God Of The Underdog // Of Promise And Prophets // Read

Sin ruined everything. With one bite—one choice—it separated us from God, setting mankind on a path towards dysfunction and death. The days turned dark and evil...and the days turned into months, then years, then centuries. The glorious plan of a loving, faithful relationship between God and man seemed to be nothing more than a long, forgotten memory. Yet in the midst of the silence sin created, prophetic voices called out with a promise of hope. A hope that God hadn’t forgotten his people, and that He was crafting a bold, beautiful rescue operation to save the world from its sin. And the truly amazing thing? The same voices of hope beckon to us today—that no matter our sin, no matter our rebellion—we too can experience deliverance.

Prophets foretold of the coming Messiah, but still—no one really expected Jesus. Instead of entering the world in a large palace in a major city, the King of Kings was born in a lowly manger in the tiny town of Bethlehem. In this moment, God was sending a message and fulfilling a promise—no matter how small or insignificant you may feel, God chooses you.

Man, it's good to have everybody with us today. Thanks to everybody watching online joining us there as well. It's good to be in God's house with everybody today. Today we are in part two of our series of promises and profits. And I want to just start by giving a huge shout-out and a major kudos to pass to Brenda for filling in for me last week. It's always nice to have a seasoned veteran in the bullpen to be able to go to just you know, make the call to the pulpit basket. Brenda stepped up big time last week, I want to thank everybody for your prayers. I got like crazy, crazy, sick Thanksgiving night, all of a sudden had a real bad stomach virus thought it might have been food poisoning. But since I was the only one who was sick. But I was in some pretty rough shape, all the way until Monday. So pastor Brenda valiantly stepped in and delivered a good word. Last week. It was funny. Whenever I came back to work on Tuesday, I was talking to the staff about it and explained what I went through. In Bruce Oberlin on staff, he was like, mate, now that's the way to do it. That's the way to do it. You fill yourself up on Thanksgiving, and then just empty yourself completely and utterly on Thanksgiving night. I'm like, Yeah, I mean, if I could have planned that I was good, right, I came out the next day I weighed less. That's got to be like a first in thanksgiving history. Right. But for real, thank you guys for your prayers means to the world that everyone was concerned, I appreciate it. But hey, we are here in part two of this series today. Looking at Hope, right? That's what the Christmas season is really about. The Christmas season is about hope, hope that God's promise will come to fruition God's promise of new life, God's promise of deliverance. And what we've been looking at is how God has raised men and women over the centuries to kind of keep us pointed to keep us on the path, pointing back to the promises that He has made these promises of a redeemer of the new life of deliverance. And so last week, Pastor Brenda preached on the prophet Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah and the promise that he pointed to of the fact that we would have a God who is with us that we have a God who has a manual meaning God is with us. And that's the kind of God that we need, right? We need a God who is with us, we need a God who is faithful to His word of God who is faithful to his promise, because we live in a world where people are constantly breaking promises, right? We live in a world where people are constantly falling short of the things that they said they were going to do people constantly over promise and underdeliver, right? God's not that way, though. God is a God who is with us. And he is true with us through everything we experience in our life. And so we can take great hope in that that we have a God who is with us, a God who keeps us Word of God who has guests, and amen. But I'm going to take that a step further today. Because yes, we need hope, in the fact that there is a God who is with us. But I would wager we need more than that. We need a God who isn't just with us, we need a God who is in us, right? We need a God who is actively at work in our lives, in our hearts, in our minds transforming us every single day. We need a God who is in us. I know I need a God who is in me because I am abundantly aware of how inadequate I am. Can I get an amen? Like I know I constantly am falling short. I know I constantly am not living up to expectations that I even set for myself. Like I'm just I'm constantly not living up to it. And I now and then have these moments where I'm reminded of how inadequate I am. Anybody ever has those moments where you're like, oh shoot, I really can't do this right? Yeah. I've had a few of those moments and they feel like this I'm going to give you an illustration of one that I had I told the story a few years back but it's so humiliating I have to bring it up now and then to keep myself nice and humble right just gotta have a few Humiliating Stories now and then. So I used to think that I possibly could be a good singer I used to think that

