SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk to you before I go into the message, I want to talk to you a little bit about uh buildings.
SPEAKER_00: Um right now we meet at Walker, we've been at Walker for two years.
SPEAKER_00: We are ecstatic to be here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the way that we even got here is pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00: They've been amazing to us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what's clear is we won't always be here.
SPEAKER_00: Um at some point someday uh we'll move on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the the last couple months uh a building sort of popped up into our uh peripheral vision, and then we started to look at it and research it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And um the last couple months we've been looking at it and talking with these people, and it's a it's a facility.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's McLaren Mill offices, which was uh, I guess it was Marietta Knitting Company, I don't know, maybe 80 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: They made socks, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and now it's it's uh it's offices and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: It's 18,000 square feet and it's right behind the hospital off Rose Lane.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm mentioning all this really because we want you to join us in praying.
SPEAKER_00: Um as we've been researching it, we hit a spot where it was a dead end unless we made an offer.
SPEAKER_00: We could not continue to investigate and learn about the building.
SPEAKER_00: And so the last couple weeks we've been making offers back and forth, and this week we came to an agreement on an offer and we went under contract, which sounds perhaps more serious than it is, although it is serious, and meaning this.
SPEAKER_00: Um we have 75 days to research this building, of which for us it's a shell.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a gut job.
SPEAKER_00: Um we'd have to go in and build a church inside of this big shell.
SPEAKER_00: So, timeline-wise, we're still here for a good season.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we have 75 days.
SPEAKER_00: We have 75 days starting yesterday to um without losing money for us as a church to um investigate the building, get people in there to check out the systems of the building, get architect and builder to come through and give us cost estimates of what does it mean to gut this thing and put it back together, um, and for us to investigate permitting and get that, and for us to bring some other pastors through and get them to look at it and get a feel for guys who have done this repeatedly.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we really ask for prayer for this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we want to be as clear as we can with you guys as we go, um at the same time letting you know we're not tunneled vision with this.
SPEAKER_00: So the thing we keep saying is we we want to move forward without fear and we want to move forward without haste.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we want to move forward with wisdom, we want to move forward with vision for the future.
SPEAKER_00: Um so difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Really, we need we need all of us to be praying that the Lord would open the door and close the door as we as we go, as we investigate, as we research, um, and really that it would be confirming, or um for us, it would be a situation where we would just know we need to walk away.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so that's the next 75 days.
SPEAKER_00: So please join us um in praying for that facility, pray for the elders as as we sort of head up, figuring all of that out and coming to a conclusion at the end of 75 days, whether we say not for us or um or if it's in fact going to be somewhere that's gonna be our home in the future.
SPEAKER_00: Um so that's that.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about that, I would love to answer them.
SPEAKER_00: As we move forward, uh all details will become more concrete if we move forward with it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so into the message.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we've been jumping through Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're not stopping at every story, but a handful of stories as we go this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The story is a story of Noah.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you know this story, right?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were in Sunday school and you marched the little animals into the boat and you did that, and you never thought about how crowded and horrible it must have been inside the boat, but you just did it and it was fun.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've just heard of the story of Noah because you saw some cheesy artwork, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you owned some cheesy artwork, or maybe you own some legitimately good artwork.
SPEAKER_00: People love the artwork of Noah and the flood.
SPEAKER_00: And at first we think this story is just about a flood, right?
SPEAKER_00: On the surface, we think this is a story about a flood.
SPEAKER_00: And what we've been seeing with these stories in Genesis is we've been seeing that these stories have layer after layer after layer of truth.
SPEAKER_00: And so at first we think, well, this is a story about a flood, and then you go, nah, this is a story about God's justice and man's sin, and it is, and you go, well, no, this is about really man's helplessness, and it is, and then you go, well, maybe this is about new beginnings.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what this is about.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in fifth grade, my teacher's name was Miss Blissett.
SPEAKER_00: I was a teacher's pet, made good grades.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I went when I went to school, I sort of switched from at home, you know, I like to push the edge, and then I went to school and you know, I behaved and I made good grades, and my mom worked at the school, and my sister had had Miss Blissett a couple years before, and so I'm Miss Blissett's teacher's pet.
SPEAKER_00: And this was chalkboard days, right?
SPEAKER_00: Not dry erase board days, not overhead projector, not anything fancy with a computer.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's a computer in the classroom.
SPEAKER_00: So chalkboard, green chalkboard, right?
