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So uh Cindy Fournier has a really incredible story about overcoming abuse. And it's a powerful story, it's a very poignant story for a lot of the things that have been going on in our culture. One of the things we're gonna be doing a lot more of this year that I'm so excited about is sharing stories. Because every single one of us has a story, every one of you has a story, and our stories are incredibly powerful. God uses our stories to speak into the lives of others. That's why a lot of times, if it's like a baptism Sunday and people are sharing their stories, half the way through I'm like, why am I even talking today? You know, like this is God, I'm pointless today. You've already communicated so much. And so what we're gonna do this year is is share a lot more stories, a lot more of your stories than ever before, but we're doing it in kind of a unique way. Um, Cindy and I sat down for about half an hour and we just had a completely normal conversation and she got to share so many things. I'm so glad I got to do that. I was blessed by that. And we just recorded the conversation. And so here today we showed you a little snippet of that conversation. But if you want to watch the entire thing, you can go to our website, you can go to the mobile app, click God Stories, and and you can watch the entire conversation uncut at any time. I really would encourage you to. It's an amazing story. It may be something you want to share with someone else, but we're gonna be having a lot of those this year. And I'm just I'm excited for us to all hear what God has done in so many different people's lives, right? It's always good to hear stories. So look forward to that. Today, today we begin a brand new series called Bumping Into God. Bumping into God. You ever bumped into someone and it seemed like a completely random encounter? But then after the fact, you maybe thought, that wasn't by chance. That may have not been as random as I thought. Sometimes the things in our lives that happen to us that seem random or other people would think are random are actually God orchestrated. It's funny because this series has been planned for a while. And the idea behind it is that in Jesus' story, there's a lot of people who bumped into Jesus. They woke up one morning not knowing that they were going to bump into God that day. They thought they were gonna have a normal day, they thought they were going about their normal business, and it just so happened they bumped into Jesus and their entire lives changed. All it takes is one encounter with Jesus to change everything. That's all that it takes. And so this series has been in the works for a while, and it just so happens that this last week I had a bump into someone experience that was totally from God. It was awesome. So on Wednesday morning, I had a meeting in Marietta, and after the meeting, I thought to myself, I'm pretty close to Dick's sporting goods. That's a thought that I have pretty often. I like Dick's sporting goods. I dress like a 12-year-old. I wear basketball shoes and sweatshirts and t-shirts, and that's really all that I wear. That's my wardrobe: jeans, basketball shoes, and a shirt. That's it. In fact, Megan told me not that long ago, you know, Justin, for a while I thought you were gonna like start to dress more maturely, and it seems like you've regressed and you just dress like a 12-year-old. And I thought to myself, what did I wear when I was 12? And yep, this. So yeah, I do. And Dick's Sporting Goods is like my store because it's filled with all the things that I like to wear. And since my son is really into basketball, I always use that as an excuse to go. So if I'm near Dick's Sporting Goods, if I'm down by like Barrett Parkway or up at the one in Canton, if I'm just close by, even if I have like a really busy day, I just I have this thought, like, man, I'm so close, I should probably go. I should probably just go. And so I did. Wednesday morning, I go to Dick Sporting Goods and I'm there, and I get a text while I'm in Dick's, and it says, Hey Justin, are you in Dick Sporting Goods right now? And it was from a number I didn't recognize, and I thought, well, this isn't creepy at all, you know. Someone's watching me right now, but I don't know who it is. And I kind of do this like, I must have looked so suspicious to the people working there, because I'm just like, you know, who's watching me? And then I thought, okay, hold on, this is probably someone who goes to his hands, that makes sense, and a lot more people have my number than I have theirs, and so I just text back, like, hey, yeah, I am, where you, I'll come find you, because my thought is I don't know whose number this is, but I'm sure I'll recognize them when I see them. And so they say, I'm over by the bows and arrows, come meet me. And again, I'm thinking, like, this is gonna be fine. This is totally gonna be fine. You know, this doesn't seem like a scene from a horror movie at all. I'm just walking down the bows and arrows section of a department store, meeting a stranger, everything's gonna work out great. But I walk down the aisle and boom, as soon as I see him, I'm like, wow, it's it's my friend Matt. And Matt is someone who's been a part of our church for a long time. There's probably a lot of Matt's here. I recognize that. But this particular Matt is someone that