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Good morning. My name is Harley Rethel and I'm one of the pastors on staff here at Points and just glad to have this opportunity to be with you guys this morning. Reality check. Uh those are two words that are kind of interesting thrown together. An interesting combination of words or an interesting phrase. And it's one that I seem to remember my dad throwing around a fair bit growing up. My dad would say things like, uh, that guy over there, he needs a reality check. That'd be kind of something he'd throw out, or he'd say something like, Wow, uh, let's just stop here and have a reality check. You know, those are the sort of dadisms that I grew up around, okay? And so, interesting phrase, but it's essentially what my dad was trying to communicate in that was that there was a dysfunctional perspective that needed both evaluating and fixing. And so I think this morning I'd like to ask you a question and say, what is your reality? Do you have an accurate view of it? What is your perspective on the good, the bad, and the ugly in your life? On all you love your life. How are you looking at your life? And do you think that your your view of your life is accurate? If you're anything like me, you may have a propensity or an ability to kind of act like an ostrich at times and just have your head stuck in the sand. I I feel like oftentimes I'm just going along, got life going on, and I'm not really a lot aware, or I'm I'm kind of blind to the things that I should be aware of at times. I'll give you an example of how that works. So a couple of months ago, it was January, the year was starting out, and I thought the year was starting out pretty well. Things were going well, family was going well. And what came up on our calendar halfway, partway through the month of January, was we had this time set aside where we were going to go and pray with a whole bunch of other pastors from across Austin. We were praying, you know, that God would lead us and guide us and bless the church in Austin was really cool. Time. And after that, we had this time set aside where we're going to do some calendaring and some planning for the year. And so during that window, God really spoke to me. He really like was revealing some stuff to me. And I would say that it was a moment where he gave me a reality check. He really helped me to kind of lift my gaze and to see a few things. And what he showed me during that time was that my love for him was growing cold. That there was a comfort, there was an apathy in my heart that wasn't healthy. There was a casualness in my relationship with him and a lack of hunger for him. And I felt really convicted of that. Not only was I convicted, I felt like God was leading me to make some amendments, some adjustments to my time and how I structured just even finding space and time with him in the mornings. And it was a really good and a healthy window in my life. You see, the problem is that we tend to inflate the wrong things in our lives and deflate the right things. To put it another way, we focus on unnecessary things and we neglect the important things. And this is simply because our perspective is wrong. We're valuing, we're putting value on the wrong things. Our perception of reality is really important to us. How you see things determines how you act, right? I'll give you an example. Pokemon Go. You guys know what I'm talking about? Something like, oh, Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go, for those of you who don't know, was a fad, okay? I think it's a fad, it's kind of past its heyday now. But it was this augmented reality app. Now, what that means, augmented reality simply means that it was a combination of the real world with the virtual world. And so if you saw people walking around with their phones battling dragons in the real world, what they were doing was playing Pokemon Go, okay? So it was this combination where your phone is taking in this information of where you are and what you're looking at, and they're projecting a fake reality onto a screen. Now, if you go to Google and type in Pokemon Go injuries, you'll come up with some really interesting stories. You'll find stories of people breaking bones. You'll find stories of people plunging into water while holding their phone. You'll see stories. I I saw a picture of a guy who'd fallen off a train platform. Okay, so there's all this crazy stuff happening because people's perception of reality was warped. It was skewed, and because of that, they have this grasp of reality that is inaccurate. And we all have a reality that we believe. We all have a lens that we look at the world through. If you want the technical term, what we call this is our worldview. All of us have a worldview, a way, a lens that we look at the world through. And what I want to ask you to consider this morning, I think it's a really good question to ask, is is the reality that we believe, is our worldview true and is it accurate? Is the way that we're looking at the root at the world true and accurate? And I want to be frank with you for a moment. I just want to be very clear. I know that in a room like this, on a Sunday morning, there's some of you in this room who wouldn't identify yourselves as Christians. And it's really great that if you are in that position and that you're here, that's really great. We're excited that you're here. We want people like you in this room who may be exploring faith. Maybe you came here on your own fruition. Maybe you came along here wanting to like learn about faith. Maybe somebody drug you along here. Either way, we're glad you're here and engaging in this conversation about spiritual things. But I want to just describe for you the perspective