Hebrews 1 verse 3 says, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word." We're talking about Jesus. He is the Christ. He is the Son of God. He is Messiah. He is the Righteous One. He rules and reigns forever. He is the cry of our worship. He is our hope. He is the hope that helps us to face the failures of our yesterday, the struggles of our today, and the longings of our tomorrow. Now, I know I'm putting an awful lot on just one person, but it's Jesus we're talking about. Amen? Amen. And get this. Get this. He is not far from each of you. Father, we come before you now. I've been praying it all weekend long, Lord, and we've seen it. We have seen it. Lord, from the most indifferent heart to the most desperate heart, and for the rest of us who are in between, Lord, you have brought us here for a reason, to hear you, to sense you, perhaps even to reach out and know you. But Lord, I'm asking now that you would do what only you can do, as we raise up the name and the person of Jesus. Holy Spirit, we're asking you to do mighty things in our midst. Father, we give you all of our thanks. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Now, listen, Thomas is still playing, and I just want to say welcome to those of you joining us at Mid River, Grants Trail, Fountain, around the world, around the St. Louis area. I don't think we're done worshiping yet. Is anybody else feeling that? Good thing these folks are still here. You all at the sites, you jump in, too. How about a hymn? You all ready? Let's do this hymn. I think you guys know this one, and it'll come back a little bit later. Here we go. "Oh Lord, my God" Let's sing it, church. "When I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. How great, how great thou art. How great, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. How great thou art. How great thou art." Do y'all believe that? Let's sing it one more time, shall we? Let's go. "Then sings my soul, my Savior God," Amen "to thee. How great, how great thou art. How great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. How great thou art. How great thou art." Lord, we sing this to you. We are singing the thing. So some of you are like, "What is going on?" We are worshiping the one true God. So what I want you to do now, Thomas, just kind of take us home, keep playing, but would you just turn around, say hello to some people, tell them, "I have no idea where this is going, but we're going together." Go ahead, let's do it. All right. We are going to now tell a true story from scripture, but I got to give you a little backstory. Thank you for joining us in this. It's the 6th century BC. There's a great plague that has hit the central part in certain regions of Greece, and people don't know what to do with it. People are dying. They're praying to their so-called gods. Nothing's working. Somebody says there's a wise man. His name is Epimenides. Don't worry, it's not on the final, but this is a historical personWe need to reach out to this poet, Epimenides." The people gather in Athens, the really wise, the leaders, the civic leaders, they gather on this hill. It's called Mars Hill. If you took mythology in high school, there's the Greek and there's the Roman gods. Well, the Greek god for war is Ares, the Roman god is Mars. It's the same thing, and so this is the Areopagus. It's Mars Hill. They're gathering there and they say, "We got to go get this poet." So they get him. They bring him from Crete to Athens. As he's walking up into Athens, he sees evidence of this plague everywhere. He also sees that the whole thing, the whole countryside is just littered with these idols and these statues to so many so-called gods. Everybody's been praying to them, but nothing's happening. So Epimenides, wise man, devises a plan. "I know what we'll do. We'll release a flock of hungry sheep, and wherever those sheep rest, in front of whatever temple, in front of whatever altar, that'll be where we sacrifice. That's the god that's going to end the plague." That was the plan. Except the sheep decided to rest where there was no temple, where there was no altar. The story goes that in that moment, they realized, "Uh-oh, maybe there's a god that we haven't met yet. Maybe there's a god that we don't know yet. I hope he's good. I hope he's powerful." And they built a structure, an altar, to Agnosteo, the unknown God. Now, it sounds crazy, doesn't it? I mean, it's a freaky story, but it comes from ancient sources. The Roman historian Plutarch actually says that this happened. I can tell you that even though people debate the details, you can go back to the second century and you will see that writers said that there were these altars to unknown gods all throughout Greece. So there's that. But it also kind of sounds familiar, doesn't it? In a weird way. We live in a land that is littered with so many options and answers and religions and little g gods. Try this, do this. This is the way. We think that's what's going to satisfy the longing in our souls, and what we see in so many cases is that things come crashing together and none of it works, and we're left wondering, did I miss something? You see, we're going to tell a story now, and I think it's an important story for us, because we're going to go-- We're just about done with this massive series that we've been in. We're going to be on another hill, another mountain today. I'll show it to you in just a minute. But I got to set the stage for you because if I just took you to this place, it'd be like dropping you in the middle of a movie. Have you ever just, like maybe somebody was watching a movie, maybe you were watching a movie, and then