Rooted - Mountain Top Moments: Seeing God Clearly

Welcome to South Sub Church. We are so glad that you've decided to worship with us today. Whether you're in the room right now or watching from home, wherever it is, we're just so glad that we get to spend this time together and worship the Lord together as one. Here at South Sub Church, we believe we are one church with two expressions of worship. But we have one mission to bring people to Jesus Christ and together become passionate followers of him. Another way that we worship is through our tithes and offerings. And here at South Church, we believe that we give the Lord back what he gives us. And there's a couple ways that I want to invite you to do that this morning. One is giving online at southub.urch/g. Another way is by texting the number that's on the screen right now. Or there's an envelope in your seatback pocket. And here's what I want to invite you to do. No matter what gift you give, big or small, we believe that whatever we give, the Lord multiplies that and we are able to be the hands and feet of Jesus here where we are right now. If you're new, we invite you to fill out a connect card. We would love to get to know you, pray for you, and find a way for you to get more connected with our church. And if you're watching us online, make sure you leave a comment wherever you are. Maybe you're going to the mountains, maybe you have a soccer game to go to. Whatever it is, we're just so glad that you've decided to join us for worship. You picked a great week to be here. Let's jump into God's word together. Let's worship him today.

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and two. You know, there's something about microphones. If you turn them on, they work a whole lot better. So, um, this is what I feel like. We almost need to have kind of a harrah section for a second just because there's been so much stuff that we've already celebrated. Love Inc. and partnering and church, how well you've done with them just as far as not just financially giving, but also just giving your time and and effort in there. Um the video of the kids, it's just a lot of good things. But here's what I also know. In the middle of all these good things that we're celebrating today, it has been a dark week in our country, hasn't it? I mean, if you just think about all the things that took place just this past week, celebrating, I'm not even really celebrating, but remembering 911 and just the tragedy of losing um over 3,000 lives years ago. Um then there was the school shooting too close to home in Evergreen that hit all of our news, whether you're watching on the evening news or you're scrolling. And then to think about a political activist who was assassinated simply because he shared his views. And I don't know about you, but at some point this week, I just wanted to say, can I pull the curtains be done? Um, can I just not be done with life, but just I don't I just the week seems so so dark. Um, but I thought about this. It's not just the headlines that sometimes bring darkness to us, right? We all have our own situations that we're going through that maybe you're here today and you're facing some kind of surgery. you just some got some kind of medical diagnosis that you weren't looking forward to. Or or maybe there was just some financial difficulties. Or or maybe maybe some kind of relationship, a broken relationship you went through. Or maybe like many of us, it's just you're afraid to turn on the news or scroll the next day because fearful of what else might pop up. And so I don't ever want to start a sermon off in a dark way, but I think we have to acknowledge it's been a dark week. And and I don't know about you, but sometimes when I go through dark seasons or our our our society goes through a dark season, it brings about a question. And let's just be real honest. Whether you've been a Christian for a long time or you're still kicking the tires, the question sometimes comes up is God, where are you? Like you say you're here, but it sure doesn't feel like you're here. Um or it might even be a more personal question. God, not just where are you, but God, who are you? Like if you're this God of love that we read about in the Bible that we talk about in church and you see all this darkness and all this evil and sometimes it just feels like the evil is winning over the over the good stuff. And so ask the question that we many times just whether we are bold enough to ask out loud or we just ask inwardly like God really who are you and who are you and where are you? And here's the problem with that question. In church, it can almost feel like a nonsafe question, right? Are you with me? Nonsafe in that we come to church, we've been worshiping God, we've been praising God, but to even think about asking that question seems sacriiggious or it seems ungodly. It just seems like these aren't the kind of questions that this is a safe place to ask those. But if you're here today and whether it's this past week or some other season of your life, you have asked those questions, I just want to let you know, I think it's a good question to ask. And you're going, Keith, you're the preacher. How dare you? Can you really say that? Here's why I say that. Because it's the very question that Jesus asked. In Matthew chapter 16, he was with his disciples, and this is after a season of ministry. And they'd been around him. They had seen his miracles. They'd seen things that he done. They'd heard him proclaim him as the son of God. to proclaim himself as the son of God. One day in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus leaned towards the disciples and said, "I have a question for you. Who do people say I am?" Now, that's not a threatening question because it'd be real easy to tell God who everybody else thinks he is. But after they kind of talked and gave their answers, the Bible says this that he leaned for them and said, "Okay, that's who you say they say I am, but who do you say I am?" And so it was even in that conversation that Jesus had with his disciples that I think he was giving them permission to wrestle with that question. And as they wrestled with that question, he wasn't just giving them permission to wrestle. He was also giving them the green light to move forward in their answer. You see, here's the deal. No matter how you answer that question, it lays a foundation of your own theology. And I say your own theology. If you're here today and you're kicking the tires and about Jesus and you're not even sure you believe in God, you still have a theology, don't you? Or if you're here and you've been serving Jesus for many, many years and you hang on to him for everything, you have a theology. But the response and the answer to that question that Jesus asked, who do you say I am? It lays the foundation of your theology. And the wrong answer can lead you to believing in the wrong God. And so this morning, as we continue in our series, Rooted, um we're going to answer the question, who is God? Now, I can't promise you that we're going to answer in such a way that you can put a put in the gift box and put a bow on it and go, "Oh, I got it all figured out now. I understand who God is." But we're