I hadn't really talked to in about four months. Matt and his family had gone through a lot last year. There's a lot of time in the hospital, a lot of serious medical conditions going on, and I'd spent some time you know praying with Matt and talking with Matt in October of last year, and just really praying through some things going on in his life. And I hadn't talked to him though since that time. It had been about four months since we had conversed at all. But what's crazy is the night before, Tuesday night, Megan and I are sitting on the couch, and Matt just came to my mind. And I told Megan, I wonder how Matt's doing. We need to we need to reach out and find out what's going on. I haven't heard an update in a while, and and I just I need to talk to them. And so I shot Matt a text on Tuesday night. Hey man, thinking and praying about you. Let's connect soon. And so when I see Matt in that aisle at Dick Sporting Goods, I'm like, Matt, what are the odds, dude? I texted you last night and he just has this blank stare in his face. He did not get the text. And I told him, like, no, I texted you. I pulled up my phone and I showed him, you know, to Matt, dude, I'm praying about, you know, praying for you and all that. And then I was like, well, why didn't I recognize the number that he sent me his text from? And he's like, oh, I switched phone numbers like two months ago. And I must not have shared my new number with you. And I'm thinking, well, then somebody who has your old number is like, wow, people are praying for me. This is really cool. This is exciting. You know. But I'm sitting there going, man, what are the odds? What are the odds of randomly, you know, randomly, on Tuesday night, Matt comes to my mind, and there's really no reason for him to it just sort of happened, and I was like, man, I need to reach out to him. I need to, I need to get updated, I need to figure out what's going on in Matt's life. And and I shoot him a text, and little do I know that he's not gonna get that text because I don't have his new number. But the very next day, I just so happened to have a meeting in Marietta, and then I just so happened to go to Dick Sporting Goods, because again, I'm a child, and um, and then like, not that if you go to Dick Sporting Goods, it's for children. I'm just my reasoning was very childlike. I just wanted to go. So I happened to bump into this guy, and we connected and we talked, and I got to hear an update on what's going on with his life, and it was really encouraging, and I was I was also encouraged to know that there's some things that we can do to help, and I was so excited, so glad that I got to connect with him, but but I knew that was God. I mean, again, what are the odds? Sometimes those random moments in our lives are the very moments that God has set up from a long way off. God orchestrates so many incredible moments. Proverbs 16, 9 is a verse that we looked at a couple times last week because of all the God moments that happened as we began our partnership in Guatemala, says that we can make our plans, but the Lord directs our steps. And so now I will go to Dick Sporting Goods every chance I get because God just shows up there. That's what I've learned. Like it's just it's, you know. There were a lot of people in the story of Jesus who just so happen to bump into Jesus. Little did they know that God had orchestrated this connection because he loved them and because he wanted them to experience what only Jesus could have them experience. And we learn so much about Jesus in these moments. You actually learn a lot about who people are and what they're like when you bump into them and they're not expecting it. You know what I mean? It's kind of a different filter. And so we learn a lot about Jesus in these moments. We learn a lot about his power, we learn a lot about his personality, and I think that's really important. In fact, my my number one hope this month as we go through this series is that the personality of Jesus would become more clear to us. Hebrews 1 3 says that the sun radiates God's glory and expresses the very character of God. The message version puts it this way: the sun perfectly mirrors God and is stamped with God's nature. In other words, Jesus is the clearest picture of God the Father that we can get. And so it becomes really important for us to have a clear picture of Jesus because if we don't have a clear picture of Jesus, we will not have a clear picture of God the Father. And if our if our picture of Jesus, if our picture of God is hazy and fuzzy and confused, and when we pray and when we we go to God, we can't go with the kind of directness and boldness that we could go to if we really knew him. You know, think about the people you really know. You know them so well that if someone told you that they did something or said something, you could go, no, they didn't. Because I know them. That doesn't sound like them at all. When you know someone that well, think about your conversations and how direct and how meaningful and how productive those conversations can be. The more clearly we see Jesus, the more clearly we understand who he is and what he values and what he cares about. The more we do that, the more clearly we know God. It changes the way that we pray, it changes the way that we can interact with him. It's very powerful to have a clear picture of Jesus. And I want the