Well, if uh if you're just joining us for the last few weeks, we've been having a conversation about a conversation. It's a conversation that happened 2,000 years ago, late one night in the city of Jerusalem. Conversation between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. I believe it's the most important conversation that has ever taken place in the history of our world. Because it's in this one conversation that Jesus explains in rich detail who he really is, why he came. He explains who God is. He explains what God actually values, what motivates God. This one conversation has shaped the way that humanity sees God like no conversation before. Nicodemus was a very important religious leader. He's a man who thought he had God figured out. It's amazing how easy it is for us to get that mindset where we think we've got God all figured out. He had God put in a box that he really liked, it made sense, he was comfortable with that box, and then Jesus showed up and totally broke his box. He was a little frustrated, he had a lot of questions, he was upset, but he made the decision to go to Jesus and deal with Jesus and learned that the box needed to go, that he needed to come to terms with who God really is. It's this one conversation that changed everything, not just for him, but for all humanity. It's this one conversation that we get the concept of being born again from. It's from this one conversation that the verse, John 3.16, probably the most famous verse that's come from any faith in history, for God so loved the world that he gave us his one and only son. It's that conversation with Nicodemus that that came from. Nicodemus was the first person to hear those words. So this is definitely a conversation worth talking about. And that's what we're gonna spend the first part of our summer together doing, looking at this conversation because it speaks today. It's just as relevant for our lives today as it as it was for Nicodemus' life 2,000 years ago. I'm really excited about today because today we actually get to the point in the conversation when Jesus talks. We spent the last two weeks looking at two verses that just had to do with Nicodemus and who he was and why he came to Jesus. And I've been saying for the last few weeks that we're gonna pick the pace up, we're gonna start moving faster than one verse at a time or half a verse at a time, and we absolutely are gonna do that. Next week we're gonna pick the pace up big time, and so be here next week as we start going through more. But see, it's very important to me, I think it's very important for all of us that we spend time this morning focusing on the words Jesus chooses to lead off with. Because Jesus was not a man to waste words. I'm not like that, by the way. I use a lot of words. Like I many of the words I use in a day are wasted words. They didn't need to be said. I chose a very wordy way to say something. I talk a lot, and so sometimes you have to sort of grab a hold of something good within the large volume of words that come out of my mouth. Jesus was different. He was not this talkative person that just talked and talked and talked and talked. Jesus was very careful with the words he used. In fact, many times in the Gospels, you'll see Jesus say something, and it looks like something has come out of his mouth wrong. It looks like he has said something that maybe he should have thought of a better way to say it because of the way that people react to it. And his disciples, you can see, even coming up to him, going, Hey Jesus, I don't know if you understand how that came across. And he said, No, I totally understand. He speaks with a purpose. The words he chooses, he chooses well. And see, Jesus knew this conversation would be talked about for generations upon generations. And the words Jesus chooses to use to begin this conversation are of utmost importance. And it's so good for us to listen to this because when Jesus speaks, we should always listen. Just hearing Jesus speak can change everything in your life. Just hearing him speak. There are people whose lives changed in Scripture because Jesus talked to them, and that's all that happened. There was a woman at a well, and Jesus spoke to her, had a conversation with her, totally changed the trajectory of her life. There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a criminal. He was selfish, he was corrupt. He had dinner with Jesus one time, talked with Jesus one time over a meal, and became an incredibly generous human being. Talking to Jesus, hearing from Jesus, is always powerful. Like we just sang, there was a storm. It was raging, and when Jesus spoke, that storm stopped because it wanted to hear Jesus. That's how powerful the words of Jesus are. And so I'm so, so excited to jump into these words. Why don't we do that? Okay. John 3 1, let's go ahead and go back to the beginning of John 3 because we haven't gotten very far anyway. There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. Rabbi, he said, We all know that God has sent you to teach us your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you. And Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, unless you were born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, next week we're gonna explore this whole concept of being born again and what it means, because Nicodemus doesn't really know what to make of that statement, so he responds with some sarcasm, and he and Jesus have an exchange about what it means to be born again. It's a big