Let's jump into our message this morning. We're gonna be looking at a lot of scripture today. We we pretty much do that every single Sunday. Obviously, we'll have all of that on the screens for you. But if you have our mobile app, you can follow along. That's actually what I use, what I read off of is the mobile app. So if you ever pull up the message on the mobile app, you're looking at exactly what I'm looking at. The same exact scriptures. It's all there for you. I say all this to say that when we get together on Sunday mornings, what we're really doing when we learn together is we're opening up God's word and we're asking him to speak to us. God's word, scripture, the Bible, whatever you want to call it, is powerful. It's incredibly powerful, it's insanely practical. I cannot think of a single problem any person in this world could encounter that God's word doesn't have something to say about it. I can't think of one. I've tried. I've literally tried. I've sat with friends being like, let's try to think of one situation someone can find themselves in and be like, oh, yeah, there's not. Sorry. There's no scripture for that. There aren't any. And what's so amazing about scripture, and if you're new to the whole Jesus thing, church thing, like this is something you need to know, is there are certain things about God that you can get by observation. There are certain things about God about life that I can learn just by observing, by opening my eyes and experiencing life, I can go, ooh, I think God is like this. That's true. But there are whole other aspects of God and whole other aspects of our lives that you can only get through revelation. The only way you will ever understand it is if God reveals it to you. And if if you need a real life example of that, just get married. Or have children. Just live with someone that's not you. Just do that. I've been married to my wife for 15 years. And uh, yeah, that's awesome. You should clap for her because that's actually the uh I don't mean clap for her like she's won a prize. I mean clap for her because that that is like uh that's an accomplishment to be to be with me for 15 years. I don't even want to be with me that long. So it's you should go, wow, Megan, you have tremendous endurance and patience. You should be celebrated. But but like we've been married 15 years and daily she does things and I don't get it. I don't understand her. And there's things I've learned about her by observing, but there's a lot of stuff that I'm just never gonna understand unless she lets me in. And that's why frequently as a man, I'm like, what's what are you what's going on? Like, tell me what is like men, those of you who are married, just how many times you ask a week, what's wrong? Like, a lot? Any guys, you ask that question all the time? It's because we don't understand. And we observation is not enough. We need revelation. Ladies, reveal to us what we will never be able to understand unless you help us. God's the same way. There's things about God that we'll never understand unless He reveals it to us. When we open up scripture together, when we dive into it with an open heart and an open mind, we learn things about God. We learn things about ourselves, about life. It's powerful. And if you're new to the whole Jesus thing, don't be intimidated by it. Because you are created by God with the capacity to understand all of this. And you'll be amazed at how quickly the dots connect for you because you're meant for this. You're meant to understand the God who created you, at least as much as a human being can. So, with all that said, we're in a section of scripture right now that it's the very end of Romans chapter 8. Romans is pretty much universally understood to be one of the most complicated, complex, deep dives into what it really means to follow Jesus. So it's a great place to start if you're new. And we happen to find ourselves in the climactic moment of the book of Romans. The end of Romans chapter 8. It is the climax. It is that moment that so many people go, that is my favorite scripture. That is my absolute favorite thing. I don't know anyone who says Romans 9. If you know Romans 9, that's what we get to go to soon. I'm maybe delaying that as long as possible because it's really tough. No one says Romans 9 is their favorite, but everyone's like Romans 8. And here, if you don't know why, you'll see why. This is awesome. Let's read this together. Romans chapter 8, verses 31 through 39. This is so good. What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? The name of this series, as we explore this, is wonderful. What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own son, but gave him up for us all, won't he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us, whom God has chosen for his own? The audacity of that statement. I love it, that question. Who dares to accuse us? God has chosen us. That's, ooh, gives me chills. No one, for God Himself, has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one, for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God's right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us? If we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death, as the scriptures say, for your sake we're killed every day. We're being slaughtered like sheep. That was the experience of the early Christians. No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us, and I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries for tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love, no power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is wonderful. That is awesome. From now on, I'm just gonna read the end of Romans 8 every Sunday. I'm gonna walk on stage, read it, and walk off. That's all we need, right? Done. Church will be faster, much, much shorter. Now, this really is wonderful. This is a climactic moment for a reason. You can tell that when Paul, the author of this, wrote it, he's he's passionate. And he's one of these people