Speaker 1: Well, back in 2009, one of the craziest news stories in a long time happened real time in front of the whole country.
Speaker 1: In fact, we have a picture up on the screen of that news story, and some of our adult leaders might remember this.
Speaker 1: It was called the Balloon Boy Saga, and so what happened is that a family in Colorado called into the police and said that their six-year-old son, falcon, had climbed into this homemade balloon.
Speaker 1: Said that their six-year-old son, falcon, had climbed into this homemade balloon and that it had launched, and it was shaped like this flying saucer that you can see.
Speaker 1: And for the next 90 minutes, everybody's freaking out because this boy is in this balloon and it got up to 7,000 feet in the air.
Speaker 1: It traveled nearly 50 miles, was in the air for 90 minutes, and people were terrified that this little boy, his life, was in danger.
Speaker 1: And so, finally, a balloon comes down in this field near Denver, and so everybody rushes in like cameras rolling, and when they opened it, there was no boy, and so they're like oh no, did he fall out?
Speaker 1: And so they start to search and search and they finally get to the family's house where he's been in the attic the entire time, and so that night the family went on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, who was a guy that did CNN back then, and during the interview that guy asked this boy like hey, why did you hide?
Speaker 1: And this little boy, in the most honest way that a six-year-old could possibly answer, said well, he looked at his parents.
Speaker 1: He said you guys said that we did this for the show.
Speaker 1: To his parents he said you guys said that we did this for the show.
Speaker 1: And so the truth came out that those parents had orchestrated this and used their son as a hoax to gain media attention in hopes that they could land a reality TV show.
Speaker 1: And instead of a TV show, the dad ended up in jail.
Speaker 1: And it was really a sad story because these parents were so desperate to make a name for themselves that they used their son.
Speaker 1: They made a terrible decision and in the process they brought incredible pain into their family.
Speaker 1: So why in the world am I telling you this story?
Speaker 1: Well, because none of us are probably going to tell a lie about a kid in a balloon, but in some way all of us at some point have struggled with a desire to make a name for ourselves, whether it's through sports, school or social media.
Speaker 1: Personally, guys, this is one of my struggles.
Speaker 1: I was convicted of this earlier this year that I realized on a vacation, nonetheless, that I have a deep internal, sinful desire to seem impressive to people, and I really care about what people think about me and wanting them to think that I'm impressive or smart or good at preaching.
Speaker 1: And so I opened this sermon tonight saying like I am the chief offender of these struggles and so I want you to hear me preach from that spot.
Speaker 1: And the problem is that thinking that way is going to lead to all sorts of destruction in your lives, just like it did that family with the balloon boy.
Speaker 1: But thankfully, god's word has answers for us and we're going to see them tonight as we actually wrap up our Eden series in Genesis, chapter 11.
Speaker 1: So, if you have your Bible, go ahead and flip open Genesis, chapter 11, verse 1.
Speaker 1: And as we've gone through this Eden series, we've looked at the first 11 chapters of the Bible and we've seen not only does how you understand these 11 chapters shape how you'll understand the rest of your Bible, but how you understand these 11 chapters will shape how you view the entire world, because that's what God is doing through this part of Genesis is.
Speaker 1: He's answering these big questions of who are you?
Speaker 1: What's this place that we live in?
Speaker 1: Why are you here?
Speaker 1: What's the problem, the solution, who makes the rules Like?
Speaker 1: All of these big questions get answered here, and so tonight we're gonna finish with the story of the Tower of Babel, which actually marks the shift from this part of Genesis to the next one.
Speaker 1: It's where we're gonna wrap up our series In this sermon.
Speaker 1: In a sentence we're gonna see this that when we try to build our own name, like the people at Babel, it only leads to pride and emptiness, but God and his mercy offers us a better name in Jesus and offers us a place in the family of God.
Speaker 1: And so we're going to read chapter 11, verse one.
Speaker 1: Now, the whole earth had one language in the same words, and as people migrated from the East, they found a plane in the land of Shinar and settled there, and they said to one another come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.
Speaker 1: And they had brick for stone and bitumen bitumen, I don't know how to pronounce that for mortar.
Speaker 1: And then they said come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and come.
Speaker 1: Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.
Speaker 1: And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man have built.
Speaker 1: Let's pray For a moment.