you know how it is you're in the shower you're in the car and you're like, shoot that actually kind of slaps like That sounds pretty good like I'm not too shabby like this isn't too bad. Maybe I missed a career somewhere maybe I should be leading worship appear you know, so one day and this is so embarrassing. This is so cringy I recorded myself on my phone I can like you know how people can remember where they were with big moments in history. I can remember where I was when this happened. This will tell you how big of an imprint this left on me. I was getting ready to turn on the highway right by sheets where sheets intersect with a Waterloo and Main Street, getting ready to turn on the highway. And I'm like, Man, I sound good. Let me just try this real quick. So I recorded myself on a voice memo on my phone. I kid you not when I hit play on it, that thing. I let it play for less than a second. It was like, nope, nope, delete, delete, threw my phone out the car, set it on fire, went home, took a shower, tried to clean like

it was so embarrassing, right. And at that moment, at that moment, when I played it back, and I heard my voice. I'm like, yeah, that that ain't it. Like, it's bad. Whatever adequacy I thought I had, I don't, however good. I thought I was. I'm not like it's just, it's not there. And in so many ways in life that have happened to me. When I think that like, man, I've got this covered. Like God can just kind of go in the back seat on this one. Because I got this thing handled. I'm, I'm adequate to handle this. I can figure this out on my own. I realize, yeah, that ain't it. I mean, if you're not as good as you thought you are. You're not as in control of things as you thought you may be. I have had those moments. And it does help. And it reminds you that you need to rely on God. But here's where something scary happens. And this is what we're going to talk about today. It's good to be reminded that you're not enough because you're not I'm not either. That's a good thing, something that we need to be reminded of, but we can take it too far. We love taking things too far, don't we? We can take it too far. And we can go to a place where we're not just realizing Yes, I need to rely on God, we go to a completely messed up just wrong place where we feel like we are so inadequate. We're so insignificant things we don't have a purpose for them. No one even notices us. Anyways, have you been there? Have you been there, right where you just feel so small? You feel like what you're doing isn't really making a difference. That's a bad place to be. It's a scary place to be because I will tell you this when you believe dumb things about yourself. You will do dumb things and the more that you believe dumb things about yourself, the more dumb things you will do because you will start to self-sabotage. When you think that way. Whenever you think I'm never going to get over this porn addiction, it's just not going to happen. You get into it easier the next time. Whenever you think I'm never going to get to the physical health and the shape that I know I need to be to, to live a long life for my family and do everything I can. Once you start to believe those things, you believe those dumb things about yourself. You give in to it easier the next time. It's self-sabotage, it leads to habitual sins leads to dysfunctional habits to unhealthy relationships. We do dumb things if we believe dumb things about ourselves. So if that is you today, if you are someone coming in here, someone watching online, and you feel superiorly inadequate, you feel completely insignificant, you feel like the stuff that you do, no one notices that you just kind of feel like it's not really making a difference and not making a point. I want to let you know God has a word for you today. And not just a word, God has a promise for you. Today, God has a promise. You are right. You're not enough. I'm not either. I'm not either. Apart from God, you can do nothing. But that's the great news of the gospel, you are not apart from him anymore. You put your faith and trust in Jesus, the blood can be applied to your heart. And if you allow that to happen, you're not apart from God anymore. So the whole I can't do anything apart from him. That's absolutely right. And you don't have to be apart from him anymore. What we're gonna do, we're gonna look at three different portions of Scripture today, three different portions, and we're just going to destroy the lies that the enemy tells us, we're just gonna destroy him, take them out one by one the lie that we're not good enough, the lie that what we do is insignificant and small that no one notices us that