When Rebellion Feels Right

Come on, let's stand together. It is good to be in the house of the Lord today. Bible says, sing to the Lord a new song. Shout to God with a voice of triumph as we're gonna do today. I need your help this morning. Okay, here we go. Let's sing this together. ♪ I'll praise you in the valley ♪ ♪ I'll praise you on the mountain ♪ ♪ I'll praise when I'm sure ♪ ♪ And I'll praise when I'm doubting ♪ ♪ I'll praise when I'm numbered ♪ ♪ I'll praise when I'm surrounded ♪ ♪ Cause praise is the waters my enemies surrounded ♪ Let's sing this together. As long as I'm breathing, I got a reason to praise the Lord ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ And I'll praise when I feel it ♪ ♪ I'll praise when I know ♪ ♪ I'll praise cause I know you're still in control ♪ ♪ My praise is a weapon, it's more than a sound ♪ ♪ My praise is the shout that brings Jericho down ♪ ♪ And as long as I'm breathing, I got a reason to praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ When I won't be quiet, my God is alive ♪ ♪ How could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪

All right, here we go. Clap your hands, all you people. Let's sing this out together. ♪ I'll praise cause you're sovereign ♪ ♪ Praise cause you reign ♪ ♪ Praise cause you rose and defeated the grave ♪ ♪ I'll praise cause you're faithful ♪ ♪ Praise cause you're true ♪ ♪ Praise cause there's nobody greater ♪ Everybody. ♪ I'll praise cause you're sovereign ♪ ♪ Praise cause you reign ♪ ♪ Praise cause you rose and defeated the grave ♪ ♪ I'll praise cause you're faithful ♪ ♪ Praise cause you're true ♪ ♪ Praise cause there's nobody greater than you ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Oh my soul, yeah ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Come on and praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ And I won't be quiet if my God is alive ♪ ♪ How could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ And I won't be quiet if my God is alive ♪ ♪ How could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ And I won't be quiet if my God is alive ♪ ♪ How could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ Come on and praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Oh my soul ♪ ♪ Oh we lift our praise to you, Lord, yeah ♪

Come on, we praise the Lord with me today. Let's tell him how good he is, how faithful he is. Hallelujah! All right, welcome to church, everybody. Glad you're here today. If you're brand new, welcome. We're so thrilled that you are here. I'd love to meet you. My wife and I will be out in the lobby right after this service. Love to say hey, get to know you and pray with you, talk with you, whatever you want to do. And we were able to do that after the first service. Got to talk to a lot of people. And I hope to get to do that for this service as well. We're thrilled you're here. And I'm so excited for Christmas. We'll see you guys pretty soon. God bless you. God bless you. I want to just echo what the guys and girls just said on the video about Freedom Weekend. If you're a parent in the room of a teenager, I would encourage you. This is one of those non-negotiable things. As far as a parent of teenagers, we have two teenagers that are still in the home, one in college. And so for Meredith and I, this is one of those times in the year, it's not even a debate in our household

of if our kids are going to Freedom Weekend. It's kind of like student camp in the summer, and you may say, well, Nick, my kids don't wanna go. Well, they probably don't wanna go to school tomorrow, either, but you're gonna make them go. I would encourage you, there's something special about these weekends, and I encourage you to make plans to send your children this coming weekend to Freedom Weekend. It's gonna be great, all right? We're in the middle of a series called One Big Happy Family, so if you've got your Bible, why don't you grab it? Genesis chapter 28 is where we're gonna be today, and this whole series is about a family in the Bible, in the book of Genesis. Isaac and Rebekah are the parents. Jacob and Esau are the sons, and they are anything but one big happy family. They're actually one big dysfunctional family, weird, jacked up, all kinds of stuff, favoritism going on, manipulation going on, all kinds of stuff going on, the things that you never want to be said about your family. So today, we're gonna talk about rebellion within the family, and I'll get to that here in a second, but let me start out by this. Let's do a little group participation for a few minutes here together. Anybody speed on the way to church today?

