Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Can Zoe speak Jesus for me, please?
[00:00:05] Let's go. What about that worship team?
[00:00:09] Let me pray.
[00:00:11] Dear Heavenly Father, you are a mighty God.
[00:00:15] I thank you that you are.
[00:00:17] You're good.
[00:00:19] I thank you that in every generation, you call people to a higher standard, to a standard that is set by you.
[00:00:28] So tonight, I pray for this room, for everyone watching online. I pray that your spirit will speak truth to our hearts.
[00:00:37] I pray that he will convict where it needs convicted and call out encourage and passion and fire where you have called us, Father. And I pray through it all, your name will be glorified.
[00:00:50] In your mighty son's name, we pray. Amen.
[00:00:56] I left my notebook, and I want it. I've got an electronic one and a handwritten one. Would you mind grabbing it? I think it's in my office.
[00:01:02] Okay. I normally don't use notes, but I want them tonight.
[00:01:05] I, in seventh and eighth grade, was a track star. Okay. Yeah. I have zero pictures.
[00:01:15] I'm pretty sure my mom found a baby in a yellow blanket and was like, oh, yeah, here you are as a baby. I'm pretty sure I'm adopted.
[00:01:24] Just kidding. But I was, like, trying to find pictures of me in my track days. Not a one. So this is the closest you're gonna get to me in sixth or seventh and eighth grade. Somewhere in between. There. I'm the girl in the white with the peace sign.
[00:01:38] Okay. I was tall, I was lanky, and I was a natural runner.
[00:01:44] It came easy to me, but I knew nothing about the sport.
[00:01:49] And so my first couple track meets, I was a mile. I ran the mil, ran the 400 and the 4x4. Any other runners in the room?
[00:02:00] Anyone run the mile?
[00:02:02] Okay, let's go. Let's go.
[00:02:05] So I learned quickly all the things that I needed to learn, like what I didn't know. And one of my first races in the mile, I kind of separated myself from the pack, except one girl who stayed really close behind me the entire time, and she annoyed me. Me. I could not shake her. She was just right on my heels the entire race until the very end when sister sprinted to the finish line and beat me. Okay. And afterwards, I was talking to my coach, and I'll never forget, he said, your opponent just ran the perfect race.
[00:02:42] And he said, what happens is when you run in front, you're setting the pace, but you're also like a shield. You're protecting from the wind. And so all her energy is in a drift behind you, and she has more energy than you. And I was like, you could have told sister this before the race, you know, and I was, I was, I learned quickly that that will never happen again to get behind my opponent.
[00:03:12] And I was recently watching a clip on the man who broke the first four minute mile. His name is Roger Bannister.
[00:03:23] And what I learned was he did not do this alone.
[00:03:28] He ran it with two of his teammates in this race. And they had a strategy to help him try to break this four minute mark. Because up until this day, it had never been done.
[00:03:41] And so his teammates, they had a plan that this guy in the front, I think his name was Chris, he, he would run the first two laps of the track to keep him above pace, to break it, and he would be like the shield to keep his energy in.
[00:04:00] Then the third lap, the guy from the back in third place, he came around.
[00:04:05] Chris Dunn did his job and he kept the pace for him.
[00:04:12] And this teamwork together created his history.
[00:04:17] On the last lap, Roger sprinted home and he was the first man to ever run a 3 minute and 59 second mile.
[00:04:29] I think my record is 602 or something. You are welcome.
[00:04:34] But here's the thing.
[00:04:36] When I looked at this, I asked myself, who is setting the pace in your life?
[00:04:46] Who's the pacemaker?
[00:04:49] I think for a lot of us, it's us.
[00:04:52] We are the pacemaker of our life.
[00:04:55] We decide what is right and what is wrong.
[00:04:58] We try to achieve things so that we can become better or more successful or make more money.
[00:05:06] Sometimes we get into relationships and that other person becomes the pacemaker of our life. And it's like, can we win their love? And then our worth is based on if they love us or don't.
[00:05:19] And I want to challenge you tonight that there is a better way.
[00:05:24] Because what happens is when we are setting the pace for our life, what happens is we don't have that shield.
[00:05:32] We're burning energy we were never meant to burn.
