We're gonna wrap up our series that we've been in for the last four or five weeks called Better Today. We're gonna wrap that up. Next week we've got something new that we're doing, and really soon we're gonna be jumping back into the book of Romans. Um Romans is something we'll be going through for a while, but every once in a while, Romans is so deep, I've got to come up for air every once in a while. That's really the truth. I just have to come up for air. Um, but today's really special because we actually have uh a guest speaker that's gonna wrap up this series for us. And by guest, I really don't mean a guest. I mean someone that's been a big part of our family for a long time. His name is Madison Tompkins. He's our youth pastor. You can give a round of applause from Madison before don't come out quite yet, Madison. I don't know where you're at, wherever he's at. I don't know. Um real quick, I want to set this up. Those of you watching from home, I'm gonna challenge you. Sometimes people hear there's a guest speaker, they're like, nope, I can, this is my two-nat day. No, no, no, no, no. Madison's message is awesome. It really is. I got to work with him on it this week. And more importantly, Madison is an incredible young man. I met Madison when he was in the sixth grade. I was the youth pastor here for many years. And right away, early on in middle school, I could tell there was just something really special about him. I remember when he was an eighth grader, Megan and I looked at each other and we said, He's he's got an important role here to play one day. I just I know it. Sometimes God shares those things with you. And I've watched him grow and mature in his faith over the years at a pace, honestly, that is threatening to me. Um, you know, because I'm like, wow, I better, I better make sure I keep up. But seriously, Madison loves the Lord. And parents of teenagers, middle school, high school that he works with. I mean, I want to encourage you. If there's ever an opportunity to have your kids connected to Madison, when we're doing our stuff here at the building, or even if it's just the Zoom stuff that's happening right now online, you want your kids to have someone like Madison in their life. Because he will guide them closer and closer to Jesus, because that's how he lives. Almost every time I swing by his desk in the office, he's he's got the scriptures open. He's just reading the word. And maybe he hears me coming and he just does that. I don't know. I don't think so. But he takes his relationship with God incredibly seriously. And I know that he's put a lot of time and prayer into what he's going to share today. And so, with all that said, uh, can you guys make a little bit of noise and welcome Madison? Madison, come on out. I knew that would happen. There you go. By the way, it's his first time ever doing the message in the big room. And uh, this is nerve-wracking, right? And he already dropped his paper.

I dropped the paper. I'm on the big screens, I don't know.

Half fun.

Thank you. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you, Justin, for the kind words, and um, thank you to all of you who have been part of my life. Like this church has been an amazing place for me to be, and beyond just the place, it's really the people. And so if you've uh invested in me, if you had to deal with me in middle school, if you had to be around during those awkward phases, I'm I'm just super appreciative, and I'm really excited and kind of nervous to share today. So let's do this. Um I don't know about you, but this year has been a year of firsts for me. This is, again, the first time I'll be giving a whole message on the big room stage. Kind of nerve-wracking. It's the first year I've been a Zoom pastor. Um, I lovingly call myself a Zoom pastor. It's been a lot of fun. Uh it's the first global pandemic that I've ever lived through, so that's been really exciting. But it's also the first time that I've gotten to be a dad. This this year, yes. Yes. In February, uh, Simon James Tompkins was born, and this is a picture of Simon. Let's see how cute he is. Oh, it looks terrifying. The maybe I can get my face right where his face is. Okay, perfect. That's a picture of Simon. Simon is absolutely the sweetest baby. He's so joyful, and because I'm a dad, you have to bear with me while I share more photos of him. This is another picture of Simon smiling. Yes, isn't that smile just like amazing? Absolutely amazing. And we went to the pumpkin patch uh just recently. Simon is is super cute, and it's been uh a huge blessing for me. And I didn't know what to expect uh being a dad. I didn't know to uh I knew Hannah and Simon would be close, you know. Mom and baby are very close to each other, and I was just willing to be alongside for support and and just do whatever I needed to do. But I've been surprised because Simon and I are actually really close. One of the benefits of quarantine was that I got to spend a ton of uninterrupted time with my son, and because of that, I think he genuinely knows who I am, and I really do feel like he loves me. Or at least when I leave the room, he starts crying, which I think is baby for come back, I want to I want to be with that person. And so it's been it's been an amazing thing. But if working with teenagers has taught me anything, I know that one day Simon will pull away. One day for one reason or another, whether it's just the the inevitable growing up and becoming more independent, or whether it's something that I do or something that he does, like