Raise your hand. Okay, quite a bit of you. We're gonna do round two of communion today. Just kidding. Let's throw this out. Let's say the speed limit from your house to the church is 55 miles an hour. Now, by just a response of the crowd today, how fast can you go? 65? 67? Five over? Okay, I'm seeing five over. Somebody in the first service is sitting on the second row, and he said a statement. He said, nine, you're fine, 10, you're mine. I've never heard that before in my life, but that was his opinion. So I'm seeing basically from five to 10 miles an hour. Anybody believe you can go more than 10 miles an hour over? Honestly? Okay, so what's the limit? 12? Okay, and that's a totally arbitrary number, right? Like for me, in my mind, nobody told me this, but for years I've thought, I can go seven over. It won't get pulled over. Watch me today, I'll get pulled over going seven over on the way home.

But we all have some sense of morality towards the law, right? Some of us are more careful, five miles. Some of us, you know, maybe, you know, different sermon for a different time, 12 miles an hour over, okay? But we all can say, that's a clear, clear law, right? Like it's not that it's fuzzy, or it's not that it's, well, it doesn't say 55-ish. That'd be nice. Meredith and I drove over to Tulsa Friday just to spend the day together for Valentine's, and dude, you can go, it's 80, which means you can go 92, right? I mean, that's amazing. You're in Tulsa in like 45 minutes, right? But we all have this concept of clear laws that we can make a little fuzzy, right? And we say things like this, well, it's the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. And honestly, like a hard turn here spiritually, I say it's a lot of how many of us deal with the Christian life, and the clear laws of God, or rebellion in our hearts, and we think things like this, well, yeah, I mean, that's what it says, but, or we look at a sign in the Bible, and we say, well, I mean, that's what it, and that's what it says,

but I don't know if that's what it means. That's not what I have to do. And so just like we take something like a speed limit sign, and we fudge it a little bit, we often do that with the commands of God, and really at the heart of that is this thing called rebellion, okay? And so here's the title of the message, When Rebellion Feels Right. All of us who just raised our hand, throwing out our arbitrary numbers of how we can break the law on this speed limit, by the way, the police officers are like all in tune with y'all leaving the parking lot today, by the way, now. We all have this mindset of, well, I don't, I think it's fine for me. And that's often how we treat life. Like, again, let's do a little group participation. Like anybody ever like done something wrong and felt totally justified in doing it? Like somebody messed you over and so, dude, like you gave him a piece of your mind. and maybe it was at your office, or in the neighborhood, or whatever, and man, you just went off on them, and you're like, golly, that felt so good. Then you're on your way home from church, you're going seven miles over the speed limit, and you're like, Lord, I know that that wasn't right. And you get convicted, right?

Or think about things like this. Maybe you stepped into some kind of sin at some point, because man, it just, it just felt right. I mean, I know it was rebellion against God and against His Word, but man, it just felt right. Can I just give you a big statement today? Sometimes it feels right to do the wrong thing. Sometimes it feels right to do the wrong thing. This is why we are not a feelings-based type of thing here in Christianity. We are a truth-based situation together. If you live according to your feelings, and many of us in this room have this testimony, if you live according to your feelings, there is always regret at the end of that path. And I've got lots of stories in my own life of times when I just, I thought it felt right. I thought it sounded right or it seemed right, even though I knew it wasn't right. But in the moment, rebellion felt right. Now, if we get into the story of Genesis today, this is the life of Esau. His whole life is kind of modeled after this pattern. If it feels right, I'm gonna do it. If it seems right, I'm gonna go for it. And so you've got this pattern of the life of Esau that I think gives us two main principles that I wanna talk about today. So if you're taking notes today, I'm gonna give you the first one,

I'm gonna talk about it and really set up where we're going, and then we're gonna dive into the word of God, we'll get a second, and then we'll be done, okay? So here's the first truth I want you to understand today. When you're lost, rebellion feels right. When you're lost, rebellion feels right. Now, before we get into Genesis 28, here's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Genesis 1 through Revelation 22. When you're lost, rebellion feels right. It is easy to read the story of Jacob and Esau, and you view Esau as the one who was wronged and he's the victim, and that's like partly right, like he was definitely wronged, we'll talk about that here in a second. But it's not the full picture. As we told you a few weeks ago, Esau lived with a carelessness about the things of God, and by the way, these messages and chapters build upon one another, so I'm gonna kind of build the story back together as we get started here. To recap briefly from chapter 25, Esau comes in from hunting, he's exhausted, like famished, and he's thinking to himself, man, I've gotta have something to eat, and he walks in and his brother Jacob is stirring a pot of stew. He's like, give me a bowl of stew right now. Sounds like a brother, right?