SPEAKER_00: A bunch of chalk in the tray, and then the erasers that were just nasty, filled with the chalk dust.
SPEAKER_00: And you remember this, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like you loved when you got picked.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I did, you might not have, a teacher's pet.
SPEAKER_00: So I loved when I got picked to go erase the board, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, anything to be in front of a crowd, obviously.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still doing it.
SPEAKER_00: So so just to go up and you erase the board, but surely it was just like a smudging of the chalk across the board.
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe you got picked at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00: Remember at the end of the day, what you got to do?
SPEAKER_00: Go hit the erasers outside?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you love that.
SPEAKER_00: That was like, but you got to go outside and you're on your own, you felt so empowered.
SPEAKER_00: And then on Friday, do you remember what happened on Friday?
SPEAKER_00: You washed them, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you got picked on Friday, you got to go get a wet towel, and you came back, and I love this.
SPEAKER_00: The OCD and me, even in fifth grade, love this.
SPEAKER_00: And you would start, you get to pull a chair up, and you started the top corner, that wet rag, and all week that chalk had been just you know, just smudged all around, all those marks and stuff just nasty.
SPEAKER_00: And you start there, and you just you just wipe across and you just get this clean slate as you go, and all the marks, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like all the marks were just going away as you went.
SPEAKER_00: It was it was a new beginning, is what you felt.
SPEAKER_00: It felt so rewarding, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you just worked your way down, and it was all kind of coming down the chalk tray, and then you worked your way down the chalk tray, then you pushed it into the trash can.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I tell you this because even me telling you this, you know this feeling.
SPEAKER_00: You know this feeling.
SPEAKER_00: Haven't you ever just wanted all the marks to go away?
SPEAKER_00: Just to have a clean start.
SPEAKER_00: To start over somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: To have a new set of friends.
SPEAKER_00: We won't do if you want a new family, we won't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Your family's probably next to you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Just to like find an island somewhere, and you can go there, and it will be a new beginning.
SPEAKER_00: It will be a clean slate.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what this story's about.
SPEAKER_00: And at first, we think this is about how God is doing this for himself, and then as we get into it deeper and deeper, we see how God is actually doing this for us.
SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds kind of vague, so let's look at the story.
SPEAKER_00: So, since Cain and Abel, which we talked about last week, since then people have filled the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Now, side note here, um, if you're reading the Bible in Genesis 6 and 7, 8, and 9, and you're reading the Bible and you you haven't read the Bible before, you're gonna get freaked out because there's some ages of people.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, he lived to what?
SPEAKER_00: 500 and what is that?
SPEAKER_00: So apparently, and you can talk to Bill Full, I love later, who's like Old Testament scholar about this, but apparently, in some way, somehow, um God was allowing humanity to live longer periods of time pre-flood, and something in the environment or something changed, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of different theories.
SPEAKER_00: You can go Google and who knows where you're gonna end up, but you can read about it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and something changed in creation post-flood, and the ages of humanity start to get to what we consider normal.
SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned that because that'll freak you out if you're reading the Bible and you go, what is this?
SPEAKER_00: This is all crazy.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so the world is populated.
SPEAKER_00: The thing is, is everybody's sort of forgotten about God.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, this is what we do.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same rhythm we have, sort of on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's going on, the same thing back then, and they're living their own way, and it's getting worse and worse and worse, and they're abusing each other.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're just horrible abuse to each other, horrible abuse to creation.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's creation is so absolutely far from anything good and anything pure.
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere was disease and destruction, all the things that God hates, and God makes a decision, one that I think we probably have a very hard time understanding.
SPEAKER_00: But God decides to rid his earth of all the destruction.
SPEAKER_00: He decides to take a wet rag at the top of the board and just begin his way down.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at the text.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 6, 6 through 9.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll be reading a whole bunch of.
SPEAKER_00: I hope it's okay if I read some Bible this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you're going to complain now.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you're going to complain that the guy read too much Bible.
SPEAKER_00: But um, just hang with me in the reading as we go, and maybe uh some of it might not even be in your bulletin.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Lord regret, so Genesis 6, 6 through 9, the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and then his heart was deeply troubled.
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord said, I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I've created, and with them the animals and the birds and the creatures that move along the ground, for I regret that I have made them.
SPEAKER_00: But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is the account of Noah and his family.
SPEAKER_00: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
SPEAKER_00: So now, how do we get from verse 7?