that we have, the worldview as Christians that we have. See, what we believe is that without God, without Jesus, reality for you as a non-believer is skewed. The way that you see the world is always going to be twisted and not quite right. Now, I will speak to Christians as well. Now, if you're a Christian, the way that you look at the world can be right at times, but it also can be skewed at times because we struggle with sin. We have this world in which we live, which is full of sin. We have these bodies that are plagued by sin, and because of that, our reality can be skewed too. So this conversation about reality and having a right view on reality is helpful for both Christians and non-Christians this morning. And I want you to see that as we jump into the text this morning. But the main point I'm trying to make here as we start out is this true wisdom stems from God-given, a God-given view of reality. True wisdom stems from a God-given view of reality. That's what is a Christian I believe. That's my world view. And so it's very important for us as Christians, and even for those of you who aren't Christians, to consider what does a Christian believe and what is the way that we should look at the world. And as we look into this text this morning, I hope that this will kind of enlighten us on this whole conversation. My prayer is that God would show us some truths about this topic as we jump into 1 Corinthians chapter 4. I'm going to invite you actually to turn there in your Bibles, 1 Corinthians 4. And as you're turning there, we're actually going to start out in verse 6, but I want to fill you in on what's happened in verses 1 through 5. Okay, so we've been working through 1 Corinthians, and we're just going slowly through the whole book, and we're up to chapter 4 this week. But as we get to chapter 4, we've been talking about true wisdom. Last week we had a great message just talking about spiritual maturity, and wisdom leads us to spiritual maturity. And as we go into this conversation today about having a God-given view of reality, that also is a reflection on wisdom. But as we look at these first few verses, what we see is that what's stated is that Christian leaders are both servants and managers of the gospel or of God's mysteries, is how the verse talks about it. So it's what's been said here is a carrying on of what's been talked about in the previous chapters. If you've been journeying with us so far, you'll remember that there's been kind of this controversy going on in the church that's been addressed in this letter. This book was originally a letter. And what's been addressed is this controversy where certain people are saying, well, I'm with Apollos, who was this really gifted teacher at the time. Other people are like, well, I'm with Paul, or I'm with Cephas, who we know as Peter. And what Paul is trying, with God's help, as he's writing this scripture to really clearly communicate, is that all Christian leaders are simply servants and managers, which is a good reminder. The other thing that's stated in these first few verses is that God will evaluate everybody's work. Paul's saying, hey, you've got to remember that all our work is going to be evaluated by God. And so as we go on into the text, keep that in mind. That's where we're coming out of as we read from verse 6, which is where we're going to pick up. And I invite you to read along with us. Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the saying, nothing beyond what is written. The purpose is that none of you will be inflated with pride in favour of one person over another. For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you didn't receive? If in fact you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn't received it? You are already full, you are already rich, you have begun to reign as kings without us, and I wish you did reign, so that we could also reign with you. For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die. We have become a spectacle to the world, uh, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are distinguished, but we are dishonored. Up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless. We labor working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless. When we're persecuted, we endure it. When we are slandered, we respond graciously. Even now, we are like the world's garbage, like dirt, everyone scrapes off their sandals. What we see here in the text is that God, speaking through Paul, is taking a giant pen and bursting the false reality bubble that these Corinthians are existing inside of. We look at this text and and really at this point, Paul is starting to lean into some hard truths. He's been very gracious and kind with them, yes, and he started to tell them some truths. But at this point and on through the rest of the letter, he's going to be very frank and very honest and very real with these guys. And as he's doing that, we look at this and we see that they're struggling with pride. We see that they're still, he's trying to address this idea that they're chasing after certain leaders, and as we look at that, we have this problem because we look at at the situation and we think, oh, you foolish Corinthians. We have this tendency to look at this story and see what's going on, and we with the gift of perspective be like, wow, I can't believe that they're struggling with that. Man, Paul really had to had to address that. But I want to challenge you on that thought this morning because I would say to you that we are just as susceptible of the same problems and the same issues, and I would actually argue that we're just as infected with the same issues and problems as these guys were. And so, because of that, as we journey on and look at this text