going to explore who Jesus said God is, who Jesus did more than just say who God is. He showed us who God is. And so, if you have your Bibles, we'll have the scripture up here. We're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 17. And here's what's interesting in our study of Rooted. What we're going to do this whole entire series is we're looking at some of these questions through the eyes of a disciple called Peter. And on this particular account in Peter, we're going to find and in in Matthew, we're going to find that Jesus took Peter and a couple of of his friends, James and John, and took him up on a mountain to see if they could discover the answer to that. And so, if you have your your Bibles or up here on the screen here, here's what it says. In Matthew 17, verse one, here's how the story goes. Six days later, Jesus took Peter. Now, let me pause there. Six days later. Six days later, after what? Remember I said in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus had this conversation. Who do people say I am? And who do you say I am? This little walk hike that they're going up on this mountain took place six days after that conversation. And here's what I think we're going to discover. Jesus wanted to have more than a headnowledge conversation with his disciples of who he was. He wanted to have an experiential conversation. And I think sometimes people who are trying to figure out who God is in their life, they keep it all up here, but they miss the heart piece of it. They miss the experiential piece of it. And I'm a firm believer that it takes both sides of the coin to really know who God is, the knowledge of your head, but the experience of your heart also. And so it says, "So six days later, Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and he led them up on a high mountain to be alone." And then in verse two, it says, "As the men watched, Jesus's appearance transformed so that his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as light. And suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared and they began talking with Jesus." Now, here's what you have to really to get this whole scene to move from the headnowledged experiential scene, you've got to really picture and imagine yourself being there. Okay? They go on this walk, they go on this hike, they go up this trail up this mountain. Who knows what they talked about? Peter, James, John, they're good friends. They're talking with Jesus. They're probably feeling pretty good that they got invited. No one else did. So, they're kind of feeling special and they're just kind of shooting the breeze and they're walking up there. And the Bible says when they got to the top of the mountain, all of a sudden Jesus transformed in his physical appearance. And the Bible says there that his face shone like the sun. Have you ever been walking along, you look at the sun, you know this? It shines so bright you can't look at it. I mean, it's not a flash. It is like so big it will hurt your eyes to look at it. Here's what John is or what Peter's describing or Matthew's describing about Peter and James and John is that as Jesus transformed his appearance his face became so bright it's almost like you would think the guys are like having to shield themselves from looking at the brightness of it. Now remember what we're looking at here is not some script of some movie coming out. This is not some scripture. They're going to have special effects and they can make anything look like anything. This is real life stuff. And all of a sudden, his whole body just began to glow and everything just became white as light, the Bible says. And then in verse three, suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared talking and began talking with Jesus. Okay, so it's not enough that Jesus transforms his look. It's not enough that he shines so bright. It's like, "Oh, you were a human just like like us." But you're not looking that way anymore. Now all of a sudden, two men, if you're not familiar with Moses and Elijah, if you had to pick out the two biggest stars in the Old Testament, the two biggest goats of the Old Testament, you would probably choose Elijah and Moses. Moses was the one who who stood face to face with God and received the commandments. Elijah was probably of all the prophets, probably the best known prophet. And so all of a sudden, here's Peter and James and John, and they're trying to figure out from six days earlier who God, who people say God is and who people say Jesus is. And all of a sudden, Jesus is becoming so much more than a man. He's becoming almost mystical in his appearance. And he's talking with characters from the Old Testament from hundreds of years prior to this. Can you imagine if you're Peter at this moment? like how would you respond to this? How how would you move forward from this? Well, the Bible says this that Peter looks at Jesus and says, "Oh my goodness, Jesus, this is great. Can I go build some tents for you guys to stay in?" Now, isn't that the strangest response to a situation, to a look, to a to to an event like this? You got these two guys that came back to life from history, Elijah and Moses. you got Jesus shining so bright and Peter's like, "Hey, you want to camp out? Can I build a tent?" And we laugh at that. It is almost kind of silly, isn't it? Like, come on, Peter. You can do better than that, right? I think a couple of things are going on there. First of all, he's probably just taken back by he doesn't know what to do. But I think there's another thing going on, too. The Bible says this. He says, "Can we build a tent not just for you to camp out? If you go read the actual scripture says, "Can we build it? You want me to build a tent for you so we could memorialize the moment?" There was a Jewish holiday that these disciples and every Jewish person would have been very aware of back in those days and it was called the Feast of Tabernacles. And part of the celebration of that of that Jewish holiday was they would actually construct tents outside that the temple and they would live in those for seven days in these tents. It was really just a way to remember God's presence in their lives. And so many theologians believe this when he looked at him and said, "Oh, can we go build a tent for you, Jesus and Elijah and Moses? I'll get one for all of you." Here's what he was trying to do. He was trying to memorialize that moment. He was trying to go, "Oh, wow." He recognized this is so amazing. Can I like Jesus, can I take you and can I take Elijah and can I take Moses and can I like kind of build this box and put you in so we won't forget this? Now watch this. It still sounds silly, right? How are you going to put Jesus who's glowing like as bright as a sun and how are you going to kind of put him in a box? But here's what I wonder. Do we sometimes do the same thing? Do we try to sometimes like Jesus, I'm trying to understand you and I'm going to build this box and I'm going to put you in this box. I'm going to put you in the box, not a square box that I go get off the shelf, but Jesus, I'm going to put you in the box of my understanding. Jesus, I'm trying to put you in the box of my perceptions of who or what you should be.

