Thanks for listening to the His Hands Church podcast. If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app, please turn off the auto lock on your phone's general settings so that you can listen to the message uninterrupted. And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands. We just want more of Him, more of Him in our lives. That's all we need, that's all we want. And so let's just pray together this morning and ask Him to give as much as He wants to. Lord Jesus, we love you so much. And we are just a group of people that are broken, that are in need of you and more of you. And there's not enough of you that we could have where we would say, Enough. We're good. So, Lord, just through your word this morning, through uh through our interactions together, the love that we have for one another, the love that you have for us, I pray that you would just give us more. And uh and don't stop because we we don't ever want it to, Lord Jesus, and we're glad we don't have to. Uh we ask all this in your name. Amen. Well, welcome this morning. We uh we're gonna have such a great time together. We already are today, but even for the next little season that we have coming up, there's just so much going on right now. Uh so many good things. First of all, Easter Sunday is three weeks from this morning. And uh three of you are excited. Man, but that's okay. You know why? Here's here's the thing: every single Sunday is important, every single Sunday is extremely important. The Holy Spirit's here every single Sunday, right? And so it's okay for us, it is okay for us to get more excited about Easter. Because I just have this sneaking suspicion that God is a big fan of Easter. That it's an important day to him, that it's okay for him to be like, hey, I love every Sunday, but there is something about that day that I got back up that I want everyone to celebrate, right? And so Easter is a day that we should be excited about, we should be looking forward to. Yes. Pandering, it always works to some degree. No, seriously, though, uh, we are excited because that's the day that everything changed in history. It's a day that we want to celebrate, and uh and we're gonna have a lot going on. We're gonna be having two worship get-togethers. We're gonna do 8:30 a.m. and 10 o'clock in the morning. Each will be an hour long. I want to ask a few things from you if you're willing to help out. Number one is just help spread the word. There's a few ways you can do that. You can walk up to someone and be like, hey, what's up? You want to come to my church at Easter? Done. They they might say no, and you go, okay, fine then. Whatever you want to say, you can just do it that way. You can invite friends and family. You can get on our website, hishandschurch.com, and go to our event page for Easter. You'll see it right on our homepage. And they've got little buttons that you can click to share it on Facebook or Twitter or via email. Just spread the word. Number two is especially if you're coming to the 10 o'clock, parking. Lowe's is generous enough to let us use their parking lot whenever we need to. And I remember a few Christmases ago, I was helping people cross Molly Lane from the Lowe's parking lot to be safe. And that's the first time I ever realized this is a five-lane road. Like, this is terrifying. I have this orange vest on and I don't feel safe at all. So, you know, here we are, you're going, hey, park at Lowe's, and then just run, right? Just run. Because they'll see you. So, what I want to let you know is that is that from now on, when we have a big morning where we expect a lot of extra spaces needed, is we'll have we'll have police officers that are controlling traffic to help us cross safely. And so if you're willing, especially at that 10 o'clock, to drop your family off and park at Lowe's, that would be huge. Free up as many spaces here as possible. And finally, if you're on a team, if you could help that morning and just pick one of the two. I know it's a big morning, but but man, people are gonna come here for the first time and experience that love that all of us know, and and it's gonna be really huge. We need as much help as we can get. So if you're willing to help out, especially if you work in a kid's area, not not, I'm just saying, we had 175 first or fifth graders two years ago, and it was awesome. It was amazing. And so if you can help out with that, that would be that would be huge. But after Easter, we have a lot of other things coming up too. Bless the bikes is the very next Sunday. That's always a fun event. That's right. Last year we had baptism of the bikes because it rained that day, and so we didn't really get to do it. But uh, it's a lot of motorcycles. We get to stay afterwards and uh and hang out together, eat together. It's just a big reason to stay a little longer and have a little bit of fun together. And then after that, and then I promise I'm done. After that, May 9th is Ken Kington's ultimate comedy night here. Yes. Sometimes it gets really awkward when you set the precedent for woos and then you say things, and then you just have to wait for the woos. That's I just realized that. So uh, but but that is going to be an incredibly great night. Uh, number one, it's just gonna be fun. Ken is is a really funny guy, he's a really