Speaker 1: Would you pray for yourself, for your heart, for your eyes and your ears to be open to the gospel, to God's word, that he would meet you where you're at, even in the middle of the mess, and that he would change you?
Speaker 1: And then would you pray for me that I could stand behind his word, that I could be helpful, that I could be a shepherd, that everything I preach would be true?
Speaker 1: God, we thank you for your word.
Speaker 1: Tonight we pray that we would be shaped and formed by it and that we would leave here and apply it to our lives and have great conversation in small group.
Speaker 1: We pray these things in Jesus' name and everybody said amen.
Speaker 1: So how many of you, when you read the story of the Tower of Babel, let's be honest are kind of confused Like what's going on here, like they're building a tall tower and like God's all of a sudden upset about it?
Speaker 1: Eli Smith, you're honest, I appreciate that brother story.
Speaker 1: It just seems kind of weird, like why does God have a problem with this?
Speaker 1: Like it looks like humanity's united, we're all on the same page, one language, and they just want to build a cute little tower.
Speaker 1: Like it's great.
Speaker 1: But you have to understand that, just like everything else we've read in this series, there's a lot more going on beneath the surface, because the thing is, god's issue isn't with the unity of a language and that they're all working together, but it's what that unity is directed at.
Speaker 1: What do I mean?
Speaker 1: Well, first you have to take a look at the first commands that God gave humans.
Speaker 1: What he told Adam and Eve in Genesis 1.28, be fruitful and multiply.
Speaker 1: Here's the point fill the earth and subdue it.
Speaker 1: He tells Adam and Eve to spread out, to have children, to have families, to go and fill the earth.
Speaker 1: Eden was supposed to grow.
Speaker 1: And then God says the same thing in Genesis 9, after Noah and his family leave the ark.
Speaker 1: He says and God bless Noah, this is Genesis 9, 1, and his sons.
Speaker 1: And he said to them be fruitful, multiply.
Speaker 1: And what?
Speaker 1: Fill the earth?
Speaker 1: 9, 7, and you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.
Speaker 1: This command is reiterated after this.
Speaker 1: We talked about how the flood was like this de-creation, starting over right To end human violence.
Speaker 1: And he gives it again go, spread out, multiply.
Speaker 1: But then what did we see in our verses here today?
Speaker 1: The people in Babylon said or Babel, which is Babylon, I you know, we'll get to that later but they say come, let us build ourselves a city in a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Here's the point Lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.
Speaker 1: So they're basically saying, hey, let's stay here and build a tower so we don't have to go fill the earth.
Speaker 1: God, we don't wanna, I don't wanna do what you're telling us to do.
Speaker 1: We want to.
Speaker 1: They hear it's rebellion.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing that Adam and Eve, cain Lamech.
Speaker 1: It's the same cycle.
Speaker 1: The problem was that they were unifying against God, saying I'm going to do it my way.
Speaker 1: But there's one more key issue in these verses that tells us why this is such a big deal.
Speaker 1: Look at their reasoning.
Speaker 1: They say come, let us build a city with its top in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves.
Speaker 1: And their goal in building this tower wasn't that they thought they were going to reach up into heaven, like they were going to find God up there.
Speaker 1: That's not the point.
Speaker 1: They wanted to make a name for themselves.
Speaker 1: They wanted to build fame and influence.
Speaker 1: They wanted to do it their way and underneath that is this pride and, whether they realized it or not, they wanted to be God.
Speaker 1: It's the same old cycle and we've always seen that that leads to bad things.
Speaker 1: I remember in middle school I wanted nothing more than to make a name for myself.
Speaker 1: I've told you all this.
Speaker 1: I transferred public school and I just wanted to be popular.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be liked.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in all the friend groups, like desperately.
Speaker 1: There were two problems.
Speaker 1: One, I was just an objectively weird kid, like honestly, like carrying a conversation was difficult for me, just had some, you know, I nerded out about the things I nerded out about, like middle school.
Speaker 1: Garrett was going through it.
Speaker 1: I did not peak in middle school.
Speaker 1: But two, not only did I want to make a name for myself, but so did everyone else.
Speaker 1: Right, everybody wanted to be popular.
Speaker 1: And you know what happens when everybody wants to be popular and make a name for themselves War, and not like tanks and missiles.