And so the Bible says that Peter said, "Hey, can I can I build these tents for you?" And all of a sudden, as soon as he said that, the voice, the Bible says, comes from heaven. And the voice is now God speaking. And the voice says this, "This this is my beloved son who brings me great joy. Now listen to him." And at that moment, Peter, James, and John couldn't take anymore. I mean, you got the bright light of Jesus right there. You got Elijah. You got Moses. And now you got the voice of God. And the Bible says they just fell on their face on the ground in great fear. And then this is what it says in verse 7. And then Jesus came over and he touched them and he said, "Get up." And he said, "Don't be afraid." And when they looked up, Moses and Elijah were gone. and all they saw was Jesus. If you keep reading the story, go home today and read the rest of the story. It's a really good story, even the rest of it. But the Bible says after he touched them and said, "Don't be afraid." It lets us believe as soon as he picked them up and there's not Elijah, there's not Moses. There's definitely no tense because they didn't take um Peter's suggestion on that one, they just began walking back down the mountain. And then Jesus says the most interesting thing to Peter, James, and John. He's like, "Hey guys, I have a favor to ask you." Shh, don't tell anybody what just happened. Like, can you imagine? Imagine at that moment when he said that, here's Peter and James and John. They saw the greatest, most amazing thing in their life. They're probably thinking, "Oh my gosh, I can't wait till I get back. I got to tell I got to tell this person. I got to tell this person. I can't wait to tell everybody." And Jesus goes, "Shh, don't tell anybody." And they talked about some more things. They talked about Elijah. They talked about John the Baptist. But then Jesus said something very interesting as they continued walking down the road. He said, "All of these things that you're seeing, they must happen before I go through the suffering that I have to go through." So here's the question. Six days earlier, Jesus has said, "Who do you say I am?" He takes them up on this mountain has this magnificent, glorious, almost unbelievable thing that takes place. So they cannot just use their head, they can use their experience to figure out who God is. That's one of those stories that sometimes you just sit back going, what do I do with a story like that? What what do I what do I do with it in my own Christian life? In fact, there may be some here today going, "I'm not even sure I believe that story, Keith." Like, really, honestly, I'm I'm trying to understand who God is. I'm trying to make a theology in my life when bad things happen to who God is. But that story just seems so unbelievable that here's this man that would transform and look this bright light. And really, that's just kind of too far out there for me. Isn't it interesting if I brought a caterpillar in here, a little walky squirmy little green thing and I held in my hand long enough and he built a cocoon around himself and few days later all of a sudden out of that cocoon from the ugly green caterpillar there's this beautiful butterfly. We'd sit and look at it going the magnificence of that moment. So we'll let a caterpillar turn to a butterfly and believe in it and be and just be encouraged by it. But we're afraid to take a story out of the scripture and let it change our lives. In fact, here's what we know. Peter wrote about this incident like 30 years later when he was writing first and second Peter. And look what he he wrote about this incident in second in first Peter chapter 16. First Peter verse 16. He says, "For we're not making up clever stories when he told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here's what I'm guessing. He had told this story later on after he wrote Jesus rose from the grave and people looked at him and going no really. His face was really bright. He was really shining like that. And it goes on to say, "We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes when he received the honor and the glory from the God the Father. And the voice from the majestic glory of God said to him, this is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy." We ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. So even 30 years later, Peter's going, "Guys, I know some of you don't believe me, but I got to be telling this. I am telling the truth. This is what really happened. This is why I went from my head knowledge to my heart knowledge. I went from just knowing knowledge to my experience of it to know who God is." And so if you're sitting here today, you're going, "Okay, that's good for Keith or good for Peter, Keith, but I'm still not sure how do you know who God is from this story?" Can I give you four simple things from this story that helps us see more clearly who God is? And here's the first one if you're taking notes. Who is God? First thing I say is this. God is bigger than our expectations. God is bigger than our expectations. When Peter looked at him and said, "If you want, I'll make these three shelters for you." He was trying to capture that moment. He was trying to memorialize it. But like we said, he he realized this that it's easier to capture and memorialize something than it is to live in the experience of it. Because if I memorialize it and I capture it, I just got to go back to my old thoughts, my old memories, and the old way that I experience it. And I don't have to pursue Jesus new and everything. And Peter was doing exactly what so many times that we do in our life. And the reason we miss God and the reason our faith can't hold a dark week like last week was for all of us is this is because we're living on tradition of God and not the current experience of God. That we really do build tents. We don't call them tents. We call them traditions. And I've said this before, church, there is nothing wrong with tradition if it propels us to know God more intimately today. But if our traditions become our God, we now worship false idols.