and kind of pull it apart in detail, what I'd challenge you to do is not think about it in high-level hypothetical terms. It would be easy for me to get up here this morning and exegete, pull apart this text, and really be like, okay, so the Corinthians struggled in this way and this way and this way, and then we all leave and we're like, wow, we learned a lot about the Corinthian church. But what we a better thing for us to do would be to ask a question like this. This is the one we're gonna address. Why do we struggle with reality in the same way as the Corinthians? That's a much better way to address this issue. For us to say, yes, these are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Yes, they lived a long time before us, but we have the same struggles. We have the same issues. So what that's the way we're gonna address this. Why do we struggle with the same in the same way as the Corinthians? Now, the first thing I'd point you to, this isn't a point in your notes here, but the reason we struggle is because of sin. We've already mentioned this. Sin has infected our world, sin has infected our lives, and so that leads to the struggle. But specifically in the text, I want to point you towards three things on why we struggle. The first one is this I would point you to the fact that we struggle because we look to more than God's word to lead us. We have this ability, this tendency to look to more than God's word to lead us. Now, why would I say that? Well, if you look back in the text at verse six with me, it says this. Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the saying. Now notice this is in quotation marks. Nothing beyond what is written. Now, why is that in quotation marks? The reason it's in quotation marks is this is a phrase that they're all familiar with. It's obviously something that they've talked about before, and what we believe and understand it to mean is they're talking about the Old Testament scriptures. At that time they only had the Old Testament. And what the point that God is making through Paul here is to say, hey guys, we don't need more than the scriptures. You don't need an Apollos, you don't need a Paul, you don't need a Cephas to be the ones that give you wisdom and insight and superiority. All we need is God's word and God's word alone. You see, these guys were looking to themselves and others for wisdom, and we do the same thing. We struggle in the same way in a myriad of different areas. And there's so many examples I could address this morning. I'm going to pick on a couple. We do this in our parenting. We look to our own wisdom in parenting, and we look to like self-help books or pop psychology, and we ignore God's word. We look to ourselves and to uh popular wisdom in the area of decision making. I'll go into more detail on this one. So, decision making. We know if we go to God's word, that God's desire for us as Christians is to love God and to love people. If you go to the text, if you go through the Bible, there's this reoccurring theme that we are called to love God and love people. If you go to the very end when Jesus was speaking to his the newest Christians, these these Christians who had just started to believe in him, as he's getting ready to leave the earth in Matthew 28. He says to them, Go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. And we call that the Great Commission. That is our call. All of us, if you're a Christian, that is your call. Your call is to bring glory to God by loving him, by witnessing, by discipling people, by leading people towards him. That is your call on your life. And yet we come to decision making. We may have like a decision about our job or where we live or what we're doing with our lives. And as we look at these decisions, we like make these pros and con lists. We're like, well, this will be good for my career, or I'll get paid more doing this, or this car, this house has an extra garage on it, or you know, whatever else. We get these pros and con lists going. The first thing that we should consider is does this decision bring glory to God? Does this decision glorify God? Because that's what He's called us to, to bring in glory to His name. And yet we go beyond what God has given us, and our reality gets skewed, and we under wonder why we end up in a mess. There's a lot I could say on that. I'm gonna keep moving. Second example I give you, again, there's so many areas that this plays out. In relationships. I'm not gonna speak to marriage. We are gonna talk about marriage in a few weeks when we get to 1 Corinthians 7. But if you're single and there's somebody that you want to date who is not a Christian, oftentimes you will justify dating that person who's not a Christian. You're a Christian, they're not a Christian. You'll say, oh, well, you know what, we we line up in all these areas, he's a really good person, I might be able to save him. There's all these things that we we rationalize and justify, but the reality is that God's word says, don't be unequally yoked. I'm not speaking to those of you who are married. If you're married, it's a different conversation. But if you're looking to get into a relationship, God's word is very clear. And yet we step oftentimes beyond that because we listen to our own heart and we listen to the advice of others, and that that skews our reality, that messes with our world. Those are just a couple of examples. The thing that I will point you to is that we need God and we need his word. Psalms 119 has so many good little truths in it. Here's two for you. Psalms 119, 105 says, Your word, God's word, is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. That's a great truth, guys. Psalms 119, 11, I have treasured your word in my heart, so that I