who is being quote unquote slaughtered. He was persecuted heavily against, he was tortured, he was beaten, he was imprisoned, and ultimately killed. Why? So that he could spread the message of Jesus. But he didn't care. Because he knew that what God had in store for him was so much greater than whatever whatever else life could throw at him. He's filled with so much passion. And I'll be honest, guys, we need to be filled with this kind of passion. There's a lot that happens in our world, there's a lot that is happening in our world, and it seeks to take away your passion for life. There's this huge push to make you less excited about the life that you live, less excited about the world that you live in. But if you look at life through the eyes of Jesus, if you look at life through the Holy Spirit, like Paul did here, you find that there is so much to be excited about. It doesn't matter what your problems are, it doesn't matter what comes against you. There's a God, He's alive, He's for you, nothing can stop Him, He loves you, and nothing will ever separate you from His love. That is wonderful. That's what we celebrate every single Sunday. There we go. All right. I make this joke a lot, but we are going to have a class about clapping. And and all I ask is if you clap, commit. That's all I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I don't need clapping. It's just always, it's one of my favorite things about his hands, is there's a few of you who are very just you like to clap. And then, but you don't know if it's okay. So there's like a clap and then there's a pause. And then there's like, and and then this happens, and it always, there we go. So because we love one another, if you hear someone clap, don't leave them hanging. Don't do that. Just be like, even if it doesn't make sense that they're clapping, even if it's at a point that it doesn't make sense, just clap. Just do that, and then because you don't want to be that person who claps and goes, Oh no, I I wasn't paying attention. I just was it's just a Pavlovian response. I was just clapping because I'm in church. All right, we're good. That's enough clapping for now. Okay. So nope, no, oh, okay. All right, we did it. We did it. I did that to myself. I did that to myself. This section of scripture, it is really powerful. It really is. And when what it does is really interesting, it asks six questions that if we explore these questions, and these are questions that have implied answers, and just the the implication of the answers is so powerful that it gets you excited, even though most of the questions are never outright answered. But these questions, if they're explored, if we really savor what what it's saying, it gives us such a complete and mature understanding of what our faith is all about and why we should be so passionate about the life that we live. It's powerful. And so last week we looked at the first question, which was if God is for us, who can be against us? And another way to put that is that if God is on your side, if he's for you, if he's willing to put his full support behind you, of what consequence are the things that come against you or the people that come against you, they don't matter. Because God has your back. We talked about that last Sunday. Today, we're gonna look at the second question. If God didn't spare even his own son, will he not give us everything else that we need? Romans 8 32. If God didn't spare even his own son, but gave his son for you, is he gonna hold out on you when it comes to everything else that you need? Now, this might get personal, um, but that's okay. That's okay. Part of his hands, part of our culture, we can own our stuff. Uh, have you ever known someone? And if that person is you, this is where it gets personal, that's really cheap. Like someone that's just they're a cheapskate. They're just they hate paying money for things, and their whole purpose in life is to find out how little money they can spend on anything. And if you're sitting next to that person, just nudge them, just give them that challenge, say, hey, stop it. Like, you know, let go a little bit, right? We've all known people like that. And you know what's funny is I think all of us are like that when it comes to things we don't care about. And so, for example, at my home, and I've used this before, but it's I think a lot of you will relate, the number of pillows that we have in our house, it's it's it number one, it doesn't make any sense. Uh, pillows and blankets. Like my wife has this rule that if anyone has ever given us a blanket, if we've ever bought a blanket, we must keep the blanket forever. And we just there's a there's a closet in our house, and if you opened it, you'd just be like, what's going on? I'm just I don't know, it's just a hundred blankets and fifty pillows that we just keep in case we ever for padding. I don't know what it's for, but it's just it's the way it is. And I don't care about I don't care about that stuff, right? So if my wife, if she says this pillow was on sale, like my brain just goes, that what? No. And so I'm cheap when it comes to pillows. At least throw pillows that you neither get to throw nor sleep on, they just sit there, and their whole purpose is just to take them off your bed every night so you can put them back on the next day. This is what we do. This is my life. After that. I like having fun. Okay, so I don't care about that, but then there's other things that my wife will be like, why'd you spend that? I'm like, because it's awesome. You know? And so we're all cheap in certain areas of life, but generous in others. It depends on what you care about. But there are people, some people, who are just cheapskates. They they just they they hold tightly. It's as if every dollar they have is the last dollar that was printed. You know what I mean? Now, on the flip side, there are people who are lavish. There are people who who go way overboard when it comes to generosity. They they just love to bless