[00:05:36] We're carrying weight we were never meant to carry.
[00:05:40] And I believe that tonight we're gonna be starting a three part series on the life of King Josia.
[00:05:48] Because this young king, he decided that there was a better way that when you let God set the pace, when you let God set the standard, when you let God set the tone for your life, something radical happens.
[00:06:04] Something powerful can happen in a home when God becomes the center, something powerful can happen in the soul. When God becomes the center of your mind and your thinking, something powerful can happen in a room when you walk in and you've trusted God and now you are setting the Pace in the room and you're letting God shine out from you.
[00:06:25] There is a God who wants to give us victory and purpose and joy in this life.
[00:06:31] And it's only going to happen when we let him set the pace and the standard.
[00:06:39] This three part series, it's going to be broken up. So I'm going to kick it off tonight. And Josiah was.
[00:06:48] It's an interesting story.
[00:06:51] You don't get a ton, but you get enough.
[00:06:55] And Josiah, his family heritage, he came from the line of kings.
[00:07:03] His grandfather was a disaster until the very end of his life. His grandfather set up false idols everywhere. He set up altars so that they could worship their false idols. He sacrificed his own children on the idols. He was a messed up, broken dude.
[00:07:23] And he set the pace for his life.
[00:07:27] And then Manasseh was his name. And then he had a son named Amon. And Amon was.
[00:07:35] He served the false gods and he set them up. And he was so bad that his own people took his life.
[00:07:44] And then at age eight, Josiah becomes king.
[00:07:49] For some of you, that's a dream.
[00:07:52] And in second Chronicles 34, we're going to take a look at it today.
[00:07:58] We're going to read one through seven together.
[00:08:00] Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign. And he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And he walked in the ways of David, his father.
[00:08:13] And he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.
[00:08:18] For in the eighth year of his reign, he. While he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David, his father.
[00:08:26] And in the 12th year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the ashram and the carved and metal images.
[00:08:34] They chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence. And he cut down the incense altars that stood above them. He broke in pieces the Asherah and the carved and the metal images. And he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.
[00:08:51] He also burned the bones of the priests on the altar and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem and in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon, and as far as Nefertali, in their ruins all around. He broke down the altars and beat the ashram and the images into powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. And he returned to Jerusalem. It's a lot of names, but here's. Here's what I want you to know, that this young boy, he became king at eight years old and eight years later, we see a powerful idea that if we just followed it would radically change our life.
[00:09:35] In verse three, we see that he began to seek the God of David, his father.
[00:09:42] He began.
[00:09:45] For some of us, we have things that stop us from following God.
[00:09:50] For some of us we get these moments where we feel called by God. Some of you were on the mission trip and there are these holy moments where you're like, I will give everything to follow him. And then you get back into reality and then you get back into groups of friends and then you get back into the swing of things and that somehow that fire can burn away.
[00:10:17] For some of us, we look at this life and it's hard enough.
[00:10:23] Like the stress of our jobs, the stress of our families, the stress of school, whatever it may be, there is a weight on us that it's like, what can I really do?
[00:10:34] There's a stress of I have to provide for my family. There's a stress of like what my parents expect of me. There's stresses in life. And so when you think about the beginning to step out for Jesus Christ, it feels like it's not the right time later.
[00:10:53] And what I love about this story is this was a 16 year old boy who began.
[00:11:00] He began. He didn't get it from his grandfather, he didn't get it from his father. Inside of something, God was stirring and saying, I want something different for you, Josiah. I want something different for your generation.
[00:11:16] And because of one man's faith, what you will come to see over the next three weeks is the land was totally different for the next 31 years while he was alive because of one person's faith.
[00:11:33] I think about this church and I'm partnering with my dad right now and it is like the biggest blessing of my life.
[00:11:42] My dad is Doc, for those of you who don't know, he's the lead pastor here and he is wise and he's funny and he's cool. Did you see his leather jacket on Sunday? The white leather? Come on, we're like, we get it, you're clean, okay? And so it's the honor of my life. But when I really think about this, when I think about Christ Church, when I think about three campuses across northeastern Ohio, when I think about people we've helped across the world, when I think about kids that get fed every week, I think, man, this is because the grace of God worked inside one man. 50 some years ago when he was 18 years old, he was seeking God, which way to go.