might not sin against you. That's the way that we're called to live. Looking to God, looking to his word first and foremost, and then allowing him to lead us and guide us through our lives. Okay, so that's the first way that we see in this text. One of the reasons why we struggle with reality in the same way as the Corinthians. The second way is that we um the second reason why is because we become inflated with pride. We become inflated with pride. If you look to verse 6 with me, what you'll see there is he fit continues going on, after saying nothing beyond what is written, he says, the purpose is that none of you will be inflated with pride in favor of one person over another. Now we talked about pride and its subversive grip on our hearts a few weeks ago when we were in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And the church in Corinth was really struggling with pride, and I would say to us, we all struggle with this too. We talked when we talked a couple of weeks ago about how subversive pride is. How oftentimes we see it in other people. We'll be like, oh yeah, there's pride, but we don't see it in ourselves. It's very, very sneaky in the way that it hides in our lives, and yet it is the root of all sorts of evil thoughts and evil actions in our lives. And it's something that we must daily submit to God. I'm not going to go into a whole bunch of detail on this just because we talked about pride a few weeks ago, but I would put to you this James chapter 4, verse 6. It's a scary verse. It says this God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I don't know about you, but think about God, the most powerful being in the whole universe, the thought of him resisting you. Does that sound good? That doesn't sound good, right? It says very clearly that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. And this isn't a text in isolation. Actually, this is a theme throughout the Bible. Did you know that that verse is actually a quote from Psalms 138? And it has references across to Proverbs chapter 3 and Matthew 23. They all carry this theme where God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. I don't know about you, but I want grace. I don't want resistance from God. And so we've got to remember, we've got to remember to approach God, to approach life with an attitude and a heart of humility by his grace. So that's the second reason why that we see here in the text that the Corinthians were struggling with reality, and we do in the same way. The third reason why we struggle in the same way as the Corinthians with reality is because we feel entitled. And this really stems from pride that we were talking about. But listen to verse 7 and 8 again. I'm going to read it for you again. It's kind of interesting. Paul gets pretty uh pretty solid with these guys at this point. He's like, he's being firm, he's being quite sarcastic and using some hyperbole. He's like exaggerating things that are not true. Here we go. He says, For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you didn't receive? If in fact you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn't received it? Listen to this. You are already full, sarcasm, you're already rich, you're already um you've already begun to reign as kings without us, and I wish you did reign so that we could also reign with you. Now what's he talking about here? When they're talking about reigning, they're talking about the return of Jesus. He's saying you guys are acting like Jesus has already come back, that you've got this all figured out, that life is good, and and you've got this element and this heart of pride. Basically, he's addressing these guys and saying, hey, you guys are acting very entitled, and your entitlement is leading you to act like you've already arrived. And the reality is we have not arrived. If you're ever tempted to act or to think or to behave as a Christian like you have already arrived, don't. First Corinthians chapter 13, we're gonna get there in a few weeks. Verse 12 says this. Just saying, we don't know fully now. We haven't arrived, but then we will. Guys, the return of Jesus as Christian is something we really, really look forward to, but we haven't arrived yet. And if you begin to think and act entitled and like you've arrived, your reality is gonna skew very, very quickly. So, like the Corinthians, there is a struggle for us to have a clear view of reality. And we've just spent some time exploring why, why that is. But I think a good question for us to ask ourselves as we continue on in this text is what is reality? So if we say, yeah, there is a struggle and we see some of the reasons why we struggle, what is the reality that we should view? What is the way that we should behave? What is the way that we should look at the world that God's given us? And so we're gonna frame this conversation by asking this question what is the reality that we need? Need to continually be aware of as Christians. The first thing that I point you to, the first reality that we have to remember and continue to remember, is that we are fools for Christ. Look at verse 10 with me. It doesn't get any plainer than this. Verse 10 says, we are fools for Christ. There we go. There's your point. We're fools for Christ. It's there in the text. It's very plain, and this isn't a new theme. In previous weeks that we've been going through 1 Corinthians, we've talked about how this is an important point, that the foolishness of the Christian message, or the Christian message looks like foolishness to those who don't believe. And we've got to come to terms with that. We've got to understand that. The reality is that we must exist as Christians in a world where we may build our lives and we may believe things that to the