Rhythms Of Grace- Sermons- Ian Graham

Boredom, Attention, And The Sermon

Transcript

Two Kinds Of Boredom

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Amen.

Muzak, Distraction, And Formation

Attention As Spiritual Warfare

Why We Gather And Preach

John On Patmos: Hearing The Voice

What A Sermon Is Not

Jesus Teaches With Stories

A Sermon Is Good News

Word, Spirit, And A People

Time Collapses In Worship

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Good morning, friends. How are we doing today? Oh, so good. Martin Heidegger is a philosopher, and he describes two different kinds of boredom. One of them is called situational boredom. And that kind of boredom is the normal stuff of life, or at least it used to be, right? Like how when was the last time you were bored? Like you just let yourself be bored. Not stimulated endlessly. I mean, I don't know about you, but there is a compulsive nature to our world that anytime I'm alone in a room, just like, oh, there's a whole world out there that I can engage right now. And unfortunately, that often can bleed into times where you're alone, like hanging out with your kids. It's like, oh, there's a whole world I can engage right now. Now, thankfully, when I asked you the question, when was the last time you've been bored? That question presumed a past orientation, so you didn't say, Well, I'm about to be right now. You might be. That's okay. Situational boredom used to mark life, and actually was the catalyst and precursor for many of life's greatest discoveries. Isaac Newton sitting by a tree, all of a sudden see an apple fall. I'm like, you know what? Something makes sense. Now, there's situational boredom, which we should engage. But if situational boredom is left untended, it can create a different kind of boredom called existential boredom. Existential boredom is as dire as it sounds. Existential boredom is basically asking, why am I here? What is the point of all of this? Existential boredom is what the late David Foster Wallace was trying to capture in one of his unfinished novels towards the end of his life. He writes, surely something must lie behind not musak. Do you guys know what music is? Does that phrase ring a bell? Musac is if you walk into a grocery store at 7 a.m. and they are blaring yacht rock, and you're asking yourself the very important question, who wants this? And the answer is, nobody wants this. Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? That's Muzac. Just the music that plays in the background. Not in dull or tedious places anymore, but also actual TV and waiting rooms, supermarket checkouts. One of the reasons I avoid doing maintenance on my car is because of the TV, daytime TV in waiting rooms. Just full disclosure. It feels like the worst place on earth, and I want to get out of there. Checkouts, airport, gates, SUVs, back seats. He uses these examples, which will tell you when he was alive. Walkmen, iPods, Blackberries, relics of a bygone age. Cell phones that attach to your head. I'm not sure what that looked like when Wallace was envisioning that, but probably a giant Bluetooth. This terror of silence with nothing diverting to do. I can't think anyone really believes that today's so-called information society is just about information. Everyone knows it's about something else way down. And as we've been talking about in this series, it is about something else way down. There is formation that is happening all around us, cultural liturgies. And we, as we gather here, are engaging in counterformation or a deeper and truer formation. David Foster Wallace is really just the inheritor of a great tradition. Going back to the writer of Ecclesiastes, Cohelet writes this: Vanity of vanities, or vapor, says the teacher, all is vanity. Or you could listen to the words of the English poet W. H. Auden, writing during the course of World War II. He writes of our experience of boredom and the ways that we tried to tend it. He says, faces along the bar cling to their average day. The lights must never go out, the music must always play. All the conventions conspire to make this fort assume the furniture of home, lest we should see where we are, lost in a haunted wood, children afraid of the night who have never been happy or good. Again, this is all pre-proliferation of technology and devices. Interesting. Simone Vey, the philosopher, says this there's something in our soul that loathes true attention, much more violently than flesh loathes fatigue. That something is much closer to evil than flesh is. That is why every time we truly give our attention, we destroy some evil in ourselves. If one pays attention with this intention, 15 minutes of attention is worth a lot of good works. Kevin Hood Gary writes in his book, Why Boredom Matters. He writes of a professor named Joanna Ziegler, who was a Catholic professor who taught at Holy Cross University, and she assigned her students during the course of a term to spend 13 weeks staring at the same piece of art for an hour at a time, and then to write a five-page essay about that work of art. And what Professor Ziegler was trying to accomplish was to cultivate the conditions for boredom, for attention, for experience, for reverence. We've been in a series talking about why we do the things that we do when we gather. We started at the end of our gathering. At the end of each gathering, we send you out with a blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. A promise, an assurance. Prior to that, we come to the table where we hear his body broken for you, his blood shed for