God couldn't possibly use us to make a difference in the world. Those are all lies from the enemy, and they should be treated as such. So what we're going to look at is the truth from Scripture. We're going to start with the prophet Micah. He's the prophet that we're looking at today. If you have your Bible want to follow along, we're going to be in Micah chapter five, looking at verses one through four now, mica is an incredible man of God, a prophet that God had raised up to preach truth to proclaim things that were to come things that were to pass. And one of the things that Mike did is he predicted he was given this prophecy of where Jesus was Israel's Messiah would be born, the location of his birth, and that's where we pick up in Micah chapter five starting in verse one. This is what Micah says, Marshal your troops now city of Troy For a siege is laid against us, they will strike Israel's ruler on the cheek with a rod. But you Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are small among the clans of Judah out of you will come from me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old from ancient times. Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a Son, and the rest of his brothers returned to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they will live securely for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. The incredible prophecy you have to keep in mind mica made this prophecy about Jesus's location of his birth hundreds of years before Jesus would be born. He called his shot. He's like Jesus, the Messiah, the ruler of Israel is going to be born in Bethlehem, this small little city. Now, this is an amazing prophecy. Because Bethlehem was a very small city. Very little at this time, the estimated world population at the time of Jesus's birth was around 300 million people. That's less than how many people just live in the United States right now. But that was the estimated world population at the time of Jesus's birth. The Roman Empire, they suspect had about 45 million people who lived as subjects of the Roman Empire, the city of Bethlehem, had a population historian suspect of around 300 People 300, not 300,300. That means our church on average, we're right now we're at about 621 people. That's our running average. Our church is two times bigger than the city of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus. Think about that for a second. We are talking small, small, little city, you want to talk about insignificant. You want to talk about inadequate, you want to talk about an important that was Bethlehem in fact that this time when Jesus is getting ready to be born, what Bethlehem is best known for is the birthplace of King David, the greatest king in Israel's history. But even David left, David left Bethlehem he didn't stay he's I'm getting out of here. Like it's known for nothing. It's just this tiny, little, small, insignificant town. But you see what we see in Scripture. What's true about Bethlehem is true for you. And it is true for me. And that's that our site doesn't determine our significance. Our site doesn't get to determine our significance again and mica to Micah chapter five, verse two, he says, But you Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come the one who will be ruler over Israel. So it doesn't matter that Bethlehem is small, it doesn't matter. It's this tiny little town. It's the smallest of all the clans of Judah, it doesn't matter because size doesn't determine significance. We know this to be true. We see it at work in technology. I mean, you can just look back at, you know, old TVs, old televisions used to be pieces of furniture. They used to build wooden-like beautiful things around a TV because it was so massive that we have to make this somewhat appealing to be in a room right. So we got to build things around. It was absolutely huge. The computer, the computers that sent the men to the moon, I mean, these things took up entire rooms, and entire large facilities. The computers were that big. They were that large in size. And in scope, video cameras, old school video cameras, man, those things were gigantic. Right? Nowadays, you're looking at commercials on TV, like the new iPhone commercials. I mean, they're shot with an iPhone, the commercial is made on the iPhone. It's incredible. In fact, all those things I just mentioned, TVs, computers, camcorders, all those, they're all on your phone now. All of them. All these things that used to take up a ton of space, a ton of room all now fit in your phone. In fact, there's a meme that goes around every now and then where it will show an ad from Radio Shack from like back in like the early 90s. And it will show on the front page like 17 different items that are for sale. And they're all huge, just these massive things. And the caption says everything on this page now exists in your phone, like all of these gigantic things. But you see the size doesn't matter. The size doesn't