_00: My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and he is my portion forever.
SPEAKER_00: You see, to glorify God means that he is seen as unequaled, unsurpassed, more than food or sex or money, that he is the greatest treasure of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And you see it like Peter and the apostles, you see it, not like Judas, who did not see it, who walked with Jesus for three years and did not see the beauty of the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: He was blinded by his greed and his thirst for power.
SPEAKER_00: He did not see it.
SPEAKER_00: But you see it, that God is irresistibly true and satisfying.
SPEAKER_00: And that is why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: So that all would see the beauty and the worth of God.
SPEAKER_00: But here in this text, this text highlights attributes and linking those attributes together for which attributes get lifted high above for why Jesus came to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: First, you see it there in verse eight, is that Jesus glorifies God because God kept his promises to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Because God kept his because God is a promise-keeping God.
SPEAKER_00: So when God promised Moses, 1500 years before Christ, when God said to Moses in Deuteronomy 18, he said to the people of Israel, that there is going to be a prophet like Moses that comes and knows God and speaks with God face to face, that 1,500 years later, when God sends Jesus, he is fulfilling his promise to Moses.
SPEAKER_00: But you say, Israel was not faithful.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to return to Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: They did not obey God and drive out all the people in the land.
SPEAKER_00: And they chased after other gods again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: Israel was not faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Even though Israel is unworthy, God kept his promise to send the perfect high priest that he had promised to Israel and to Moses because God is a promise-keeping God.
SPEAKER_00: So that when God promised David in 2 Samuel chapter 7 that there would be a king that arises from his line that would have an eternal reign, God is now keeping that promise a thousand years later in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But you say, David is unworthy.
SPEAKER_00: I've read my Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I heard what he did with Bathsheba and how he killed Uriah, how he was a poor husband, and there was chaos that was wrecked all through his home, and that kings after him, after him, they they they chased after all the wrong things.
SPEAKER_00: There was a succession of horrible kings.
SPEAKER_00: David is unworthy.
SPEAKER_00: I say, yes, friend, David is unworthy.
SPEAKER_00: But God still kept his promise of a better king.
SPEAKER_00: Because God is a promise-keeping God.
SPEAKER_00: What about God's promise to Jeremiah that he gave to Israel while they were in exile?
SPEAKER_00: A promise of a new heart and a new covenant, even a better covenant.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't obey the first one.
SPEAKER_00: They are in exile because they're rebellious.
SPEAKER_00: Why on earth is God coming along and promising a better one?
SPEAKER_00: One that involves him pulling out their heart of stone and inserting a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: One that involves his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Why would God be promising a better covenant to a people who are rebellious and didn't keep the first one?
SPEAKER_00: There's only one word.
SPEAKER_00: Grace.
SPEAKER_00: Behold the glory of God who rules all of creation and all of history, and keeps his promises of redemption and hope towards his undeserving people.
SPEAKER_00: Because he most wants to be glorified by his grace.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to know that he is faithful, that he is gracious even when his own people aren't.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: See, now he does everything that I just did for Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now he does that for the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: In verses nine through twelve, he says, Jesus came to glorify the Father, okay, because of his mercy for the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we read the word Gentiles there, I want you to know and understand this means all peoples.
SPEAKER_00: This means God's glory going to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse nine, it says, God wanted to be glorified for his mercy upon all people.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, and now Paul is going to quote four Old Testament scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: First one, Psalm 18, verse 49, uh speaking as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I will give praise to you among the Gentiles, and I will sing to your name.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he says, and this is Deuteronomy 32, verse 43, where Moses is summoning the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.
SPEAKER_00: And again, Psalm 117, verse 1 Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles or nations, and let all the peoples praise him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, Isaiah says in 11 10, there shall come the root of Jesse, and he who arises to rule over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles hope.
SPEAKER_00: In him shall the Gentiles hope.
SPEAKER_00: But you say, wait a second, the Gentiles, the nations, those are the people that are the furthest from God.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the people that that make up all sorts of weird uh idols and other religions.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the people the furthest from God.
SPEAKER_00: I was in India a short time ago, and there they have hundreds of thousands of gods.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most prominent female deities has six arms.
SPEAKER_00: And you just look at it and you're like, this just looks weird.
SPEAKER_00: Why are we worshiping this?
SPEAKER_00: They are the furthest from God.
SPEAKER_00: They make distorted, false, ridiculous images of God like the taxidermist and the lion.
SPEAKER_00: Why would God want to be seen as glorious among them?
SPEAKER_00: Why would God want to be seen as glorious by you?
SPEAKER_00: And why would God want you to see him most as glorious for his mercy?
SPEAKER_00: Behold the glory of God who sustains all of creation and all of history and stoops down to undeserving, the incapable, the rebellious to the blind.
SPEAKER_00: He does not win glory by amassing slaves that are forced to serve him because he is the most powerful or most dominant force.