rest of the people around us who don't believe, they look foolish. To those outside of the faith, the decisions we make, the way that we gear our lives, the way that we invest our time, our talents, our treasures, as we invest those things, that shouldn't make sense to other people. It should look like foolishness. I'll give you an example. I have a uh I have a very good friend of mine who I feel very fortunate to be a friend with, but we have a very different view of the world. You see, he's an atheist, and I am a Christian. And so as we have conversations, sometimes they're quite interesting. Uh, one conversation that's interesting that we've had several times is he has uh asked me, and I can see the wheels kind of turning in his head when he asked me this question, but he's asked me about my work. Now, obviously, I work at a church, I'm a pastor, and some of this just doesn't compute, doesn't make sense to him. So he's come to me and he's asked questions like this. He's like, So is there room for you to kind of move up in your job? Like, he's trying to figure out like what's the next step in the corporate ladder of the church. He's asked questions like, you know, so are you gonna graduate to having your own church, or is it, you know, how does this work? And so we have this interesting dialogue, and my answer sounds like foolishness to him because what I've told him is we are in the best church context we've ever been in our entire lives. We really love the people we serve with, they're some of our best friends. We really love this church, and we feel like this is where God's called us for now, and we're absolutely content with where God has us. And when I say that, it's like, you know, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't compute. The question we have to ask ourselves is am I okay? Are you okay with our lives being perceived by others as foolish? So that's the first reality we see in this text that we have to be aware of as Christians. By the way, there's many realities we need to be aware of as Christians. We're just pulling ones from the text today. The second one from the text that I'd point you to is that we are weak. That we are weak. If you look at verses 10 through 13, I'm not going to reread it for you, but it outlines that we need to be aware that as Christians we are susceptible to dishonor, hunger and thirst, poverty, being without clothing, rough treatment, homelessness, hard labor, being reviled, persecuted, and slandered. The reality is that the Christian life is not glamorous. There are pastors and authors out there who would lead you to believe otherwise. But promises of a perfect and easy life after we come into relationship with God are not biblical. Hear me say that. That is not biblical. To believe that the Christian life is all rosy and all comfortable and all good. Now, if you talk to someone who genuinely loves God and has walked a long time with God, they will tell you that the Christian life is very tough at times. But they'll also tell you that God is faithful and good, especially in those hard and difficult times. Talk to somebody who's walked this life as a believer, as a follower of God, and they will tell you those truths. James chapter 1, verse 2 says this consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Consider it great joy when you experience trials. Now he doesn't say if you experience trials, he says whenever. This was an expectation. This is normative for us to go through life and have difficulties, but God to still love us in the midst of those difficulties. What I cling to, what I would encourage you to cling to, are the promises of God's word. One of the ones that I love in the moments of toughness and suffering is Romans chapter 8, verse 28, one that you may be familiar with with. It says, We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God. What I'd like to encourage you with this morning is that we can know that God loves us even in the midst of those hardest of hard moments of our lives. But the reality we must keep in view is that as Christians we will look foolish and we will look weak. Now, some of you this morning are like, wow, this is really pepping me up, Harley. I'm just feeling so encouraged right now. The Christian life is looking really attractive, right? I want to point you to one third real reality this morning. And I want this to be the one that you lean on. The third reality that we're gonna look into is the reality that as Christians we belong. This is a great reality, guys. It really is. Look back with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We're gonna continue reading verse 14 onwards. I'm not writing these things to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children. For you can have 10,000 instructors in Christ, but you can't have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you to imitate me. This is why I have sent Timothy to you. He is my dearly loved and faithful son in the Lord. He will remind you about my ways in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere in every church. Listen to the inclusive, loving language in the text here. Did you guys pick up on that as we read that text? Paul addresses these friends that he has had the experience of leading them to Jesus through the gospel, saying, Hey, you need Christ, and them expect accepting that message. He addresses them as his children and reminds them that he is their father. And then as you go on into the text, into verse 17, he talks about this guy Timothy, who he's invested a lot of time and energy in, and he calls him his dearly loved and faithful son. Listen to that language. It's so loving. It's like he can't get enough good adjectives to describe this relationship. And why does he use this sort of language? Well, it's because as Christians, we are loved and we belong. Some of you just need to hear that message this morning. As Christians, we are loved and we belong. We belong as Christians because we're God's children. Let me read you a couple of texts. Galatians 3, verse 26. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. We are his sons. Romans 8, 14. All those led by God's Spirit are God's sons. John 1, verse 12, but to all who did receive him, he gave the right to be children of God to those who believe in his name. First John chapter 3, verse 1 says, Look at how great a love the Father has given us, that we should be called God's children, and we are. Back to Romans 8, verse 16 and 17. The Spirit Himself testifies together with our Spirit that we are God's children, and if children also heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, seeing that we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. I love this text in Romans 8, 16. I like all of those. But this one in particular, because it ties together all that we're talking about this morning. Yes, the reality is a Christian that you will look foolish. Yes, you will look weak. But that suffering is because we belong. We're children, we're heirs, we are part of God's family. How is it that we are part of God's family? This is where you can throw out the very easy Sunday school answer and say, Jesus, because that's right. We are God's children because of Jesus. Now, this is the point where it's going to be very easy for you to sit there and go, okay, Harley's getting towards the end of the message and we're talking about Jesus. We do this every week. Yes, we are doing this every week because that is the reality. Jesus is the hero. He is the one that we need to continue to look to. If we want to have a right attitude and perspective in life, we have to have Jesus. You can't have that without Jesus. Now let's talk some specifics here. Let's not dismiss this thought too quickly. You know, as I was talking about the foolishness and the weakness and how we have to keep those in view, some of you are like, wow, that's hard. Foolishness. I don't like the idea of looking foolish. Weakness, suffering, man. I don't like the idea of that either. Think about this. Jesus, in the ultimate act of foolishness, hung naked on a cross so that we could belong. Isn't that amazing? You, if you're feeling like you're struggling, looking foolish in front of your friends or your family who don't believe and don't understand the decisions you're making because you're a Christian, remember that Jesus understands that. Not only that, Jesus in the ultimate act of weakness, he understands your weakness because in the ultimate act of weakness, not only became a man, which meant he left the presence of God and came as a baby who needed his diaper changed. Talk about a change of environment, and grew up, he grows up to then be this man who dies this terrible and torturous death. In the ultimate act of weakness, he does that so that we can belong. That's the reality. Our reality without Christ, hear me clearly on this. Our reality without Christ is bleak, but our reality with Christ is absolutely incredible. We belong because of Jesus. Here's a noteworthy comment from a theologian that I really respect, a guy named J.I. Packer. He says this. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father. Isn't that interesting? I'm going to read that again. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father. How much do you make of the thought that you are God's child and what that God is your father? Have you thought about that? Have you considered that as you struggle with the realities of life? This is so important for us to consider. And not just consider that we belong, but also consider this. How should we then, as people who belong, respond? You see, when I realize that I'm God's child, my perception or my reality must shift. I must see that it's not how I live that makes me belong. It's not these certain acts that I do and the way that I live that all of a sudden God's like, oh yeah, okay, you're not too bad. You can belong, you can be a part of our family. That's not how adoption works. That's not how this whole thing happens. And yet we get this idea in our head that we do certain works and God will approve of us. That's not reality at all. Reality is that we belong, and then that we belong. We are a part of God's family just because he loves us, no other reason. And because of that, that then informs how we act and how we live. Does that make sense this morning? Our response is because of who we are, not to try and get God to approve of us. So today, I want to encourage you to look at the fact that as Christians, if you're a Christian in this room today, that you belong, and then I want you to figure out what that means for you specifically, how that means that you should live accordingly. I'm not going to get into the specifics, because some of you, your reality, you are Christians, but your reality of your situation and your parenting is skewed, or your finances, or your job situation, or whatever it may be. There's something today or some things today that God is saying, hey, I want you to have my perspective on this area of your life. And my challenge for you, my challenge for me is, God, would you allow us to see things your way? To remember we belong, that yeah, we may look foolish, we may look weak, but God, we're going to respond accordingly in our lives. If you're not a Christian, if you're exploring faith or just even here, just listening today, I would challenge you to consider belonging. There is no greater thing that you can do in your life. There is no greater decision you can make in your life