[00:12:32] That's him, by the way.
[00:12:34] Come on. Little different, right?
[00:12:37] Still the most handsome guy.
[00:12:44] That's when he would button it up. He's a little looser now. Okay. He. He had the courage and the faith to seek God. He was going to go one way or another way in his life, and he sought God and he felt the call of God on his life. And so he went to Bible college with my mom.
[00:13:02] And then they started the church. I think this is the year they started the church. That's what he looked like.
[00:13:07] And they ruthlessly and radically followed the call of God in their life.
[00:13:14] They said yes to him. They carried the burden of very hard things. And because of his, yes, there's thousands of people because of his. Yes, you are here today.
[00:13:27] And it was one man stepping out in a generation.
[00:13:32] But I look at this next generation and I think to myself, there's more to come.
[00:13:38] Because what happens if God stirs something up inside of you and you decided to follow God radically, where you give your life to him, where you seek him and you take one step forward of faith, what might God do?
[00:13:53] I look at our staff, and I have people on the staff that who joined us, who turned down much higher pay, who gave up much bigger paychecks. And I think to myself, they're giving up these finances for pursuit that is bigger, for a pursuit that is better. And not everyone does that Church. It's something special.
[00:14:14] I'm looking at you.
[00:14:17] I think there's a generation that is willing to say, my life is more than my success. My life is more than my bank account. My life is what I can do partnered with God.
[00:14:30] I look at girls who have students, who I've mentored. And Emily, she was 18 years old. In her whole life, she thought she was going to do one thing. And then at the very last minute, she felt the call of God in her life. And now she's in Arizona learning and preparing to be a minister of the Word of Jesus Christ.
[00:14:51] I think about a girl like Sarah Robertson. She called me last week and she said, sarah, I just feel like God wants us to go out and reach the generation. I feel like he wants us to go and be proactive and bring them in. And I think to myself, thank you, Jesus, that I get to be a part of a generation like this.
[00:15:11] I think about the people who are willing to preach and teach and give their life away and serve. Love Week's coming up and hundreds of you are going to be speaking, serving. And what we get to show the world is that God is better. Than you think.
[00:15:27] He is better than whatever someone has told you or whatever hurt or pain you have carried. God is better than you think.
[00:15:36] I shouldn't have worn a gray shirt. I'm really sweaty and hot.
[00:15:42] Okay. I think about a kid who's in a whole nother state.
[00:15:47] His name's Graham and he started a Bible study. And it started at four people and just a little while later it's at a thousand.
[00:15:55] And he's like 18 years old.
[00:15:58] And it's like this whole movement that he started.
[00:16:02] What happens when you just. You just begin.
[00:16:05] You just take one step of radical submission, radical devotion, radical love.
[00:16:13] I think about my life. I am the least likely girl in the entire world to be leading in any capacity at this church.
[00:16:21] I was a 16 year old mom.
[00:16:24] I had messed up life. I loved God, but I was just going my own way.
[00:16:30] I didn't really want to know him. I just kind of followed what my parents said.
[00:16:36] I trusted sometimes, but getting pregnant so young, it changed my life. Because it's not that it was like, oh, now you're scolded into being better or now you're shamed into being better. It was because I met the love of Jesus Christ for myself.
[00:16:53] It was because in my shame and in my pain, a God of the universe who created me and knew me, he gathered me in his arms and he said, you are worth it.
[00:17:04] I value you.
[00:17:06] I have a plan. You are my daughter.
[00:17:09] And something inside of me started to change. And now, all these years later, I followed him. And my yes. I've just tried to say yes every step of the way. It's not been perfect. My marriage has not been pretty all the times. But today I just get to stand in awe of what God would do in a broken, messed up sinner like me.
[00:17:30] I just want to challenge you.
[00:17:34] Church.
[00:17:36] The time is now.
[00:17:39] It is not later.
[00:17:41] There's a Myth that the 20s and your teens are for figuring stuff out and having fun and partying. And then you get real in your 30s. It's a line of a word I'm not allowed to say in church. Okay? It's junk. It's crap. It's not true, It's a lie. And the God of the universe is saying in every generation, generation, I want to move, I want to work.