Speaker 1: War, but, like gossip and lies and sarcasm, that's meant to tear people down.
Speaker 1: People would make fun of each other's biggest insecurities just to hide their own.
Speaker 1: We would leave people out of friend groups just to feel superior and hide our feelings of never quite being enough right.
Speaker 1: We would just compare, tear one another down just to make ourselves feel a little bit taller, a little bit better, all for the same reason as those people who tried to build that tower, to make a name.
Speaker 1: And we've all done it right.
Speaker 1: In sports, you try to be better than everybody else, have the best highlight reel, get the starting spot, make it to varsity.
Speaker 1: In school, you try to be at the top of your class, ace every test, build a transcript and get a 4.0 to tell everybody hey look, how smart I am.
Speaker 1: With friends, we try to be the one that everybody texts first.
Speaker 1: That never gets left out of the group chat or the party or the hangout.
Speaker 1: On social media we want the perfect story with the perfect filter that gets all the likes, or we want the TikTok that goes viral, even in church.
Speaker 1: This is one thing that I didn't realize, I struggled with until I was out of it.
Speaker 1: We can lead all the Bible studies, you can serve, you can go on mission trips, you can go on camps and still have this motive that you would never say it, but it's underneath everything of hey, I want people to see how holy I am.
Speaker 1: I want to see people, I want people to see how much I love God, how I'm not like a sinner, like everybody else, just to make a name for ourselves.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, it's all tower building and we've all done it.
Speaker 1: It might not be a physical tower, but it comes from the same place, this deep-seated pride and a desire to be the center of the universe.
Speaker 1: It's the human condition under sin.
Speaker 1: And again, I don't want to shame you.
Speaker 1: Like I said, this has been one of my biggest struggles throughout life and probably will be.
Speaker 1: And honestly it scares me as a pastor, because in this position and positions of leadership, if you guys are one time you find yourself in a position of leadership, it has this desire that comes with it to be in charge of people and to look impressive, and so you have to constantly be on guard against that.
Speaker 1: You have to bring people into your life who can call it out when they start to see the symptoms right, and some practical things.
Speaker 1: If you realize that's, you do that, acknowledge it, confess it to someone, say, hey, I need to confess my sin.
Speaker 1: And this is going to sound weird, because normally when I think about confessing sin I think about, like this addiction or this thing I'm hiding.
Speaker 1: But I need to confess that I really like the universe to revolve around me.
Speaker 1: Like I really like people to think I'm smart.
Speaker 1: Or I really like it when people think I'm impressive or cool or have nice stuff or come from a good family, and confess that Just saying it sets you free in some way that I can't explain, other than it's the truth of James that if we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, we would be healed.
Speaker 1: And then practical steps celebrate others right when someone does something good.
Speaker 1: Fight that desire to be mad that you didn't do that thing and celebrate them right.
Speaker 1: Like if Rebecca does something great at school, be like Rebecca, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Like you did amazing on that test.
Speaker 1: The rest of us bombed it and you aced it, that's great.
Speaker 1: Not how dare you?
Speaker 1: Everybody else failed it.
Speaker 1: Like, celebrate people when someone makes a good play, when that person beats you out for the spot that you wanted on the team or on the squad or whatever.
Speaker 1: Tell them, man, that is awesome, like I can tell.
Speaker 1: You really worked hard for that and I'm proud of you and I just wanna celebrate you.
Speaker 1: We can all admit that that sounds weird.
Speaker 1: You wanna know why that sounds weird?
Speaker 1: Because no one does it, because that's not the world that we live in.
Speaker 1: But that's how you fight pride.
Speaker 1: Serve in hidden ways, right.
Speaker 1: Serve in ways that no one will ever see.
Speaker 1: Don't post it on social media, right.
Speaker 1: Go on a mission trip and don't post anything about it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 1: Show up to church and don't feel like you need to tell anyone unless you're inviting them to come here.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 1: Even at home, when you pass a test, don't tell everybody the grade you made and how good it was.
Speaker 1: Don't post all of your videos on social media.
Speaker 1: Not that any of that's bad, but sometimes when you go without doing that, you'll realize just how much you like it and it can really put a finger on if that's an issue in your life or not.
Speaker 1: Or another thing ask more questions than you answer.
Speaker 1: This is something I've tried to practice lately and maybe you've seen it when you've talked to me.