you. Prior to that, we pray, Come, Holy Spirit. And prior to that, we engage in what might be just the most foolish thing that we undertake as a church. We gather for a time of extended attention. We call it a sermon. Which is not just a, you know, so the holy baptizing of some concept, so you have to listen. But what is a sermon? Of course, all of this precursor about the importance of boredom has been an introduction to a sermon about sermons. And if nothing else, I know that it is good for you to be bored. And that's okay. And if that's all you get out of it, or a nice nap because it's a little hot in here, may the Lord bless you and keep you. John in Revelation chapter 1 writes this. I, John, your brother, who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Traditionally, John has been exiled to this island because of his faithfulness to Jesus. He doesn't have anything to do or anywhere to go. Now, we could describe John's state in so many ways. He is martyring himself, he is bearing witness to the risen Christ, but if we just took it to its basic terms, John might be a bit bored. But John is tending to this boredom by relating to the presence of the Holy Spirit. And it's in the midst of this interaction, of this relationship, that we get a word from John that is not just, as we'll see, addressed to seven churches, but is addressed to each one of us. A word from the risen Christ. It says in verse 10, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamo, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. John then will devote himself to writing down what he sees, and it's a gift to us today as we begin to unpack what is a sermon. Let me tell you what a sermon is not. A sermon is not content. We have a podcast. Pretty cool, huh? I mean, everybody has a podcast now. We have a record, an archive of the teachings that we do here because a sermon happens right now. As soon as we conclude this gathering, there's no more sermon. Even when we put that teaching onto our podcast, it becomes something else. So it's not content. It's not something that we just engage in, fill our minds with, and then go on with. Sermon's not a content. Sermons aren't life hacks. I would love if I could stand before you every week and just give you keys for successful living. I would love it. It would be great. You guys would think I was awesome. But that's not what I'm here to do. A sermon is not the most effective pedagogical tactic. And when I mean pedagogy, it means the way you approach teaching. A sermon is not the most effective way to disseminate information. Do you understand that? Like if we wanted to get you to really feel what we're saying, a sermon would not be the tactic that we would choose. When Jesus comes announcing the kingdom of God, he says, the kingdom of heaven is near. He doesn't then immediately point to the screen behind him and say, and I've prepared a PowerPoint for you with bullet points about what the kingdom of God is. Because in the words of Dwight Schroop from the office, PowerPoint is boring. He says, the kingdom of heaven is near. Oh, the kingdom of God. It's like a woman who lost a coin and she turned over her entire house to find it. It's like a shepherd who, though he had a hundred sheep, there was one who wandered off and he left the 99 to go and get the one. It's like a man who had two sons. And one of the sons said to him, Father, give me my share of the inheritance. When Jesus comes talking about the kingdom of God, he speaks in story, speaks in parables. And throughout Jesus' life, his contemporaries, his opponents, even his friends are like, Can you just tell us what you mean, please? Stop speaking in riddles. Nobody understands you. We think you want to be understood. Why are you choosing this vehicle? Because Jesus understands that the truth is not some bit of information that we can convey. The truth is the integrated life of the Son incarnate. The truth cannot be taken in all at once. The truth, as Emily Dickinson says in her beautiful poem, she says you have to tell all the truth, but you have to tell it slant. Success in circuit lies, too bright for our infirm delight. The truth's superb surprise. As lightning to the children ease, with explanation kind, the truth must dazzle gradually, lest every man, and as we know, every woman be blind. And this is what Jesus is up to. He's slowly unveiling the truth and inviting us to make our home in it. So a sermon is not content, not life hacks, not bullet point presentation, a sermon. I'm just going to put up some thoughts about what a sermon is. Craig, I think we have a slide that just says, a sermon is. It's a lifting of the veil. Or first of all, actually, it's a remind. I have the joy and honor of training some of the seminarians who preach here at Ecclesia. And the first thing I say to them, and the last thing I say to them when they're preparing their sermons that we will hear as a church, a sermon is about what God has done in Christ Jesus. A sermon is not about what you should do. A sermon is not about why those people over there are terrible and why you're right. A sermon is about what God has done. It is the proclamation of good news that you did not make for yourself. It is the proclamation of good news that it's an invitation that we receive. A sermon is about what God has done. And we are invited to make our home within it. A sermon is the lifting of the veil. Past, present, future. All converging at once. Lifting of our eyes, an unburdening of our heavy hearts. It's the alchemy of the word of the Lord as we open the scriptures. The