And so so many times as we think about who God is, we've got to realize that God is always bigger than our expectations.

This last Tuesday night, Denise and I were hosting our group at our house. We've got about 12 of us that meet for the rooted. And the thing that I shared with them, y'all, this is my heart is that I hope to goodness that I have not experienced God for all he is so far in my life. Because at this point in my life, at 59 years of age, if I've experienced everything about God, then for the next however 20, 30 years of my life, it's only downhill from there. I hope my faith I hope God reveals himself more fresh and more real to me today than he did when I was 16 years old, full of passion for him. But unfortunately, the older we get, we sit in our seats and we snuggle in and we're like, "God, I kind of got my life figured out. Please don't upset my life." Like, just let me kind of do my things for you and let me hold you in my little box called tradition. Let me hold you in my little box called my past experiences with you. And then we start making all of our own theology through our traditions and our past experiences. And when things happen like they did this past week in our world, we're going, "It doesn't fit in my box, God. What's wrong with you? Where are you?" And God's going, "I need you to throw away the box because I'm so much bigger than that." So, who is God? He's bigger than our expectations. Let me tell you the second thing I see about God in this story. God is light in a dark world. His face sown shone so bright. It was brighter than the sun. I try to be a really good husband for my wife who I've married over 30 years. And I try to just love her deeply. And so recently to be a good husband, I did something just full of love. I went and bought her a new vacuum cleaner. Now you may say, Keith, that's not love. No, it's love. Because instead of buying the $200 one that I wanted to buy, I bought her the $600 vacuum cleaner. It had a whole lot of love to it. She wanted a Dyson vacuum cleaner. And so we went and got her a Dyson vacuum cleaner. And one of the things that she didn't know when she asked this vacuum cleaner, it has this like purple light on the front of it. And when she vacuums, this purple light shines light on what'sever in front of her. And it shows every piece of dirt, every piece of hair, every piece of dust. And she said, "Keith, I'm OCD and this is not a good vacuum cleaner for an OCD person." And it vacuums and vacuums and vacuums. And I'm telling you what takes usually 10 minutes for me to vacuum because I don't see anything. It takes her 45 minutes cuz she's seeing everything on there. But here's what these lights were for. These lights were designed in this vacuum cleaner not to show her how dirty her house is, but to make her house how she wants it to be. Now watch me church. God is light. And so many times we feel shame in that light. Oh God, don't show me. I'm dirty. I'm bad. Don't show me all these things. But God's light is never to shame us. It is to clean us up and make us more like him. I love that moment in the story when the light was so big and God's voice spoke and Peter and James and John fell on the ground and they're fearful of their lives. They're fearful of everything. And what did Jesus do? He walked over to them.