funny comedian. I actually started hanging out with Ken outside of church a few years ago every once in a while, and I kind of expected him to tell jokes all the time because he's a comedian, and it really bothered me that he didn't. So I would, you know, we'd be playing basketball or something, and something would happen, and I'm like, Ken, come on, like make us laugh. You're that guy. And he just never does. He's a really normal guy, but he is a very gifted, very successful comedian, and we're blessed to have him as part of our teaching team. Tickets are on sale for that, they're $10 here at his hands, or $15 outside of that, uh, but only through the month of April. And uh, and what he's actually doing is filming a brand new comedy special here. So it's a live filming. I've never been part of something like that. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Uh, if you can come, just buy a ticket. Maybe think about buying a ticket for a friend and just inviting someone. What a great opportunity and an easy ass to invite. Hey, do you like to laugh? No? Okay, well, if you do, you know, come. I have a ticket for you. It's 10 bucks, it's less than the price of a movie ticket, usually. And uh, and they're gonna have an amazing time. So that's Friday, May 9th. A lot of things going on. Also, want to say a big thank you to everyone that helps us giving-wise. God's using it, he's doing great things, we appreciate it. There's four columns at the back, and you can do that there. Alright, we're done. We're good. I mean, we're not done, but we're done with that part. So now we're we're we're just actually getting started. So, Noah, did anyone get a chance to see the Noah movie that came out this week? Anyone? Show of hands? Okay. I haven't seen it yet. Don't spoil it for me. I don't want to spoiler alert. I've heard some things. Does it rain? That's all I want to know. Those of you who've seen it. Does it does it rain? All right, they got part of it right. Then there you go. That's a major plot point. I was hoping they would stick to the script at least there. Um, we've kind of used the fact that this movie's coming out to talk about the story of Noah for the last several weeks. In fact, the last three weeks we've we've done the story of Noah. Ben pointed out last week, and this wasn't on purpose, you can just blame the Holy Spirit, I guess, but I I talked for two weeks, just setting up the story of Noah. And then Ben got to it last week, and he's like, dang it, Justin, I have to tell the entire story of Noah, which is a pretty involved story in one week. Thanks for that. Uh, and he did a great job, though. Anyone that can weave in Star Trek The Next Generation, The Princess Bride, and the Highlander television series, which is pretty, you know, that's like a subgenre in culture there, into a story about the flood deserves some recognition or some help or some prayer or something. So, but it really is an amazing story. You know, and the the gist of it so far is that the the earth has become so wicked and so completely evil and corrupt that God has no choice but to start fresh. He's gotta wipe it clean and start completely new. And it breaks his heart to do it. We talked about that a few weeks ago. It completely breaks God's heart, but he has to do it because he cannot let that much evil and that much just pure and total corruption go on. And so he he destroys the earth, but he saves Noah and Noah's sons and their wives and their family. And this is a big deal because death is the justifiable outcome of sin. The flood was a justifiable outcome for the sin of the world at that time. It may not seem like that to us, but God was really clear with Adam and Eve in the garden. He said, Hey, if you sin, if you eat from this tree that I told you not to eat from, you will die. And like we said a few weeks ago, this was not a situation where we have a parent threatening their child. If you do this, I will spank you. This is a parent saying, if you touch that hot stove, it will burn you. He's saying this is the natural result of sin. It will lead to death. So the flood was a justifiable outcome for the sin of the world, but God spared Noah and his family, and in doing so, he spared all of humanity. And that meant that he's saving the ultimate price for sin for himself. Because had he let everyone die, he would have dealt with sin then and there, it would have been done. But no, no, he's saving the total price and payment for sin for his son, for Jesus. So this is not just a story of God's judgment, it's a story of his self-sacrifice. And man, what an incredible story it is. He tells Noah to build an ark. And this is no small task. The ark was as tall as the ceiling in this room, really, really close, actually. It was the width of the stage all the way to the back wall, and it was the length of one and a half football fields together. That's what Ben told us last week. In fact, we kind of measured it out. If you walk out the main doors this morning, look over to the Lowe's parking lot, and the entrance to Lowe's, the main doors to go into Lowe's, that is the distance. That is how long the ark was. And God's like, hey, build that. All right. I could only do that with IKEA. That's the only chance I would have. And Noah had like a hundred something years, I