determine the significance of these things. Because our phones are small, little slim phones have all of that power. They have all that computing power, all that photography, power, all that videography power, they have everything. And that's because size does not determine your significance. It's what's inside that matters. It's what's inside that determines the significance. And so for us, it's what's inside our life. It's not all the external things. It's not how big your 401k is. It's not how big your house is. It's not what school your kids go to. It's not That's how great you're doing at your job, all those things. Awesome, that's great. They do not get to determine your significance. They don't. The size and the scope of your life are not determined by all of these external things, it's determined by what is going on, on the inside. What's the Spirit doing inside of you, that is what leads to significance. Your significance needs to be determined by the holiness that the spirit is cultivating in your life, your signature needs to be determined by the sanctification process, that God is working in you making you more and more into the image of Jesus, that is what matters. That is what last, that's what you want your legacy to be about. That's what's truly significant in life. So the size of your life does not get to turn to determine your significance, not your career, not the size of your house, not the size of your family, only. Jesus, only Jesus. See, size doesn't get the determined significance. And it shouldn't. Because size doesn't tell the whole story does it? The size of your life, never tells the whole story. People's lives can look really, really good. Really, really big, really, really awesome. But you don't know what's really going on, do you? We don't really know that because the size doesn't tell the whole story. You know how many people tell pastor Brenda they wish they could be her. Especially that man that we've had so many women in the church over the years, they're like, man, Pastor, Brenda, I just, I admire you so much. And she's someone to admire. I'm gonna brag on her for a little bit. She's someone to admire. She's an incredible pastor. She's pastored, this church faithfully for over two decades, faithful, faithful pastor, she's an I feel like a lot of times you can take for granted what you have when you have it. She's an internationally sought-after speaker. She's spoken at conferences on multiple continents, she's written a few books, she's written a children's book, she's done all of these incredible, awesome, amazing things. And so people see that they see the size of the story. And they go, Man, I wish I could be like you Pastor Brenda, I wish I could have the influence you have, I wish I could be in life where you are in life. And if they could just get a peek behind the curtain, they probably wouldn't want it.

Because there's a lot of pain that led to that. There's a lot of crashing, that led to that. There's a lot of trials and tribulations and heartaches and losses that led to that because size doesn't tell the whole story. You only see a part of it. You only see a part of it. Size does not tell the whole story. There is a lot more at play. You see what God seems to bring in a moment is actually what God has been building over time. A lot of times, it looks like God is just doing something in a moment. Man, God really moved in that moment didn't man, could you believe what God's doing right here at this moment? Man, God's been at work. You didn't know it. You didn't notice it. You weren't looking for it. But God has been doing something. It may look like Pastor Brenda was an overnight success. Nothing was handed to her. She had to work for it. She had to trust God with it. She had to be faithful. Everything that looks like it just happens in a moment God has been building and doing overtime. At this moment, when Jesus was born, it looked like Whoa, a big moment for the city of Bethlehem. Right? I got to go to want to put that one on the tourism packet. God was born here. It's a big deal, right? Seems like it was an overnight success. But God had been doing little things. And I gotta tell you, if you're not reading scripture, getting to the word, man, get on Uverse and get a Bible app that has a reading plan allowed to take you through Scripture. There's such incredible stuff. And when you read in the Old Testament, you'll see all of these signposts all of these markers that are pointing to God doing something big in the city of Bethlehem, even when it doesn't look like it. Even when it's still the small little country, a city in the hills, right? It's just this tiny, little insignificant town, but God is doing something. He's prepping something and you can see it time and time again. You see it in the life of the patriarchs and you see in David's life and all these markers saying hey, something bigs happening in Bethlehem. It doesn't look like it yet. You may not notice it yet, but something big is happening. That's because what God seems to bring in a moment is actually what God has been building over time. He's been building over time, Micah five to again says that out of Bethlehem will come a ruler whose origins are from old