concept. We're gonna cover that next week. Today, though, I want to focus on that first phrase that came out of Jesus' mouth. I tell you the truth. I tell you the truth. Do you know anyone who says something like over and over and over again? Do you have a friend or maybe someone you're related to that that has a certain phrase that they just use all the time, and maybe when they use it, you can roll your eyes because they say it so much? A few years ago, Megan made me aware that I had a phrase like that. I hope, I think I've I've broken this habit, but she said that I always said the phrase, no way, shape, or form, like every single day. There would be a reason where I would say, in no way, shape, or form should this happen. In no way, shape or form should we be doing this. Or in no way, shape, or form, and she would just be like, stop, stop saying that. Stop it. Hypothetically, let's say I said something that came out wrong to Megan. Hypothetically, obviously, right? You know, hypothetically, I said something that came out in a way that could be taken the wrong way, especially by the person that you're married to. And hypothetically, Megan may have responded by saying, I cannot believe you said that, hypothetically. And then I would say, hypothetically, in no way, shape, or form did I imply this when I said that. You're just, you're hearing it wrong, you know? Hypothetically. I used to say that all the time, and so Megan kind of broke me of that because she would just roll her eyes and say, please stop saying that phrase. No one says that anymore. And Jesus, he was a person, he is a person, and so Jesus has a personality like you and me. And there were phrases that Jesus used all the time. And if you're gonna pick a catchphrase of Jesus, you might as well settle on the phrase, I tell you the truth, because he says it constantly. Matthew chapter 5, verse 18. Jesus says, I tell you the truth. Until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved. Matthew 6, 2, when you give to someone in need, don't do as the hypocrites do. Blowing trumpets in the synagogues, in the streets to call attention to their acts of charity. I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. John 5 19. So Jesus explained, I tell you the truth. The Son can do nothing by himself, he does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. John 5 24. I tell you the truth. Look there, he says it again. Those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, for they've already passed from death into life. Guess how John 13 20 begins? Just take a guess. I tell you the truth. Anyone who welcomes my messenger is welcoming me, and anyone who welcomes me is welcoming the Father who sent me. In the Gospels, those first four books of the New Testament that tell us the story of Jesus, Jesus says the phrase, I tell you the truth, 68 times. I'm sure his disciples rolled their eyes. Hypothetically. I'm sure that happened. See, this phrase reminds us of why to this day Jesus is the most relevant person in your life. That to this day, there is no person that you should pay as close attention to as you pay to Jesus. There's no person that you should listen to as intently as you listen to Jesus. There's no person you should seek to understand like you seek to understand Jesus. There is no person in your life today, not your spouse, not your best friend, not your children, not your employer. There is no person in your life that is as relevant to you and to your life's success as Jesus Christ. Because Jesus always tells you the truth. He always tells the truth. Think about how rare that is for just a second. Think about how rare it is to actually hear someone tell the truth consistently. It's political season. And so we're gonna be having an election. A very interesting election. That's all I'm gonna say. And it's it's amazing, right? Because when you think about presidential candidates, do we even expect presidential candidates to tell us the truth anymore? Is that even an expectation that we have? I don't even think it is. I don't think we get even mad anymore when we find out someone's lied. It's just kind of like, yeah, that's how it goes. But imagine if a presidential candidate told you the truth before they were caught. Before some piece of investigative journalism made them tell the truth, made them fess up. Suppose a candidate comes out and says, hey, I'm running for president. And before we get started, I just need to put some things on the table. No one knows about this stuff, but I've made some mistakes. I just want you guys to know who I am. I want to begin with honesty and openness. That would make headlines. That would be political suicide. The truth. Come on. But not just in the public arena. Think about your own life personally. Think about how rare it is for the people in your life to be consistently honest with you. It's not your fault, it's not their fault. People struggle to be consistently honest because they don't really know the truth. How many times have you had someone come to you thinking they knew the truth about you, talking to you about what they perceived to be the truth, but if they would have just asked you a few questions, they would have realized that they were off. They made assumptions, they didn't know the truth. How can they speak the truth if they don't know the truth? Jesus always knows the truth. That woman at that well that we mentioned, whose life was changed, the game-changing moment was when Jesus showed her that he really knew who she