would need three times that with the instructions included. I'm not good at those kinds of things. Noah builds this, he has a lot of time to do it. He builds the ark, God sends two of every kind of animal on the earth at that time. And they get on the ark and it rains for 40 days and 40 nights. That means that if today was the last day of the rain, it would have started raining on February 18th and hadn't stopped since. And then after that, it takes over 300 days for the waters to completely recede, for the ground to dry, and for conditions to become right for Noah, his family, all the animals to exit the ark. And when they do, they burn a sacrifice to God. A thank you that they survived, that they were rescued. And the Bible says that the smell of that sacrifice was a pleasing aroma to God. And so he created a new covenant with people and said, I'll never again flood the earth. And he gave them a rainbow as the sign and the symbol of that covenant. And this is just a side note, but the Bible says that we are created in God's image. And I'm speaking at least for myself and a lot of other men that I know, but I think it's interesting that the smell of burning meat was so good to God that he's like, I'm gonna make rainbows after this. That's how good of a mood he was in. And I agree, when I smell meat on a grill, I'm like, all right, if I can make a rainbow, I'd make one now. Because this is awesome. And so he makes this rainbow and he says, I'm never again gonna flood the earth. And it's interesting, it's a really interesting thought. Because God has a fresh start, it's almost like a new earth. He has a do-over of sorts. It's a chance to begin anew, it's a chance to make sure that things go differently this time around. And when those sorts of opportunities come up in life, we have to take them. Right? We'd be fools not to learn from our past mistakes and to do things a little bit differently. Anytime we have an opportunity for that, we we have to take it because those don't come around all the time. Einstein said that insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. And he was fairly intelligent. That's what he said, doing the same thing and expecting different results. I know I've learned from that. Last year, for example, my wife and I bought a toy for my son's birthday. And uh it was a toy that required some significant assembly, and like I just said, that is not my thing. So the night before his birthday, we put him to bed, my wife went to bed, and I decided about 10 o'clock, all right, let's put this thing together. It was a tricycle, uh, not that hard, you would think. And I opened it up, it had a few more parts than I thought it would have. And I got to like part three, step three, which was attaching the front wheel to the body of the tricycle, a pretty important step. And I got stuck. I had this one piece, this one, it was a Fisher Price toy. I had this one piece, and in the instructions, and you know, it's got the guy smiling, he just puts it in, done, and I'm I'm putting it in, and I'm it won't fit. And I become like a toddler when you give them those toys that have different shapes, and you just kind of turn it until it fits, and I'm like flipping it upside down, I'm doing everything I can, it still won't fit. I'm stuck, and I've only been doing it for 15 minutes, I'm on step three. This goes on for about 30, 40 minutes, and eventually I go to this one last resort. This is a true story. I have a rubber mallet, and it was passed down to me from my father when I got married. This has been a tool in our family for a lot of years. I have two sections of tools. My friends that have been in my house can can attest to this. I have labels on two shelves. There is common tools and there are not so common tools. Those are the labels. That is that is how mechanically gifted I am. And a lot of you that are good at those kinds of things, like my father-in-law, can build stuff, you know, a lot of the things in my not-so-common tools are in the common tool. If I don't know the name of it, it's in a not-so-common tool. The rubber mallet, that is a common tool. Because that is designed to make something fit when it's not supposed to, and that is what we use it for. And so my dad gave it to me when we got married, and he had inscribed on the handle, this is true, when all else fails. And so I grab this rubber mallet, I still have it to this day, I grab it and I pound away at this part, and nothing, it will not go. And at this point, it's almost midnight, and I am I'm literally freaking out because his birthday is the next day. This is our gift, and I'm walking around our living room at midnight, and I'm doing this thing, you've probably done this before, it's called whisper screaming. It's where emotionally you are screaming at the top of your lungs because you are that enraged, but you don't want to wake up your kids, and so you're just like, what is wrong? What is this is crazy? I'm kicking things, I'm just going nuts. I sit down for a little while at 1 a.m., I wake up my wife, and I said, Megan, I need your help. Putting a tricycle together. And she came downstairs, and I'm not lying, 10 minutes she had the thing put together. It was like 10 minutes. So, yes. So here's the thing uh my son's birthday is next weekend, and we have once