personality of Jesus to become more clear to us because, guys, he has a personality. We have to remember that Jesus is God as a person, not God pretending to be a person. It's a big distinction. Sometimes I think when we read the words of Jesus, we'll we'll read it as if Jesus talked in this very ethereal voice and he was just sort of monotone and had no emotion, you know. He's just like, Come, my children, let me share the ways of the world with you. You know, like that. And that's not how it was at all. Jesus has a real personality. I mean, there were things that got Jesus excited. There would be certain things that Jesus would do that that would have driven you crazy if you were one of his friends. Because just like any person, Jesus had idiosyncrasies. He did, because he's a person. Like Jesus could have snored in his sleep. Someone's like, blasphemy. He would have slept like a baby. You know? Maybe. I don't know. I'm just saying he's he's real. He has a real personality. There were things that would have annoyed Jesus. Jesus would have had things that if someone would have done, he'd been like, that drives me crazy. That drives me so crazy. Like I have this thing that if you chew food, like the sound of food being chewed is grating to me. And and anyone else share that? Amen. I'll never forget the day that Megan ate a pickle about two inches from my face in bed. And I was like, why? Hey, why do you have a pickle? Like that's not a random thing. Why do you have a pickle? And why are you eating it that I was asleep? I was right about to be asleep, and I just hear the noise of a pickle, which is crunchy and squishy at the same time, and it was awful. And I was just filled with rage and anger. You know? It's actually a thing, by the way, it's like a disorder that it triggers anger and rage. It's a thing that I have. I'm praying about it. But uh, but Jesus could have had those things. Jesus could have had something that just annoyed him, like, because he's real, he has a personality, and it's kind of humorous to talk about, but at the same time, we need to understand that there are actually things that matter more to Jesus than other things. There's things that Jesus just cares about more than he cares about certain things. In fact, a lot of where religion has gone wrong is wrongly guessing and assuming what God would care most about. The religious people of Jesus' day thought that God cared most about these things, and Jesus shows up and he's like, Yeah, not so much. I really care about this though. And so it's important for us to see Jesus clearly. It's important for us to understand what makes him tick, what he cares about, what he values, what captures his heart. Today we're gonna look at a story of a person who bumped into God, and this story reveals something really powerful to us. Something really powerful if we can grab a hold of it, and it's what gets God's attention. What got Jesus' attention? What made Jesus stop and give significant focus to someone? I mean, how how amazing would it be if if we could get God's attention, right? And I want to be clear like, God gives us his attention. He loves all people. And he will give every person in this world the attention that they need. But at the same time, there are things that we see in Scripture that certain people did, and it's almost like God stopped and gave them extra attention because whatever they did really grabbed a hold of him. And we see this in the story today. We see, in a sense, what Jesus cares about so much, what he values so much, that he stops and gives his full attention to it. So we're going to look at a story in Luke chapter 18. It's a story of a blind man named Bartimaeus. And let's just go ahead and read it, and then we'll unpack it a little bit. As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind beggar was sitting beside the road. And when he heard the noise of a crowd going past, he asked what was happening, and they told him that Jesus the Nazarene was going by. So he began shouting, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And be quiet. The people in front yelled at him, but he only shouted louder. And when Jesus heard him, he stopped and he ordered that the man be brought to him. As the man came near, Jesus asked him, What do you want me to do for you? Lord, he said, I want to see. And Jesus said, All right, receive your sight. Your faith has healed you, and instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus, praising God, and all who saw it praised God too. A lot of the stories we're going to look at this month are like this one. They're very short, they're succinct, they're kind of neatly wrapped. And it'd be very easy just to read this story and move on and go, oh, cool, Jesus heals a blind guy. That's awesome. That's powerful, that's amazing. I know sometimes, by the way, that we can read stories where miraculous things happen and we're sort of like, uh, the miraculous stuff, it kind of some people have a hard time with that. And I guess I'll just say this we're gonna read a miracle pretty much every single week, but it shouldn't be surprising to us that our supernatural God does supernatural things. Like, if God doesn't do supernatural things, that means he's not supernatural, which means he's not God. And I think we should actually expect, when we follow a supernatural God, to see supernatural things happen. I used