SPEAKER_00: I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I've created, for I regret I've made them.
SPEAKER_00: To verse 9, Noah was a righteous man.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you get there literally through verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I've heard so often is if you want a new beginning, be more faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what you should do.
SPEAKER_00: And we should be, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like we should be more faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Be more faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Like Adam was a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Eve was horrible and a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Cain was really horrible and a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, but Noah.
SPEAKER_00: Man, this Noah.
SPEAKER_00: This guy was a righteous, upstanding man.
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is I started to look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: I started to read some other translations of the Bible, and that word favor.
SPEAKER_00: I think almost as Americans, we read the word favor, and we just think, well, favor, that means I worked for favor.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only way you get favor is by working for it.
SPEAKER_00: So you kind of read verse 8 and you go, well, he must have been really righteous on his own to get favor, but that word can also be translated as grace.
SPEAKER_00: But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord or acceptance, but Noah found acceptance in the eyes of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden that verse starts to change a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: You go, oh, so it wasn't like Noah was like on his own, like this, you know, righteous, perfect human being.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody was horrible sinners, and Noah, Noah was the hero of faith.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's that he was faithful, he was blameless, he walked faithfully, but it was by the fact that God, in his grace, was doing something in Noah.
SPEAKER_00: And God tells Noah, God says, I've had enough.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna bring flood waters, everything will perish.
SPEAKER_00: I will wash away the abuse, I'm gonna wash away the hate, I'm gonna wash away the sadness.
SPEAKER_00: And so Noah starts building this big boat, 450 feet long, 45 feet tall, three levels, there's a door in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: He starts to bring two of every kind of living creature into it, and they all pack in.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if I don't know if Noah's brimming with confidence.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean can you imagine you've been building this, your neighbors think you're insane?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the amount of time and resources, and then you're all packed in.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, how long till it started to rain, and what that feels like in between when you're in.
SPEAKER_00: You're packed in.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this isn't Disney Dream Boat.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the massive crew, this is 40, 450 feet long.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's longer than Tiger's boat.
SPEAKER_00: Tiger and Lindsay, they just picked up, by the way, their yacht in Vancouver last month.
SPEAKER_00: There's 155 feet, but see, it's just two of them on that boat, okay?
SPEAKER_00: There's just two.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Noah is between a rhino and a camel, right?
SPEAKER_00: Let's think about this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally, he's on a boat slammed full of nasty animals.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, at some point, brimming with confidence would be very difficult.
SPEAKER_00: And Noah's just on the boat.
SPEAKER_00: He is holding on to one thing, and that's that God has covenanted with him.
SPEAKER_00: That God promised, I will covenant with you.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only thing that Noah can hold on to.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and then it begins, it begins to rain.
SPEAKER_00: And it rains, and the waves are huge, and that big 400, 450-foot boat, it feels really small.
SPEAKER_00: They're there for a month, they're there for another month, they're there for another month, and another month, and another month, and another month, and another month, and another month, and another month, and another month, and another month, and everybody has a birthday.
SPEAKER_00: About 370 days later, it stops raining, and Noah sends out a dove, and that dove brings back an olive leaf, and so he knows that the waters have receded, that a new beginning has occurred.
SPEAKER_00: So in this story, we get we see two points.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we get two points we can come away with, and that's in chapter 9, which Sam read.
SPEAKER_00: The first is we get the implicit calling, and then second is we get the explicit covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So the first is the implicit calling, and that's this God cares for all of his creation, and so should we.
SPEAKER_00: And when I mean creation, when I mean all is creation, I mean both nature and man.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for years I've sort of missed this.
SPEAKER_00: I think for years, I'm I'm an I'm a nature I love nature.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a nature guy, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'll hug a tree.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I love it, but I think almost I've loved it or thought that you should care for it out of self-preservation.
SPEAKER_00: But but really we should care for nature because there are reasons in the heart of God that God actually cares for creation.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just listening to sermons this week and studying this and seeing this in the text, verses uh in chapter 9, verses 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_00: Um God's saying, I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you.
SPEAKER_00: The birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you, every living creature on earth.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing is is mentioned in verse 12, and then we can read it again in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: I've set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing is again in verse 16.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this isn't pantheistic.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't liberal.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's so easy to liberal thought.
SPEAKER_00: These are people who live in San Francisco, this type of thing.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't us.
SPEAKER_00: No, this is Bible.