God's light is not designed to condemn us, but is to clean us. John 3:17 says, "God sent his son into the world, not to judge the world, but to save the world through him." And 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and he will cleanse us from all righteousness." He's like, "I'm the vacuum cleaner. I'm the vacuum cleaner with the light. And when I show you dirt in your life, it is not to just push you and shove you and say how bad you are. It is say, "Move over and let me clean that stuff up."

But sometimes our instinct is to hide from God's light.

We hide out of shame. We hide because we feel bad. We hide out of fear that God might reject us when his light hits our life.

But as it says in John 3:17, he did not come to judge us. He came to save us. So who is God? God is light. Here's the third thing. God is personal. This big majestic story, the majestic moment morphed into a deeply personal moment. Like, don't you wish you could be there kind of in the bushes watching all this happen? Don't you wish you could see just how bright his face was? Don't you wish you could just see his his his clothes shine like light? Don't you wish you could sit there and go, "Oh, there's Moses. There's Elijah." And don't you wish you could see all of that? It was maybe one of the most majestic moments other than the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ. It may be one of the most majestic moments the Bible describes, but it didn't stay in this all powerful like, "Whoa, that's so big. I'm not even sure I can be around it." It moved to this very personal, intimate moment. It moved to that moment when Jesus took a step towards the disciples. And can you feel the tenderness there that they're down on their knees and they're just they're just probably shaken. They're afraid to look up because they're not sure what else is going to happen. They know they're in the presence of a holy God. And it moves in this majestic holy moment. And Jesus, you reach down going, "It's okay.

When I was a little kid growing up, I still reme remember to this day one of the most tender moments of my life as a little boy when I would lay in my mom's lap and she would take her hand and just brush my hair. When my little girl was four or five years old and I'd lay her down to sleep at night, she would say, "Daddy, would you tickle my eyes, my nose, and all those other things?" She'd love me to take my finger and just draw circles on her face. Just it would just tenderness of that moment before she got married. I'm like, "Would you like me to tickle your She weird, Dad. Get away." Okay. There's just these tender moments, right?

I think that when Jesus stepped over and he bent down to him and said, "Don't be afraid." It had as much tenderness as a mother or father stroking their child's hair when they're upset. It had as much tenderness as as me taking my daughter and circling her eyes and her nose and all those other parts on her face. It just reaped with personalness. And so if you want to ask who is God, God is personal. His holiness doesn't pull push us away. It pulls us to him.

Here's what we need to understand. When we are overwhelmed with uncertainty, when we are overwhelmed with fear, when we overwhelmed with the week that we had this past week in our society, it is at that God, that moment that God is not going, "Well, I'm up in heaven. I'm going to tell you what's going to happen here." It is that moment that he steps out of heaven and pulls us to himself. I wish I could tell you that things will get better politically in our in our country. I wish I could tell you that nobody would be sensiously murdered in a school or in a bus or any place else. I wish I could tell you that the medical visit you have to make to the doctor this week is going to turn out wonderful. I can't. But even in the midst of darkness, even in the midst of unknownness, even in the midst of just just what does the future hold, God says, "Come to me and I will hold you because he's personal." Here's the last thing. Who is God?