to be someone who, if someone started talking to me about something miraculous, I would sort of like pull back and go, like, are you crazy? And then I had some things happen in my life that that were supernatural. And it showed me, oh no, God is God. And the miracles that we see in the Bible weren't limited to the time of the Bible being written. Those miracles still happen today. God still does supernatural things. And if you need God to do a supernatural thing in your life, if you have a problem that only God can solve, then be glad that you have put your faith in the God who can solve your problems. Because he still does supernatural things. But I don't just want to focus on the obvious because sometimes when we read these stories, we're like, oh, cool, it's a story of a man being healed, but there's so much more going on. Even though the story is very succinct and neatly wrapped, if we unpack it, there's a lot going on behind the scenes between the lines. I want to look at that. Number one, let's kind of look at this through the perspective of Bartimaeus. Let's think about who this man is. It becomes clear very early in the story that he's not expecting to meet Jesus that day. So he didn't know that Jesus was going to be in town because when he hears this buzz, when he hears all this commotion, he has to ask, hey, what's going on? And someone tells him, Jesus of Nazareth is here. And instantly, like the exact moment that Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is nearby, what does he do? He shouts. He says, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. So it becomes also clear that Bartimaeus knows who Jesus is. Because he doesn't say, uh, who's Jesus of Nazareth? I'm not familiar. Someone goes, Oh, you haven't heard of Jesus of Nazareth? Oh, he's this guy that's been traveling around all over the country and he's doing crazy things, like miraculous things. I heard he even killed a blind person like you. And he goes, Oh, are you serious? I didn't know. I gotta go figure out who this guy is, and he goes up to Jesus. No, the second he hears that it's Jesus, he instantly shouts out as if he has full knowledge of who Jesus is, and that's because Bartimaeus had absolutely heard the stories of Jesus. Because virtually everyone at this point in history, in this place in the world, had heard stories about Jesus. There was no person more talked about, there was no person more famous than Jesus of Nazareth in that time and in that place. It says in John chapter 6, verse 2 that huge crowds followed Jesus wherever he went because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Jesus is doing things. Again, very important for us to remember that our God is a God who does things. Our God is a God of action. And he's doing things that no one could do. He's healing lepers, and he's healing the lame, and he's healing the blind, and he's healing sick people, and he's performing these miracles, and it's creating a buzz. And by the way, when it says huge crowds followed him, we're talking crowds of around 10,000 people. Like there's a story. I mean, just imagine you're Jesus. There's a story of Jesus needing to get away because he's received some really devastating news, and he just needs to go be by himself with his closest friends, and he needs to pray. And then he opens his eyes, and upwards of 10,000 people have shown up where he's at. 10,000 people. Have you ever been in a crowd of 10,000 people? That's the kind of buzz that Jesus generated when he went somewhere. Everyone was talking about Jesus. In fact, in Luke chapter 23, Jesus has been arrested. And part of his trial process was that he needed to go see Herod, who was the governor of that area under the Roman Empire. Herod called himself a king, but he wasn't a king. Rome ruled Israel, but Rome was okay if Herod wanted to pretend that he was a king, if that made him feel better, just so long as he kept Israel doing what Rome wanted Israel to do. And so Jesus goes to see King Herod, and it says in Luke chapter 23, verse 8, Herod was delighted at the opportunity to see Jesus, because he had heard about him and had been hoping for a long time to see him perform a miracle. Herod asked Jesus to perform for him, and Jesus is not a performer, so he does not. But even Herod, even the highest-ranking person in the entire country, has heard about Jesus and has long, long awaited a chance to meet Jesus. So everybody's talking about Jesus. And there's no question that Bartimaeus had heard. In fact, I would imagine Bartimaeus heard people talk about Jesus a lot because Bartimaeus, as a blind person, had to beg for a living. This is at a time when the government did not provide for the disabled. And honestly, the religious, like the church at that time, they didn't really provide for the disabled as well because they had this idea that if you were disabled, it was judgment from God. And so there wasn't a lot of compassion. You couldn't expect compassion if you were Bartimaeus from institutions. You would rely on the compassion and the generosity of individual people. Which means every day Bartimaeus would have gotten up and he would have placed himself in some public place, in a place where the most people would pass by in a day, and he would have just sat there and asked and waited for people to be generous enough to hand him something. And there's no question that in those