than to belong. You see, this invite to belong is an open invite. If you read through the Bible, what you'll see is that this is a very open family. Anyone can belong to it. If you read a verse, a very simple one like John 3.16, it says, For God so loved the world that whoever would believe in him should not perish. The invite is open for you to belong. And so I'm asking you today, would you consider having a reality check, changing your reality, so that you would see your need, your desperate need for God. Now, as we prepare to respond, I have one more story for you guys. It was a moment back when I was, I I can't remember exactly, but it's stuck in my memory, and it was when I was around fifth grade or sixth grade, somewhere in there, I would say. And I had a friend at that time in my life who was really good about talking about things, but them not actually being always that true. You know the type of person that I'm talking about? And so for several weeks we talked back and forth about this birthday party he was gonna have. And it was a big deal. He was gonna invite some of us guys to go to this video arcade game, and they were gonna pay for us to get in and to play as many video games as we wanted. You know, this was like mind-blowing to me at the time, right? And so I was really excited about this party. We talked about it for weeks, and um, I was, you know, he was talking it up, and we were getting all excited about this thing, going back and forth and trying to figure out what this was gonna look like. So really excited about this party happening, and that led us to one night we were talking on the phone. Um, I guess I called him up or something, I don't know. We were talking on the phone, and without giving my dad any inclination of what he was doing, I handed the phone to my dad to figure out with his dad the details of this party. Now, I didn't realize, I didn't think through the thought that my dad had no idea why I was handing them the phone, and I didn't realize that my friend on the other end had not even talked to his parents about this party. This was a non-existent party. And so my dad got on the phone and had a very, very, very awkward conversation for the next few minutes, trying to figure out what on earth was going on with his other parent. And in that moment, my my dad got off the phone and he was upset. He was embarrassed and he was a bit frustrated about what was going on. But you know what my dad didn't do? He didn't yell at me and get upset with me. And he didn't just walk away and be like, uh, kids, and just leave me. In that moment, he came to me in love. And he said, Hey, I love you enough to tell you this. He's like, hey, you can't just hand me the phone like that, buddy. I need to know what's going on. We've got to communicate. You've got to communicate clearly with me what's going on, and we've got to figure out these things together because I was just, and he explained the whole situation to me. And it was a beautiful moment. I really it's stuck in my memory. I mean, what a random story, but it's stuck in my memory because in that moment my dad loved me enough to tell me truth, to communicate what I needed to hear, and God loves us in the same way. God is a loving father, and his heart for us is not for us to be stumbling around in the darkness, in these false realities in which we find ourselves. He loves us enough to clarify our reality, our perspective, even when it's tough. God is a God of both grace and truth. And like my dad came to me, I'm hoping and praying that God would come and work in our hearts this morning and say, hey, your reality in this area is messed up. Your reality, your view needs changing in this area. So as you consider God the Father this morning, I want to encourage you to consider his love for you, how deep and gracious it is. But I also want to ask you to consider how you need to respond. Let's celebrate this morning the fact that there is a God, a good father, who has given us his son Jesus so that we can have an opportunity to belong. Guys, I don't want you to be overwhelmed by the idea that, yeah, we do look foolish at times. Yes, we struggle with weakness. I want you to be overwhelmed this morning with the thought that we belong. That's incredible. That's good news, guys. That's something that we can celebrate. As we have time here in the next few minutes to respond, that is something that should fill our hearts, overwhelm our lives, as we realize, yes, the reality is that as a Christian, I belong to God, and there is nothing that can separate me from his love. Let me pray for us. God, thank you. That the reality is that we do belong, and it's not because of a certain way that we've lived or a certain way that we've pleased you. We belong simply because of the gracious and incredible act of Jesus who came and died for us so that we could be in a right relationship with you. God, may that reality be what informs all other realities in our lives. God, as we look to these specific areas where we're struggling right now, as we think about different issues and struggles and ways that we're we're we're having a tough time in life. God, I pray that you would give us your reality, your view on those areas. God, remind us that we are your children this morning. God, I pray that there wouldn't be a sense of heaviness in this room today, but rather a sense of great joy as we celebrate the fact that we are your children, that we belong, and that you love us enough to continue to adjust our realities so that we look and live in a way that honors you. Help us this morning, God. We can't do this without you. We can't do any of this without your spirit moving in these next moments. And so we ask and invite you to move. Thank you. Amen.