Speaker 1: I really hope so and if not, please tell me.
Speaker 1: Like Garrett, you talk too much about yourself.
Speaker 1: But ask more questions, right?
Speaker 1: When you're having a conversation with someone, show a genuine interest in them.
Speaker 1: Ask them hey, you know you play football.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite thing about football, right?
Speaker 1: What did you do this week?
Speaker 1: What's something that you would be an influencer for?
Speaker 1: The reason I like that question is because it tells you what someone's really excited about and pumped about.
Speaker 1: And try to talk to people about things that excite them.
Speaker 1: These are all just practical tips, but the point is is it takes the focus off of you and puts it onto other people, and it's a very well-known saying that humility is not thinking less about yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.
Speaker 1: It's putting the lens on other people, it's not treating yourself like you're second rate or garbage, but it's saying, hey, I don't live for myself, I live for others.
Speaker 1: I want to bless them, I want to be there for them, and it sets you free.
Speaker 1: God will heal you if you lay that down at his feet, that pride, and he wants you to, because it never turns out well.
Speaker 1: And that's what we see at the back half of Genesis in verse six.
Speaker 1: And the Lord said behold, they are one people and they will have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do, talking about the tower, and nothing that they propose to do now will be impossible for them.
Speaker 1: Come, let us go down and there confuse their language so they may not understand one another's speech.
Speaker 1: And so the Lord dispersed them from there over all the face of the earth and they left off building the city.
Speaker 1: Therefore its name was called Babel or Babylon, because there the Lord confused the language of the earth and from there the Lord dispersed them all over the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: And I remember when I first read this I was really confused because it almost sounds like God's afraid of humanity, like, oh, if they can do this, imagine what else they can do.
Speaker 1: But again, that's not the point.
Speaker 1: In fact there's a very similar mirroring to something we read in Genesis three, after Adam and Eve ate the fruit.
Speaker 1: In Genesis three, he says look at human, lest they like we have to kick them out.
Speaker 1: Basically because if they eat of the tree of the knowledge, or they ate of the tree of knowledge and good and evil, if they eat of the tree of life, then things aren't gonna be good.
Speaker 1: Because God sees, hey, evil people, living forever is not a good recipe for success.
Speaker 1: It was his act of mercy to kick them out, to remove them from the tree of life.
Speaker 1: They chose to remove themselves from the tree of life, but to actually send them out so that that evil wouldn't continue to just spiral.
Speaker 1: And then here in Genesis 11, he sees, hey, these people have their minds set on making a name for themselves, not only through this tower, but through the city that eventually becomes called Babylon, which, if you know your Bible and history, babylon, ends up doing some really not great things.
Speaker 1: And they wanted unity through their own name and their own empire.
Speaker 1: And in that empire everybody had to be the same, they had to talk the same, they had to look the same One culture, one language, one way of doing things.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't God's way.
Speaker 1: But here's the danger when one group decides their way is the way, everyone else has to either get crushed into the mold or left out.
Speaker 1: When one group decides that it's their way or the highway and I'm not talking about, like what we say about scripture like hey, this is the way, the truth and the life, that's truth.
Speaker 1: But when one group decides something about other things about how to look or how to talk, like these secondary level things it doesn't go well.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it.
Speaker 1: Think about fashion, right?
Speaker 1: If you don't wear the right kind of shoes or the hoodie or the right socks, then you get left out and suddenly you're that kid.
Speaker 1: Or social media.
Speaker 1: If you're not on the trend, if you don't have the right filter, if you don't post the right reel or whatever like, you get left out and kind of looked at.
Speaker 1: You don't exist.
Speaker 1: In sports, right?
Speaker 1: Whether we'd admit it or not, there's some sports that get really celebrated and get all the attention and then other sports that don't get quite so much.
Speaker 1: In music, gaming, if you're not into the biggest trend in music or the biggest trend in this game is what everybody's playing, you get left out and looked at.
Speaker 1: Funny In school, if all the recognition goes to the AP and the varsity, which are great things, all of a sudden it becomes this is the way and everybody who's not doing this gets left out.
Speaker 1: And that's what happens when unity is built on the wrong foundation.
Speaker 1: It's not real, it's false, it squeezes people into this mold and you see, with Babylon later in Daniel they actually also build a statue in the same place as the Tower of Babylon, like the same this.