whose origins are from ancient times. God had been working in the city of Bethlehem him he had been preparing it and getting it ready. Behind the scenes. God was building something over the years. That's true with Bethlehem and that is true with you. And that is true with me God is at work, even when it looks small, even when it looks insignificant. Even when it looks like no one else is noticing. God is doing something he is prepping something he is working on. We've Cornerstone we've seen that happen and we see that happen in our own church history. This great church that's affecting multiple communities and impacting the world for Jesus and advancing the kingdom of God. This church started as a tiny little Cornerstone Church on Belle Isle drive like years ago, a tiny little church that grew and grew and then went to 578 Killian road and grew and grew and then went to Coventry Elementary School. And then now we are here at 2445, South Arlington. And it's just that that constant trust in God, that constant faithfulness in him a little bit by a little bit over time, there's no such thing as an overnight success. So whenever you're feeling sad, because it feels like things are inadequate, you feel like you're not measuring up. Remember, man, God, God doesn't just do things in a moment. He builds things over time. Just give it time, continue trusting in Him, continue putting your faith in him. We've talked about this so much here, cornerstone, it's something we constantly say over and over again. the outcome is not your responsibility. Obedience is your responsibility. The outcome is God's responsibility, the size and the scope of your life, the significance of your life, that that's God stuff that is above your paygrade. It's above my pay grade. Our job is to obey our job is to just say, Yes, Lord, and follow his instructions. Our job is not the outcome. Our job is obedience. And here is the thing that scripture promises time and time again, if you and I if we focus on faithfulness, God will take care of fruitfulness. If we focus on being faithful to Him, He will take care of the fruit of our lives. We don't have to worry about it. We're not on the hook for it anymore. I don't I don't lie awake at night. just worried about the fate of Cornerstone Church? Are we going to grow? Or is the building going to happen? Man, I just worry about being faithful to God and leaving all of those outcomes to him. Because I don't decide them anyways. Neither is passive Brenda, neither is Pastor Donnie, neither does anybody on the staff. Nobody here determines those except God, Himself. And if we focus on our faithfulness, God will take care of the fruitfulness. Who will take care of it, we see that we get this mixed up all the time. Even good people get this mixed up, right, we were talking about King David this morning. And First Samuel chapter 16. It's whenever King David is actually getting anointed asking if the next king of Israel. A prophet Samuel, a man of God, who's this incredible man he hears from God he sent to go anoint David. And whenever he gets to David's family's house, and he sees all of David's other brothers, he's looking at the tallest ones, the most muscular ones, the most handsome ones. And he's saying, okay, that that guy is going to be the next king, right? Not him. Okay, then that one, then that one, right? Like, it's got to be these ones. And eventually, God has to slap them around a little bit. God got to essentially tell Samuel, he says in verse seven of First Samuel 16, he says, do not consider his height or his appearance. I have rejected him. Samuel, stop at stop looking at all those these outside things that show Oh, he's adequate enough. He's significant enough, he looked, he fits the type who stopped looking at those things. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. We are constantly looking at the wrong things, not just in other people, but in ourselves. We are constantly looking at the wrong things in our life, and using that as our measure of success. Is my life big enough? Am I doing good enough at work? Are all of these indicators hitting the right levels? And if they're not my life, isn't that purposeful? My life isn't hitting what I thought it should be. We constantly are working on the wrong things. God does not want us to worry about the fruit He wants us to worry about being faithful. That is what is in our control. That's the only thing that is in our control as being faithful and leaving the fruitfulness to him letting him take care of the rest. We just are as faithful as we can be with the information we are given. And we leave the rest to him. That's it. I was reminded of this is me and my wife Jessica. We love