presence of the Holy Spirit, which is that very tangible yet uncanny presence that's here right now. When we are gathered here, the risen Jesus is here by sending his spirit. When Revelation uses that image of the seven lampstands, as we'll see as we unpack the words from Revelation, Revelation will say that He is the one who walks among the lampstands. And I always love that imagery, especially, especially as I've grown accustomed to the sound of walking in this room. The floorboards creak. And I try when we gather here, when Brother Gene sets up the chairs for us, that he prays over every single one of them. Just to envision the Spirit of God walking through the aisles so gently. And just saying, I'm here. It's the alchemy of the word of the Lord opened in the scriptures, the presence of the Holy Spirit and a people. This is why a sermon is not content. A sermon is happening right now amongst this gathering of people. What the Holy Spirit is doing right now will never be replicated. It's an amazing truth and power. And so many people who have carried the Word of God have seen this possibility. I think about John Wesley, who just said, like, people don't come to hear me talk. They come to see me set myself ablaze and they want to come watch me burn. A sermon is about what God is doing right here and right now. It's a world where anything is possible. A sermon is a tabernacle where the word of grace immerses us in the alternative time, space, and blessing of the kingdom of God. We're all carrying around time in our bodies right now. For some of us, it's anxiousness about what we have to do today, heaviness about what we've lived through this week, anxiousness about the future, more broadly. We are carriers of time. We bear it. And what a sermon is trying to do is convert and collapse time into something that is expanded into God's past, his present, and his future. God's past, what Jesus has done for you. His life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his sending of the Spirit, God's present, his presence among us right now, and God's future that is sure and certain. Because of the down payment of the Holy Spirit that has been given in each one of our lives, individually and collectively, that says that all things everywhere will be made new. One of the most impactful people for me in what a sermon is was a man named Rob Bell. Now, if you're of a certain age, that name will ring a bell. If you're not, you're like, I don't know who that is. Let me say this Rob Bell is the best communicator I have ever seen in my life. I once saw him at a theater in Philadelphia give a 75-minute sermon without a single note. It flowed effortlessly, it looked effortless, and it was beautiful and glorious. At the end, there was not a dry eye in the room. And I was just like, what is this? And for me, I started being a pastor when I was 22 years old. I cannot tell you the extent to which I had no idea what I was doing. And to be honest, why I was doing it at times. I was like, I like Jesus, but I'm not always sure how this goes. And I found Rob Bell's podcast of his teachings from a church in Grand Rapids called Mars Hill. And I'm listening to these words, and they're just fresh air for me in a far-flung place. I got a chance to thank Rob. Now, Rob, his impact on me, notwithstanding, has kind of gone a way that I would describe as not the narrow way of Jesus. If you listen to him now, he talks a lot about the universe and everything is love, which I sure, that's fine. But I cannot deny the imprint that he's had on my life. And I also can't help but be grateful for the vision that he gave me. And so I say all that to say, Rob Bell has a great quote about a sermon that I want to share with you. He says, a sermon, then is the continuing insistence that through the resurrection of Jesus, a whole new world is bursting forth right here in the midst of this one, and everybody everywhere can be a part of it. Welcome. Sermon is a word of grace, a lifting of the veil, an encounter with the Holy Spirit. It's much more like communally experiencing a work of art or music than a download of facts and references. The whole of our lives is gathered up into these 15 to 45 minutes. You can be bored, you can be distracted, you can be disturbed, you can be comforted, you can be confronted. All of it is what God is up to in this room. A sermon is the first response of the church at the reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2. The Spirit is given. The Holy Spirit comes, and the first thing that the apostles do in response to the giving of the Holy Spirit is to preach and proclaim the name of Jesus. And I just love endlessly that one of the first things that the church has to preach is men of Jerusalem. These men are not drunk as you suppose, because the giving of the Spirit made people who were witnesses that didn't know what was going on think that the people who had received the Spirit were intoxicated. And Peter says, They're not, they're not wasted. It's only nine in the morning. Not that kind of party, right? But he says, Fellow Israelites, listen to what I have to say. This is the birthday of the church at the giving of the Spirit. Preaching has been a part of our story as a church and a tradition that we receive. And it's because it's where God reenacts that creation of the world that He set at the outset, that words create worlds. That in the beginning God said, Let there be light, and to us, he says to each one of us, let the light of the gospel shine in our hearts. And that is what God is up to. I want to give you a little