places, in those crowds, in the busy places, in the intersections of culture, that Bartimaeus would have heard a lot of people talk about a lot of things. Like I would go ahead and venture that Bartimaeus could have given you the inside scoop on all the buzz, all the juicy gossip in town. Bartimaeus was probably keyed into all of it because he sat every single day, and though he could not see, he definitely heard. He listened. And so just imagine being Bartimaeus, and you're sitting in the square, you're sitting in the marketplace like you do every single day, you're hearing all these people talk about what's going on, and one day you hear this name Jesus. And you're listening as people are talking about this Jesus and a miracle that he's performed, and you listen intently, and people are saying that he's healed people and he's healed people of things that no one could possibly heal people from. He's healed people of leprosy. And your ears begin to perk up because you have a problem that only God could solve. And then you hear a story one day that Jesus has healed a blind person, and you're Barmaeus, and you hear that. And maybe for the first time in your life you have hope? Maybe it's possible for you to actually be able to see. I imagine Bartimaeus hearing about Jesus could have even prayed and asked and maybe even begged God to send Jesus his way one day. God, could you please bring Jesus to my town? Could you please bring Jesus to Jericho? You very much get the impression, in fact, I think it's it's completely true, that Bartimaeus believed in Jesus long before he met him. Hearing these stories about Jesus was enough for Bartimaeus, that his faith was in Jesus. Because when Jesus shows up, Bartimaeus does not go timidly. Bartimaeus is bold. The second he hears it's Jesus, he shouts. And he shouts so loud that the people tell him to be quiet. That means the people were embarrassed. They were embarrassed at how loud and demonstrative Bartimaeus was being. By the way, the Jewish culture at that time was an extremely demonstrative culture. Like if a tragedy happened in your area, you would rip your clothing, pour ashes on your head, go into the city streets, and wail. That's the culture that they live in. And apparently Bartamaus is being so loud and so demonstrative that those people are like, you're starting to freak people out. Okay? Like you're embarrassing us. We don't want to be seen near you. So he's shouting, you know, he's shouting for Jesus, and everyone says, be quiet, and it doesn't dissuade him. He shouts even louder. He says, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

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And what he says there is very, very important. It gets Jesus' attention.

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Because we're told that Jesus stopped. And here's Jesus walking on his way, and there's all kinds of people that are grabbing at Jesus and yelling for Jesus and trying to get Jesus' attention, but something that Bartimaeus says it catches Jesus' attention so much so that he stops what he's doing. He has everyone pause and he brings Bartimaeus to him. And I believe it was more than just the volume with which Bartimaeus spoke, it was the words that came out of his mouth because that phrase, son of David, was a very loaded phrase. See, the the Jewish people had a prophecy that one day a Messiah would come, and that Messiah would bring in a new era of God's relationship, a new covenant, a new type of relationship between people and God. That the Messiah would be able to free them from oppression. And it was prophesied that this Messiah would come from the line of King David, a king that we meet in the Old Testament, a very famous king in Israel's history. And so the people were awaiting the day when a son of David would show up and fulfill the prophecy. Jesus came from the bloodline of King David. But you'll notice that the people around Barnamaeus do not refer to Jesus as son of David. When Barnabas says, hey, what's going on? They don't turn around to Bartimaeus and say, Jesus, the son of David, is here. That's because those people aren't all in yet with who Jesus is. They see Jesus as a great teacher, as a miracle worker, but they may not see him as the son of God. So Bartimaeus doesn't get this whole son of David thing from the people around him. Bartimaeus has already made a decision in his heart as to what he believes about Jesus. And so when he hears Jesus is nearby, he doesn't just yell his name, he yells Son of David. It might as, in their culture, it would have been no different if Jesus, or if Bartimaeus rather, just yelled Messiah, Savior, Son of God. He's yelling, acknowledging who Jesus actually is. And that had to mean so much to Jesus because no one has ever been as misunderstood as Jesus. No one has ever been as underestimated as Jesus. You have all these people as Jesus is walking around and they're all saying, you know, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And all of a sudden, one person, one person is actually calling Jesus who he actually is. One person is saying, Jesus, son of David. Amidst this sea of voices, Jesus hears one person acknowledge who he actually is.

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And that makes Jesus's ears perk up. And he stops. When you recognize who Jesus is, it's a very powerful thing.