[00:18:09] In every generation, I'm going to. I'm going to choose somebody special to carry the baton of faith.
[00:18:17] And Josiah, he doesn't just seek. He doesn't just begin. He seeks God.
[00:18:24] And he started seeking God before he ever made a Move.
[00:18:29] Before he ever started crushing idols, tearing stuff down, he went and he sought after God.
[00:18:41] I think some of us, we think we have to get our life together in some way.
[00:18:47] Sin and shame can sometimes like pull us farther from God.
[00:18:52] But I think the beauty of really knowing God is letting his light and love pour into your heart, pour into your mind, pour into your soul.
[00:19:04] You see, when I find. When I seek God, the light gets brighter.
[00:19:09] When I seek God, the dark things inside of me become more evident because the light is showing in my heart and soul. And I see what doesn't belong. Can I get an amen in the room?
[00:19:20] When I seek God, there is a light and there is a hope and there is. There's a joy, there is a peace. There are things that I'm seeking in my life. And when I. When I see the things that are not from him, it becomes so much more clear.
[00:19:38] But it's. What do you do with it?
[00:19:41] A while ago I had two vases and one had mud in it. And I said, you know, this is like a representation of your sin. Sorry, I was going to do it tonight, but I couldn't. Couldn't make it happen.
[00:19:51] And what we try to do is we try to pick out and we try to do behavior modification. I'll quit smoking.
[00:19:58] I'll quit drinking too much. I'll quit being alone with my girlfriend. I'll quit being mean. I'll quit the gossip. I'll quit, I'll quit, I'll quit. And so we just tried to pick. But you cannot willpower yourself out of sin.
[00:20:14] It has never worked in the history life.
[00:20:19] It might work for a little while, but it doesn't stick. You cannot willpower yourself out of doing the things that you want to stop.
[00:20:29] But what you can do is seek God.
[00:20:34] The more I seek him, the more I know him.
[00:20:39] The more I know him, the more I love him.
[00:20:44] And the more that love starts to change my life, the more that love seeps into my soul.
[00:20:52] And I long to be more like him.
[00:20:56] I long to know him better and be more like Him. I long to make a difference in the lives of my kids. I long to make a difference in this church. I long to make a difference in the lives of people I've never even met. Yet I look at this room and I know one day it is going to be filled in here with 20 somethings who are seeking God.
[00:21:17] I know it. I believe it with all my heart. I believe the high school is going to just outgrow every space we have. We're going to have to build a whole new addition church.
[00:21:27] I think to myself, like, there is a desire inside of my heart that could only come from God because I couldn't even dream it up.
[00:21:35] And what I think is, before he ever broke down the idols, the love of God was being poured into his heart, into his mind, into his soul.
[00:21:51] And so when he looked out and saw the nation, saw what his grandfather and his father had created, it bothered him deeply.
[00:22:02] It bothered him.
[00:22:05] And I think when we. When we look at this scripture and we think about the things in our lives, it's not trying harder to do the right thing. It's seeking God, allowing him to love you so you can't tear down idols when you still love them.
[00:22:29] What happens is when you understand the love of God and how it's meant to be understood in scripture, when you know him, something happens.
[00:22:41] The greater love starts to cancel out the lesser loves.
[00:22:48] I'm going to give you an analogy, but it's poor. It's a poor analogy.
[00:22:52] My husband and I met when we were very young.
[00:22:55] And there were people before Jacob and there were some people before Sarah on his side.
[00:23:04] And I used to think I would marry a boy named Louie.
[00:23:10] Oh, he was my great love. Louie. Louie. Louie. Is Jacob in here?
[00:23:21] With Celia. Good.
[00:23:24] But what happened is I met Jacob Berger.
[00:23:29] I loved this man. I should say, boy. This is a picture of us when we were in high school. I think this was our senior year.
[00:23:37] Isn't he good looking? Come on, church. Wasn't he cute?
[00:23:43] I found a greater love. And now I think about those other guys. And it's kind of funny, like, not to diminish who they are, but in my heart, they were not my guys.
[00:23:54] It was Jacob Berger.
[00:23:57] And the greater love called something better out in me.