somebody comes in and says, "Hey, you don't have to change the channel. It's good. I can catch up." Has anybody ever told you that before? And then they start asking all the questions. "I don't get it. Why is everybody so upset? It's not that big of a deal. It's just a ring. Why do you need a lord over the ring? Why can't they have the fellowship? I like that part. What is this all about?" And you're like, "Ah, I need to catch you up." I want to catch you up before we get there, okay? Now, here's the thing. Those of you who are here and you know this, I'm kind of proud of myself because we're going to get to the end of this and there's three points. I know. Wait. And they all start with the same letter. I'm finally growing up for some of you. Here's the thing. I'm telling you this because I'm going to set this up, and when we get to the end of this, it's going to move fast. So I want you to understand the three points. They're coming fast, okay? So here they are real quickly. Paul reasons, God reigns, and we reach out. Oh, yeah, that's going to preach. Don't worry. We're going to get there. But we need to set this up. The story's found in the Book of Acts. Now, for those of you who are familiar with the New Testament, you'll know this, but for everyone else, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, those are the first four books of the New Testament. They tell the story of Jesus powerfully. And then after that, you have the Book of Acts, which tells the story of the early church as it moves across the Roman Empire. So really, those first five books actually tell the story and then after that, all of the rest of it is letters that were written by different people to churches to help them, to encourage them, to correct them. These churches that have been planted in this time period. So that's basically the New Testament. But we're in the Book of Acts. It's about 48, 49 AD. There's this Jewish scholar turned preacher, turned church planter named Paul, who is now starting the second of his, at least what we know, three missionary trips. Now, we've just kind of shown you a map here. He's moving across what we would say is the modern-day country of Turkey, but eventually they jump into Greece, which technically puts them in Europe. And anytime you're with Paul, you've got these great successes and these great challenges, and there's always a little bit of jail time. I mean, that's just I'm telling you, that's Paul. Trouble finds him. So we're in Europe, and there's a place there where he's at a city on a major Roman road, and he does what he always does. He starts with the people who are familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, and he wants to show them how Jesus is Messiah. Some of these people love it. Some of these people, not so much. In fact, what we see in Acts 17 is that some of these people stirred up a mob against Paul and his buddies. So he's got Timothy, Silas, and a fellow named Luke who's writing all this down. But these people are shouting, "These men have turned the world upside down. Now they've come here." Truer words probably hadn't been spoken. The world was turning upside down. If you were with us last week and I told you that the gospel has been released, it's only a matter of time. History will tell us before Rome gets flipped on its ear because the gospel cannot be contained.But these guys are really upset with Paul. So he leaves town, they follow him to the next town, and then his buddies say, "You know what? You got to get out of here. They're upset with you and not us." And so they send him on his way, and he ends up in the city of Athens. Now, Athens, you guys have heard about. Athens, maybe some of you have been to. I just need you to appreciate how old Athens is. Athens, at the time of this story, 2,000 years ago, was at least 1,500, maybe 2,000, maybe 2,500 years old then. This is a city which is easily 4,000 years old, established probably even before then. I will just tell you, Athens' best days were 500 years before this story. Now, I know for us, it's hard for us to settle in with those kinds of words. We're getting ready to celebrate our 250th anniversary as a country, and that'll be a good thing to celebrate freedom here. I'm just telling you, in these parts, it's hard for us to imagine things that old. But this is an old city. It's adored, it's emulated. So much history there. It's the birthplace of democracy. It's the home of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato. But it was also cluttered with so many temples and so much worship of gods that you kind of needed a scorecard to keep up. There was a writer in that day who joked once and said, "It was easier to find a god in Athens than a man." I mean, these temples and statues were everywhere. So I want you to picture now. They've dropped Paul off. He's waiting for his buddies to catch up. Paul's on his own in this famous city. He's kind of a tourist now. So picture Paul. He's taking in the sights. He's got his Hawaiian shirt on He's got his cargo shorts, his black socks and sandals. Paul's just taking in the city, and it says that the first thing that he noticed was that it was just full of idols. And then it says he was upset. He was upset. The word there is a really strong word. He's distressed about this. So what has Paul so upset? Well, first of all, let's remember that he's a Jewish scholar, and there was that little thing called the Ten Commandments. And in the Ten Commandments, there's a part in there about you're not going to have any other gods before me, and you're not going to make any idols. You're not going to make any little statues with your hands, and