Speaker 1: I could go into the weeds, but just take my word for it.
Speaker 1: The statue that Nebuchadnezzar builds and makes everybody bow down to is in the same spot as the tower of Babylon, and it's the same pattern Conform, obey, do what I say, or die.
Speaker 1: That's where it leads, and so God sees where that's going and he steps in to stop it.
Speaker 1: And so, as an act of mercy, he spreads everyone out.
Speaker 1: So they have to stop building the tower.
Speaker 1: And it was mercy.
Speaker 1: But thankfully that's not the end of the story, because that act of mercy would point to a greater mercy.
Speaker 1: Because in Genesis 12, the story zooms in on one man named Abraham and God meets Abraham and God tells Abraham go from your country and I'm gonna make a great nation of you and I'm gonna bless you, and I am going to make a great nation of you and I'm going to bless you and I am going to make your name great so that you will be a blessing.
Speaker 1: I will bless those who bless you and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Speaker 1: Notice the difference there Abraham's not making a name for himself.
Speaker 1: God is giving Abraham a name that is better than anything he could have come up with on his own and that continues to point forward, because from there on, the Bible follows Abraham's family that we call the Israelites, the Jewish people.
Speaker 1: They all descend from him and we see this story unfold as God goes to fulfill that promise.
Speaker 1: And Israel, if you've read your Old Testament, screws up a lot like over and over and over again, in the same exact way.
Speaker 1: But that promise keeps moving forward.
Speaker 1: God doesn't forget, until one day a son of Abraham is born, named Jesus.
Speaker 1: He was God in the flesh.
Speaker 1: He lived a perfect life, he earned heaven, yet he died a death on the cross at the hands of violent men.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't an accident, it wasn't because he said the wrong words at the wrong time.
Speaker 1: It's because he stepped into a violent world to make a way for you and I to come back to God.
Speaker 1: That on that cross he became our sin and that all of the punishment we have earned from every lie we've told, from every mistake we've made, from every time that we've done something we know we shouldn't have, he paid it.
Speaker 1: So when I say that God is forgiving you.
Speaker 1: He's not just sweeping it under the rug, he sees all of it.
Speaker 1: You are fully known by God.
Speaker 1: Do you know how terrifying that can be?
Speaker 1: That God knows everything we've ever thought, everything we've ever said, everything we've ever done?
Speaker 1: Guys, I got a lot of stuff that I hope like man, like we I don't want to tell people about that Like I know I've been forgiven, like there's a lot of stuff in all of our lives that we're like man.
Speaker 1: If someone knew that they wouldn't want anything to do with me.
Speaker 1: God knows all of it and loves you enough to die for you.
Speaker 1: That in God, the invitation is to be fully known and fully loved.
Speaker 1: Which is our greatest fear is to be fully known and have someone reject us for who we really are.
Speaker 1: That if they knew the true me, they would never want anything to do with me.
Speaker 1: That's why we hide, that's why we put on a face, that's why we spend so much money and time and energy trying to look different physically, trying to act different, trying to talk different, because we're afraid if they ever knew the real me, they wouldn't want it.
Speaker 1: God says I know the real you and I want it bad enough to die for you, that I want it bad enough to die for you.
Speaker 1: That is the gospel.
Speaker 1: And he lived a perfect life.
Speaker 1: He died the death we deserve so that we could be forgiven.
Speaker 1: But he didn't stay dead because he was put in a borrowed grave.
Speaker 1: But on that third day he got up and he rolled that stone away and he walked right out of there to signal that there is no death, has no sting, it has no hold on us.
Speaker 1: The victory is in him.
Speaker 1: And so, where Babel, was man trying to rebel against God?
Speaker 1: Go up to God and take his spot.
Speaker 1: God is coming down to the earth to take our spot on the cross so that we could be free to rescue us.
Speaker 1: Where Babel, was us making a name for ourselves?
Speaker 1: Jesus was God coming down and saying hey, you don't need to make a name for yourself, because you can never make one good enough, but I'm going to give you the name child of God, I'm going to give you the name adopted, I'm going to give you the name redeemed, made new, new creation, fully known and fully loved.
Speaker 1: And then, where Babel spread everybody out in Jesus, this thing called Pentecost happens after he resurrects, and Jesus has already ascended to heaven and all of his disciples are in one spot and the Holy Spirit falls down and people start to hear the gospel being preached in their own language by people who don't know their own language.