SPEAKER_00: God deeply cares for his creation enough to include it in on the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: One of the best hikes I've been on is in a poly coastline of Kauai.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty sure a piece of heaven is going on there.
SPEAKER_00: And on our honeymoon, that we we got to go on this hike, and I guess I drug Christy on honeymoon on a muddy hike up and down mountain ridges.
SPEAKER_00: But this beautiful on the north shore of Kauai, and it's just mountains dropping into the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: And it would rain for two minutes, and then it'd be sunshine for 40 minutes, and it would rain for two minutes, and sunshine for 40 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was it you would hike up and down these ridges, and the mountains are dropping off, and this you know, beautiful blue sky out into the ocean, and you could hear the ocean below you, and you look to the left, and you could see waterfalls up in the valleys.
SPEAKER_00: You hike down and you walk through a beach.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: You look out along the ridges, and you you could see rainbows just arcing from the mountains out and and dropping into the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've never been there, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you've never been to that place, maybe you've been to North Georgia, or maybe maybe you've just been in your backyard and you've looked up and and you've felt the truth of Psalm 19.
SPEAKER_00: The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
SPEAKER_00: Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they reveal knowledge, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this isn't just poetry, though it is, this is happening.
SPEAKER_00: Nature is actually speaking God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been to the ocean?
SPEAKER_00: And uh and you close your eyes and it's just peace washes over you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is the hum of the ocean different than the hum of traffic?
SPEAKER_00: Because creation is speaking.
SPEAKER_00: What is clear is God is saying I'm committed to my creation.
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love it.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I love my deer, I love my oceans, I love my trees, I love my butterflies, I love my whales.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: I love my kangaroos, they're quirky, but I love them.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so maybe you're here, and everything I just said, you're like, been waiting for that.
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, amen.
SPEAKER_00: I hug trees also.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're here, and when you hear somebody protecting butterflies or whales, you think it's a waste of time and a waste of money.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I don't think we have to all go get a Prius.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe maybe you should you do, I'll take a Tesla, that's fine, I'll I'll go for that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but can we just raise the question?
SPEAKER_00: Can we just raise the question?
SPEAKER_00: If God cares enough about his creation to include it in on his covenant with us, what is our role with God's creation?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna push an agenda, but can we just can we ask that?
SPEAKER_00: That's an implicit calling.
SPEAKER_00: The second part of this calling is one that's implicit in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: It's so clear everywhere else, especially through the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: That's a love people.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 9, 5, and 6.
SPEAKER_00: And for your lifeblood, I will surely demand an accounting.
SPEAKER_00: I will demand an accounting for every animal.
SPEAKER_00: And for from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever sheds human blood by humans shall their blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made mankind.
SPEAKER_00: God's saying this: don't abuse anybody.
SPEAKER_00: Human life, all life, regardless of ethnicity or where you're from and cultural background and how you do things or how you dress or how you talk, regardless of socio-economic level or your beliefs have value.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you're like me.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have value because you're like me, and somebody else has value because they're like you.
SPEAKER_00: A human being has value as they're created in the image of their creator of God who also made you.
SPEAKER_00: And so we love and we accept people, not because they're like us.
SPEAKER_00: We love and accept them because they were made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now the story goes on at the end of chapter 9, and this is where we get this uh this idea of a hero, Noah, collapses.
SPEAKER_00: Because Noah is one night, he's having a good time.
SPEAKER_00: And he hits that point where you know you you need to stop.
SPEAKER_00: You've been having a good time.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to stop having a good time and get realistic, and he keeps going, and he ends up drunk and naked, or as we say, naked on the floor of his tent.
SPEAKER_00: Shameful.
SPEAKER_00: So a new beginning for God's creation, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like well, in terms of human behavior, looks like this thing sort of fell apart pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe something else is going on here.
SPEAKER_00: So what did it accomplish?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we begin to see, and what we see over and over and over again throughout the gospel narrative, throughout the Bible, is that acceptance as to be God's forever beloved is not tied to human behavior.
SPEAKER_00: Noah shows us that.
SPEAKER_00: So this is an amen for any of us who have screwed up.
SPEAKER_00: This is really good news for us.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is an incredible amen for us.
SPEAKER_00: Any of us that maybe your lives look squeaky clean, but underneath it, you're you're plagued with pride or fear or anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: You you say you praise God, but you have no actual trust in Him, or you're plagued by love.