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When you recognize and declare who Jesus is, it gets his attention. Like it affects him. We see this, for example, in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus takes his disciples to a place called Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was kind of a cultural hub, and there would have been a lot of different people that practiced a lot of different faiths. And so with the backdrop of Caesarea Philippi and all this worship to all these different gods, Jesus asks his disciples, Who do people say that I am? And all the responses are good. One of the disciples says, People think you're nuts. People think you're a charlatan, you're just some trickster, you're just some type of fraud. No, they all say really good things. They say, Oh, Jesus, people think you're a prophet. Which is a big deal, by the way, because at that point in Israel's history, there hadn't been a prophet in about 400 years. So they're saying you're the first person to directly hear from God in 400 years. That's a flattering thing to say. The disciples say, some say that you're Elijah, the great prophet of old, who's returned. I mean, that's an amazing thing to say. To say someone's Elijah, Elijah, we spent a lot of time talking about him last year. Elijah was awesome. And Jesus listens to all the good things that people have said about him, and then he stops and he says, a very pointed question. I believe a question that all of us have to answer at some point in time. Who do you say that I am? He says, Who do you say that I am? And you have to imagine the silence that fell, because it's a lot easier to tell Jesus what other people have said than it is to tell him what you think. And Peter speaks up first, and Peter says, I say you're the Messiah. And when we see this in verse 16, I'll just read it. Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus replied, You are blessed, Simon, son of John, because my father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say that you are Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven. So, in other words, Peter gets the answer right, and he seems to get a pretty cool prize. You know, you win the keys to the kingdom of heaven. The declaration to Jesus of who Jesus actually is, it affected Jesus. When Peter said, You're the Messiah, I'm not gonna hedge, I'm not gonna give some like on the fence answer of you're a good teacher, you're a great prophet. He says, I'm going bold, I'm saying that you are nothing short of God in the flesh. And when Peter said that, he got a new name. He got a new identity, he got a new destiny. Jesus was affected by the statement that Peter made, and he blessed Peter richly. It's a really powerful story, by the way. In fact, it's interesting, his name was Simon until that moment. And Jesus says, from now on, I'll call you Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock I will build my church. But but if you read it in the original language in the Greek, there's two different words that are used for rock. And so when Jesus names him Peter and says that means rock, he uses the word petros, which means a stone, like a stone you could pick up, a stone that you might skip on water, or something like that. So he says, Simon, I'm gonna name you Petros, stone. And then he says, and upon this rock I will build my church. And that was a different word. That was the word petra, which means a large, massive stone, a stone that would be fitting to lay as a foundation for something. What that means is that Peter himself is not the rock that the church is built on. Peter is a stone. The rock that the church is built on is the declaration that Jesus is God. When Jesus said, upon this rock, I will build my church, he wasn't saying upon you personally, I will build my church, Peter. He's saying upon the declaration that you've just made, that statement that you just said, Peter, that I am the Son of God, that is the foundation of the church. That's why it's so important for us as believers. It's so important for us individually and corporately as a church to never hedge. No matter how politically incorrect it is, to unashamedly and boldly declare that Jesus Christ is God, that he is not a way, he is the way, he is the king of kings, he is the Lord of lords, that he alone is the Messiah. That is the foundation of the church. And I'm proud of that. Like, be proud to stand with Jesus. Even if culture looks at Jesus and evaluates him and grades him and says, eh, you know, stand with Jesus. And stand proudly and boldly declare who Jesus is. Because when you do that, you get his attention. Like you better believe that if you're a person who has said out loud and you've crossed a line in your heart that you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you better believe that Jesus would stop for you, just like he stopped for Bartimaeus.

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Because when you make that declaration, you affect him. He sees that.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

It means something to Jesus for you to tell him who he is. I mean, really, when you think about it, what has God asked us to do to be his followers? To enter into the family of God. He hasn't asked us to do some giant thing. We don't have to scale some mountain. We don't have to prove ourselves worthy. You know, we'd have to do something crazy like never eat meat again or root for the Patriots. We don't have to do something weird like that. We just like, what does he ask us to do? It's a rule that on Super Bowl Sunday you have to throw in football jokes. It's like a church thing, you gotta do it. I've now checked off that box and we can move on. Um what does he ask us to do? It's it's pretty simple. Romans 10, 9. If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Like you cannot put it more simply, you cannot put it more succinctly or bluntly. What does God ask us to do? To openly declare that Jesus is Lord. To believe and to declare. That's what he asks us to do, to step into a relationship with him. When you