watching. Like the baking shows you know, on everything on food networks, anyone else. Yeah, but they're on TV for reason. Some of y'all are watching them like they get ratings right? I love watching those things, especially the holiday-themed ones like Halloween wars and Halloween Baking Championship. Now we're watching the Holiday Baking Championship. It's so much fun. We love watching those shows. And so we're watching it, and it's really it's fun for me to watch it because it's such a foreign land to me I can't even imagine being that good at that because I'm such a terrible cook. And to have an even worse degree Baker like whenever I've attempted it. It's been bad. I'm as bad of a baker as I am a singer if that will tell you right I guess it's bad. Um, it kind of hit me the other day why I'm so bad at it. So we're watching it. And one of the bakers is explaining how baking really is just science. It's just science. And it clicks. Like, I'm terrible at science. That's, I'm terrible at it science and mathematics. Awful, just absolutely awful does, I'm like, Well, this is all suddenly, I'm having an epiphany right now, like, this is why I'm so so bad at it. And as she's explaining it, it's hitting me I'm like that is that's exactly what baking is, you have to have very certain ingredients, right? Very certain specific amounts of those ingredients, you have to follow this recipe, you have to, you know, put all the dry stuff in one bowl and all the wet stuff and the other bowl and mix it in a very certain way. And make sure you fold it together at a certain temperature and don't let it get too hot or too cold, all this different stuff. And then you want to make sure you preheat the oven needs to be this kind of oven. Not that kind of you want all of these specifics and all of these little things. And if you follow them just right, you put it in, and then it's out of your control. Like they don't do anything else. They'll put it in, you'll be watching the shows or like hope it turns out, you're like hope you hope it turns out. That's It's crazy, right? But it's because they realize there are certain things it's out of their control. But what they can control is they will be as faithful to that recipe as they can possibly be. They're going to follow it to the tee, they're, they're going to be faithful and make sure that they do their part. And just trust that this oven trust that these ingredients that everything works together to make the process a success. You see what I'm getting at the same thing is true for you. And the same thing is true for me, the same thing is true in our life, in our walk with God, there are only certain things you can control, you cannot control the significance of your life, you cannot control the outcome and the impact that your life makes. You cannot control that. That's what happens in the oven. You don't get to control that part. What you do get to control is how faithful you are to the recipe. What you do get to control is how faithful you are to what you know God has called you to do. You say you know what I'm going to serve, I'm going to give, I'm going to pray for people, I'm going to be in Scripture, I'm going to be walking in the Spirit, I'm going to do everything that this recipe calls for. So I can live a faithful life and trust that the rest will work out. I can just trust that the rest will work out. Because that is the only thing you can control is your faithfulness, the fruit that is all from God, control what you can control. And in my experience, I can just tell you this, in my experience, it's a relief, that the significance of my life is not up to me. Thank you, Jesus, that is not up to me. Because I would screw it up. I'm not that good of a person. I get selfish. I can look out for my own interest. I'm not that good of a person. I don't want to have the success, the long-lasting legacy of my life resting on my shoulders. Thank God, it doesn't think God that the significance of my life is not mine to control. Thank God that my significance doesn't start with me. It starts with him. It starts with God. Listen to this. I love this. This is the apostle Paul, this is from First Corinthians chapter one. This is the apostle Paul just kind of reminding everybody, not just the Corinthian church, but he's reminding us today as well. Where we were when Jesus found us listen to this. He says brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Think of what you were when you were called, think of who you were when Jesus found you. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. Paul saying man, don't forget where you were when Jesus found you. Don't, don't start to think that you're more than you are. Remember how much you rely on him. Remember how much you need him. Remember that your inadequacies and your insecurities are supposed to drive you to him not further into those No, no, that's the devil's territory run to Jesus with those things, and he can use them for good.