insight into what I'm trying to do when we gather as we preach, and then I want to walk through a couple of highlights of what a sermon should entail from the book of Revelation. So, first, a quote: Frederick Begner, who is a graduate of Princeton University, graduate of the Lawrenceville School down the road, he said this about the preacher. Let him, and I would add, let her, tell the truth. Let him use words, but in addition to using them to explain, expound, exhort, let him use them to evoke, to set us dreaming as well as thinking, to use words that they're most prophetic and truthful. The prophets use them to stir in us memories and longings and intuitions that we starve for. Without knowing we starve. Let him use words which do not only try to give answers to the questions that we ought to ask, but which help us to hear the questions. We do not have words for asking, and to hear the silence that is the answer to those questions. Drawing on nothing fancier than the poetry of his own life, let him use words and images that help make the surface of our lives transparent to the truth that lies deep within them, which is the wordless truth of who we are and who God is and the gospel of our meeting. Okay, I want to put up an outline for you. Because it's only appropriate for a sermon about sermons to have an outline. This is a sermon about sermons, which is ultimately a sermon about Jesus. These are factors that should kind of play into every sermon, even though sermons have to take on different shapes. You see this in Jesus' life. Sometimes he does tell you a story, other times he explains the story, other times he is the story. A sermon is the blessing of God in the announcement of the gospel. A sermon is about what God has done. Revelation 1, verses 3 through 8. Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Okay, I know it's so easy for these words just to kind of fly over us. Pay attention to what Jesus is saying here. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. A sermon is about what Jesus has done. And Jesus didn't do it out of obligation, he didn't do it because there was this universal contract that had to be paid for. Jesus did it because he loves us. Freely given. And he, not only has he inscribed his salvation into our lives, he has given us his purpose. He's made us, you, me, a kingdom of priests. He merges that imagery of the priesthood who oversee the religious rites and the rulers, the kings. We have been invited alongside Jesus. He loves you. A sermon is God's acknowledgement that he knows our circumstances, our struggles, our triumphs, our frailties, our failures, our regrets, our shame. Jesus sees every piece of your life. Jesus didn't start paying attention to you when you walked into the room today. He has had his eye on you at every moment. Psalm 139. Where should I go to flee from your spirit? If I go and I make my bed in hell, you are there. If I rise up to the heavens, you are there. Before a word is formed on my lip, you know it completely. Jesus never takes his eyes off of you. And I love what he says here in Revelation. Jesus is speaking to churches as a collective. And he's saying to each church, here is what I know about the good things you've been up to. Here's what I've seen. And within that short phrase, there is a whole world evoked by Jesus saying, I know. I know the moments of your failing. I know all the times you have turned to things that are so much less than me for fulfillment and for joy. I know that you're kind of awesome because I made you. I know that you are glorious because I made you. Jesus says to the church, I know. Look at what he says, Revelation chapter 2, verses 2 and 3. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write, these are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil, and your endurance. Jesus is saying this to their credit. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers. You have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. Can I summarize that for you? Well done. Keep it up. I know. I've seen it. And a sermon is God's way of acknowledging that I see your struggle. I see what you have overcome. I see the reality with which you live. I see the story that you are living out of. What an amazing thing that the God of the universe is so intentional with his care, so patient with us, that he has his eye on every single one of us. I know. Jesus also has something else to say to us. He commends us for our striving. He commends us for the ways that we have been faithful, but he also says, but I have this against you. You see, a sermon is not just a, hey, great job, you're doing awesome, keep it up, just keep doing you. Live your best life. A sermon is a confrontation. And it's a challenge to all the ways that we try to draw our life and meaning and love from wells that cannot hold those things. He is the eternal well that will never run dry. But so often, as Jeremiah says, we try to draw from broken cisterns wells that have holes in the bottom that are dry and arid. And Jesus says, I hold this against you. That you have abandoned the love that you had at first. This is Revelation 2, verses 4 and 5. Remember then from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Now, I say this to you often because I think it is so important and so central to what God is up to. When Jesus illuminates that which is sinful in us, it is not so that he can bash us over the head with how bad that we've been or how completely we have blown it. It's not God standing at arm's length and like, see, I'm God, you're not. You see the problem