disobeying me, I know that at some point he will pull away from me. We won't be as close as we are today. And for parents of teenagers in the room, I just want to say thank you for not giving up on your teenagers during that season. I know how painful it can be because I've worked alongside many parents during that season of pulling away, and it's just so amazing and it's such a blessing to this church and to this community to understand that the parents of teenagers aren't gonna give up on them when it seems like they're giving up on pretty much everything. So thank you for investing in them. But we have this ability to disconnect from each other, to pull away. And I don't think it's just from each other, I think it's from God too. And I believe that uh if we really want to live that better life that God has for us, we need to be fully connected to Him. There's plenty of reasons why we might disconnect, but we really want to be close to Him. Because I feel most connected to somebody when I understand what they want and they understand what I want. Perfect example is Hannah, my wife. She is an amazing gift giver because she understands what I want. Even without me understanding it, she'll tuck away in a like a comment that I made months and months and months ago just for right at the right time to pull it out and say, hey, I got you this, and it's the perfect gift. For an example, uh, as we were coming out of quarantine, like quarantine proper, as we were coming out of quarantine, I was just starved for time with my friends. And we were out and about doing our chores, getting things done, getting all the stuff that the baby needs. And out of nowhere, all of my friends just showed up for a surprise birthday party. It was really sweet, it was genuinely sweet. And had you asked me that day, or at any time in my life, Madison, hypothetically, would you enjoy a surprise birthday party? I would have told you, absolutely not. I do not want a surprise birthday party. That sounds like the opposite of what I want. But I felt so close to Hannah, and I felt known and I felt loved by her because she knew what I wanted more than I even understood. I think the opposite is true. If I don't understand what she wants, it's really easy to feel super far away. I do the classic guy thing if she's upset, like, what's wrong? And then when what's wrong inevitably doesn't work, I do these grand gestures. I'll clean the house to try to fix something, I'll I'll even dust the dreaded dusting, I'll do whatever it is. Half the time she doesn't want any of that, she just wants to know that she's loved. This season, I don't know about you, but it's been really easy to feel far from God. Sometimes it's like I'm at my Bible desiring that, and sometimes it's a chore. It's ups and downs, highs and lows. But if we really want to be close to him, we have to understand what he wants. And I believe if we understand what he wants, we'll feel more connected to him than ever before. And so this series, better, has been us going through little snapshots of what God wants. It's better to give than to receive because God wants us to be generous. God wants us to have peace. And today we look at 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 22, says this. But Samuel replied, What's more pleasing to the Lord? Your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice. Listen, obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Obedience is better than sacrifice. God wants obedience and he does not want sacrifice. Everything we talk about today will come back to that fact that obedience is what God wants. But is that the full picture of what he wants? Because if we really want to live fully connected and feeling close to the Lord, we have to fully understand what he wants. And we get the full picture of that on page one of the Bible, after God creates Adam and Eve, Genesis 1.28. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the ground. When God creates us, he gives us so much and asks of us so little. It's a completely lopsided relationship. He gives us a good and flourishing earth to live on, a great place to be. He gives us a partner so that we don't have to live alone. He gives us good and fulfilling work to do. I mean, be fruitful and multiply. Sounds like an amazing job description. He gives us so much and asks of us so little, but he does ask something. Genesis 2, 16 and 17. And the Lord God commanded them, the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will certainly die. God doesn't give us this endless list of do's and don'ts that we have to memorize in order to accomplish and receive his love. God doesn't give us a task that is over the top that we couldn't possibly complete by ourselves. God gives us so much and asks that we have simple obedience to a simple boundary. I mean, on top of all the things that God gave us, he gave us his presence. In the garden, we were able to walk alongside God and work hand in hand with him. He gave us absolutely everything and expected so little. And we honestly don't last super long with that one expectation, with that one simple boundary. We cross that line. I mean, I'm sure you know the story. And do you know what happens when we cross that line? Sure, we get kicked out of the garden. There's like the flaming sword and the angels that guard the garden. We have to work against the land and we have to uh labor and childbirth is painful, and we eventually do die. But before any of that happens, do you know what happens? We pull away. Our disobedience causes