was. He knew everything about her, and he loved her regardless. Jesus knows the truth. Not just the people in our lives. Think about our society as a whole. Can we trust our culture to be honest with us? Can we trust society to give us the truth? Our society doesn't even believe in the concept of truth anymore. Doesn't even believe in it. The most accepted idea of truth in our culture today is the statement there is no absolute truth. Raise your hand if you've heard that statement, there's no absolute truth. Okay. That's an absolute statement. That is an absolute statement saying that there are no absolutes. I mean, think about that. If the statement there is no absolute truth is true, it means that there is an absolute truth. It's just that that absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth, and that means there is absolute truth, it's just super confusing. But it's okay because our culture celebrates confusion. Our society can't tell us the truth if our society doesn't even acknowledge truth. So what our society does instead is elevate this concept of personal truth. And we've all experienced this. We live in this world. What's your truth? What's my truth? And our culture has told us that we get to decide what's true and what's not true within ourselves. We get to define that. And the results are mixed to disastrous. Because when I elevate my truth above the truth, I'm always at risk for getting way, way off track. Think about any controversial subject that we have in our culture today. Just pick one. And we're not going to get into these, we're not going to examine these, that's not the purpose of today, but it doesn't matter if you pick abortion or gender identity, it doesn't matter. Just ask yourself this question about that controversial topic, regardless of what your opinion is on it. Is the prevailing view of our culture on that issue based on facts, discernible, testable facts, or is it based on the my truth of a group of people? That's what our culture values. Years before we had GPS and sophisticated satellite technology that helped us navigate, sailors would rely on the stars to navigate at sea. And it's interesting because the stars aren't very reliable as a navigation tool because the earth rotates. We all know this, we all took science class, right? The earth rotates on an axis, and so if you look at a star in the night sky over the course of that night, especially over the course of several nights, that star is going to appear to move because the earth is rotating. That's the perspective that we have. So the stars aren't very reliable except for this one convenient fact that there is one star that happens to sit pretty much directly above the axis of the earth in terms of our line of sight. We call that the North Star. And so if you were to take a time-lapse picture of a night sky with a North Star in view, over the course of a day or so, this is what it would look like. All the stars become circles as the Earth rotates, but in the middle, you have the North Star, and it's reliable. And so sailors would follow that North Star, and they learned where other stars were in relation to that star, and that fixed point, that actual truth, is what guided them. What would have happened back then if a group of sailors, before they set out on a voyage, said, Hey, we reject the idea of the North Star. It's offensive. We reject the idea that there's one star that's right, we're gonna choose the star we're gonna follow. I like that star. I believe that star is the right star. They would have died. And it wouldn't have even taken very long. See, when we elevate personal truth above actual truth, we get way off track. That's just what happens. I I don't have the ability to tell myself the truth. I really don't. I try, but I can't rely on my truth to tell me the truth about myself. I'm very subjective about myself. I have no ability to be objective about me. I'm very involved with me. Right? Me and me are very enmeshed. And so, how can I be the one that's responsible? How can I be the one that's reliable to tell myself the complete truth about myself? I can't. See, the truth, the truth is the most relevant thing in our lives. In part because it's oftentimes absent from life. When something valuable is absent, it's immediately relevant. If I haven't had anything to drink in days, water is extremely relevant to me. If I haven't had food for a week, food is very relevant to me. And in a world full of people, many of us can admit this about ourselves, full of people who are searching and grasping at straws, people who are desperate to find something in life to hold on to, something in life that's gonna give us what we actually need. In a world like that, the truth is the most relevant thing there is. And that makes Jesus the most relevant person in the world because he is the one person who knows the truth and always, always, always tells the truth. Jesus said, I tell you the truth all the time because Jesus tells the truth all the time. And here's where it's really great. This is what makes it even better. When Jesus tells you the truth, he tells you the truth because he loves you. Because he's crazy about you and he wants you to go far in life. He believes in you. He has dreams for your life that are greater than the dreams that you gave up because you thought they were too big for you. He has greater dreams than that for your life. He believes in you, he cares about you, and he loves you enough to tell you the truth so that you'll get