And Jacob, the brother, says, well, sell me your birthright, and remember what we talked about the birthright. The birthright was legal in nature. It would give him, when his father died, about 2 3rds of the inheritance of the family. He would also be established as the leader of the family. He would also later steal a blessing from his father, which was more spiritual in nature, and that was all related to staying in the lines of we are a covenant family. We stay within the lines that God has given us as a family, and so Esau hears this, and he doesn't care about God's future. He doesn't care about his life. He's just hungry. He wants what he wants in the moment. He's like, yeah, take my birthright, I don't care. Give me the stew. He's, you know, just scarfs it down, right? This is a carelessness about the things of God. He forfeits his future. He forfeits his spiritual leadership within the family all for a bowl of stew. Now, let me give you the big picture of his life. Nowhere in the life of Esau in the book of Genesis do we get the idea that this is a man who follows after God, okay? In fact, I would give you my perspective as a pastor. I think he is a spiritually lost man,

and you'll see this playing out in his life. When you're lost, rebellion feels right, and so that's why Esau, here's Esau's life. Everybody look at me. It starts here, and it just spirals down and down and down through wicked decisions, okay? When you are not following the Lord like Esau, doing the wrong thing feels very normal, feels extremely natural, and when you've never been saved, sin is the natural bent. This is your life before you and I met Christ. Okay, anybody got a testimony like the preacher today that you can look at your life, and you can remember doing things before you met Christ that at the time you had no thought of? It felt normal. It felt natural. You just went for it, and there was no conviction of sin, and then you met Jesus, and these are the very same things that if I put them on the screen today, a video of your life pre-Christ, You would want to die. Like you would be burying yourself in your chair, hoping that nobody would notice that that's actually you on the screen. That's every single one of us, right? These are the major regrets, the elements of shame in your life, and every one of us is born into this kind of life, whether we like it or not.

Case in point, another survey. All you parents, raise your hand if you ever had to teach your kids how to lie. Or raise your hand if you ever had to teach your child to be selfish. It's like the universal word for every two-year-old across America. Mine, right? Or if you've ever just in general had to teach your child how to sin, raise your hand. No hands in the room today, why? Because it's very natural for your sweet, precious little child. Pilcher just told us, they just had their baby. I FaceTimed with him yesterday and saw he's got a ton of hair, totally jealous, and it's this cute little baby, and he's born into sin. As he gets older, Robert and Emily will begin, and they may be watching this, Emily may be watching this at home, I'm sorry, Emily, but you may be experiencing this in a year or two where you begin to see the selfish nature or the sinful nature of your child begin to spread. That's every single one of our lives. You say, you know, why is that? The Bible says that we're all born with this. Sin causes a gravitational pull in our life towards the wrong things, and when we're lost, it feels right to do the wrong thing.

Anybody got family members or friends who just seemingly can't do the right thing? And every Thanksgiving or Christmas, there's like that awkward conversation that you have with them, and their life is like this, and you have these thoughts to yourself of, why can't they get it together? And we use that word together. You know why they can't get it together? It's because they're lost. They don't have Jesus in their lives, and when you're lost, doing the wrong thing feels really, really right, and that is many of the people we know, okay? This is why we need Jesus, to step in on our behalf out of the love of God to give his life for our sins so that we can be saved and forgiven of our sin and given a whole new pathway in our lives, okay? All of that sets up where we'll begin in the Bible, okay? And I told you Genesis 28. I actually want you to look at the screen, because I'm gonna bump us back just a little bit for context to Genesis chapter 26 for two verses. Here's what he says. He says, when Esau was 40 years old, he married Judith, daughter of Beri the Hittite, and also Basimath, daughter of Elam the Hittite, and they were a source of what? Of grief to Isaac and Rebekah. Let me pause there and explain why I'm going here, okay?