people. They want to they would give everything they have to everyone they could. Have you ever known someone like that? And by the way, those of you watching from home, if you know someone like that, like post their name, give them a shout-out. These are people that, these are people that need to be celebrated and people that other people need to know, okay? So it's good when you have someone like that. I've known a lot of people like that. And and two specifically come to my mind, this is kind of a softball here at his hands, and it's the two people that started our church. Stephen, Susan, Craig. Yeah, you can clap for them. That's awesome. Um someone's here for the first time, like, this church claps so much. We actually don't. I just made the joke and we're all riled up. So come next week, probably 50% less clapping, I promise. So, Steve and Susan, if you don't know the story, they started our church 15 or so years ago. And if you weren't here in those days, this used to be a Kmart. And if you're younger than 22, Kmart was a store. Uh-huh. And it was like Walmart, but way worse. And so it's not really around anymore. And Kmart's were amazing at going out of business. And so, uh, so this used to be one of those, and the only remnant we have of Kmart is we call our coffee shop Blue Light Coffee. And that's because Kmart had the blue light special. So that's the little, that's that's all that's left. We used to have a Kmart shopping cart. It was in the building. I haven't seen it in years. Don't know what happened to it. Someone took it. But now we still have blue light coffee. That's all we've got. Steve and Susan were really successful business people. They sold a company, they asked a question that almost no one ever asked. They said, Hey God, what do you want me to do? What do you want us to do with what you've given us? Most people go, What do I want to do with what I have? But they said, What do you want us to do with what you've given us? And God thinks outside the box. So it's a dangerous question to ask God, what do you want me to do with what you've given me? Because he might answer you like, you know that Kmart on Highway 92 that went out of business seven years ago? I want you to buy that and turn it into a church. All right? But that's what God told them, that's what they did. And they went all out. And they spared no expense. They like literally spared no expense. It was all their personal finances, and they cut zero corners. In fact, a few years ago, I I had only been in this leadership role here at the church for a few months. I got my first taste of just how lavish and in some ways overboard crazy Steve and Susan were. Our building had gotten old enough that for the first time we were dealing with things beginning to break. Things were now at their life cycle, right? And one of the first things that went was a faucet in the men's restroom that's right over here. And so, faucet, it's one of those battery-powered faucets that you know you put your hand under and water comes on and it broke. It was no longer functioning. We tried to fix it, it's it's gone. It's toast. We need to get a replacement. So our facility person said, Hey, I found the exact faucet. I looked up the serial number, and uh it's $600 for the faucet. Now, he said, I found one that looks almost the same, and it's $40. Which one do you want me to buy? And I'm not a cheapskate, but guys, this we're no more, this is not like they use their money now, this is all our collective giving, and we have to be really wise with it. So I just want to let you know we got the $40 faucet. Okay? So yeah. There you go. But but I want to show this to you, this is important. Here's here's the $600 faucet. And it's just, wow. Look at it. Money well spent. And then here's the $40 faucet. So here's $600, here's $40, and here they are side by side. And now all the men who use that restroom will never be able to stand there and not look at those faucets. You'll never be able to see it. You've looked at them, you've never noticed the difference, but that's that. Now here's here's what when when that happened, this is what what hit me. I know the personal toll that this took on Steve and Susan. I mean, they they sold this company, they spent everything they had for this place to the point that they had to go start another company, come out of retirement, and work again. And it hit me that every single, every single aspect of this place, they had the opportunity, if they wanted to, to save $400 here, $500 there, and every time they had that choice, they said, no, we want the best. Now here's what makes that really amazing is this was not a church that was designed with like, oh, this is a church for really wealthy, successful people. By the way, if you are wealthy and successful, don't leave. We need you. Um, but like, we need a few of you, okay? But like, this was a church that Stephen Susan felt the Lord was calling them to start for people who were broken and hurting and needed healing. And it is not the way that our world works that you give the best for the broken. You don't see that. Things that are designed for broken hurting people, you go, you go minimal, right? You do whatever's good enough. You don't see this world give the best for the broken. But I'll tell you who does give the best for the broken, that's God. And Jesus is the proof that we have of that. So every time I wash my hands in that restroom, which is I work here, it's fairly often. I'm just like, wow, this is amazing. This is what lavish giving looks like. And so the question that we have to ask ourselves is when it comes to God, what kind of a giver is he? Is he is he cheap or is he lavish? And so yeah, scripture would clearly plant the flag in the lavish category. And I'll give you a really interesting story that tells us this. Genesis chapter 22, verses 1 through 14. This is a classic Bible story. One that if you grew up in church, you've heard a hundred times, and one that if you've never