Remember where you were? I remember whenever I was, like the early 20s I got a job offer from whenever we were still a part of the Free Methodist denomination. I got a job offer to become the associate pastor at Galleon Free Methodist church. Pastor Paul Walter is an awesome guy, family friend, and he wanted me to be his associate pastor. And it was like a huge, huge honor because I was in my early 20s I'm like, Man, are you? Are you sure? I don't know if you know what you're asking. Right? But he asked me to do that. And it was I mean, you know, just a really really kind thing really big honor. And I remember thinking on him like why in the world would he ask me like, I haven't led anything like I haven't done anything. And it started hitting me and I'm please understand, I'm not like trying to tear myself down or anything like that. But I started to realize, you know what, this isn't so much about me, as it is about my parents. You see, Paul knows my mom and dad, and he knows how faithful of pastors they are, what fantastic leaders, they have been, that they've led with integrity, that they're trustworthy, that they're kind. He knows all those things about my parents. And so if my parents vouched for me, which they did, he knew he could take it to the bank. See, my significance wasn't resting on how great I was, oh, he must have heard that I was tearing it up here at Cornerstone. So, he decided to make a sweetheart offer to steal me away. That's not what was going down. That's not what was going down. But because of what my parents said about me, because of the significance that they gave me, I got a job offer. I didn't do anything. Like I didn't do anything. But what my parents said, made all the difference. Your significance does not start with you. It shouldn't. If you're finding your significance within what you're doing, I want to tell you, you need to change that quickly because you're heading for a fall. You're heading for some humble pie. I don't know when it's coming. But it comes, it comes for everybody. It comes from everybody. Don't find your significance in yourself. Your significance is not supposed to start with you. It's supposed to start with an end with Jesus, it's supposed to start and end with God. And you want it that way. You don't want to be in charge of the significance of your life. You don't want that in here's why you don't want that. Because the fact is that shortcomings in life can't steal the significance that you have, because you didn't earn it. You see if you would have earned the significance in your life. That means you can lose significance in your life. What if your smart decisions and the great way that you've decided to live, if that's what gives you significance may have one bad choice one bad decision one shortcoming one mistake, and it's all gone. It's all gone. But if your significance is tied to something you didn't earn, if your significance is tied to something that someone just gave you, you can never lose it. Because your sign is in something completely other. It's in something you cannot possibly lose. You did nothing to earn it. You can do nothing to lose it. I mean, my kids know that whenever we get the stuff when we get them gifts whenever we buy them stuff. They're not lying awake at night afraid of man's dad gonna take this away tomorrow. Well, it's gonna happen, man, I hope the toys so downstairs, ooh, I don't know. They're not worried about that. Because it's a gift. They didn't do anything, earn it. We didn't give this to them saying better keep those grades up. Do you want to see that money again? Better keep the grades up, right you want us to take Teddy back to the dog shop. And you better keep us great. Like we're not doing that to our kids. They know it's a gift. And because it's a gift, they have security. They have security. They know nothing they can do can shake it. They know nothing they can say can shake it because they know that the significance, they know that the gift is not predicated on how great they are. But that they have parents who love them. That's where your significance needs to be tied in when it is you will realize man, even the shortcomings in my life can't steal my significance because I did nothing to earn it so I can do nothing to lose it

are closing moments. I have one. One last note. I literally just scribbled this in on my notes this morning, as I was reading back over the scriptures for today. It's something that just kind of hit me this morning, as I was thinking about the fact that we're talking about mica and his prophecy of Jesus coming out of Bethlehem and we're singing Robbie, killed that song, a little town of Bethlehem just so so good. And I'm thinking about this and I'm like Neil, all this stuff we talked about Bethlehem we sing about Bethlehem we have songs we have books written about it all this different stuff me and my kids we just watched the Christmas Chronicles to again last night and they talked about the Star of Bethlehem in it and just all these references, even people you talk to who have no background in the church, no background in Christianity or faith would be able to recognize what Bethlehem is like, Oh yeah, that's where Jesus was born. Like I know that. Bethlehem has stood the test of time. Bethlehem is it's got like name recognition out the wazoo, all this different stuff. And yet it was a town of 300 people who never had any like military power. Never had a moment where it was like a really booming bustling city and Metropolis and then it kind of fell off. No, it never had any of that. You see, we remember Bethlehem Today, not because of its own glories, not because of its own significance, not because of what it was able to achieve as a city