SPEAKER_00: Or plagued by envy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if any of that goes on in your heart and your mind, this is incredible news.
SPEAKER_00: See, the calling was never enough for Noah.
SPEAKER_00: To build a great ark, to be a great man, that was never enough.
SPEAKER_00: God knew that a calling would not be enough.
SPEAKER_00: So God had to give Noah a covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we see.
SPEAKER_00: This is the second point, this explicit covenant.
SPEAKER_00: This is so clear.
SPEAKER_00: And the explicit covenant says God will save us rather than destroy us.
SPEAKER_00: He'll love us instead of condemn us.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 9, 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_00: And God said, This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come.
SPEAKER_00: So that's us.
SPEAKER_00: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
SPEAKER_00: This is God saying, Never again will the waters become a flood and destroy life.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'll care for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's so fuzzy and warm and beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: You get into that, and it's so rich because the literal word for rainbow is warbo.
SPEAKER_00: He laid down his warbo.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning success or failure, build an ark, or you get drunk and shameful in your tent.
SPEAKER_00: He laid down his warbow.
SPEAKER_00: He's not taking aim at you.
SPEAKER_00: He's not pulling that string back to launch another arrow at you.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he pulls that string back.
SPEAKER_00: He launches an arrow into himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the rainbow teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: It teaches us about new beginnings, not because human behavior will forever be better, but because God will aim his wrath at himself and extend his grace to us.
SPEAKER_00: And the cross of Jesus is that arrow.
SPEAKER_00: It is justice for all of the sin, all of the abuse, all of the mess, and it is grace to us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a new beginning.
SPEAKER_00: It's a clean slate.
SPEAKER_00: For all who have placed faith in God's provision and Jesus is a clean slate.
SPEAKER_00: See, so often we live in half the story, right?
SPEAKER_00: We can live in the hero part of the story.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: The hero trap, like build an ark.
SPEAKER_00: Your way to salvation, your way to value, your way to being a great man, a great woman is build an ark.
SPEAKER_00: And you finish that one, build another one, build another one, build another one, build another one, show everybody, let everybody see him.
SPEAKER_00: You're exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of it, you're still you.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like Noah built the ark.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of it, Noah's still Noah.
SPEAKER_00: He still needs acceptance and love outside of his own behavior.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the hero trap.
SPEAKER_00: At the same side, you can flip the other way and you can live in the shame trap.
SPEAKER_00: And shame's not I do bad things.
SPEAKER_00: Shame is I am a bad person.
SPEAKER_00: So shame's not Noah going, I once got drunk and I'm ashamed of it.
SPEAKER_00: The shame trap is I am forever a drunk.
SPEAKER_00: I'm worthless.
SPEAKER_00: That's the shame trap.
SPEAKER_00: Living in the full story.
SPEAKER_00: See, you can live in half the story, you can live in the hero, or you can live in the shame.
SPEAKER_00: Living in the full story says, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I do both of these.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm really fragile inside.
SPEAKER_00: Like there are times I head down the hero path and I'm trying to be a hero, and then all of a sudden I'm a head down the shame trap and I'm heading doing the shame thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really fragile.
SPEAKER_00: And living in the full story, what it does is it creates brokenness that we have to call upon the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What it does is it says, you know what, I get the calling and I want to do the calling, but I need the covenant in order to do the calling.
SPEAKER_00: And we say, I'm helpless without you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to live out your calling, but I need your covenant.
SPEAKER_00: I need your love for me.
SPEAKER_00: I need your sufficiency for me.
SPEAKER_00: See, now, now you see the rainbow.
SPEAKER_00: It's then that you see the rainbow.
SPEAKER_00: It's then that you see that he laid down his warbo.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, thank you that you do not pull that string back and you do not launch arrows of condemnation into us.
SPEAKER_00: But you have aimed it upward.
SPEAKER_00: You have aimed it at yourself.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful picture for us to grab hold of this morning in our hearts and our minds.
SPEAKER_00: That our behavior is not a cause for your love for us, but a reaction to your love for us.
SPEAKER_00: Would you create in us a desire to want to know you more?
SPEAKER_00: To grow in depth.
SPEAKER_00: That you would increase our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of us that are trapped in the hero mode or trapped in the shame mode, would you would you rescue us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you break us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help us to see the rainbow?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help us to see your covenant and to trust in it and to accept your word of value for us more than the words that we give ourselves?
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.