there. It's how much he loves you. You ever known someone that told you the truth, but they just told you the truth so you'd know it? So you'd realize how far you have to go. They didn't care that you actually improve, they didn't help you. That person's like a scale that tells your way. Like I step on a scale and it tells me the truth, but I'm not thankful to the scale. That scale's a jerk, right? I'm like, oh, thanks for the reminder. Why did I even step on you today? I knew. I knew before I stepped on. It's not like eating pizza yesterday, help me. I mean, come on. Sometimes we have people in our lives like that. They may have told us the truth, but they told us the truth simply to expose how far we have to go. With no desire to actually see us get there. Jesus is not like that. He's not like that at all. Have you ever had a friend, someone in your life that loved you so much they were willing to tell you the truth, even if it was hard to hear, because they wanted you to grow. Because they wanted you to succeed. Proverbs 27:6 puts it this way, and so true. Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. When you have someone who loves you enough to just tell you the truth, it's valuable. I have a lot of people like that in my life. God has been so generous to send me so many people willing to tell me the truth. So many people committed to my growth. It's wonderful. One of those people is Megan, my wife. Megan is passionate about being honest with me. So passionate. And there have been times in our marriage where I've gotten very frustrated at that. Like I'll have an idea, and I'll start to communicate it to Megan, and maybe it's a very early idea. I haven't thought through it, and I'll explain it, and I'm really excited about it, and she'll just kind of look at me and go, yeah, yes, that is an idea. That is an idea. That is what that is. And I'll be like, come on, you know, don't burst my bubble. Just make me feel awesome. That's what you're supposed to do. That's your role, right? Just make me feel good about me. Don't help me. Don't challenge me. Don't sharpen me. As time's gone on, I I've actually learned to be so grateful for that quality. See, when I get when I get nervous, for example, I talk a lot. Like, if you think I talk a lot now, no, no. I am not nervous standing on a stage in front of a lot of people. Never been nervous about that. Not since I did it the first time in third grade. Just had fun. This is fun for me. Having dinner with someone and having to look them in the eye for like an hour, having to potentially listen to the noises that they make as they eat their food. Like, that that almost kills me. Like, if you ever want to go to dinner and hang out, I'm willing to. Uh, but you gotta pick a place with volume. I need a place with music playing, I need like a mariachi band, because I don't want to hear the sound that food makes when you chew it. I can't handle it. It's like, uh does anyone else have that issue? I can't handle it. I wanna I want to punch you so bad. And it's not fair to you. It's not your fault, it's my fault. I don't know why. I'm broken. Okay? That's the kind of situations that make me nervous. That's when I get nervous, I just I talk and I ramble and I go on and I go on and I go on. In fact, when I first asked Megan out for the very first time, we were in high school, and I asked her to prom. That's how our relationship got started. And this is a true story, I'm not exaggerating. This is how it went. I called Megan on the phone, like a landline. Remember those? And her mom answered, and I said, uh hi, Mrs. Richardson, is Megan there? This is Justin McTear from school. And she said, Oh, hold on, and she yelled for Megan. Megan picked up, said, Hi. I said, Hey, Megan, it's me. It's Justin, uh, Justin McTear from school. Um, hey, I want to talk to you because I was thinking about prom, you know, and prom's coming up, as you probably are aware. And, you know, I want to go to prom, but I haven't picked anyone, you know, to go to prom. Not that if I just pick someone, they'd immediately say yes or anything like that. You know, I don't think that about myself. And not, but not saying that like I couldn't get someone to go to prom with me. I totally could. But, you know, it's just, either way, I want to go to prom and I was thinking, like, who do I want to go to prom with? And I thought, wow, Megan Richardson's really cool, and we're friends, like, right? Like, I'm friends with you, and you're friends with me. And I thought maybe it'd be good to go to prom as friends, and you could be my friend at prom and I'll be your friend, and we'll hang out as friends. And I told, I mean, it just went on and on, and she tried to cut me off like several times. And finally she just stopped me and said, Yes, yes, I'll go to prom with you. And I just went, thank you. That's all I said. Thank you. I hung up the phone. I have no game whatsoever. I'm so glad Megan and I connected in high school because I'd have been hopeless beyond. That's how I am when I'm nervous. And like I said, going to dinner with someone that I don't know very well and having to have like long conversations, that makes me really nervous. And so one of the times in my life that I was as nervous as I've ever been before is when I interviewed to work here. As soon as I found out about this church, I wanted to be part of it. There's something really special about this place. There's something indefinable about this place. We haven't figured out a way to put it into