on its own. We remember Bethlehem because of what God did in that city. That's why we remember, Bethlehem. That's why we have songs about that time. That's why the city even matters today, not because of its own merit, but because of what God did in it. May the same be true of me, that at the end of my life, people aren't remembering Jacob young, because man, I was such a good speaker. I was such a good speaker, and I did this so good. And I did that so good. No, no, at the end of my life, I want people to remember my name and my legacy to be not because of what I've done, or because of the scope of my life and the size of my life and how big my church was, No, I want it to be God did something in him. God did something in him. That was a man who was faithful to God, he just followed God, he just followed him, and he left the fruit he left the outcome to God. And, and that's it. That's it. He didn't try to manipulate things to make his life seem more important and more valuable. Now he was just faithful. He was faithful, and God did something in him. That's the kind of God we want. That's the kind of God we need, not just the God who is with us, but a God who is in us, a God who does something in us. And as we put our faith, and as we put our trust in Him, He does more and more things in us, He changes us, he changes who we are for the better. Don't you want that to be your life story? Don't you want to be marked as someone who was faithful, and just left the fruit to God just left the outcome to God? Think about this. I just saw this quote the other day, I loved it. The early Christian martyrs, the early Christian martyrs, the people who have been torn apart for their faith in Jesus because they refused to bow down the people. We like to fancy ourselves, martyrs, nowadays. These were people who we know from early Roman history that what Emperor Nero would do is that he would take Christians to have them tied to poles in his garden, have them slathered with oil men would set them on fire while they were still alive to provide light as he would take evening strolls through his garden. That's how Christians retreated. That's persecution. That's the kind of martyrdom they face. And you want to know what's so interesting about that is the early Christian martyrs never saw themselves as martyrs. You won't find any text, anything in Scripture about Woe is me. Look at what I'm going through. Woe is me, man, I seem to be giving up my life for this, the small little upstart religion that I mean, who even knows if we're going to make an impact, but you won't find it anywhere. These men and women marched to their deaths triumphantly, triumphantly, because they didn't care about the fruit. They couldn't care less about the fruit, all they cared about was being faithful. They didn't care about the size of their life or the scope of their life. They just wanted to be as faithful as they could, to what God had called them to do. And because they cared about being faithful, we're here.

The church still exists 2000 years later, strictly, because men and women did not care about the fruitfulness of their lives, but the faithfulness of their lives, and because they were faithful, God used that he build his church through the centuries through the millennia, and here we are today. We're the fulfillment of that promise that it doesn't matter how small and how insignificant what you're doing seems at the moment, God is building something, he is doing something. And so how dare we, in our own lives, think that we're so small, we're so insignificant, nothing good can come from this, I'm never going to make a difference. You have no idea what your faithfulness can do. You have no idea the fruit that can come out of your faith if you will just trust God, and continually, just continually trusting in Him just making the one-time decision. You know what I'm just for the rest of my life gonna believe that God is good. And just filter everything that ever happens through that. And I'm just gonna continue to be faithful, just gonna continue to be faithful, and I'll see what God does with it. You will be blown away at what your life looks like. You will be blown away at the impact your life will have. Don't you dare think you're insignificant? Don't you dare think you're worthless? You have no idea what God wants to do through you. And in you. Let's pray real quick. All right. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you are a God who chooses the weak things of the world to confound the strong that you are a God who specifically looks for those who are downcast who are fallen, who are insecure, who feel insignificant, and you choose to work through them. Man, God, that gives me confidence because I know how often I can get into that place. God help all of us to remember That our lives as long as they are faithful to you will never be insignificant. They will never be small that we like the city of Bethlehem can be remembered not for the size and scope of our life but for our faithfulness that we were a person who God moved in and that in us and through us, we were able to leave a mark, on our families, on our friends, on our workplaces, on our communities, on our neighborhoods, in our church. God, we want that to be true of us. So help us through the power of your spirits remain faithful, to you faithful to your calling, on our lives as we leave this place today. Help us to take what we have learned to apply it in our lives, to be faithful people who never, never minimize the impact of our life and never minimize the impact of just simple daily obedience. Because we know you work wonders through just a simple yes. We love you so much, father, and we pray all this in your name, amen.