that's exactly what he sees. So he's feeling that, but I don't just think it's that Paul is going, "Ooh, I'm right and they're wrong." You see, if that's what it was, then when he finally talks to them, I think it would've gotten ugly. You see, if you and I ever get to a place where we feel like, man, I need to set somebody straight, it'll leak into our words. That might be why some of you are holding back on the Christian faith. I mean, the truth is you're here. Maybe you're doing somebody a favor. Maybe you're being polite. Maybe you are curious, but you're still holding back because there was a time in your life where somebody took a sledgehammer to you and to your way of thinking and doing things. And about all you heard was, man, I'm wrong and they're right, and you begin to wonder, is that the way all Christians act? You see, I think there's something else that's going on here. Paul wasn't just saying, oh, there's the right way. Paul is listening and seeing people that are longing for something, and man, they're heading in the wrong direction. It's taking them down a dark path. Years later, Paul would write to another church in Greece and say, "After having taken in this culture, when you offer sacrifices to these gods, it's as if you are offering them to demons." Now, let me just say this to you real quickly. I think I can relate to that. I've been in places around the world where I've seen worship that the trance state, the smell of the offerings and the incense, the droning of the music, the lifelessness in the eyes of the priest who is leading them. I'm just telling you, you can sense the demonic. Let me just be real clear with you. The demons are delighted when anything is worshipped besides the one true God. That's what Paul is saying here. You see, at this point, some of you are going, yeah, but who does Paul think he is by talking to people about how they worship or who they should worship? And now that I think about it, who do you think you are, Greg? How arrogant do you have to be to say that you're going to walk across the street or go across the ocean and tell people that you have found the truth? That is intolerant. You ever heard that word? Now, listen to me. That word used to mean historically, if we were going to be tolerant with each other, it used to mean that I would treat you with dignity and respect, and you would treat me with dignity and respect, even if we had different religious beliefs. We would give each other room on that, and honestly, I think that's a thread in the democratic society of America. It's just like, yeah, we can do that. We can treat each other that way. You can have that freedom. We just disagree on that. Now, tolerance means there is no right and wrong. You see, the very minute you say, well, no, I think there could be a right and I think there could be a wrong. No, no, no. If it's right for me, it's right. And the very second that you say, no, it's not right, you're being intolerant. And by the way, that's when people treat you with no dignity or no respect, which is technically an act of intolerance. What I'm really trying to say to you is this. I fully understand why we want to get along in this world, and let's do, let's do, let's do. But here's the thing. When you start talking about these faith systems and these religions, one of the things we try to do is to make them all work together. We want these things to work together. So we start to come up with this idea of a mountain, and it's like, as long as you're heading up the mountainThat's really all that matters. The path is different for each of us, but the key is, are you heading up the mountain? Because if you are, and as long as you believe something, then we'll all get there eventually. That's what you hear in the world. Am I right? This is what we hear. Some of you think, "Well, this is the way that it can all work together." I want you to understand that these world religions don't want to get along. I'm not talking about the people in them. I'm talking about these religions are incompatible. If you don't believe me, go read the Quran. Go read the writings of the Buddha. Go read the Pali Canon. Go read the Upanishads of Hinduism. They don't want to get along. They disagree on who or what God is. They disagree on what the problem with humanity is, what the solution is, what happens when we die. They just disagree. We think this is the way, but it's not workable. It's not logical. If you treat these religious systems seriously, they can't mesh together. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that this mountain doesn't exist. Okay, so then if things are mutually exclusive, then how do we figure out what we're supposed to do? Well, the first thing I would say is let's keep treating each other with dignity and respect. Every person you meet in every faith system is made in the image of God Almighty. That's where we start. But the rest of it is, ask the questions. If you're in Explorations, I will tell you, it's not this week, but next week. So next week's class is on world religions. It's one of the coolest classes. You are going to get questions answered. You're going to get to ask questions. It's going to help a lot. If you're not in Explo, I would say come back for the next series. We'll revisit this again. But in the meantime, what evidence do you have of a faith system? What do you trust? What seems to resonate with you? What seems to be satisfying your longings? How about this one? Is there anything you look at that you go, "Man, I think that's heading in the wrong direction." Let's go back to Athens. So Paul is there, and we don't know if he observed one of these, but