[00:24:02] And now being married and together for like 30 years, we.
[00:24:06] I think it's 30 years this year, isn't it, babe? 31. 31, yeah.
[00:24:16] You're like, that's crazy, Sarah. You're 21. How'd you make that happen?
[00:24:21] But for 31 years, he has been the greater love. He has been the love that I choose. He has been the love that has meant the most to me outside of God.
[00:24:34] And because our life is both of us centered on God, there is something that happens in our relationship where I still want to choose the greater love.
[00:24:46] Where we can easily, you know, get in little fights or little things. And it could be easy for me girls. I don't know if anyone else is like this. I can give you the Cold shoulder. Good. Okay. Any other girls in the room?
[00:25:01] Okay, thank you. You too. You too. Any guys in the room that do cold shoulder, they're like, girl, leave me alone.
[00:25:10] Okay, I can do the cold shoulder. But the greater love of a God who we both serve, it calls something better for me in my marriage.
[00:25:20] The greater love of a God says, I want to have more mercy in my marriage. I want to have more grace. I want to have more forgiveness. I want to have more joy. I want to have more love.
[00:25:30] And so what happens when you. When you have a greater love? The lesser loves start to disappear.
[00:25:37] You can't out willpower, strengthen. You can't do it, but you can let the love of God start to pour in your heart, mind and soul and start to truly know him.
[00:25:50] When Josiah was 20, he started to tear stuff up.
[00:25:59] There is a God who said, there is but one God.
[00:26:04] Follow me, heart and soul.
[00:26:08] In generation after generation, there would be people who turned to God, and there'd be people who turned away, and there'd be people who turned away and turned to God and turned away. And it makes me frustrated. And I so long for this church to be multi generational.
[00:26:22] I so long that, that every generation, there's people who say yes to radically following God, to tearing down some of the things in our life that stop us from being all his.
[00:26:37] The gods that they were worshiping, they were false, they were fake, they were. They were terrible children, sacrificing gods.
[00:26:47] What does that do to a God who is holy?
[00:26:51] What does that do to a God who has called us to a higher standard?
[00:26:56] And I just want to. I just want to say that there are standards in our lives that we do not negotiate with idols. Church.
[00:27:05] We do not negotiate with the things in our life that get first place.
[00:27:11] I.
[00:27:13] The definition of Timothy Keller, he had. He said, it's anything that takes place of God, anything that you go to in place of God. Those are the idols in our life.
[00:27:23] And I wonder for. For some of you what that looks like.
[00:27:27] For some of us, it's comfort. For some of us, it's the God of our phone.
[00:27:33] For some of us, it is. It's. It's sex and lust. And for some of us, it is. It's how we think about ourselves.
[00:27:45] We have idols in our life that we have to stop negotiating with.
[00:27:50] And I think too many of us, we try to say, okay, where's the line of sin? And how do I stay on the right side of it? But how close can I get? Okay, how close can we Get.
[00:28:03] But Josiah says, I'm ripping down the line. I'm ripping down everything behind the line. And then I'm going into other territory and I'm ripping, ripping it down there. Because I am not going to let the idols tempt me. I'm not going to let the idols tempt my people. I'm not going to let the things that took place of God ever even have space or room to grow.
[00:28:26] I will not brush it under the rug. I will not just take it down here. There. I will destroy. Listen to the words that is used.
[00:28:35] Just. I didn't negotiate.
[00:28:38] He purged, he chopped down, he cut down, he broke into pieces. He made dust of them. He burned, he broke down, he beat into dust. These are crazy words.
[00:28:52] But I'm saying some of us have idols in our life that we have to destroy.
[00:28:58] We have to demolish. We have to stop negotiating.
[00:29:04] I remember in my younger days, I would negotiate with God. Like, if I don't get caught, I will read the Bible every day. I would negotiate with God on my sin.
[00:29:14] Everyone is perfect in this room. No one has negotiated with God before. Come on, church.
[00:29:19] If I don't get caught, then I will.
[00:29:23] And then I think what happens is we get into rhythms of our lives where things can pull us, where sin is tempting. And we all have our own flavor. So choose your flavor. Because we all have something that tempts us and draws us away from being the person that God calls us to be.