a disconnect, and we pull away. Genesis 3.8. When the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. That disobedience caused a disconnect. And before that disconnect has anything to do with what God is handing down as a consequence, it has to do with us. We pull away, we retreat. See, God's still looking for the humans. He still wants to be with them, find out where they are and what's going on. But we cross that line, we took a step back and hid ourselves. Now I don't know about you, but I really identify with Adam and Eve there. I cross a line that I know I shouldn't cross. Something I know that is either commanded against in scripture or is just plain old stupid. And I might look for ways to fix it. Like I'm a fixer, that that happens. But honestly, sometimes it's just better to retreat. And I keep God at a distance because of my disobedience. But it's a self-imposed distance. He's probably looking for me. And so this feeling of distance and this uh lack of closeness that we might feel with God has been an experience since the first humans. Like since Adam and Eve, that distance between us and God has always existed. And practically every single uh group of people has dealt with it a similar way, and that's through animal sacrifice. Yes, I pulled the short straw and I get to talk about animal sacrifice. I'm really excited. No, but it's really cool. We okay, so we want to make it right with God, we want to close the gap, we all want a close feeling to the Lord, and we want to understand what he wants, and so for some reason, and because God made a concession to us in our disobedience, we have to kill an animal in order to make up for the disobedience. We have to shed innocent blood in order to make it right with the Lord. And that might feel really like ancient and distant, and like I can't even relate to that, but I think we have practical examples even today where we understand this idea of sacrifice. I'll give you an example. My neighbor across the street, his uh mailbox was completely destroyed by a distracted driver. And I was really blessed to see, and honestly, just super encouraged, that the the driver didn't just speed off and pretend like it didn't happen. He looked for ways to make it right. He spent his afternoon driving back and forth from Home Depot, gathering supplies and uh solving problems that he didn't really realize that he caused, but it was all his fault, um, just to make it right with the neighbor. And so instead of uh us thinking about the uh you know, death of an animal, whatever, we understand sacrifice and atonement is the word that we're talking about, through just really practical examples. The time spent, the money spent, and the effort spent by that careless driver was the atoning sacrifice for the sin of knocking down the mailbox. And so instead of thinking of an afternoon spent and mailboxes, let's talk about deep, disobedient sin and the death of an animal. Because for some reason, human nature understands that we have to make up for that feeling of failure in distance. And you've seen the movies where a person needs to get thrown into a volcano to appease the gods. This idea of atonement and sacrifice keeps coming up over and over and over again, and it's all through scripture. And so whenever you encounter that, you're it's like distant and strange, but it's part of what we believe and how it works. But is this what God wanted? Is the death of the innocent, whether it be a dove or a cow or a sheep, is that death what God wanted? No. I think animal sacrifice feels wrong and backwards and barbaric, is because it is wrong and backwards. This is never what God wanted. What God wanted was that intimate, loving relationship walking alongside us, just like it was in the garden, but instead we have sacrifice. We have sacrifice. And we get this sense that God doesn't want this all through scripture. Isaiah 1.11 says this. What makes you think I want all your sacrifices, says the Lord? I'm sick of your burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fat and cattle. I get no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. Proverbs 21, 3 says, The Lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just than when we offer him sacrifices. And then what we discussed earlier today, 1 Samuel 15, 22. What's more pleasing to the Lord, your burnt offerings and sacrifices, or your obedience to his voice? Listen, obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. God never wanted it this way. And you can hear that he's almost like disgusted with it. It's like, guys, this is never how I wanted to relate to you. And even at the height of this sacrificial system, we see God's desire for something better, more intimate, more personal, more close. Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34 says this The days are coming, declares the Lord, where I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It won't be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them. This is the covenant I will make with the people of the Isra of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, Know the Lord, because they will all know me. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. What does that sound like to you? To me, it sounds like an intimate and personal, close relationship with a loving God that gives us so much and asks of us so little. That plan sounds like the first plan in the garden. He's gonna be my God and I'm gonna be his person. He's gonna write his law on my heart and on my mind, and he's gonna forget my wickedness and forgive my sins. That's the plan that I want to step into. But instead, we have sacrifice. We have this concept of sacrifice that that's honestly, we might not have a sacrificial system anymore, but we definitely hold on to a sacrificial mindset. How many times have I crossed the line and then I beat myself up for a week because I know that I need to somehow make it right by my effort? That's a sacrificial mindset. How often have I promised this is the last time that I'll do this? God please, this is the last time only to do it over and over again. That's that sacrificial mindset. How many times have I isolated myself from either my church community, my family, whatever that looks like, because I'm beating myself up over some disobedience that I've caused. That's that sacrifice mindset. And God doesn't want sacrifice because when we're confused about what God wants, we'll live with that sacrifice mindset. We will live thinking that if we work enough hours, we can make it right or prove we're worthy. We live thinking that if everybody simultaneously smiles in the holiday photos, we can pull that off, then maybe we'll seem like we have it all together. Or if we present this version of ourselves that doesn't have any disobedience and doesn't struggle with anything, then we'll get the we'll get the thumbs up. But we are not called to live like that. When I live like that, I feel like a hypocrite. And it's because I am one. I live walking disobediently and then putting on a show for everybody, pretending that it's not a problem at all. Because I can't make it right. I absolutely have no power in my own strength to do anything about my disobedience. I can't bridge the gap. I can't fix the mailbox. There's nothing I can do. But God can make it right. And God does make it right once and for all. Let's look at Simon again. Again, I'm the dad, so you have to see pictures of my son. That's Simon. I'll stand out of the way. Okay. So I love Simon. There's absolutely nothing that Simon can do to ruin that love that I have for him. I will continue to love him, even if he pulls away, even if he's disobedient. No matter what happens, I love Simon because he's my son. And I'm his father. But my love pales in comparison with God's love for us. My love is puny compared to God's love for us, because here's the thing: God had a son that looked just like Simon. Just a sweet and precious little boy. A baby born in a manger but destined to die. And the whole time, looking at his son, playing, learning, growing, that's what was in the back of God's mind or in the front of his mind if we're taking Jeremiah seriously or God seriously from the first pages of the Bible. You see, the difference between Simon and Jesus is that Simon is gonna pull away from me, but Jesus never pulled away from the Father. Jesus was perfectly obedient to his dad and walked a perfectly. Life into the murder that he knew was waiting for him. And Jesus is that final and perfect atoning sacrifice for every single one of us so that we don't have to feel like we need to make it right anymore. I want you all to picture your kids and how much you love them as we read this next verse. That's so familiar to us, but really get a sense of God's love for us. John 3 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. I think that feels wrong because it is wrong. It feels backwards because it is. But in God's perfect love and in his perfect clarity, he gave the ultimate sacrifice to make things right with him. And so we have this problem of feeling far away, but understanding that Jesus brings us closer. We might understand that, but what can we practically and actually do? I'm gonna leave you with three things. Three things that I think are very practical application of how we feel closer to God, even in this crazy season where we might feel so far away. The first thing is this accept him. Accept him. It all comes down to Jesus. Romans 10, 9 says, if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. I think belief, the belief part is slightly more simple, although I do understand that belief is not simple for a lot of us. Belief is a struggle where we are constantly working it out. But don't overcomplicate it. If you're feeling, whether it's through a relationship or a YouTube video you heard or something that I've said today, whatever it is, through scripture you're reading, if you're feeling that God actually is who he says he is, that Jesus actually said and did the things that Scripture says that he did and said, respond to that. Accept him. Believe. And then share that. Share that with your friends and family, even though it might be awkward and difficult if you're not from a Christian household, or with the people at your work or your church community here. That's what baptism is all about. It's about sharing the decision and the moment that your life starts new and it starts now. We actually have uh someone getting baptized later today who's already made that decision, which is just uh really awesome. But accept him. And then, secondly, trust he'll give you what you need. Trust that he'll give you what you need. 2 Peter 1.3 says, His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. By his divine power, he's given us everything we need to live a godly life. We don't have to get our life together in order to follow through on it. We don't have to read like a certain percentage of the Bible, and once you've read 51%, then you can join the club. No. If you've accepted Jesus and you're committed to following him, trust that