heard before, is a little bit creepy and weird. So here we go. Sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith. Abraham is really the founder of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people are the people in the Old Testament that God is using to reveal himself to the world through. Abraham, God called. Yes, he replied, Here I am. Take your son, your only son, yes, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you. The next morning Abraham got up early, he saddled his donkey, he took two of his servants with him, along with his son Isaac. And then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about. And on the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and he saw the place in the distance. Stay here with the donkey, Abraham told the servants. The boy and I will travel a little further. We will worship there, and then we'll come right back. So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders while he himself carried the fire and the knife. And as the two of them walked on together, Isaac turned to Abraham and said, Father, yes, my son, Abraham replied. God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son, Abraham answered. And they both walked on together. When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. And at that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, yes, Abraham replied, Here I am. Don't lay a hand on the boy, the angel said. Do not hurt him in any way. For now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your own son, your only son. Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and he sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh Yereh, which means the Lord will provide. And to this day, people still use that name as a proverb on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided. Now, a couple of things. This is a scripture that is telling us about something that happened 3,000 plus years ago. And in the ancient world, in that world, animal sacrifice, that was the normal way to worship God. Is anyone grateful that that is not the normal way anymore? Alright, yes, now we sing songs. Now we, it's good. Thank you, Lord. At first glance, this is the story of a really demented God demanding a sacrifice. But please understand, and we'll come to this a little bit later, this is not the story of a God who demands a sacrifice. This is the story of a God who provides a sacrifice. And see, the ancient world, like Abraham, would have would have lived in a culture where unfortunately sacrificing people was commonplace, sacrificing children was commonplace. And so Abraham would have understood this context very well and would have been like, oh, okay, I guess, I guess God is like that, like all the other false gods in this world. I guess this is how it is. And God, it's almost like He's almost think of it like a performance art piece kind of thing, where He's He's making sure Abraham understands and all of us understand. No, no, no, I am not the kind of God that demands a sacrifice like this. I'm the one who provides the sacrifice. Now, this story is a really interesting story. We could actually look at it from a bunch of different angles. In many ways, it's a it's an Old Testament picture of Jesus. Actually, in some really, really cool ways. For example, uh, this area, he was told to go to the Moriah Mountains. This is the same area that would one day later become Jerusalem. Mount Moriah, one of the specific mountains in that place, is where the temple was built, the same temple that Jesus tossed the tables over and created all the fuss that he created right before he was crucified. Jesus would have been crucified in this same place. Now we don't know exactly because when Abraham shows up here, it hasn't been settled, Jerusalem hasn't been built, this area hasn't been civilized at all, but it's very possible that the exact place that Isaac was about to be sacrificed is the exact place where Jesus was the sacrifice. And like they said, it was on this mountain, it will be provided. That's what the people said. Isaac was probably about the same age as Jesus was, he's probably about 30 years old. And you see him climbing up the mountain and he's carrying the wood for his sacrifice on his back. Jesus climbed up, carried the wood of the cross on his back. It was a three-day journey. Jesus had three days between being crucified and resurrected. So there's all these really interesting tie-ins, and what God is actually giving us is this really early foreshadowing of Jesus. Even that ram that Was provided. The story of Jesus is a sacrifice provided on our behalf, a price that we could never pay ourselves. And this is the story about God providing a sacrifice. Again, don't ever look at this story and think, wow, God is messed up. No, God's showing us, hey, this is what the world demands. I'm not the one who demands from you, I'm the one who gives to you. God provides the sacrifice. And Abraham gives God this really interesting name. And that's what I really want us to focus on. This name Yahweh Yereh. Now, really quick show of hands. How many of you are familiar with the name Yahweh? This is something you've heard before, okay? For some of us, it's like this is like a new word, like a foreign language. It is a foreign language, it's Hebrew. It's Hebrew, and it comes from, this word Yahweh comes from another story we find in the Old Testament, actually. We see it later on. Well, it it this is the first time that Abraham calls God that, but we actually see this come up again in the book of Exodus. Moses, who is after Abraham, is having a conversation with God, and God is speaking to Moses and calling Moses to lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. And Moses doesn't want to do what God says. Can anyone else relate to that? Right? It's like if God called you to turn a Kmart into a church. You might be like, I don't think that's a good idea. Same kind of thing happening. Okay? And so we look at Exodus chapter 3, verses 13 through 16. It says, Moses protested, If I go to the people of Israel and tell them the God of your ancestors has sent me to you, they'll ask me, What is his name? What should I tell them? And God replied to Moses, I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations. Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me. So God uses the same, the same name that Abraham uses. He says, Yahweh Yereh. Okay, Yahweh is a Hebrew word. This is really boring, I'm just realizing, but super exciting for nerds like me. Yahweh is a Hebrew word that literally translates, it's tough, it's like he who is and will be. He who is and he who will be. We see other times in Scripture where God is referred to this way. A great one would be Revelation chapter 1, verse 8. God says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, I'm the beginning and the end, I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One. The one who is, the one who was, and the one who is to come. That's that's Yahweh. It's this idea that God is God, and he has always been God, and he will always be God. And it's the idea of certainty. Very few things in our world are certain. Nothing in our world really lasts that long. In fact, there's things that we see as certain. We're like, this is so, this is so certain, I can bank my life on it, and actually, in the grand scheme of history, nothing is. Every day when I leave my house, I'm pretty confident it's gonna be where I left it on my way home. Like I never pull into my neighborhood and be like, oh no, my house is still there. But the truth is, one day it won't be. Now that day will probably be after me, but one day it won't be. Or think about us as people. Like I could say about myself, I am the Justin who is. Like I am right now. But what about the Justin who was? Well, you don't have to go back that far in history to find me as like a child. I'm 38 years old, okay? Now I look young, and for years, when I became the pastor here, I was 30, and that was all it was awkward because people would talk to me and go, like, are you the pastor? And I'm like, Yes, and they would look at me and go, the main one? Um I was like, Yeah, it's a weird story. But now that I'm hitting 38, that's not happening as much. Super exciting. Can't wait. 45 is like a dream for me. I can't wait to be 45 years old. It's gonna be awesome. And so it wasn't that long ago, though. You go back like 35 years, I'm just a baby. I'm a three-year-old. You go back just a few years before that, I don't even exist. The earth has not spun that many times with me on it in the grand scope of human history. So I cannot say I am the Justin who was. Can't do that. I'm the one who is, but who was, nah, no, not really. What about what about the one who will be? Well, like for a while. I hope. But apart from God and Him giving us eternal life, Scripture says that we're we're a vapor. I mean, we're here for a little while and we're gone. I couldn't claim on my own strength to say, I am the Justin who will be. Like I'm not certain. And guys, that's why it's so important in your faith that you never build your faith on another person. Because people come and go. But Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. You build your faith on him. You build your faith on him. Because he is certain. That's what the word Yahweh tells us. It's it's a word of certainty. See, when it comes to someone who provides for you, you better choose someone whose provision is certain. Like if the person that you're banking on providing for you is someone who has to be provided for, that falls apart pretty fast. Right? But God does not need to be provided for. There's nothing that he needs. He has everything, he knows everything. There's nothing that he's like, oh man, I would love to help you out, but I'm kind of short myself. Like I'd love to be able to give you more wisdom, but I'll be honest, I'm fresh out. It's never gonna happen for God. And he needs us to know that, and he needs us to believe this. He needs us, when I say he needs us, we need to believe this, that our God is certain. He was not invented, he was not made up. He's not a myth. He is the God who is, who was, and who is to come. He is as certain as anything, more than anything that exists. And he's our provider. And that's where that second word comes in, ure. Ure means to provide. To provide. God provides. You can bank on it, it's certain, and he provides what you need, and he gives it to you lavishly in abundance. Jesus teaches us this very directly. Matthew chapter 6, verse 24 begins: No one can serve two masters, you will hate one and love the other, you'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. Jesus is using this as an example. You can't put your trust in God, but also say, But my trust is really in the things of this world. You're gonna really be devoted to one and not the other. That's why I tell you not to worry about everyday life, whether you have enough food or drink or enough clothes to wear. Isn't life more than food in your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store up food in barns, for your heavenly father feeds them. And aren't you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that they're here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? So don't worry about these things, saying, What will we eat? What will we what will we drink? What will we wear? These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today. And this is one of those teachings of Jesus that we both love and also, deep down inside, think is nuts. Right? Like it sounds great, it got turned into a song. Don't worry, be happy. You may have heard it, whistles a lot. But like, this is one of those things where we're like, yes, God will meet my needs, I don't need to worry, and then we walk out of here, and within five minutes we're really worried sometimes. Right? Because worrying is it's second nature. Like it's so easy to worry, it's so easy to become obsessed with, well, what if that happens? Well, what if that happens? What if this? What if that? Do you know what the answer to every what if question you could ever possibly think actually is? God. Like what if what if this goes wrong? Uh God. The one who is, was, and and is yet to come, he will still be God. Well, what if this and my family goes go south? And what if all my plans and all the things I've been working for? What if it doesn't work out? What if this risk that I've I've taken? What if it doesn't pan out? What if it all falls apart? Well, guess what happens? If that happens, God happens. Because God is the one who is, who was, and who is yet to come. He is Yahweh. He's certain and he is a provider, and he has promised to give you what you need. One of the first lies that we believed as people that led us to sin was the lie that God is holding out on us. That God is holding out on us. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden. God creates them. He tells them, hey, eat freely, don't eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you've never read that story, I encourage you to read it. It's not a long one. If you eat that, you're gonna die. It'll kill you. That's what he's saying. And Satan shows up and he and he lies and he says, D guys say not to eat from that, and there's a conversation, and like, yeah, if we eat from that, we'll die. And he goes, Oh no, you won't die. No, if you eat from that tree, you'll be like God. And all of a sudden, this thought was planted in the minds of Adam and Eve that maybe we can't trust God after all. Maybe God is holding out on us and we need to take matters into our own hands. Maybe we should be the ones looking out for ourselves. Maybe we should be the ones providing for ourselves. And it leads to disaster and to ruin. I'm not saying that as people we're not meant to be responsible, we're not meant to be hardworking, we're not meant to be people who take life seriously, but what I am saying is that we are not our own providers, and we have to live with the peace that comes from believing that. That we're not the ones that are responsible for having to provide everything that we need ourselves. We have a provider, and he is lavish in what he provides. Look at Jesus. The price is for my freedom from sin, the price for me to be in heaven with God forever, the price for my eternal life was Jesus. I would say he overpaid. Honestly. I mean, let's be honest, if it's like, hey, there's Justin and then there's Jesus, that's an easy choice. Right? And all of us would do the same, I would hope. You would put yourself next to Jesus and be like, yeah, I think we're pretty, you know, a little bit a little bit different here and there, but like even if you were to put a price tag on me and Jesus, I think, you know, that's it'd be pretty close, right? No? No. No, this is a stupid analogy, but it's like a $600 faucet. You know, like who even knew that that existed? Like it's it seems like overkill. Unless you're someone who desires to give the best for the broken. God has not held out on you. He has never held out on you, he will never hold out on you. Yes, this world has issues and struggles and problems, and yes, there have been experiences you've had in life that were awful and hard. That wasn't God. That wasn't him. He does not hold back his love or his blessings from his children. He provides. And he provides it lavishly. He goes overboard. And Jesus is the constant reminder to every single one of us for that. And so, worship team, if you guys want to actually make your way out, we'll we'll wrap up. I want to ask you guys a really important question this morning. What do you what do you need? What do you need? Every single one of us has needs. Every single one of us has some area of life where we feel some pain, where something is missing, where something is not the way that it ought to be. And sometimes it's really easy to identify that. Right? Sometimes it's like, if you don't have a job, you need a job. If you can't pay your bills, you you need you need something material. And it's okay to be able in your heart to be like, that's that's what I need. I need I need something. You know, my wife and I had this experience, I'll never forget it. We uh we were young, uh, hadn't been married for very long, maybe three or four years, and she was teaching at a school, and then whenever the economy tanked, you know, toward the end of the first decade in this millennia, the two, what do you mean I don't even still don't know what to call that decade? 2008 or so, economy tanked, she lost her job. And so they said, Hey, we can't keep you on next year. And then, like, they came back a few months later and said, Actually, we do need you. That feels great. But then they're like, But we can't pay you full full-time. We need you to work full-time, we just can't pay you full-time. We got to pay you part-time, and we needed whatever we could take at the time, and and so you know, we she said yes to that, and we were trying to make it work, and I remember this day, and many of you have probably been here, so I'm not expecting sympathy because I know you've had this experience. But we looked at our bank account, we had $20, and we're like, well, this is not gonna work. We had just had our son, so we're parents of this small baby, and we have 20 bucks. And you know, we we were people who were giving generously, we were tithing, giving 10% of our income to our church, and had actually felt called by God to give above and beyond that just a few months before. And so it was kind of like, God, we're doing everything that you've told us to do, and I'm grateful for the $20, don't get me wrong. But this is not gonna work. And we literally prayed together. We were, I'll never forget, we were sitting on our living room floor, and that night we said, God, we just need you to do something. The very next day at work, my wife was outside of her classroom and she was putting up a bulletin board. And it just so happened