[00:29:45] And we negotiate with it.
[00:29:49] We might stop, but it's accessible.
[00:29:53] We might say, I'll never do that again. But we don't break anything down. We don't destroy it. We keep it close enough where we can reach it.
[00:30:04] And Josiah is saying, I want to have a generation that demolishes the things that will pull me apart from God.
[00:30:13] I want to be a generation that does something better and creates a better future and a better hope.
[00:30:20] I want to tear down the things in my life that. That have burdened the people.
[00:30:28] So I don't know what your sin is, what your flavor is, but here's what I know. Every single one of us knows how to demolish something to make it harder to get to men.
[00:30:46] We're men of God.
[00:30:48] We.
[00:30:49] You.
[00:30:52] You're men of God.
[00:30:56] And sometimes there are things in your life that can stop you.
[00:31:00] They can make you feel the shame.
[00:31:05] And I don't think you should just delete the app.
[00:31:09] I think you should destroy the hold and any access.
[00:31:15] I so appreciate the men in my life.
[00:31:20] Jacob has never had social Media since for a little while, I think he was on his Instagram for a minute.
[00:31:26] He's put safeguards in place on his phone so that he doesn't have access to the Internet. That is a radical love church.
[00:31:35] There are things that the guys do that when we're watching shows. They'll literally turn and it's the girls in the room. It creates a safety. It creates something because their standard is higher. Higher.
[00:31:49] Women.
[00:31:53] There's so many things that are beautiful about a woman's soul, but there are things that. That are ugly.
[00:32:00] There are things that we go to for comfort.
[00:32:04] Wanting to feel loved, wanting to feel beautiful. Wanting to feel thin enough. Wanting to get noticed. Wanting to gossip, want. Wanting to make us feel better so we put other people down. Wanting to, I don't know, get what we need so we make our men little. And I just. I think it is ugly and it stops us from being the women that God created us to be. And there are things we have to demolish in our life.
[00:32:32] There. There are things that we have to do. When I was younger, I would work out so hard so I could say a certain weight. And I would let my weight be the God of my life.
[00:32:42] And I'm so over it.
[00:32:44] I'm so sick of it being defined by the way I look.
[00:32:49] I'm telling you, I want to destroy that piece of my life. And I want to say that something. Who I am shines from within the beauty and the character of Jesus Christ that is within me. That gets to be what I'm known for.
[00:33:04] Any amens?
[00:33:06] I think there is. There's. My girls know we don't gossip.
[00:33:11] I will not be a part of it.
[00:33:14] It's very rare for a burger girl to want to talk garbage unless it's like a TV show or something.
[00:33:28] There's a tone that I decided to set when the girls were younger. We're not trashing people.
[00:33:35] Our job is to lift.
[00:33:37] Our job is to encourage. Our job is to build up. And if I have an issue, you're going to hear it from me. You're not going to hear it from someone I was talking to.
[00:33:46] There are. There are things in our life we have to demolish because God is calling us for something bigger.
[00:33:53] I heard an awesome sermon.
[00:33:55] I forget the title. Lex, could you look it up for me? It's Lisa Harper's sermon from a couple weeks ago.
[00:34:03] She is a pastor. She. She doesn't have her own church, but she does a lot of preaching and teaching and she was reading Ephesians 1:5.
[00:34:16] And in it, this is what it says.
[00:34:23] We have it here. But verse five, I don't know why the Bible does this. If you look it up, the end of verse four is the beginning of the sentence. So it says, in love.
[00:34:33] He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will.
[00:34:43] We look at this verse and there's words we don't understand. Predestined, what's that mean?
[00:34:49] Means long before God had a good idea and he designed a life, he designed a future, and he's called us to this life, but he's adopted us.
[00:35:11] And in our time, in our culture, adoption, it's beautiful, but it doesn't carry the weight.
[00:35:17] When it was written, when Paul wrote this letter, when Paul wrote this letter, it was acceptable practice.
[00:35:28] This is the sermon. You'll love it, highly recommend it. She tells this story at the end, but she does a way better job. I felt loved when I was done listening to this sermon.
[00:35:39] In Paul's day, if you had a daughter or a baby boy was born with severe birth defects, it was legal to take them to the edge of town, set them down and walk away.