again purchased a gift for him that requires significant assembly. More so than last year. And I'm not crazy. I believe in Einstein's definition of insanity. I am not going to take the same approach this year. I'm not doing the same thing and expecting different results. I've learned from last year, it's a fresh start, and guess what? This year, I'm not putting it together. I'm not gonna do it. I will help, I will hold things, I will lift things, I will say, yes, dear, where would you like me to put this? Okay, but I'm not putting it together. It's a fresh start, I'm taking a new approach. So when we have a chance to do something again, something that we did before and it didn't go so well, a new approach is warranted. We get to see God's approach with Noah and his family after the flood in Genesis chapter 9. It's interesting, this is what he says. Genesis 9 1. It says, Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. All the animals of the earth, all the birds of the sky, all the small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the fish in the sea will look on you with fear and terror. I have placed them in your power. Fill the earth, be fruitful and multiply. Just you're in charge, reign over the earth. Now, to my knowledge, God has never asked me for advice. He has never come to me and said, Justin, I'm stuck, I need some help. He's never woken me up at 1 a.m. and said, I need you. And so I don't want to overstep my bounds and suggest that maybe God hasn't thought this through. But every once in a while, as a human being, there will be things that God does in his word. I read it in the Bible, or things that he's doing in life that I think he's doing, and I'm like, God, I I just think you might want to rethink this. From my perspective, I'm just saying. And I look at these instructions, and they're they're good. They're very simple, they're very clear. I had a good friend recently tell me that one of the great keys to leading is to give simple, clear expectations. These are simple and clear. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth, reign over it. But there's a problem with these instructions. There's a big problem. I'll tell you what it is. Go back to Genesis 1, verse 28. These are God's instructions to Adam and Eve. Then God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground. That's what he said to Adam and Eve. And it did not go well. To the point that God has to destroy the entire earth and start fresh. And then, with this fresh start, he looks at Noah and his family, and what does he say? The exact same thing. Almost verbatim. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and reign over it. I don't know if you've ever had a situation in life where you gave someone very simple, clear instructions, but maybe they weren't specific enough. And so the results of them following your instructions were not what you had in mind. And you had to follow it up with more, more specific instructions. Has anyone ever been in that situation before? Yeah. If you have kids, you have. And so I had one a few years ago. It was my son's first birthday. If you've noticed, there's a trend around birthdays. Um and we had a party and we had a baked potato bar for this party. Now, just party advice. Baked potato bars are great because everyone gets to make their own thing. You know, they all feel like little chefs, it's fantastic, and potatoes are cheap. So we had a baked potato bar. And I don't know if it was a loaves and fishes situation or if it's just that when you buy potatoes and they come in big bags, it's really easy to go, oh, just get an extra bag. We had like 70 extra potatoes. I don't know how it happened. And I'm not exaggerating. There were people in this room that were there. We had a ton of extra potatoes, and I'm not gonna throw them away because I love potatoes, and you can have twice baked potatoes and mashed potatoes. There's all there's endless possibilities. We're gonna eat these for weeks, but who has enough Tupperware or sandwich bags to store 70 baked potatoes? No one. If you do, you need to readjust some things because that you should not. You should not have, you'd be like, oh hey, no problem. So I'm stuck, right? We gotta store these potatoes. What are we gonna do? Well, uh, my my good friend Matt Simmons, a lot of you guys know Matt. He uh he's in our worship team, uh helps lead the youth in a lot of ways, just one of my best friends, smart, fantastic guy. He's he's like my right hand. And and Matt was he was around, and so I called out to Matt. I came out of the kitchen and said, Matt, I have a mission for you. I've depended on you before, and you've always come through. I need you to go to Target, and I need you to get the largest Ziploc bags you can find. And so Matt says, I'm on this. I'm your man. And he goes to Target and he comes back 15 minutes later. I actually have one of the actual bags. This is literally, this is I didn't go buy this, this is from that time. This is what Matt brings me. Now, at first I thought he was joking, I was like, that's hysterical. So where are the bags? He's like, No. I went to the guy at Target, I said, Where are the largest Ziploc bags you have? And this is what he brought me. And there they are Ziploc bags. There's the logo right there, and here's