that the head of the school walked by her, didn't have a meeting with her, wasn't scheduled. He walked by her, walked right, said hello, hello, Miss McTear, walked past her, then stopped and turned around and said, Oh, Miss McTear, I know that you've been working part-time or for part-time pay. And I want you to know that starting on your next paycheck, we're we're gonna put you back on full-time salary. And you know what? We're gonna give you all your back pay in your next paycheck, too. It was amazing. Right? So, my point is that look, it's okay to say my need is actually material. It's okay to say my need is physical. Maybe what you need right now is something to happen financially, a breakthrough. Maybe what you need right now is some physical healing. You maybe you have a sickness, maybe you have something going on with your body and you need it to be changed. It's okay when your need is something really tangible. I say that because I've known Jesus followers who do this weird thing that they don't have to do, where they sort of excuse away every every issue they have and act like, well, this isn't big enough to bring to God. No, no, no. He's a lavish giver. He doesn't hold back, he's not cheap. And so you don't ever have to feel weird coming to God and being like, well, this is what I need. It's all it's all important to God. But sometimes our needs aren't tangible. Sometimes they're, in fact, oftentimes they're they're deeper than that. They're relational. Maybe your need this morning is that there is brokenness in your heart. Maybe there's a relationship that that is so out of whack that it makes it difficult for you just to go through your day. Man, I would rather have healthy relationships with the people that I love than have more money in the bank than I know what to do with. It's hard to go through life when when you have broken relationships. And maybe you have this pain and this need that arises from that. You need God to do something. You're like, God, I need this to change. I need this relationship mended and healed. I need this awkwardness gone. I need this bitterness, this anger, this resentment gone. You know, maybe what you need is something spiritual. Maybe you know that you're just stuck. That you're just you can't seem to move forward when it comes to where you're at with God. There's something deeper inside of you, there's something spiritual that's just not where it needs to be. And every time you try to move forward, every time you try to put the pieces together, it just doesn't work. But you know something's off, you know something's not right, you just can't even maybe put words to it. One of the beautiful things about our relationship with God is it says that Jesus is at the right hand of God, the Father, and He's actually like interpreting what we need on our behalf. So it actually says in scripture we can actually pray just groanings. We can actually just be like, ah. And Jesus is like, Oh, this is what this is what they need. We don't even know what it is. As a dad, I experience that all the time. Sometimes my kids, they just can't express what they need and they just yell, they just make noises. And I have to try my best to interpret what those noises mean. What do you need this morning? What needs to change? I want to ask another question. Have you asked God for that? And have you asked God for that today? And have you asked God for that with the faith and the belief that he is Yahweh Yireh, that he is the certain God who provides for his children. Have you asked boldly? Hebrews chapter 4 tells us that because of Jesus and what he's done for us, now we can enter God's throne room boldly and we can ask directly for the help that we need, the mercy and the grace and the help that we need. We don't have to be shy about it. We don't have to be like, hey, Lord, I know you're busy and you got bigger fish to fry, but like I have this problem. No, we can be like children who just run right, right to our Father. Jump in his lap and just say what we want. My youngest son Eli is three years old. I love this kid so much. He's he's a bit demanding. You know, it's like he thinks I work for him. It's funny, I used to wait tables, and I feel like that same thing again, except sometimes he'll sit on our couch and he'll just go, Milk. And the other day, the other day, like I realized I'm like, wow, he's like trained me well because he just yelled milk, and I was like, And so I go to the fridge, I get the milk that I bought, and I put it in his cup, and he's just sitting on the couch watching a show, and I walk up to him and he could like hear me coming, and he just reached his hand up like this. Didn't even turn around to acknowledge me, and I just handed him the milk and he's like, like that. I'm like, wow, this has this might need to change. Uh but hey, I applaud his boldness, I applaud his confidence that his father desires to give him what he needs. I gave him milk, right? I didn't put like apple cider vinegar in the in the cup and be like, ha ha take this. I might have wanted to, but I didn't. I'm not a better father than God. I'm not a better provider than God. You know, men, some of you, and I'm not saying this because women don't provide. Let me say this, it's really important. Like my wife has worked our entire marriage, and she provides for our family, but I do know when I talk to men that very often men feel the burden of provision, that men feel a pressure that they've got to provide. And guys, and ladies, if you feel this pressure too, this applies. You need to be released from believing that it's all on your shoulders. Work hard, be diligent, do the right thing. But don't forget for a moment that at the end of the day, ultimately, you are not the sole provider for your family. You are a son of God or a daughter of God, and the Father provides for his children. So allow him to provide, ask him to. What do you need today? I'm serious, like think about it. Have you asked God for it? Have you