God is encountered through Jesus.

Because we're asking the question, God, who are you? But you can't ask the question, God, who are you, if you don't also ask the question, Jesus, who are you? Because the Bible says they are all in one. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And so they are all one. And the way that we encounter God in this personalness, the way we encounter God in the light that he gives us, the way we encounter God and that he is bigger than our expectations is that we encounter him through Jesus. I think the story is just almost crazy in a way. All of a sudden on the scene, you got Jesus, you got Moses, and you got Elijah. Really, if you looked out through the whole entire scripture, those are probably the three big dogs. And when the men who have fell on their face and Jesus walks over and says, "It's okay. Don't be afraid." And they stand up and they look, they only see Jesus. They don't see Elijah, he's gone. They don't see Moses, he's gone. And I think there's something very important there. The way that we meet God while we can understand who he is in the stories of the Old Testament, the stories of the Old Testament are there to help us understand who Jesus is. That our faith in God, our relationship with God, our pathway to God is found through Jesus Christ himself. And it was at that moment that he reached down and he said, "Don't be afraid." It's at that moment that Elijah, Moses, they slipped away. It's in that moment that I think the disciples encountered Jesus in a way they never had before. You see, before this, when he did his miracles, before this, when he was teaching, before this, when he's doing all these things, they had a filter and they could only see Jesus through the prophets. They could only see Jesus through Moses and the law. But when Moses went away, it was a symbolic way to say the way to God is not obeying the law. The way to God is by having faith in Jesus. When the prophets went away and when Elijah went away, it was a symbolic way to say it is not through judgment. It is not through all that. It is through the faith and the grace of Jesus that you'll experience God. And so Jesus walks over and he says, "Stand up. Don't be afraid." And they look around and there's no Moses. There's no Elijah. And Jesus just kind of comforts them for a second. He says, "Let's go walk back down the mountain." And as they begin walking down the mountain, he looks at him and he says, "I need you to do me a favor. Don't tell anybody about this this amazing experience you just had. Don't tell a soul about this. He goes, "Because I have to go through some suffering and after my suffering." And he was talking about his death and his burial and his resurrection. Like I I I kind sometimes wonder, did Jesus think this would be a good time to tell him about this? But he thought no, they've got a nap on their head. I mean, right now they just got to process what they just went through. But he said, "There's suffering that I have to go through. then you'll know who I am. I'm going to ask the band to come back up here. And um some of you are going, "We didn't take communion. We didn't take communion because you know we always take it in the beginning." Remember, God is not contained by tradition, right? Here's why I want us to take tradition at the end today.

Because I think as we reflect on the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus, it's so easy to stay in the tradition of the elements, the tradition of communion that we can miss the very Jesus that it's about. Now, stick with me. If we're not careful, communion, though it was initiated and and said and told to do by Jesus, which we're right to do it,

communion can become our tents because I go to church and I take communion. I kind of hold Jesus right here. But here's the deal. If our relationship or if our faith or if our view of God is contained to this, we'll never make it through a week like we had last week.

And so this morning, I want us as we take communion together and we reflect much more than just on bread and juice, we reflect on the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus.

that we experience him not just in head but in heart.

And so I'm going to ask you, will you go ahead and just take the bread out right now? And before we take it together, think on it because Jesus said, "This is my body broken for you." Would you take just a second and just thank God for his body broken for you?

How do I get through another week like we had last week? Because I'm hanging on to a savior that died for me. And I don't understand it all. And I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I'm trusting in the Jesus who has it. And so the Bible says as he took the bread, he broke it and he said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way he took the drink that night he was with his disciples. He said, "Do this in remembrance of me." He wasn't trying to put himself in a tradition. He was trying to project the disciples to never forget it was about his death and his burial and his resurrection. And he said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

And so the question is, who is God?

God is light and darkness. God is bigger than my experiences and my expectations. God is personal and God is found through Jesus. And so, Father, we come before you and thank you.

Thank you for who you are. And we may not ever understand all that's going on around us, God. We we may not ever understand, even agree with things that that happen that it feels like you could change if you wanted to.

We may not always agree with your timing, God,

but we agree that you're God and we are not.

And so we trust you

and we in the words of Jesus will stand up and not be fearful as we trust you. And we pray this in your holy name. Amen.