the thing. Matt, Matt followed my directions very, very well. Because it wasn't his fault. He didn't know they were for food. I hadn't given him those details. I had just come from the kitchen and was like, Matt, I need giant Ziploc bags. Can you do this? He's like, Yeah. And he did exactly what I asked, and he brought those back. And I'm trying to store food in a refrigerator, not clothes in an attic, so I'm like, I I don't have a drawer in my fridge that big. I we gotta do this differently. And so what did I do? I gave him more specific instructions. I said, Matt, I need you to go to Target. I need you to get the largest Ziploc food bags. I want you to stick to the food aisle. If they're not on the food aisle, I don't want them. But he came back with decent, large, not I didn't even know they made those bags. And we saved the potatoes, all was wonderful. We threw out most of them, but we ate a few. So here's the thing. I know it's kind of a silly story, but here God is with a fresh start. Things went terribly wrong before. And he gives the exact same instructions, word for word. And it's like, what is he thinking? What is God thinking? Maybe this time around it's gonna go better because it's Noah that he's giving these instructions to, and Noah is the best of the best. I mean, he's the lone holdout for God in a world that's gone down the tube. So maybe these simple, clear instructions in the hands of Noah versus Adam and Eve are gonna produce completely different results. But that is not the case. Things start to go downhill pretty quickly, and ironically, it begins with Noah. And so a little bit later in Genesis 9, it says the sons of Noah who came out of the boat with their father were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Side note, Ham and Noah have a falling out. And I don't know if this is true, but God adopts a pretty stringent no port policy a little bit afterwards, and I just wonder if it has to do with Ham and I see I had to say that. I had to. I knew that was so cheesy, and I even told three of my friends, I'm gonna say this, no one's gonna laugh, but I okay, anyway. It says, From these three sons of Noah came all the people who now populate the earth. After the flood, Noah began to cultivate the ground and he planted a vineyard. One day he drank some wine he had made, and he became drunk and lay naked inside his tent. So here we have Noah, the guy that God looks at and says, Yes, we're saving you. Passed out drunk, naked in a tent. Again, I'm not God, but if I'm envisioning the new start for humanity, this is not what I have in mind. And it doesn't get much better. The next big story, the next big story in the Bible is the story of the Tower of Babel. And if you know that story, it's people have come together and they're like, we're going to build a city, we're going to build a tower so tall it reaches into the heavens, and we're all going to stay in this area. We're all going to stay together. Anyone who sees it will be drawn to this place. And they're doing it so that they stay together, but there's a problem. God's instructions were very clear be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and reign over it. And they're like, we're not going to fill the earth. We're going to stay here. And God says, no. So he scatters everyone. And then a few hundred years later, we get to Abraham. Abraham lived about 200 years after the death of Noah. By this time, people have scattered. They have begun cultures and nations. And as you see Abraham travel and his sons travel and interact with these cultures, they don't seem like they're very interested in following God. They don't even seem to really know much about God. It's like they've forgotten completely. A lot of them seem like they would have fit in very well with the people before the flood. We see Sodom and Gomorrah. That's in Abraham's time. We talked about it a few weeks ago. It's a nation that is so horribly evil, God has to surgically remove them from the earth. It's like a small version of what he did with the flood. And so here we have the same trend happening. When God creates the earth, he tells Adam and Eve, hey, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and reign over it. And things do not go well. And then with this new start, he looks at Noah and his family, he says, Hey, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and reign over it. And again, the results are not what we hope for. And if God is really trying to make sure that things go better this time around, that things go differently this time, common sense would just say he should give some different directions, some more specific directions. So what's going on? I do not believe God is crazy. I don't think he's doing the same thing and expecting different results at all. In fact, I think God is doing the same thing and expecting the exact same results. It's so fitting that we're doing this story leading up to Easter because this points to Jesus so much. The whole Old Testament points to Jesus. You could really sum up the Old Testament by saying this: God goes to great lengths to show humanity, to show all of us that no matter how hard we try, no matter how amazing the miracles He provides, no matter how severe the warnings He gives, we're not gonna get it right. Essentially, the