I will just tell you that when you look at the worship of Athens, there's a guy called Dionysus, and he was the god of fermented wine. He was the god of fertility. He was the god of grapes. He was the god of partying. Now, if you know about Roman gods, the equivalent was Bacchus. Okay? So that's who he is. But you need to know that history tells us that the parties, they had seven festivals each year honoring Dionysus. At these parties, there was an ecstatic frenzy. You would work the crowd up to an almost trance-like state. A lot of wine was getting served here. But there's one scholar at Boston College that says maybe there was some psychoactive substances, too. Maybe there was some other stuff going on. But you've got repetitive music. You've got ritualistic dancing. You've got something that is droning on and on and on. You've got wine and maybe other stuff that is happening. A little EDM and some molly, and we've got a rave. I'm just telling you. Seriously, this is something. They would get worked into a frenzied, ecstatic state, and history tells us it would lead to ritualistic violence. Everything would start to happen once they got all churned up. There would be the tearing apart of animals. They would eat the raw flesh. Little boys and young men would cross-dress. There were fights and chaos and the tearing down of structures and riots. Phallic symbols were everywhere in public display. All of this and even more moral depravities. This is how you worshiped Dionysus. I'm telling you, it's worship heading in the wrong direction. It's not just a dead end. It's destructive. Paul is sensing that these people are longing for more. So what does he do? Well, we're going to go there, but first, I need you to talk to each other for just a second. We're just going to use this at the end. We've got three points that they're about to come in fast order. Do you remember what they were? Paul reasons, God reigns, and we- We reach out. We reach out. Okay, so here's what I want you to talk to each other about. When was the last time you reached out for help? Now, when I say help, it could be help in any fashion. It could be, "I got a flat tire." It could be, "Oh man, I am flunking algebra." It could be, "I just lost my job." It could be, "I am going through so much grief right now. You've got to help me." It could be any number of things. When was the last time you reached out? So that's the first thing. Hang on, here's the rest of it, because here's what I want you to use the app for. Why was that so hard? Why is it so hard for us to reach out? Talk to each other. Please use the app. It'll be our way to connect. See you in a minute. All right, we're going to come back to that. Why is it so hard for us to reach out? We're going to come back to that in a second, but let's just jump into the story here real quickly. So what does Paul do when he sees all of this? "He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks." So that means these people who know a little bit about scripture, he's talking to them about Jesus. But then he also does the same thing in the marketplace day by day with those who happen to be there. So the marketplace is the Agora. This is the center of life in Athens. You can go and see those ruins today, and you will see there are shops there, there are temples there, the courts there. All of this stuff. It was the center of life in Athens, and that's where Paul is hanging out. But what I want you to really notice here is this word reason, because it is the word dialogomai. Yeah. There you go. We get our word dialogue from it. He's dialoguing with people. He's not throwing Bibles at them. He's not standing on a corner screaming at people. He's asking questions about their life. You do know that that's how the world still changes. We're going to have conversations with people about who Jesus is. It's not going to work when we get all argh. It's going to work when we show an interest in someone. Pew Research says that last year, that 8 out of 10 Americans believe that there is a spiritual reality beyond the physical. It's not saying 8 out of 10 people are Christians. Eight out of 10 people, your neighbors, 8 out of 10 people that you work with say, "Yeah, there's more to this than the physical. I think there's something spiritual happening." You get to begin to have a conversation with that. Did you know that Barna shows over the last four years there's an uptick, particularly in younger generations, an interest in the historical person of Jesus? So you take these things. People are interested in Jesus. People are saying, "No, there's more to this. There's a spiritual reality." You and I get to hang out with people and ask them how they're doing. You don't go in hot. You don't go in saying, "Hey, you're going to be my project now." But you do get to ask curious questions. You do get to listen. Sometimes all you do is you offer prayer. Robin and I are in a relationship with somebody, and the last conversation that we had, really about the best I could do was to say, "Are you okay with us praying for you?" And you know what? He said, "Absolutely." I don't think I've ever run into anyone ever, ever who says no to that. "Can I pray for you?" And now I got a chance to check up on him and go, "Hey, so how is that going?" Da, da, da, da, da. I'm just saying, wouldn't it be something if we began to have spiritual conversations with the people that we work with, the people that are our neighbors, the people we go to school with? What if we began to just ask curious questions? One question that you could ask them is, "Hey, would you ever consider coming with me to church? Because we're about