Esau has married two Hittite women, and the Bible says this was grievous to their parents. Number one, here's why, okay? Number one, Esau has married multiple women. That's why Isaac and Rebekah are grieved at the situation. You may look at other parts of the Bible, and you think, well, wasn't polygamy normal? I guess God approved of it maybe in the Old Testament. Look at Solomon, had tons of wives. Like, maybe that's an okay thing. Listen, it was always wrong, from Genesis through the rest of history. It's always been wrong to have more than one spouse, okay? And so we believe marriage is one man, one woman for a lifetime, and the Bible would say that over and over again, and whenever you see polygamy in the Bible like this, it's always shrouded in brokenness. It's never a good model for life, model for society, model for marriage whatsoever. And so even though Esau saw a great example in his parents of this, he's gone off, he's married two women. Second reason why this was grievous is this. Esau has married outside of the covenant family of God. He's married outside of the covenant family of God. You say, well, what does that really mean? Well, the Hittites were part of the Canaanite people who were living in the promised land of God that God had promised to Abraham,

and now that promise extends to Isaac and to Jacob and the family, okay? So Esau is clearly disregarding God's covenant here. He has aligned himself in marriage, listen to this, with people who are the enemies of God. So this is not just like, ah, yeah, our son Esau, man, he married two, should've married one. It's deeper than that. He has married people who are contrary in every single way to the faith that they hold. And so this underscores the point when you're lost, rebellion seems right. You marry more than you should, you marry wrongly. Now, you get into chapter 28, look at verse one. And we'll move forward in the story. He says, so Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. And then he commanded him, do not marry a Canaanite woman. In other words, do not do what your brother Esau has done. Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother's father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. So the call of Isaac to Jacob, the other son, is this, go to a place called Paddan Aram, find a wife, and very specifically, do not marry this type of person. Why? Again, they're outside of the covenant family of God. They do not know the Lord. Therefore, we are not going to link together in marriage.

This is the echo of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Don't hitch your life in marriage to an unbeliever, okay? Now, let me take Esau's life here, and you got two parents here. Let me make this extremely practical for everybody in the room today. Those of you who are students and who you are of dating age, I'll let your parents define what is of dating age. If you're a single adult of any age, or if you're a parent of someone who is of dating age, maybe your grandparent who's involved in their lives as well, here's what you gotta understand, okay? This story allows us to dive into some things that may not always come up in the Bible every single Sunday, but here's what you need to understand. Every Christian parent in the room needs to guide your children towards dating and marrying people who love Jesus with all their heart, okay? Every now and then, I'll hear from single adults, and like, okay, what are you looking for? Well, I'm looking for 12 things. I want him to drive this. I want her to look like this. I want them to have eight abs, not six, eight, and if they don't, then I'm out, and they have all these kind of ridiculous things, and let me pastor you today.

The only thing they have to have, do they love Jesus with all their heart? That's the only thing they gotta have. All the other stuff is negotiable. Now, you may get into it, and like, okay, yeah, he loves Jesus, but he's really awkward. I can't do this. Okay, well then, don't go out on another date, but the only thing they gotta have is a thriving relationship with Jesus Christ. Think about it. All of us who've been married, if you've been married 20 years or more, raise your hand in the room. Okay, lots of hands. I often, whenever I marry a couple, I encourage them. I say, hey, y'all look up, right when they get to the altar, I say, hey, get a good look at each other. Look each other up and down. It's only downhill from here, right? Is that not true? I mean, look at the person you're sitting next to today. You love him, but things have changed, right? That's life. You know what's one thing that doesn't change? Man, a love for Jesus, passionate relationship with him. And so, here's what I would tell all the students, teenagers, young adults, singles, here's what I say. If you hope to marry a godly man or woman,

you've got to date godly men or women. And if you're dating the wrong kind of people, you're gonna marry the wrong kind of people. You say, well, I think God's put me in his life or her life to lead them to Christ. Said a lot of unhappy marriages in our church. Just being honest with you. And so, what I would encourage you is, God's big enough to handle the whole salvation thing on his own. So, some of you are dating non-believers right now or dating people who, maybe they're a believer, man, they don't really care about the Lord and just very apathetic towards their faith. Here's what you need to do. You need to leave church today. You need to call them or text them and say, hey, me and you, we're done-zo, okay? It's not you, actually, it's totally you. We're not doing this any longer, okay? And listen, this means parents, the questions for your kids when they come home from school or college or they're a young single or single some age, and they begin to tell you, the question is not, well, man, is he a good Southern boy? She say, yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. Got a good job? It's not the questions. It's not the questions. Questions, man, do they have a dynamic relationship