Old Testament is God removing every what if we could think of. What if I didn't have to worry about my needs being met? God, if I didn't have the stress that I feel from just trying to eke out a living, then I could really focus on following you. And no, that was the Garden of Eden, and it didn't work. Well, God, what if you did miracles? I mean crazy things that were undeniably supernatural. And even miracles that showed me that you care about me, but no, God did that. He parted a sea, he made food, bread, rain down from heaven, and the people complained that it wasn't meat. Didn't work. God, what if you provided leaders that just heard from you so well and so clearly they could tell us exactly what to do? No, didn't work. They were the prophets, people tried to kill them. God, what if you blessed us and prospered us so much so that we would just follow you out of gratitude? The nation of Israel was so successful under Solomon's reign that gold was so prevalent, silver was viewed as worthless. They had so much gold, they're like, silver, just throw it away. Don't eat it. And in all that blessing and all that prospering, their heart wasn't to honor God. They started worshiping other false gods. They had civil war, they fought amongst themselves. That what if off the table. God, what if you gave us a really severe warning so that we just knew you meant business? And the flood was a pretty severe warning. God, what if you gave us really specific instructions? Instructions that were so specific that in any situation in life we would know what you want us to do. That's the law. Hundreds upon hundreds of situation-specific rules, and people didn't really follow them. They just found ways to break the law with a loophole, to sin, but have it not technically count as a sin. God, what if you gave us really simple, clear instructions? Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. God, what if you repeated yourself, just in case we missed it? Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and reign over it. The whole Old Testament. It's just taking away every single what if, everything we could possibly think of of, hey God, if you did this, maybe then I could do it what you want me to do, maybe then I could live for you. And God just systematically removes all the what ifs until finally we're left with one option. Hey, God, what if you just came and did it yourself? Those of us that have children, when they're small, they'll often attempt things that they can't do. It's not that they they might not be able to do it, they can't. Sometimes my son will try to lift things up, and the weight ratio is just not gonna work. And as a parent, you might look at your child in that situation and say, son or daughter, let me do that for you. And what will they do? No. They'll stomp their feet, they'll say, No, I want to do this. And you're like, okay. And the best approach oftentimes is to let them try. And to let them try, and to let them exhaust every possible idea they have until they come to you and go, help. We need them sometimes to realize that, oh, I actually need you to do this. This is not an option I have. This is the only option that I have. I need you to do this for me. And the Old Testament is God getting us as people to a place where we are like that young child or like a 30-year-old man trying to put a tricycle together where we just go, help, please, do it for me. I need you. You are the only hope that I have. God's plan from the beginning was Jesus. His plan was never for us to get it right. When he gave those simple, clear instructions to Adam and Eve, he knew they were not going to get it right. When he gave those same instructions to Noah, he knew that they weren't gonna get it right either. He never even expected them to. And there is an amazing freedom spiritually in realizing that we are not expected to be able to live the life that God is calling us to live. And it's amazing because it's so easy to try. Right? John Eldridge is one of my favorite authors. He wrote a book called Wild at Heart, wrote a book called Beautiful Outlaw that Ken Kington talked about last summer. And he wrote once that religion's goal is to make you try harder and feel worse. And it's very true. And this is a strange thing and it's a supernatural thing, but the call on our lives as followers of Jesus is not to live a life for God. It is to let God live a life through us. It's not try hard and do your best to please me, follow my instructions. It's surrender. And just admit, I can't do it. You're gonna have to do it for me. You're gonna have to do it through me. I mean, that's the call in our life. It's to let God in. I mean, Jesus is not a model for us to follow. If he was, how discouraging would that be? Here's your model, just do this. Can't. Can't even grow a proper beard. I can't do that. You know? Jesus is not the model for us to follow, he is the means. He is the means for us to live. And so what God is saying all through scripture, what he's pointing to is stop trying so hard. Just admit it, you can't do it. Let me do it for you. Let me in. Give up. Stop trying and start living through me. We are not called as Christians to be strivers. We're not called to try harder. Jesus did not come to motivate us further. He came to free us from a life