here? When Jesus illuminates that which is dark within us, it is at one and the same time an invitation to come into the light, to repent, to put down the sins that you were never intended to carry, to give them into his hands, which are nail-scarred, to mark the fact that he's already carried them, that you don't have to pay for them, you don't have to pay penance, you don't have to do some sort of penalty so that he can forgive you. He has already forgiven you. And so when Jesus says, But I have this against you, he's not saying, do a couple laps and come back and see me. He's saying, Come home right now. The invitation is ever open, extended once and for all on the cross of Jesus. And his arms stand extended still in an embrace to redeem and restore the entire world. And so, when Jesus says, But I have this against you, it is not condemnation. It is not, oh, here, here's the fine print of shame and accusation that I snuck in through the door of goodness and blessing. It is Jesus saying, There is more for you. It is the Spirit's work of sanctification. It is his word to us that illuminates that which has so much distance to cover, walking step by step with Jesus. And I assure you, Ecclesia, that as he says to each one of us, and as he says to us collectively, oh, I see that you're doing all these good things, but I have this against you. It's not Jesus somehow taking a step back, saying, Here I am. Trust me with the darkness. Trust me with that which is broken. I see it, and I receive it all. A sermon is a promise and an invitation to receive your inheritance in Christ Jesus. We do not account for the blessings that God not only has given into our life, but the kind of blessing, the scale of which He is going to pour into our life in eternity, we do not account for this enough. Revelation 2, verse 7. Let anyone who has an ear, does it say let those who are spiritually disciplined have an ear? Let those who can make a plan for spiritual formation have an ear? Let those who have been morally upright in their own strength and character have let them listen? No. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God. Because we don't account for the blessings enough, I'm just going to read you the blessings that Jesus promises to every one of the seven churches. Smyrna, be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. Pergamum, to everyone who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on that white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it. Thyatira, to everyone who conquers and continues to do my works until the end, I will give authority over the nations. Think about the way that people grovel in our world to gain some measure of authority. The silly things, the way they debase themselves in public, to try to gain the favor of politicians or powerful people. Jesus is saying, I will give you authority over nations. He also says to the one who conquers, I will give the morning star. I have no idea what that means. Sounds awesome. What are you holding there? Just the morning star. Pretty great. Sardis, if you conquer, you will be clothed like those in white robes, and I will not erase your name from the book of life. And then Jesus says this I will confess. Confess your name before my Father and before his angels. Jesus is like, that's Ian. Thank you, Jesus. Philadelphia. Not the Philadelphia that's around here. I'm coming soon. Hold fast to what you have so that no one takes away your crown. If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God. You will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. Last one, Laodicea. Listen, I'm standing at the door. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers, I will give a place with me on my throne. So Jesus is like, I'm going to prepare a spread for you. I'm going to come eat with you. And also the throne that is mine at the right hand of the Father, that is the eternal throne, the ruler of all the nations of the earth, the ruler of time and space, I'm going to let you sit next to me. I don't think we account enough for the blessings that God has for us. A sermon is the lifting of the veil of reality. To the despair and accusation that so readily mark our world. Jesus, by the power of his word, unveils what is actually true. What is true in the deepest parts of reality. You know, one of our difficulties with the revelation of John is we think it's about the future. And the imagery and all the stuff gets cloudy, and we're like, I'm not sure what all the locusts are up to, I'm not sure what's going on here. But the revelation of John is not just about the future, it's about the present. It's about reality. Think about it, John is exiled on some know-nothing island, Patmos, and he has this revelation of Jesus. From all appearances, it's Rome who has the power, it's Rome who has the ability, and yet John is seeing insight into reality, into the true mechanism of the world. And we see this in Revelation chapter 5. Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll written on the inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. When John uses seven, it's just this number for completeness. It's just that this scroll is really, really sealed, really tight. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. In the course of John's revelation, John has been sort of transferred, rewinded back to the time before Jesus of Nazareth, has accomplished what he's accomplished. And John is sort of placed in this collapsing of time, into this pre-Christ despair. Who is worthy to open the scroll? John gathers that this scroll contains all that is key to life and to freedom. And yet John weeps bitterly because it seems that no one is worthy to open the scroll. But, verse 5. Then one of the elders said to me, Do not weep. See the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals. This is the announcement of the gospel to John. The Lion of Judah can open the scroll. The scroll is not forever sealed. We are not left to despair or accusation. The Lion of Judah has come. And I don't know about you, I hear the Lion of Judah, strong, powerful. Let's go. Then, verse 6, I saw between the throne and the four living creatures, and among the elders a lion. Is it a lion? It's a lamb. So from John's expectation, the way that the world works, the way that the world will be lifted from its despair is by power, by strength, by the predatory might of the lion. And yet, when he turns his gaze towards what is being described, what does he see? But a lamb. Jesus is showing us reality. A lamb looking as if it has been slaughtered, with seven horns, which signifies his unending reign, seven eyes, which signifies omniscience, all-seeing, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and he took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb. John sees reality that all the pretensions of might and power are undone by this slaughtered lamb that sits at the center of the universe, enthroned as the one true reigning sovereign. And so often we devise our ways out of despair or out of accusation. We try to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We can do it. We can be the one who is strong, the lion. And what Jesus is saying to us is you don't have to. Because I've already emptied myself on your behalf. There is a lamb looking as though he had been slaughtered. There is a lamb who has given himself for you, for your liberation, for your Passover feasting. This lamb stands at the center of the universe. And all of heaven breaks out. You are worthy to break to take the scroll and to break its seals. For you were slaughtered, and by your blood you were ransomed for God, saints from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them again a kingdom and priests serving our God. And they will reign on earth. Ecclesia. A sermon. If it can lift us from our boredom for just a moment, can be insight into the way the world actually works. Jesus loves you. He is enthroned. And he is reigning. Not in some sovereign, far-off Olympus. But the kingdom of heaven is near. He is here. He is present. Invite the worship team forward. Lord Jesus, we pray and we welcome your Holy Spirit. Gotta wonder if we could just put ourselves in that place in Revelation 5. Lord, the way that you are so often undermining our expectations, Lord, completely subverting them and right-siding the world, Lord Jesus. Lord, we so often expect to find you in fireworks and thunder and lightning, Lord Jesus. And yet when we turn our attention towards who you are, what we find is a Savior who has given Himself on our behalf. Lord, and I want to pray for each dear person in here, Lord, that we would listen, that we would have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us as you are speaking here in this place. Lord, I want to pray specifically against habitual and systemic sins, Lord. Lord, all the destruction they carry in their wake. And so much of that is a feedback loop of the voice of the accuser. God, we do wrong. We sin. And all we see throughout Scripture is that you both know that and have freely forgiven that. Not as an excuse for us to go on sinning, but for us to find the freedom that is found only in you. But so often we get on these treadmills, Lord. Where we we, in our minds, we perceive that we fall away and then we stay away. And Lord Jesus, when we see insight into reality, what we see is a lamb that has already been slaughtered. One who has already given us all of Himself, and that all we have to do is receive you again and again. Daily bread, Lord Jesus, to inhabit the world of the scriptures. A world whose promises often seem too good to be true, Lord Jesus. That you are the center of the universe, that you are gathering up all things in yourself, that the universe will be made new, and yet the way that you start with the renewing of the cosmos, God, is not with the universe, Lord, but is with us, Lord Jesus. So would you refashion us? Conform us to the image of Christ, Lord Jesus. God help us to be sober in assessing ourselves by the power of the Spirit. We don't have it all together. And that is okay. But you are drawing us to yourself, Lord, with the power of your forgiveness. So, God, would you do it here again in our midst? As we respond to the presence of your Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, would you draw near? Would you whisper in our hearts, Lord? Would you shake up our often just contented lives with the power of your presence, Lord Jesus? Would you speak freedom and truth and goodness and beauty here in this place, Lord Jesus? We pray these things in your name, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen. Equosia, as we change our posture, as we move from sitting to standing, Lord, I just invite you to pay attention to what the Holy Spirit is doing in our midst here. To allow God to minister to you. Again, He's present. To allow Him to unburden you from the sins that we carry around, from the shame that we so easily believe, its pretensions, and to hear the true word of Jesus. He loves you, He gave Himself for you, He's made you into a kingdom of priests to serve our God. Let us stand together and respond in worship.