with Jesus Christ? Do they love Jesus Christ more than they love your kid? Are they involved in church on their own apart from your child? Like, all these kind of things are the right questions to ask and this, this, This story highlights how one family did it wrong. And I'll give Isaac and Rebecca even the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they had these conversations with Esau, but here's one guy that got it wrong and his whole life never recovered from this point forward, okay? When you're lost, rebellion feels right. Can I give you a second thing? In the aftermath of bad decisions, rebellion feels right. Anybody ever been here? In the aftermath of bad decisions, rebellion feels right. Now let's skip down to verse six. He goes on, now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there. And then when he blessed him, he commanded him, do not marry a Canaanite woman. Verse seven, and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone down to Paddan Aram. Esau then realized, like there's a light bulb going off. He realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac. It's like in the moment he's going, wait, this has really hurt my parents

that I didn't marry believers. It's really hurt that I didn't stay within the covenant family of God. So what does he do? He went to Ishmael and married Mahalath. He said, are you pronouncing that right? I'm not sure. Let me give you a little pro tip on reading the Bible out loud in front of other people. Just say it with confidence, they don't know either, okay? Mahalath, the sister of Neboah, there's another one, and the daughter of Ishmael, son of Abraham, in addition to the wives that he already had. That's the key phrase there. You get in the picture here? Esau's the black sheep in his own family. Have you ever been the black sheep in your family? Or maybe you've got a black sheep within your family who, like I said, everything's giving you a Christmas. You kind of have those awkward conversations. So how are you doing? Not any better, only worse. Okay, and it's just kind of a, this is what Esau lives with. He's the black sheep. He's not done things right. He's often chosen the wrong thing, and he lives with this on a daily basis. So he hears that, wait, it's pleasing that Jacob is gonna marry within the covenant family of God.

So maybe I need to go and I need to marry within the covenant family of God, and in an attempt to please his father and to right the wrong, he goes and marries a third wife at this point who's a member of the family. He gives us the picture here that two wrongs don't make a right, and in his case, three wrongs don't make a right, right? Write down in your journal, I want you to write down the words religious adjustment. This is what Esau's doing right here. You say, well, Nick, what is religious adjustment? These are the times in our life where we do religious activity but avoid repentance. Religious activity, but we avoid repentance. You say, well, what do you mean? Think about Esau. He's already done wrong, and now in an attempt to do right, he does wrong again, and he has this thought to himself, or maybe you've had this thought to yourself, well, maybe if I do something right, it will cover what I've done wrong. By the way, this is how many people try to atone for their sins. Some of you, no doubt, in this room, you do not know Christ personally, and what I'm about to say is for you right now, okay? When you're wrong, when you're lost, rebellion feels right.

Here's how this plays out. Your entire life, you just follow one course, and if it feels right, you do it. If it seems right, you go for it. If the Bible calls this sin, we're naturally pulled towards this. Live our entire lives living in this direction, and then one day, we hear about a God who loves us, not because of something that we've done for God, but just because he created us, he loves us, and he loved us in such a way that he sent Jesus Christ to come and live a perfect life and to die on the cross for all that you've done living in this direction against God, and in that moment, the Bible says that you can repent. Repent literally means a change of mind or doing an about face. It is, man, I'm going this way. I'm living my life. If it feels right, I'm going for it, and then I hear what Christ has done for me, and I say, you know what? I don't wanna live this way any longer. In fact, I just want you to think about it. What did living like this ever get you in life besides pain and regret? And so you have an opportunity to turn from your sin and repentance and to turn in faith to Jesus Christ, and in that moment, what God does for you

is he begins to cover your sins all at one time. Many people, they get convicted of their need for God, and here's what they do. They try to do exactly what Esau does. I'm gonna try to do. Something right to cover my wrong. I'm gonna get back in church, man, because I know that I need to be in church. Or I'm gonna start being more moral, I'm gonna stop drinking so much, I'm gonna stop going out on Friday, Saturday nights so much, I'm gonna stop doing this, I'm gonna stop doing that, and they're trying to atone for a life of sin, and the Bible says that none of that will atone for your sin. But only when you have a moment of repentance before God, not religious adjustment of trying to move the chess pieces of your life, but a religious, radical reorientation of repentance. And when that happens in your life, God covers your sin with His blood, and you are given the Holy Spirit of God inside of you that allows you to say no to the things that you used to say yes to, and to abhor the things that you once loved. Only Christ can do that in the life of a person. And no doubt, that's exactly what God needs to do in some of your lives here today. I wanna close in this manner, I wanna broaden. I've given you kind of two things today,