spent trying to earn what God is ready to give us and what God is ready to do through us. So our hope, our goal is to wake up every single day and realize that every day of our lives is a fresh start and say, okay, God, today, this morning, you live through me. I'm not going to do it on my own. I don't have to do it on my own. You said in your word, apart from me, I can do nothing. So I don't want to do anything apart from you. Live through me today. When I'm at work, speak through me. Work through me. The way I talk to my kids and my spouse, speak through me. Love through me. Just use me, Lord, and fill me up so that I can just be you to other people. That's what he's asking us to do. The instructions that God gave to Noah and the instructions that God gave to Adam and Eve, they're the same instructions that God gives us today. In fact, Jesus had a fresh start of his own. He had died, things had not gone well, as far as the world's opinion would go. And his followers had missed it. They didn't get it. They didn't get what he said. They didn't follow him until the end. They deserted him. And so he rises from the dead and he has a fresh start with his followers. And so he gives them some simple, clear instructions. We call it the Great Commission. It says Jesus came and told his disciples, I've been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Now it's kind of interesting if you look at this. Go and make disciples of all nations. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. One is just the spiritual version of the other. Those same instructions. Hey, be fruitful. Go. Multiply. Make disciples. Fill the earth. Make disciples of all nations. That is the instructions that we've been given by Jesus. It's the spiritual version of what God gave to Adam and Eve and what God gave to Noah. It's the same. Worship team, if you'd like to come back up. The only way, the only way I know to do this is to stop trying to do this and let Jesus do it. And we live in a community that has a lot of churches. And that's a good thing. It's a good thing. In fact, every single church in this area could double overnight. And we wouldn't even be scratching the surface of the number of people in this community that need Jesus. And so this whole all-nations thing, God has put all of us in this place. We all live in the North Atlanta area to some degree. Might have a few people that make a big commute. But we all have these same instructions. This is what God is asking all of us to do. And how is he going to do it? As a church, I love this place. I've been a part of it for seven years. And I believe very, very much that the reason that God wanted this church called His Hands is because He wants this church to be His hands in this community. And we're getting there. But what's it going to look like one day when we all just say, Jesus, okay, live through us in this community? We're not going to be a church of people trying hard to reach people. We're going to be a church of people just letting you live through us. In our small groups, maybe that's singing need in our community. Hey, I have a friend that's sick and needs help, and the small group comes together, says, Yes, let's go and let's help this person out. Let's repaint their house. Let's fix their yard. Let's do something to bless them. So when needs pop up in this community, we look and say, hey, we are his hands. Live through us. Just go, be fruitful, multiply, make disciples. Tell you, the whole thing about making disciples and just helping people know Jesus, things like this Noah movie are such a great opportunity for that. Because one of the most powerful things that can happen in our lives to help other people know Jesus is just to be able to talk about him like he's anybody else. Obviously, he's not anybody else. But to where we can just talk about him like we talk about our best friend, our brother, our sister, our father, where we could be having a conversation and in an instant with not a lot of like, okay, I'm gonna do this, where we just go, oh man, Jesus, he said this thing one time. It's amazing. When people understand, oh, this is, you're not trying to reach me. You're just you're just living. You're just living, and Jesus is a part of your life, and it just kind of comes through. That's what he wants. That's actually the only way it works. So this morning, be released from trying hard. He doesn't expect you to. And let your prayer this morning be Jesus. Get me to the place that you got the people of Israel, get me to the place where you got all of humanity through the Old Testament to just realize that there is no what if other than what if you do it yourself. That's the only way. So live through me, live in me, do your thing, work in me, take your time, work at your pace, and just let you shine through. That's it. That's the only way it works. And the good news is it does work really well. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, Lord, that stories like Noah and these other stories in the Bible where you're entering into history and you're doing these incredible things, they're not stories where you're just trying to motivate us to try harder, to work harder, to please you more. They're stories where you're reminding us over and over again that the only option we have.