to start a new series, and you might find it interesting. We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff, but we're calling it Anchor." Now, the reason I'm writing this down is because in one of the previous services, somebody thought I said anger. I don't think the world needs more of that. So it's just, no, Anchor. Anchor. So, you know, Anchor. Anchor. You see why they let me do the branding around here, right? Anchor. Let's put it this way. Quick show of hands. Anybody here need an anchor in the unsettling waters of today? Because that's what we're going to talk about. So what if we did it? What if we just began to invite our friends? And by the way, those of you who are still investigating all of this, we're going to keep trying to use language that we can both understand. And we're not going to avoid the uncomfortable parts of scripture. We're just not. I don't think you want that. The last thing you need is more spin in your world. We'll just talk about it. That's what Paul's doing. Paul's in this marketplace, and he's now sharing some things. Apparently, he's getting some pushback. Couple of philosophy schools here, the Epicureans and the Stoics. They're pushing back on him. Just to fast-forward through a bunch of that, one of them is all about enjoying life, and one of them is all about enduring life, and neither of them are really understanding this scholar. They call him names. They call him a babbler. It means a bird who picks seeds. So he's a guy who doesn't even have original thought. No, they have no idea. They are dealing with a world-class scholar. He has been classically educated. He is multilingual. This is a brilliant man. But they can't get their minds around a God who loves them personally. And the very minute that Paul mentions the resurrection of Jesus, they're like "Oh, time out. You got to come with us to the guys up-- You got to go to this famous place where we actually listen to people. Go ahead, and you can make your case to all of the thinkers of Athens." And here we go. "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus," so we're on Mars Hill, "and said, 'Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious.'" We might say, "I can see that you're spiritual." "For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, To an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you." What a brilliant way for him to start. Now, this isn't the whole message. If you read in Acts 17, it's basically a summary. Most people would say this is a summary of the message because scholars tell us that when you made a speech, gave a message on the Areopagus, it would last between two and three hours. You're welcome. But Paul says, "Hey, I'm looking at stuff here, and you guys seem to have had a sense that you might be missing a god."I want you to know who He is. In fact, I want to show you what makes Him different from all of the others. Okay. Well, first of all, just think for a second. This isn't a lean over and talk. This is just can you think in your mind, the most impressive, biggest awe-inspiring thing that you've ever encountered? Just take a second. Is it something in nature? Is it something that was man-made? Was there ever something that you just went, "Oh, man, I am not very big at all." Have you ever been in the presence of something so much? You thinking of it? How about Pluto? Let's think about our old friend Pluto. You know Pluto. Is it a planet? Is it not a planet? NASA scientists tell us that if you drove to Pluto at highway speeds, it would take you 6,000 years to get there. So don't even ask if we're there yet, because we're not. But we need, when you begin to think about space, we need a different unit of measurement. So we talk about light years. Now, you might remember that a light year is 186,000 miles per second. That's the speed of light. If you travel that long for a year or that fast, you get to six trillion miles. Now, the closest star to our sun is four light years away. That's a long, long way away. But it's nothing compared to the Milky Way galaxy, the one where we live. It's 100,000 light years across. Even this is nothing. Our galaxy is in a cluster, the Laniakea galaxy, a cluster of galaxies over 500 million light years across. But then when you see that scientists are beginning to say there are hundreds of billions, maybe even a trillion galaxies in the known universe, that means the observable universe now, we think, is 92 billion light years across. If you traveled at the speed of sound from here on, you would never get to the edge of the universe because it keeps expanding. That's how big the universe is. The prophet Isaiah says, "Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the one who leads forth their host by number. He calls them all by name. Because of His great might, because of His great power, not a one of them is missing." I want you to understand something, the God who has created all of this knows you by name. Now you're ready for what Paul said. Here he is on Mars Hill. He's got these guys' attention. What does he say? "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth, and He does not live in temples built by human hands. He's not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else." Paul is saying, the Lord of heaven and earth. Come on, you can't expect to contain Him or control Him with your little handmade idols or even with your big, impressive temples. For some of us, it's time for us to remember here, for us, we love to kind of drift towards the loving, the intimate, personal nature of God, and why wouldn't we? He is our loving Heavenly Father. He is patient. He's kind. He's gentle. Yes, yes, and