of when rebellion feels right. If you're lost, rebellion feels right. And in the aftermath of bad decisions, rebellion feels right. Can I give you just four? I'm gonna rattle these off as we close today. If the shoe fits, wear it. I'll just call this personal reflection, okay? Number one is this, when we're angry, rebellion feels right. I've had situations in my life where anger drove me to do some bad things. Anybody else? There's something about anger that makes logic go out the window. There's something about anger that you think can rationalize or justify certain sins because somebody did something to me and I'm gonna let them have it. And if my glasses were like spiritually coated today, and I could see with spiritual eyes, no doubt I would see people, some of you who are ruled by anger in your life. And that's something that only God can help you with. And it's my prayer that you'll turn to him even today if anger's your thing. So when we're angry, rebellion feels right. Here's a second one, this is many people. When we're jaded or cynical, rebellion feels right. So when you get jaded by seeing something take place that shouldn't have been taking place,

it messes with your mind. Anybody been there? Here's my caution to you, because I've had seasons of cynicism in my life or being jaded. When cynicism takes over your mind and it takes over your heart, it has a blinding effect. And look at how it works. Because someone was wrong in this instance in what they did, or because somebody wasn't who they said they were or who I thought they were, it begins to be the lens that I interpret everything in life, every organization, every person, every system, and I interpret it through the lens of what made me cynical in the first place. And I'll just be honest with you, there's a very slippery slope into rebellion. Do you realize that you can be right about something or someone and it still end up being wrong? Some of you, you've had experiences where it's natural to get jaded and cynical, because what somebody did was wicked, it was evil, it was two-faced, hypocritical. Fill in the blank, right? But did you realize that their sin against you can ultimately become your sin

if you don't handle it right before the Lord? Maybe you're realizing, Nick, man, I think I'm jaded and cynical because of what I've walked through. Man, I'm just messed up at the office right now because so-and-so, they messed me over, and now my head's all jacked up and I don't know which way is left or right, up or down, and I don't know what to do. You know what helps when you're cynical or jaded? Just a good dose of humility before the Lord. Cynicism carries the idea that I know more, I know better, and I think it'd be healthy for a lot of us, if not all of us, just to say simple words, God, I'm not you, and you know more, and I trust you. And just let the Lord heal you today in that. Here's a third one, when you're hurt. I think it's connected to the previous one. Rebellion feels right. Esau was a guy who obviously had his own issues. He's lost, careless towards the things of God, driven by appetite. All that's true. He doesn't get a pass on either. But dude, I wonder like how much of his spiral in the rest of his life was in part because he was just a dude who got hurt. And not just hurt by anybody,

hurt by his own brother and mother. Like there's something weird that pain does in our lives. Have you seen that in your own life? It like causes the brain to like short circuit every now and then. Because pain is hard. We begin to shield ourselves from other people. We no longer give people the benefit of the doubt. We believe the worst about everybody, including the Lord. And it all feels right because the pain was so deep and the wound was so great. He said, well, I don't know how to get out of that, Nick. It's a different sermon for a different time, but I've spoken on it many, many times. You got to learn how to forgive. And this is not a one-time thing. It's over and over and over again. One author said it this way, forgiveness is a life sentence. How's that for depressing, right? Here's a fourth one. When we're tired, rebellion feels right. I don't know if you've noticed this in your own life, but there's something about fatigue that numbs us towards sin. We get exhausted. And man, I've been there and I'm sure you've been there. Maybe you're there right now. You get so exhausted from life and family stuff and career stuff and fighting against sin type of stuff. And you just are so exhausted.