asked him today? Have you asked him boldly, believing that he desires to give it to you? And if the answer to any of those is no, well then do that. In fact, let's do that together. We haven't taken Lord's Supper yet today, but we're going to right now. I always keep a Lord's Supper in the back of my pocket at all times. You just never know. You never know when you need to take Lord's Supper. Um, when you came in this morning, we had cups of uh little cups in the back on the tables, bread and juice. If you missed it, by the way, you can totally go and grab one right now. You're not gonna mess anything up to do that. I encourage you to. We do this every single week, and usually we do it earlier during worship. Some of you are like, I think they forgot to do Lord's Supper today. No. Come on. Now, this is a little mini meal that reminds us about who Jesus is and what he's done for us. And every week as we take Lord's Supper, we always try to ask the Lord to give us sort of a unique angle on it. Because that's the way God is. He's so amazing that you've got to look at him from every angle possible. Every time you do, you see something new. But then sometimes it's just obvious. And so here we are, we're doing this message this morning about God as our provider, right? If he didn't spare even his own son, do we think he's not going to give us everything else we need? You think he's not going to give you what you need to get through life? He's not going to give you those things that you have to have. Whether it's material or whether it's something deeper, whether it's the strength or the wisdom or the perspective to get through the situation you're in, he's going to give it to you. Why? Because of this. Because of what this means, what it represents. He didn't spare his own son. You know, it's interesting, that story with Abraham. God is like, Abraham, I will never ask you to sacrifice your son for me. But God sacrificed his for us. He held nothing back. Because he's a lavish giver, he's a provider. And the bread in this meal represents Jesus' body, which was broken on the cross, and he did that willingly. Just like Isaac carried that wood on his back, knowing what he was doing. Jesus walked with the wood of the cross on his back after it had been brutally and savagely beaten and torn apart. He would have experienced a kind of physical pain that few of us could even imagine. But he went all the way and he provided his own life for you. And the juice that's on the other side of the cup represents his blood, which was spilled. You know, blood is precious. It really is. You know, if my children ever have a cut and it's bleeding, they they know, even at a young age, this is this is bad. Because this needs to be inside of me. It's life. It represents life itself, and Jesus gave his blood for you. This is provision of the most intense and lavish kind. You have been provided for. And he went overboard. He didn't go cheap, he held nothing back. And as we take this meal together, we're remembering the fact that our God is Yahweh Yire, the provider. And so let's do this. Let's take the bread and let's thank him for it. Lord, we thank you for this piece of bread. But it represents something bigger than we could possibly express or put into words or wrap our minds around. Since you did not spare your one and only Son, help us to believe that you are a God who will supply all of our needs. Lord, I pray that this meal reminds us of this, that it solidifies the fact that you are our provider, that we can trust you to give us what we need, that we can cry out to you when we need something, knowing that you hear our prayers and you will answer. Let's take the bread. Now the juice. Precious blood of Jesus poured out on our behalf. Help us to believe, Lord, that since you did not spare your one and only Son. And Jesus, since you did not hold anything back on the cross, that you allowed yourself to bleed for us. Because of that, you will never hold out on us. We can have faith and trust that you will never pull back, that you will never fail to meet our deepest needs, that we can trust you, we can go to you with the expectation of receiving from you. Help us believe that, Lord. Let's take the Jews. As we close, I just want to encourage you to keep asking that question. What do you need? What do you need? Do not be someone who excludes your needs from the Lord. Don't be someone who evaluates yourself and goes, Oh, I don't know if this is worthy of bringing to God or not. Bring everything to him. Bring it all to him. And expect him to answer you. Because that's who he is. He didn't spare Jesus. He didn't spare his son. He's not going to hold anything else out. He's not going to hold anything else back. Trust that. Trust that. Guys, I want to thank you so much for being here today. Again, hang around as long as you want to. This is your church. This is your home. And we do have a class if you want to take part in that. I'd like to pray and just close it out. And we'll enjoy our Sunday together. So, Lord, thank you for being our provider. Thank you for being the God who gives. Thank you for being lavish. Thank you for being a God who does not hold back from us. Thank you for being a God who doesn't demand a sacrifice from us. But you're the one who provides the sacrifice. You're the one who gives the best for the broken. And Lord, every single one of us is broken in some way. Some of us are better at hiding our brokenness than others. Some of our brokenness is easier to see than it may be in others, but all of us have brokenness. But you give the best for the broken. You go all out, you hold nothing back. You are not cheap. You are lavish. But help us believe that. Help us trust that. Help us to be people who can be like Abraham and recognize and even call you our Yahweh Yure, the God who provides, the God who spares no expense for your children. We love you, Lord. We pray this in your name. Help us to make the most of the week you've given us, God. Amen.