SPEAKER_00: Although he is.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, his aim for the highest glory is by sending his son to become a servant in order to free the slaves of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all my sin.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to look again at verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: Just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the diamond against the black velvet background?
SPEAKER_00: I recently heard a preacher tell this story.
SPEAKER_00: Once upon a time, in a far-off kingdom, there was a king who was the most loving and the most just king who had ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: It was found out within the kingdom that someone was stealing from the king's treasury.
SPEAKER_00: Because the king is just, he issued a decree that whenever it is found who is stealing from the treasury, that ten lashes shall be performed in front of the entire kingdom for this treason that had occurred.
SPEAKER_00: But as time went on, the theft continued.
SPEAKER_00: It got worse.
SPEAKER_00: And so the king issued a final decree.
SPEAKER_00: Now the decree was 40 lashes in front of the entire kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: But you must understand that the sentence of 40 lashes was a death sentence, a death blow.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was soon discovered that none other than the king's own daughter was the one who was stealing from the treasury.
SPEAKER_00: And so when it was discovered that it was the king's daughter, a question began to rise throughout the land.
SPEAKER_00: And that is, what will the king do?
SPEAKER_00: How could the most loving king ever kill his own daughter?
SPEAKER_00: But he, if he is also just, how could he just pardon her and let her go?
SPEAKER_00: His love and his justice, what would he do?
SPEAKER_00: And the king spoke to the entire nation and said, The law is clear.
SPEAKER_00: Justice must be served, the punishment must fall.
SPEAKER_00: And so the king's daughter was brought before the entire kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And there she was laid over the executioner's table.
SPEAKER_00: She was tied to it.
SPEAKER_00: Her shirt was ripped and torn open so that her back was exposed.
SPEAKER_00: And as the whole kingdom watched, the executioner took a step back and raised his arm as to deliver the first blow.
SPEAKER_00: When suddenly the king yelled out, Stop! The king quietly walked over to his daughter.
SPEAKER_00: He took off his shirt and he draped his own body over her.
SPEAKER_00: He turned and he said to the executioner, Now hit my daughter.
SPEAKER_00: The executioner said, Sir, I cannot.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot hit your daughter without hitting you.
SPEAKER_00: He turned and he looked and he said, Now hit my daughter.
SPEAKER_00: And the king received 40 lashes, a death sentence, and the king died, and his daughter was set free.
SPEAKER_00: That is what Jesus Christ did for you.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever he laid his life down on a wooden cross and was nailed to it, that was according to the plan of God.
SPEAKER_00: As God poured out his wrath for your sin upon his son, that is why Jesus cried out upon the cross, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was all according to the plan of God, it was according to the love of God, it was according to the justice of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus laid down his life on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Behold the glory of God, who in his mercy takes the punishment of sin upon himself so that we might be set free.
SPEAKER_00: Who in his mercy keeps his promises to an obstinate, undeserving people, who in his mercy calls all people to himself, no matter how far they are from him.
SPEAKER_00: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but can have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Friend, does that fill your heart with awe at the beauty of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Is it water to your thirsty soul?
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear it and say that God is irresistibly true and he is satisfying?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it and do you begin to praise him?
SPEAKER_00: That there is no God like you.
SPEAKER_00: There is no God like you.
SPEAKER_00: You are unmatched, you are unsurpassed, you are my greatest delight.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is why Jesus came to glorify the Father for His mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Now I have for us this morning two quick points of application.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13 says, Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: As you see the beauty of the gospel, as you see it more and more glorious, as you understand that the gospel displays the character of God, as you understand that the gospel is the power of God, the power of God to resurrect me from the dead, the power to make all things new, the power to satisfy the depth of my soul, the thirst of my soul, as you see it, you will be filled with joy and peace and hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I lovingly press you this morning, and I just ask, are you right?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have joy?
SPEAKER_00: A joy that sustains you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have peace?
SPEAKER_00: A peace that is greater than your circumstances?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have hope?
SPEAKER_00: So as you guys know, this fall I I took a small group.
SPEAKER_00: We took a mission trip to India where we spent 12 days there.
SPEAKER_00: But what you may not know is 25 years ago, I spent three months in India as an engineering uh uh as an engineering student.
SPEAKER_00: I was on an engineering mission trip, and I was 20 years old, and I had just God had just really grabbed a hold of me.
SPEAKER_00: So when I was here this past fall for those 12 days, and the the sights and the smells and all the scenes came back from India, I I was flooded in my mind to where I was 25 years ago, and what I was wrestling with, and who I was as a person.
SPEAKER_00: And so suddenly in the hotel at night, I would get very reflective, and I would have times of reading my Bible, and and and these these the memories would just flood back.
SPEAKER_00: And I began to just pause and and thank God.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about 25 years of being able to look and see the way that God has changed me through the power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm in no way perfect, I'm in no way complete, but guess what?