You just think, man, I just want to like give in. I just want five minutes of sin or an hour of sin. And many of us have had that experience where we've given in in a moment of exhaustion. And immediately after you're done with the sin, you're like, why did I do that? So I would just tell you, like I would pastor you in this way, if you're in a particularly exhausting season or tiring season, I would just encourage you to tell somebody that. Reach out to a close Christian friend, some of our pastors or staff, and just say, hey, like I'm exhausted and I don't want to step into stupid. So I'm asking you to hold me accountable and just help me in this manner, okay? Does your life fit in any of those six categories? I've just detailed the two in the message or maybe the four at the end. Like maybe you're here today and you've made some bad decisions and your life is kind of like this and you're trying to redeem, you're trying to make some good decisions now and you're just, you're not really doing well with that and you know something needs to change. I'm gonna just ask you to just come and just ask the Lord to break that cycle in your own life. I thought I made some bad judgment calls here and I need the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom.

I'm just gonna ask you to come. Maybe you're here today and you're overcome with anger. Maybe nobody would know it in your life besides your family. But you're overcome with anger and you know you need to turn to the Lord in the midst of this and you've prayed about it before but know something drastic needs to happen. You need the Holy Spirit of God really to bring about change in your life. I'm gonna ask you to come. Maybe you're here and I talked about being jaded or being cynical. You're like, oh, Nick, that is, that's me, man. I'm gonna ask you to just come and humble yourself before the Lord and just ask God to heal those broken places in your soul. Maybe you're here today and you've been hurt by somebody else. Maybe that's caused the cynicism. Maybe it's caused other things to take place in your life. Maybe some of them are weird and you just kind of closed yourself off from people. You know you need the healing touch of God. I'm gonna ask you to come. Maybe you're here and you'd be honest enough to say, Nick, I'm in an exhausting and tiring season. Your radar against sin has become numb and you know it. You just, you need God to heighten your senses again. You need God to give the rest that only He can give like Isaiah 40.

I'm gonna ask you to come. Maybe you're here today and when I talk about when you're lost, rebellion feels right. Maybe for the very first time. this time in your life, you know you're lost. Maybe you're in church every single Sunday, or maybe this is the first time you've been in church in your life, or at least in a long time. But you're here today, and you feel like I'm speaking directly to you. And you're nudging the person that invited you, like, did you tell him? No, he told me anything. It's not me speaking to you, it's God himself speaking to you. And here's what he's saying, come to me. Not me, come to him. And if you'll hear what Christ has done for you, that he loves you with a love beyond anything you've ever experienced in this life, and if you'll turn away from a life of sin, and you'll turn to him, he'll completely cover your sin, and he'll give you a brand new start. Anybody need that today? If you're here today, and God has just placed his finger upon your heart in some way, maybe through something we've talked about, or maybe God's speaking to you about something entirely different, he does that. And you know you need to do business with him.

This is how we close the service every single Sunday. Before we rush out and get back into the busyness of life, we pause and we respond to God together. It's almost just to bow our head and close our eyes. Our staff is gonna make their way to the front of each aisle today. And today, if you're one of those who would say, Nick, I know that I need Christ, like I know that that's what God is calling me to do. Christians, you're praying for these people right now. Then in just a moment, we're gonna sing part of a final song, and as soon as we stand, I'm gonna ask you just to say, excuse me to the people next to you, they'll let you out. And I just wanna ask you to just come to the closest man or woman here at the front of each aisle, or some even towards you, and I'm gonna ask you to come to the closest man or woman here at the front of each aisle, or some even towards the back sections for you. And if you need Christ, all you need to do is walk up to them and say, hey, I need to give my life to Jesus. And they'll lead you to faith in Christ today. You're not gonna have to do anything weird, you don't have to come on stage. Maybe if you're next to somebody and you're not sure where they're at with the Lord, maybe you just need to lean over and just tell them, hey, if you need to go, I'll go with you.

Like, if you wanna go forward, I'll go with you. If you're here today and you would say, Nick, I'm a Christian, I know that's settled in my life, but man, I fit into one of those other categories, I know that I need to do business with the Lord today. Listen, don't leave this place without responding to the Lord, whatever that looks like. This altar's open, our staff is here to pray with you about anything in your life. Lord, we, by faith, turn to you right now, and we ask as we wrap up this service that you would cause us to be responsive to you, whether that's coming to an altar or sitting in our seat or leaving and making a phone call or whatever this looks like, we pray that we would just say yes to you, and it's in Christ's name that we pray, amen.