shout out to God, I believe in you. You are my God, you are Lord. That's why it's so important we worship together. So many of the songs that we sing are just us telling God who he is, and it's not like God's forgotten. It's not like God wakes up in the morning if he sleeps, I don't know, but and just goes, Oh yeah, I'm God. Man, it's good to be reminded of that. I totally forgot. That really changes what I'll do with my day now. Thank you. No, no, like he knows who he is, but we need to be reminded who he is. Because we have this tendency as human beings to put our faith in something. The reality is, is you can meet someone who's an atheist. It doesn't really matter what they say they believe, every human being on this earth is built to worship. And every human being on this earth will find something or someone to worship. You might worship your own intellect, you might worship success, you might worship money, you might worship pleasure. Every human being on this earth finds something to worship. But there's only one thing worth worshiping, and it's Jesus. And so when we put our faith in him, and when we we declare to him your Jesus, just like Bartimaeus did, he didn't just say Jesus of Nazareth like everyone else around him. He said, Son of David, Messiah, God. Jesus stops. He stops and he gives you his attention. Just imagine what it would be like to have Jesus walk up to you and say, What could I do for you? Because that's what he says to Bartimaeus. And all Bartimaeus did was acknowledge who Jesus actually is. I'm telling you, if you want to get God's attention, if you want to know that God is paying attention to you, that God sees what you're going through, that he's watching you, just tell him who he is. Begin that way. Because when you boldly declare that he's God, it affects him.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

And you have his attention. And here's the reality, he loves you. And so his attention is a really good thing for you to have.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

A few years ago, I was having breakfast with Ken Kington near Marietta, so then I went to Dick Sporting Goods, but before I did that, I had breakfast with Ken. And uh and Ken and I can't remember what we were meeting about, but it was something official. By the way, Ken's gonna be speaking with us in March, which is really exciting. I always love it when Ken's with us. Um but but Ken and I were hanging out and we were talking about something church related, and uh and and at one point in time his phone rang and he picked it up, and it was his wife Heather, and he did that thing when you're meeting with someone and the phone rings, he went like to me, just a second. And he talked to her like five minutes, which I thought was a bit much. Because we were like we were having a meeting, you know. This was something I blocked out this time of my day, and Megan had called me a few minutes before, and I had said, Well, I will call her back when the meeting is over. You know, like a responsible adult. And uh, and so whenever Ken hangs up the phone, I just looked at him and said, Hey, is everything okay? Because in my mind, I mean it must be something serious because you know we were meeting and talked for five minutes and whatnot. And Ken goes, oh yeah, everything's fine. I've just told Heather that no matter who I'm with, no matter what I'm doing, if you call, I will answer.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

And I was like, Oh, yeah, I mean, I mean, I do the same, I do the same thing with Megan, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Like, I was super convicted in that moment. It's funny, I don't remember what we talked about at all that day, what we were planning, but I will never forget that moment. And from that moment on, I've made a commitment that if Megan calls, I will answer. And so the reality is when Megan calls me as my wife, as my bride, she expects me to answer. So when Megan needs me, when she's reaching out for my attention, she is not surprised when she gets it. In fact, she expects that. Jesus used the idea of marriage to express the relationship that God has with us. And he called himself in one parable the groom. And the church, we're his bride. In Ephesians, we're told this, chapter 5, verse 25 Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. So the idea is that God loves us like a groom should love his bride. So when it comes to God's attention, to getting his attention, to having his attention, do we understand the love that he has for us? And the nature of it is such that he stops for us. That if you're someone who has said that you believe in him, and again, if you haven't, he loves you too. Please hear that. But if you are someone who like Peter, who like Bartimaeus, has said, I believe in you, Jesus, I call you Lord, then in his eyes you are like a bride, and he's like a groom, and he will stop for you. And when you call out to him, he will answer. Do you expect him to answer? I gotta think about that for myself. Like when I call out to God, when I cry out to God, do I expect him to stop for me? To give me his attention and to answer me, or am I surprised when he does? Sometimes I hear, I hear people talk, Jesus followers talk, and if God answers a prayer, it's like shocking. Like it's a one in a million thing. Like, oh my gosh, I'm actually one of the lucky few who God actually answered. And I think it should be the opposite. I think we should be surprised when he doesn't. You know, Paul was like that, by the way. Paul is someone who saw God do all these miracles through, and Paul would pray, and God would show up, and one time Paul prayed for God to do something specifically, and God didn't do it. And Paul was like, What? God, it was like a crisis of faith for Paul. He's like, I don't understand. I've prayed for this three times, God. Not once, not twice, three times. You see the kind of faith that Paul had. Paul's like, having to pray for something three times is ridiculous. You know? I guess he's shocked that after three prayers, he hasn't had this