yes. But you need to also remember, if you want the full weight of the gospel, He is all of that, and He is also, the Hebrew scriptures tell us, El Elyon, the Lord Most High. He is Melech Hakavod, the King of Glory. He is El Olam, the Everlasting One. He is Yahweh, I Am who I Am. He is the ever-existing, self-sustaining God who needs nothing. Oh, Lord, my God. When I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds Thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee. How great Thou art. Now you're ready to see this hill. Paul is on the Areopagus. You can go there. It's in Athens. There it is. See those people crawling around right down there in the lower right-hand part of the screen? They are on Mars Hill. Now, just to give you a sense, what they're looking up at is the Acropolis, which is this gathering of all of these temples. To the right there, the Temple of Athena and Nike. The Parthenon, that's the biggie up there. To the left, that's another temple to Athena. But now we're back on Mars Hill. The point I'm trying to make is when you're standing where Paul was standing, that's your view. Okay? So I want you to just imagine where those people are. I want you to imagine that philosophers and leaders have gathered, and Paul knows he's got a moment, and he's standing probably up there towards the top, and he's talking to these people, but that's the backdrop. So you got this now? And what does Paul say? The Lord of heaven and earth doesn't fit in temples made by human hands. I can even imagine, Robin and I were there a while back, and it was so emotional. I said, "I could even imagine Paul at that point, pointing and saying, 'Y'all my God doesn't even fit in those temples.' The one you want, the one you long for, He doesn't fit in these temples. He's not like your needy, fickle, immature gods of the Greek pantheon. He's not like that at all. He doesn't need anything. But I'll tell you what He wants. He wants you to know Him." What he says isGod, and he really takes us back to the beginning of the story. He has marked out all of these people, all of these nations, all of history. He has marked it out, these appointed times in history, the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us. Next point. I told you we're moving fast. God reigns. God is in charge. My God is in charge of nations. He knows when they're formed. He knows when they will scatter. My God is in charge of history. He is in charge of people groups. My God knows where every person in history throughout all of history has lived. That's who God is, and He's got a plan. He is in charge. The Bible declares this. And the Bible says, in the middle of all of this, it sounds like you get a chance to decide whether you're going to reach out or not. Which means, woo, God is in charge, and you've got the freedom to choose Him or not choose Him. So now, for some people, this is a really big deal, so let's just very quickly just say this much. We'll come back to some of this in the next series. But the way we ask it, is God sovereign or do we have a say in this? And our cute answer is what? Yes. Yes. Yes. It's our way of saying that it's not an either/or, that it's more complicated, and the Bible declares both of these. We live with mysteries every day of our lives, right? We live with mysteries. Y'all live with questions that are hard to answer, don't you? If you just think about it, why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour? Think about it. Is a hot dog a sandwich? It's got meat. It's got bread. What do you think? Is cornhole a sport? You can see it on ESPN. Can anybody, anywhere, explain to me the TikTok algo? Why does one video get 200 views and another gets 2 million views? How does this work? Why is it that you can't remember what it is that you had for lunch yesterday, but you can remember something cringey you said in the seventh grade with the greatest of detail? Why is it that time and time again, we come back to these things that we-- And we're kind of having fun with this one, right? But we wrestle with these mysteries, and then we get to a place of, "I don't know. It just is." Listen to me. I can't explain the mystery of what God's word, that I have come to trust, I can't explain how it works. I can just tell you that this is how it works. God is in charge. It's His kingdom. It was, it is, and it evermore will be. And at the same time, in Matthew 23, the Son of God says to Jerusalem, "Oh, if only you would've come to me. I'd have gathered you under my wings like a loving mama hen. I'd have protected you, but you didn't. You rejected me." Now, is He lying to those people? No, of course not. This is Jesus we're talking about. Well, then that means they had a choice there. When Stephen says in the Book of Acts, "Do not resist the Holy Spirit," it sounds like you have a choice in that. How does all of this work? I don't know. I don't know. I just know that God is working out all things toward His plan, and somehow, some way, He is giving me the freedom to choose or not choose, which means I'm responsible for my choices. I'll go back to the size of the universe just to get us off the hook. You see, God says through the prophet Isaiah, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." God's thoughts are not my thoughts. I think it's Mark Batterson that said that your best thought on your best day is 92 billion light years short of how great God really is. Amen. Not a cop-out. Now, for some of you, that's not enough. For some of you, it's too much. I'm just saying God is in charge. Can I tell you a question that I get asked all the time? Not just because of today's headlines or