words. I've never experienced the authenticity and the unforced passion that exists here. You guys are awesome. God is awesome. You can clap for that, absolutely. And so I was I was 23, and and I'm not I'm not in my 20s anymore. I'm 32. I'm a real life, actual adult. It's important that you know that, okay? I'm about to be 33. This is gonna happen. So at the time I'm 23. And I was interviewing to work with the students here. I was so excited, but I was so nervous. And so Steve and Susan, who started the church, asked Megan and I out to dinner for that initial interview. I've never met them in person at this point in time. I'd had a few phone calls. And so we we go to dinner, and I'm like, I'm a nervous wreck. I'm so nervous. I'm sweating in the car on the way there. And on the way to the restaurant, Megan says to me, Justin, when you get really nervous, you don't stop talking, and it's very off-putting. And where normally I would have been like, hey, hey, come on. Like, give me some credit. Be more sensitive. At that moment in time, I recognized what she was doing, and I wanted it so bad that I said, yes, you're right. She said, I'm gonna help you tonight. I said, okay, what are you gonna do? She said, every time I feel like you're just rambling, I'm gonna squeeze your leg. Don't get the wrong idea. I'm squeezing your leg to shut you up. And when you feel me squeeze your leg, that means stop talking. I said, okay. Okay. And we went to dinner that night, and Steve and Susan asked us a lot of questions, and Megan squeezed my leg like 27 times. I kid you not. It was it was almost a constant pressure on my leg. I had bruises when the night was over, like fingerprint-shaped bruises. I asked her in the car, did you have to squeeze so hard? And she said no, but she enjoyed it. And so it was. I was so thankful. I was so thankful. Because honestly, if had she not cared enough about me and loved me enough to be honest with me, I would have shot myself in the foot that night. I know I would have. I would have just kept talking and talking and talking. It would not have gone well for me. But she loved me enough to be honest, to challenge me. I want you to know this morning that God loves you so much. And when he speaks to you, you need to understand he's going to speak life into you. He's going to tell you who you actually are if you'll listen to him. This world has put labels on you. This world has told you that you are far less than you actually are. And if you'll listen to Jesus Christ, he will tell you who you really are, and who you really are is much greater than you've ever imagined you could be. He will speak life into you, he will encourage you, he will give you hope, he will urge you on, he will tell you to keep going. But there will absolutely be moments where him telling you the truth involves a challenge. Where him telling you the truth might be telling you something that you don't necessarily want to hear, but he's so committed to your growth, he's so committed to you growing and maturing and actually getting where you need to get that he's gonna be honest with you because he loves you. That's why Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, says that the word of God is alive and powerful, it is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword. Cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow, it exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. What a lovely metaphor. The word of God is a sword that cuts into you. Someone who's in sales needs to talk to God and be like, God, you need to rethink your metaphors. Like, why doesn't this say the word of God is like a gentle massage? Right? The word of God is like an island resort. And you know, this is kind of an aside that this is really important for us as a church because we have to have moments where we kind of shift from the individual application to who we are as a family. It is very, very normal in church world to present the truth of Jesus like that. It's based out of a fear that if we present Jesus as he actually is, people will reject him. And so we try to change the message a little bit and take away that two-edged sword, honesty, that challenging nature of Jesus, and just present the parts of Jesus that we think everyone will really agree with. We'll cherry pick his teachings and we'll take all the stuff that everyone nods their head about, but we'll leave out all the stuff that people kind of go, whoa, I don't know how to deal with that. But here's the reality: Jesus does not need the church to be his PR team. He does not need the church in America to help him with his image management. He doesn't need that. It's important for us as a church that we always present Jesus exactly as he is, take him or leave him. Because that's how Jesus did it. The truth is, Jesus has been rejected by every culture ever. Jesus did not come trying to win us over by looking like us in terms of the way we think. He didn't come trying to be relevant to us by looking like us in terms of the way we go about life. Had he done it that way, he wouldn't be relevant, he'd just be one of us. And whenever we take Jesus and we we twist his message to make it more palatable to the world, what we actually do is we just make his message the same message that everyone tells us in the world. We make Jesus like any product that you can buy in the store. Jesus will incrementally improve your life. Hey, have Jesus and he'll make your life a little bit better. Jesus is like a cup holder. He's a