he'll give you what you need. Courage, strength, whatever it is. You don't have to get your finances together or make yourself look super attractive just to be part of this. God will give you everything you need. Don't overcomplicate it. And then lastly, is simply obey. Simply obey. Remember, God wants obedience, and we definitely overcomplicate obedience. We turn obedience into a long list of discrete rules where we either pass or fail, and if we fail any of them, we create that distance between us and God. That's not what obedience really looks like. Obedience is about giving your predecided yes to God. Pre-decide now that God gets your yes. No one would call me an obedient husband because it sounds really strange. Madison's a really obedient husband. No, that just sounds weird. But I am. On my wedding day, I gave Hannah my pre-decided yes. And I choose her and I only choose her every single day. Do the same with God. Give him your predecided yes. And really practically, that that might look like an interesting afternoon for you today. It might look like having that conversation that you know you've needed to have, that you know is the right thing to do, but you've come up with excuses as to why why you shouldn't do it. If you are trying to live in simple obedience to your creator, and you've given him your predecided yes, I think you know what you need to do. Or it might be some aspect of your life that needs to fall away. Some behavior or thought pattern or uh whatever it is. If you've given your predecided yes to God, I think you know what to do. It's that simple. Don't come up with excuses, don't try to justify this or that. Just say yes to him. Because remember, it's a lopsided relationship. He will give you everything you need in order to live a godly life. That's a lopsided relationship. To walk closely, side by side, hand in hand, with simple obedience. I'll give you an example. Uh, several years ago, I was living my life in a way that I knew I shouldn't live. And I was sitting there on the porch reading my Bible, because I was like, I should read my Bible. And I don't know what the scripture verse was, I should have written it down, but I knew that God was directly saying to me, Madison, you either correct this problem or you're directly disobeying me. And I was like, oh no, no, I don't want that conversation. And it terrified me. It absolutely terrified me because I understood the seriousness of God. I understood the bigness and like holiness and like what this meant to say this to me. It terrified me because I had convinced myself that I could make it right on my own, by my own strength. I could bridge that gap. It terrified me because I knew that correcting this problem would be a painful process. But by the grace of God, by his divine power giving everything that I need, I was able to say yes. Was that process painful? Yes. Is my life better now? Yes. Do I still struggle? Yes. I'm still a person. But life is a whole lot better because I'm not confused about what God wants. How long was I gonna live beating myself up and trying to work so hard in order to make it right with him when he fixed the mailbox 2,000 years ago? He's done it for you. Accept it. Trust he'll give you what you need and simply obey. And we're we're gonna finish up with Lord's Supper. So if you have one of your cups, I'll have you grab that right now. I thought Lord's Supper was a perfect way to end today because it just symbolizes everything that God's done for us. And during that last meal, Jesus was talking with his friends, and this is what he said about the juice we're about to drink. And it was wine back then, but you'll get the point. Matthew 26, 26, 28 says, This is my blood of the covenant. And in the footnotes, you'll see the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is stepping into what God was talking about through the prophet Jeremiah. Jesus is stepping into that page one again of the Bible. Through Jesus, we're able to have that close and intimate relationship, that better life where we are fully connected and walking hand in hand with God. That life where he's your God and you're his people. That life where he forgives your wickedness and forgets your sins. That life where his law, what to do, is just written on your heart and on your mind. Through his spirit, we are given that. And what Jesus did on the cross stands as that last act of making it right. Don't beat yourself up. Jesus was beaten up for you. Don't try to fix the mailbox when it's been fine for thousands of years. Just step into the life and the close and loving relationship that the Father wants with you. So let's grab the breath. Lord, I pray that as we receive your body, that we will receive what you have for us. If we feel a million miles away from you, that this moment will make us feel so close and understand that there's no circumstance we can be in, no disobedience that we could do that would keep you far from us. Thank you for letting your body be broken. See the pressure. And Lord, thank you for forgiving our wickedness, forgetting our sin. Your blood washes us clean. By your blood, we can step into a close relationship with you every single day. Lord, I pray that we would just embrace what it means to simply obey you, to walk with you every single day. Thank you for stringing Jesus. Thank you guys for being part of this and for uh for listening to me. It's been it's been awesome. Uh I think we have some baptisms.

Well done, man. Thanks. Let's hear it from Madison one more time. You did a great job.