answer, and then God speaks to him and says, Paul, I'm actually doing something different. And you might seem really weak right now, but but my strength is made perfect in your weakness. So just trust that even though I'm not solving your problem the way you want me to solve it, I'm doing something. And Paul said, Okay. But you can tell that Paul was not someone who would be surprised if you said, I prayed for something, and you wouldn't believe this, Paul. But God did it. And Paul would just be like, Yeah. That's what he does. What did you expect? I say all this and we'll wrap up. Worship team, if you guys want to make your way out. Do we live understanding our unique place in God's heart? When you openly declare that Jesus is Lord, when you do that, you get his attention, and you cross a line. And it's a very important line. When you declare that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that he is who he says he is, you cross a line in your heart and you now stand with Jesus, and that means that in his eyes you are his bride. And he's gonna love you with that kind of intensity, which means that when you need him, he's gonna be there. That means that when you call out to him, he's going to answer. But do we live recognizing that? When we pray, do we pray like that? Like when Megan calls me and I don't answer, she gets kind of ticked. You know? Then she just texts me, you need to call me. Now I want to have a little bit more, like, God is much more over me, right? So I don't know if I would be like, hey God, I mean, come on, excuse me. But at the same time, if God loves us that much, if he cares for us that much, if we really are his bride, because we have declared that he is who he is, then we shouldn't be surprised when he answers us. Then we should call out to him and cry out to him with the faith and the belief that he is going to come to us and say, What can I do for you? What do you need God to do for you today? Ask him. Cry out to him. Remind him, I believe in you. I believe you're God. And trust him. Trust him to do for you what he did for Barnamaeus. He will stop for you, he will give you his attention, and he will meet your need. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for your love. Thank you so much, Lord, for who you are, for what you do. You are so good to us. You are more than we deserve, but you're everything that we need. And Lord, I just ask that that right now in this room that you would speak to those of us that that know you, that you would remind us that just like yesterday, just like tomorrow, you're still God, that you are the way, that you are the truth, that you are the life. Lord, I ask that you would remind us that we have your attention. That you would remind us, Lord, that by the simple step of declaring who you are, by us saying, You are God, you are Lord, you are Savior, you are the King of Kings, you are the one who is above all things. You are the name above all names, you are the Alpha, you are the Omega, that when we declare who you are, Jesus, it blesses you. And you in turn bless us, just like you did with Peter, just like you did with Bartimaeus. We want to be people boldly declaring who you are, reminding not just our world but ourselves that our God is real and our God can do anything. So, Lord, speak to us now as we worship you with this song. This is just an example of us shouting out that you are you are who you said you are. We love you, Jesus, and we ask all this in your name. Amen. Hey, real quick before we sing, um, this song is called Hosanna, and that word Hosanna comes from a very specific place in Scripture. When Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem right before he was crucified, the people shouted out Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. That was them acknowledging that Jesus was the Messiah. So as we sing this song, we're doing exactly, like exactly what we're talking about today. We are declaring that Jesus is God with the faith and the belief that that blesses him, that that gets his attention. And just one final thing before we sing is look, if you're here today and you maybe haven't gotten to the place in your life yet where you have said out loud, you have declared, you've made it clear, I belong to Jesus, I believe in Jesus. Maybe you've been thinking about that, maybe you've been wrestling with that, but you're just, you've always sort of been on the fence. When the time comes, when you're ready to make that step and you say, Hey, I believe in Jesus, I want to offer something to you. Um, I've thrown this number on the screen a bunch of times. We're just going all in with the whole texting thing. Um, but here's the thing if if you decide that you want to follow Jesus, if you decide to cross that line that we talked about, to cross that line of faith where you declare that he's God, he's your God, he's your Lord, we want to help you in that process. We want to help you in the early stages of that decision. And so if you text the word ready to that number at any time, that's you saying, I'm ready to follow Jesus. And here's what's gonna happen myself or someone on our team is gonna reach out to you in the next few days, we're gonna give you a call. And we just wanna pray with you, we want to we want to listen to your story, we want to hear from you, we want to answer any questions that you might have. We just want to help you personally get started in your journey on the right trajectory. And that means praying with you, that means maybe some advice, that means being a resource to you that you can ask questions of. We just want to help you, we want to come alongside you and help you out because we love you and your family. So take advantage of that if that's something that you'd like to do. Um, if everyone wouldn't mind standing for a second. Our God is named Jesus, and he is alive and he is real, and there is nothing he cannot do, and he stops to give us his attention. How powerful is that! Let's worship him together. Let's celebrate who our God is and what our God can do. Will you do that with me? Let's sing together.