nice add-on for life. I love my cup holder, by the way. I've been thinking about this a lot. I've said this recently, this whole cup holder thing, I'm stuck on it for some reason. But I love my cup holder. Can you imagine driving without a cup holder? You'd actually have to wait till you got somewhere to drink something. That's ludicrous. Who has time for that? Right? So I love it. I love my cup holder. It's right there. When we treat Jesus that way, when we when we change who Jesus is, we create this product idea of Jesus that tells the world, hey, if you have Jesus, look at some of the cool things He'll do for your life. It's such a lie because Jesus does not want to improve your life, He wants to transform your life, and there's a big, big difference between those two things. He wants to transform it. And so what if what if the church in America stopped worrying about the the image of Jesus? And what if the church in America was just proud of Jesus? What if we just beamed about Jesus? Because I'm proud of Jesus. I'm proud of how loving and kind and gentle Jesus is. I'm also proud of how controversial my Jesus is. I'm proud of the fact that Jesus stood for something. I'm proud of the fact that Jesus drew lines in the sand and said, This is right and this is true, and I'll stand for what's true. I'm proud of that. And we should be proud of that when it comes to Jesus, irregardless of what the world thinks. Yay. Okay. Let's get back to us as individuals. See, Jesus loves you enough to tell you the truth, even if it's challenging. Even if it's one of those two-edged sword moments. And the question we have to ask ourselves is: do we actually want to grow? Do you want to grow? We live in a world full of people who want to have a better life. Who doesn't want to have a better life? I want to have a better life. But there's very few people who are willing to be challenged so that they're better, so that they can actually receive that better life and enjoy it. So someone might want to be better off financially, but they don't want someone to challenge how they use their finances. I want more money, but please don't tell me I'm spending my money wrong. Just give me more of it to spend the wrong way, so I'll need more of it. Right? It's very rare to find a person who says, Challenge me. Tell me what I need to do. Tell me what I need to change. That's why the words of David in Psalm 139 are so powerful. Verses 23 and 24, we looked at this a few months ago. He says, Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is anything offensive in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. This is David saying, God, tell me the truth. We live in a world full of people who shout out with their attitudes. Tell me what I want to hear. I'm looking for a person who will just tell me what I want to hear. I want to vote for the candidate who will tell me what I want to hear. I'm going to work for the boss who tells me what I want to hear. And what would happen if we changed our mentality? And instead of saying, hey, tell me what I want to hear, we said, God, tell me what I need to hear. What if that's our attitude? If that's the case, we grow. And life gets better because guess what? We're ready for a better life. God is not going to give you something that you can't handle. He loves you too much for that. If you want a better life, ask God to challenge you to speak truth into your life so that you're better because He wants you to have better, but you've got to be better to have better. And He loves you. He loves you and He loves you enough to challenge you. My favorite thing to be is a dad. There's not even anything that comes close in my life to being a dad. And I know I've shared this before, but I love the time I have at the end of the day with my son. I love the time I have at the end of the day with my daughter. I have two sons, by the way. Judah just doesn't, he doesn't want me. He's three months old and he's like, nope, not you, mom. And so I just go, okay, good. And Lily, every single night I put her to bed. It's my job to put the kids to bed at night. Megan will feed Judah and take care of him. I'll put Lily and Liam to bed. At least two, and I'll put Lily to bed. And uh I try to make it sweet. I try to like scratch her back and she just goes, Stop that. Okay. I try to like sing her a song. Sometimes I'll even get close to her and I'll pray, and she'll go, stop talking to my face. That's what she says. Like, I'll pray for her. I'm like close and I'm intimate and I'm like, dear God, please bless this girl. She goes, Stop talking to my face. And she just points out the door and says, Go. And I go. And that's bedtime for Lily. But Liam, Liam, he he likes to stretch bedtime out. And so we have these routines. We have things we do every night. And my favorite thing that we do is this series of QA that we've developed. And this is something that God, I just feel like has kind of stirred up inside of me because I want to be a father that reminds Liam of who God the Father is. And that's hard to do. But not that hard. And so every night I ask Liam, why does Daddy love you? And he knows the answer by now. He's had this ingrained in him. Because you love me. That's the answer. Not because I'm proud of you. Because there's moments where I'm not that proud. There's moments where I'm not super pleased. But I still love him. I just love him because I love him. Nothing can change that. And then the second question is this what's daddy's job? And he knows the answer. To