SPEAKER_00: I am not who I was 25 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And as I reflected upon that, can I just tell you what began to flood over my soul?
SPEAKER_00: Joy and peace and hope.
SPEAKER_00: Joy because his Holy Spirit is in me, his Holy Spirit is changing me, and he's not done.
SPEAKER_00: Peace because Jesus Christ has completely covered over my sin.
SPEAKER_00: And hope because the best is yet to come.
SPEAKER_00: I can't even comprehend that which awaits.
SPEAKER_00: Friend, I ask you again this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Do you long for joy and peace and hope?
SPEAKER_00: If so, will you listen to God's own voice in Isaiah 55?
SPEAKER_00: This is God speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who thirst, come to the waters.
SPEAKER_00: And you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your wages for that which does not satisfy?
SPEAKER_00: Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear God calling you to find your satisfaction in him?
SPEAKER_00: Second point of application.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, accept one another just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: The church makes Jesus look unbelievably amazing whenever we model acceptance the way that He accepted us.
SPEAKER_00: So, how did He accept you?
SPEAKER_00: Just as you were.
SPEAKER_00: Baggage, hurts, your sinful patterns of anger and lust and materialism.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, we are called to be like Him.
SPEAKER_00: Grace-filled, patient, kind, accepting.
SPEAKER_00: Not accepting sin as the standard, but understanding that we come from different backgrounds and have different levels of maturity, even preferences.
SPEAKER_00: You like me are accepted at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And as the saying goes, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, that must be the culture of our church.
SPEAKER_00: You do know our culture is crying out for acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: They crave it, right?
SPEAKER_00: But they're blindly groping along, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Trying to find it any way that they can.
SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you, I have time to share with you just a few articles that I've printed out from culture.
SPEAKER_00: And as I read them, I want you to listen to them through the lens of the way that our culture is longing for the acceptance that's only found in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But I gotta warn you, I'm not sharing with these with you to be funny.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna find them bizarre.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to laugh.
SPEAKER_00: I want your heart to be broken.
SPEAKER_00: 33-year-old uh uh Thomas uh Thwaites was in debt.
SPEAKER_00: He was living at home with his father, full of anxiety and feeling alone.
SPEAKER_00: And he thought to himself, wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a way for me to escape?
SPEAKER_00: Escape completely from the loneliness of my life, not just away from my job, but from away from my very self.
SPEAKER_00: And so he became a goat.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is for real.
SPEAKER_00: He spent one week, he saved up, and he went on a one-week vacation and lived amongst goats.
SPEAKER_00: And the article says that he would have become an elephant except he learned that elephants felt sadness and pain just like humans do.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another article that says loneliness is more dangerous than smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.
SPEAKER_00: Loneliness increases the risk of premature death by approximately twenty-six percent, which is comparable to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, and more dangerous than obesity, lack of physical activity, and air pollution.
SPEAKER_00: One final one.
SPEAKER_00: There's an article from Vice.
SPEAKER_00: The title is How the Furry Community Became a Safe Space for Youth.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know what the furry community is, it is a cultural phenomenon where uh people find uh themselves more comfortable when when dressed up in an animal costume.
SPEAKER_00: This is written by a mother about uh her daughter that was going through and became a furry.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this one paragraph.
SPEAKER_00: I quickly learned that joining the furry community is not just about putting on a fursuit and being an animal.
SPEAKER_00: The fandom is a happy home for large numbers of non-heterosexual, transgender, gender-queer, and gender-nonconforming people, welcoming many who feel stigmatized at home, school, and work.
SPEAKER_00: For many under 18, the community provides a place where they fit in for the first time, one where they're celebrated for their creative, inventive personas.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my point.
SPEAKER_00: The human heart longs to be fully known and to experience acceptance that is only found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna tell them?
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna show them that Jesus meets you where we are, but he never leaves us where we are.
SPEAKER_00: He knows us completely, every wound, every weakness, every sin, and he still welcomes us with open arms.
SPEAKER_00: But his acceptance is not permission to stay the same.
SPEAKER_00: It's the doorway to a transformed life.
SPEAKER_00: In his grace, he says, come as you are.
SPEAKER_00: In his holiness, he says, walk with me into that which you were made to be.
SPEAKER_00: Church family, will you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you now in the name, the name above all names, the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How amazing and incredible you are, Jesus, that you have come to display the grace and the mercy and the beauty of your Father.
SPEAKER_00: That the one who reigns above it all would most rather be known by his mercy and his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray right now, if there's anyone under the sound of my voice that does not know you, that has been trusting in all the wrong things, whose heart this morning was stirred with a deep desire to know you, afresh and anew, that heard your word about come to you and be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray right now that your spirit would show them, would show them the cross, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus on behalf of their sin, that they might be born again and know you.
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for chasing after all the silly things, even good things that aren't the best things that distract us from finding our ultimate satisfaction in you.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray this morning is a reset of our heart.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.