[00:35:59] And they would die from the elements. They would die from starvation.
[00:36:05] And the only kind of adoption that would really take place would be if you benefited from it.
[00:36:13] Maybe you didn't have a son. And so you could adopt a boy who would offer your family something.
[00:36:20] You never adapted based off of need.
[00:36:27] And so in this day, these babies would be left.
[00:36:31] And the early church became known for Christians, I should say the early Christians became known for going to the edge of town and rummaging through garbage and finding these babies.
[00:36:43] They would bring them home because they felt like they had value and they had worth. And they were a human being. Being.
[00:36:51] They were designed in the image of God, and they would come and they would adopt this child who it would take. It would take money and it would cost them. And there was no true. Like, you're gonna get something out of this.
[00:37:05] And in many parts, not many, some parts of the world, this still exists where babies will be left at the edge of town because of severe birth defects.
[00:37:21] And so when Paul is saying that God adopted us, there was gravity to it.
[00:37:32] There was a weight that we don't understand because we don't understand that time. And that's why studying the Bible is so good.
[00:37:40] There was a weight to no value of him.
[00:37:48] We add nothing to God, but out of his love and in his good pleasure and in his will, he calls us his we are loved by a God who takes us in at cost to him.
[00:38:14] But he says, you're worth it.
[00:38:18] There's a God who loves you, a God who calls you by name, a God who says, there's no real value, but I give you value.
[00:38:30] I give you life, and I give you life abundantly.
[00:38:34] There. There is a God who takes us in his arms and he says, you are my son and you are my daughter, and I will pay the fine.
[00:38:44] I will carry the cost.
[00:38:48] And when I think about this story of King Josiah, he was born a king, But men and women of God, through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are born into royalty.
[00:39:12] We are sons and daughters of the king.
[00:39:16] And not just any king, but the King of kings and Lord of Lords.
[00:39:22] He's adopted us and taken us into his arms. And he says, because you are mine, because you are part of my inheritance, because you are part an heir that comes alongside of me, I call you to live a life that is worthy of the calling with which you have received.
[00:39:42] I call you to radical love and to start tearing down some of the things that stop us from loving better, from connecting to Jesus, some of the things that cause shame.
[00:39:54] But the real gift is it's in relationship that transformation starts to happen.
[00:40:02] It's day after day seeking him, knowing him, loving him, and following him.
[00:40:08] We are sons and daughters of a king. Let's pray.
[00:40:14] Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you that in your word we get mentors, we get to see those who went before us.
[00:40:27] I thank you that in the life of Josiah, he took you serious.
[00:40:37] I thank you that you were the God that was the pacemaker, that you set the pace for him, Father. And I pray that the same feeling and emotion and love and radical surrender and love will be on our hearts.
[00:40:56] Father, I pray that you go before us and you set the pace and you take the brunt. And we don't burn out, Father, but we burn within, Father, that there is a love that's powerful, that there is a love that is bigger, that it is relationship with you that will change our life. And therefore, if we seek you and seek you with all our heart, Father, we will find you.
[00:41:26] And I ask for every person in this room.
[00:41:30] Can they seek you with all their heart?
[00:41:33] Can they be the one for this generation?
[00:41:38] The one that 30 years from now, 50 years from now, we look back and we say, man, it was because of their faith that this happened.
[00:41:47] It is because of their faith that their generation is affected differently.
[00:41:53] And I pray that you will be glorified in us and through us.
[00:41:58] I so badly, Father, want to be a generational church.
[00:42:05] Would you fill us with your love?
[00:42:10] Would you help us understand that if other people discard us and leave us on the edge, you never will?
[00:42:20] I think about the rabbinical law, Father, and there is. There is a rule that you could maybe disinherit your biological kids, but you could not disinherit a child you adopted.
[00:42:32] And I think what Paul is showing us, Father, is that in this adoption, it's permanent.
[00:42:38] There's nothing. There's no sin that can pull us away. There's nothing in our life that can. That can tear us apart from you.
[00:42:47] That your love is permanent.
[00:42:51] That we are sons and daughters of the king.
[00:42:55] Help us to live like it. Help us to love like it. In your mighty son's name, we pray. Amen.