teach me to be a good man. He knows that answer because when he gets in trouble, I ask him that. When he's doing something wrong, I'll be like, What's my job? And he'll get mad. He'll be like, to teach me to be a good man. He'll just like walk off. Like, fine, I get it. Give me a consequence. And then this new question has developed in this follow-up. This is like this ever-evolving thing for us. And the new question, right after that question, is Does Daddy think you're going to be a good man? And the answer is no. I think he's going to be a great man. And so he knows that. I'll say, what's daddy's job to teach me to be a good man. Does daddy think you're going to be a good man? No. You think I'm going to be a great man, and I do. See, when God looks at you, he sees greatness. He created you for greatness. You are destined for greatness. But he will not sit idly by and watch you stumble and watch you grasp and watch you struggle. He loves you enough to tell you the truth. Because it's his job, it's the job he has taken upon himself to teach you to be the great human being he created you to be. The question is simply, will we listen? Will we be those rare people who say, tell me the truth? Don't tell me what I want to hear, God. Tell me what I need to hear. Because more often than not, what you need to hear is that you're okay. You're loved. You haven't ruined it. You haven't blown it. There's redemption, there's forgiveness, there's grace, there's mercy. And there are lessons that need to be learned, but you'll learn those. But you gotta crave it. You gotta crave the truth from the one who tells the truth. And that is Jesus Christ. And if you don't know him today, if you come here, maybe a friend of yours loved you enough to tell you the truth and brought you here, or to some other great church that you've been to before and you heard this there, there's a lot of great churches. Jesus, he's the truth. He tells the truth because he is the truth. He's the way, he's the truth, he's the life, and the truth sets you free. Those are things Jesus said. In John 10, verse 7, guess what Jesus begins with? I tell you the truth. I'm the gate for the sheep. And what Jesus is doing here is using an analogy of sheep, and he's saying, hey, if you yearn for the pasture, if you yearn for the peace and the love and the tranquility and the joy and the comfort that this world cannot give you with all the lies that it sells you. You can have that, but only through the gate, only through Jesus. He's the way. If you don't know him, and sitting here today, you start thinking about the lies you've bought into in life, the lies this world's told you that you've believed, and all the counterfeit promises this world has made you that you've bought into, and they've just led you to disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. And you're saying, I want something real, I want something honest, I want something true. Jesus is exactly what you want. And you can have them. All you have to do is pray. All you have to do is say to him in your heart, I'm yours. I believe you are who you said you are, Jesus. I believe that you're the Son of God. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. I want you in my life. I accept you. I'm blown away by the fact that you accept me. You do that in your heart, it takes five seconds, you're his. And as a church, we want to come alongside you and help you grow. And I just encourage you, if that's the decision you make today, to walk out the doors, sign up to get baptized at the info desk because there are things in life that you should tiptoe into, and there are things in life where you just have to take a plunge, and Jesus, he's the take-a-plunge category for sure. So just go all in with him. We're gonna wrap up. Remember I said I talked a lot? Sorry. Um, we're gonna wrap up. Worship team, you guys are free to come out. Not that you're not free to come out whenever you want to. You guys aren't bound, you're not tied up back there. I hope not. Wherever you guys are. Like ninjas. There they are. There you come. We're about to worship one more song. That's how we wrap up. And really, this song it's uh it's an opportunity for you to just take whatever God has served in your soul over these last 45 minutes to an hour and just talk to him, communicate it with him. Tell him who you think he is, ask him to tell you what he thinks you need. Because he loves you. He loves you enough to tell you the truth. Let's celebrate that together. Uh, pray with me, and we'll worship. Jesus, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being truth. Thank you for loving us enough, God, that you you don't tell us what we want to hear. You tell us what we need to hear. And you actually change us, God, to where what we need to hear and what we want to hear can become the same thing. So shape us. Lord, don't allow us to settle for less than you created us to live. Don't allow us to settle for mediocrity when you created us for greatness. Tell us what we need. Help us grow. Help us spend time in your word this week. Help us spend time just pouring over what you said, Jesus. Help us know what you said so we can apply your truth to our lives. God, as a family, as a group of people, we we set our own personal truth to the side right now, and we we come to worship the real truth in this world, and that is you. We love you, we love you, we love you, Jesus, and you love us, and it's amazing. We just want more of you, we want more of your presence, Lord.