Speaker 1: And what is being done there?
Speaker 1: It's a reverse Babylon.
Speaker 1: It's God saying I'm here, I sent my son, jesus, and I made a way that you don't need to be spread out anymore.
Speaker 1: You don't need to try and fight to make a name for yourself, but I'm bringing you under one name, and that name is Jesus to be the family of God.
Speaker 1: Amen, that's the gospel, and nothing else in this life will matter as much as what I just told you.
Speaker 1: And so maybe tonight you just came in here and you've been building your own personal tower of Babel.
Speaker 1: You've been doing everything you can to make a name for yourself.
Speaker 1: For some of you, it's sports, travel ball, personal training, school sports.
Speaker 1: For some of you it's grades AP, gpa, sat.
Speaker 1: For some of you it's friends.
Speaker 1: You'll say whatever you need to say, post whatever you need to post, just so you don't get left out of the group.
Speaker 1: Chat.
Speaker 1: Do whatever you think you need to do with that guy or girl to feel acceptance, just so you don't get forgotten.
Speaker 1: For some of you it's social media likes, views, streaks, tick, tocks, just trying to make a name for yourself.
Speaker 1: For some of you it's looks spending hours on clothes, makeup, gym time, filters.
Speaker 1: And if that's you, I'm guessing you came in here tonight exhausted and anxious and worn out.
Speaker 1: And I'm just here to tell you tonight that it doesn't have to be that way, that you can stop the tower building tonight, that you can lay down the bricks and accept the name that God is offering of you, child of the tower building, tonight.
Speaker 1: That you can lay down the bricks and accept the name that God is offering of you, child of the one true King, fully known, fully loved, because of what Jesus did for you on the cross.
Speaker 1: Not by any work of your own, not by any merit, you can't earn your way into heaven, but that God stepped down, put on flesh and made a way for you.
Speaker 1: And the first step is to accept the gift of salvation.
Speaker 1: We've done gospel presentation last few nights and we've seen a response Praise the Lord for that, amen and yeah, amen.
Speaker 1: And that's the first step.
Speaker 1: And so if that's you and you say, hey, I've never asked Jesus to be my King, I've never placed my faith in him.
Speaker 1: I've never entered into a relation with him.
Speaker 1: That's the first thing.
Speaker 1: You got to get right right there.
Speaker 1: But maybe for some of you you've done that and tonight you just need to confess and repent.
Speaker 1: That first point I made.
Speaker 1: You just need to repentance means you're walking in one direction.
Speaker 1: You stop, you turn around, you go in the other direction.
Speaker 1: There's grace, guys, there's forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Your sins are not just being swept under the rug.
Speaker 1: It's not like God's keeping a list and when you hit to an imaginary point he's like now I'm done with you.
Speaker 1: No, he paid for all of them.
Speaker 1: But we have to ask for forgiveness to repair that closeness with him.
Speaker 1: Or maybe tonight you just need encouragement from the Lord, right?
Speaker 1: Maybe you've been trying to make a name in the right ways.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've been trying to make a name for yourself in church and serving, and you're like God.
Speaker 1: I just feel like I'm so broken and I'm so messed up and there's no way that you could love me.
Speaker 1: And maybe you just need to hear tonight that he's already made up his mind that he does, and it's not dependent on anything you could do or say or feel.
Speaker 1: It's not about how bad you feel for your sin.
Speaker 1: It's because he made you in his image, because he loves you, and maybe you just need to hear that and rest in that tonight.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what it is for you, but I do know that when God's word is preached, we're called to respond, and so we're about to go into small groups and we'll have a practice that you can do throughout the week.
Speaker 1: But I just want to encourage you, if that's you in any way, shape or form, if you need to make a decision to follow Jesus, if you need to go confess and repent tonight, if you need to just rest and say, hey, can you pray for me?
Speaker 1: I just need encouragement.
Speaker 1: Whoever you are, wherever you're at, find one of us, find a leader and talk to them.
Speaker 1: Don't go.
Speaker 1: I know we're tempted to just run into small groups and get crazy and do all the stuff.
Speaker 1: That'll be there, right, we're going to have fun another time.
Speaker 1: Nine square.