yesterday's headlines, or headlines from six months ago or six months from now, but the question I get a lot is, is God in control? Is God really in charge, because it feels pretty overwhelmingly bad. I want to say one more time, God is not overwhelmed by this world. He is saddened by so much in this world, but God is not overwhelmed by this world. God is absolutely in charge, and the takeaway from today is this: He's done all of this so that you would reach out for Him. Now, here at the end, I can't wait to see what it is that you said are some of the... It's really interesting. Fear. Why don't we reach out? Pride. Here's one. Shame. I don't reach out because I'm just embarrassed. But the number one answer that seems to be coming up is fear, fear, fear. I'm embarrassed. I don't want to be rejected. I think someone's going to look down on me. Now, the reason I asked you that question is because I'm afraid sometimes our experience with human beings gets glopped onto our experience with God. People have let you down. You're afraid to reach out to people, and I get it. But when God says, "I've done all of this so that you would reach out to me," God is not everybody else in this world. His ways are not our ways. I'm telling you, if you want the life that will satisfy, if you want the life that will lead you to something full and fresh, if you want that life, you turn to Jesus. Paul says it's His life-It's his death and it's his resurrection. That's what gives us hope. Paul says that he's done all of this so that we would turn to him, so that we would repent, so that we would arrange our life around him. Now, here's the end of the story. Did everybody believe on that day? No. Some did. Some scoffed. Some people just don't want there to be a God. They don't want there to be a God who is in charge. They don't want a God who's going to hold history accountable. So some believed, some scoffed, and some said, "You know, I'm curious. I've got questions. Let's keep talking." So any of that sound familiar? You see, I believe there is enough evidence to trust in this Jesus, the crucified one, the resurrected one. I believe that what the Bible tells me is actually true, and if it's true, then that means that Jesus is ruling and reigning. He is the righteous one, and if he is the righteous one and if he is returning, and if it is going to end the way the Bible says it's going to end, oh, next week you got to come back. But if hurts are healed, if wrongs have been righted, if Jesus has the last word, if we all stand before a holy God and give an account for our lives, I'm telling you, you want Jesus. You want Jesus. The wisest thing you can do is to arrange your whole life around Jesus. And I want to say this to you now, it's time to reach out for some of you. He has brought you here to this moment so that you would reach out. And in just one minute, I want you to reach out and talk to one of us, the pastors here at the sites, and say, "Listen, will you talk to me about how I say yes to this Jesus?" But for the rest of you who have trusted him for a long time, you might be tempted to go, "I don't think this story is for me." Oh, but it is. You see, here's what we get to do. Let's look at our lives and notice the clutter. How many little G gods have we allowed to clutter our lives? I'm talking about the stuff that just consumes our thoughts. It's what we invest our energies in. It's what we invest our money in. It's what we invest all of our conversations in. It's stuff that we're expecting too much from. You want to know what that is? Ask your friends what you talk about the most. You see, some of these things aren't bad at all, but the very minute they begin to compete with God for our hearts, now we're off course. I say keep our eyes on Jesus and let him rise above it all, and then we'll work more passionately. We'll love more deeply. We'll forgive more easily. Watch how your relationships begin little by little to change. Watch how little by little God begins to help you to rest more fully and to laugh and to grieve. And yes, there are moments that then we will even be empowered to reach out, to reach out and to continue to live this life. See, the closer you get, the bigger God is. He's more than you imagined, and he's better than you ever hoped for. So Robin and I are on that hill in Athens a while back, and I'm trying really hard not to be the tour guide. She often says, "Well, just tell me the stories," and I get all worked up. But I was trying really hard not to be the tour guide. I was trying hard not to be the pastor. But I said, "Honey, you know what we need to do? We just got to read Acts 17 together." And we got to that part, and I said, "I don't know. It could just be me." I could barely get through it. But I believe when Paul was talking, what he said was, "He's the Lord of heaven and Earth, and he doesn't fit in temples." Really accomplished, impressive temples. They are impressive. They are something if you see them, but they're nothing compared to my Jesus. I'm telling you, he's the one that we turn to. He's the one that we trust, and if you know him, then live like you know him and live like he's close and invite your friends that you love to come and start a journey towards him. And if you don't know him and you have questions, then come on, let's keep doing this. But I want to say to you one more time, the sovereign God of the universe has placed each of us here in this moment right now so that we might reach out. Why? Because he is not far from each of us. May the Word of God ring in your ears. May the Holy Spirit lead you, and may Jesus reign in our lives like never before. Amen? Amen. Amen.