1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,000 Howdy. Well this week's been a bit of a busy week. I ended up spending a few days over in Florida. 2 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:17,000 So for the guys that I missed getting a chance to see on Friday night, a brewery night, my apologies. 3 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:22,000 I promise you I am more than happy to have a beer with you next month. 4 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:30,000 But it was a very busy week. Spent a few days focusing on how to train people in an evangelistic mindset. 5 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:38,000 So how it is that we prepare to gather people beyond just this particular building and just this particular group. 6 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:45,000 And how to reach out and to bring others to know Christ Jesus and to live that out in their lives. 7 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:52,000 It was a great opportunity. Plus some of the other Lutheran pastors were there and so it was a good chance to get to know them as well. 8 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:58,000 Because it's very easy for pastors to get very kind of closed off in their churches. 9 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:04,000 But while I was out there, I went and saw a friend of mine that I'd grown up with. 10 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:11,000 He had lived at the camp that I would go to every summer. And he and his wife and their kids are living out in Florida. 11 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,000 So I drove over and apparently they have a deer farm now. 12 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:20,000 It's a fascinating place. The deer will come up and eat the corn out of your hand. 13 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:24,000 Apparently they will eat out of my hand but not out of my friend's hand. 14 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,000 So yeah, just a little bit cooler in that regard. 15 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:34,000 But with it though is this is the guy that I knew that saw me at the times whenever. 16 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:37,000 I mean childhood is just ridiculously awkward. 17 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:43,000 And this is the person where we would go out and try to be out and he had a coyote whistle. 18 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 And he was like, oh, I want to try to call the coyotes. 19 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:52,000 And then we realized that they're coming and we're like, we probably shouldn't be out here and ran back inside the cabin. 20 00:01:52,000 --> 00:02:00,000 Or the guy that was constantly trying to figure out, okay, just take the fishing pole, just put it in the water. 21 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:08,000 And still couldn't figure out why I can't catch fish. So it's not just Luke that apparently can't teach me how to fish. 22 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,000 It's apparently everybody. Nobody seems to be able to teach me how to fish. 23 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,000 And this is the guy where he had a bumper on his car that was flared out. 24 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:21,000 And his idea was, hey, as long as I just run into a tree, it should be able to shove it back in. 25 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:25,000 And he tells me five seconds beforehand. I'm like, can you let me out? 26 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:27,000 Oh no, we're dry. Okay, we're about to hit it now. 27 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:31,000 Believe it or not, it worked. And believe it or not, I survived. 28 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:37,000 With it, though, is this is the guy that saw me during these awkward times. 29 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:42,000 And it also reminded me of what it was like to be at camp. 30 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:49,000 And turned out that this trip was right before the 50th anniversary of the camp that I grew up going to. 31 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:53,000 I used to go to Sandy Creek up in the Washington on the Brazos area. 32 00:02:53,000 --> 00:03:02,000 And going there is that, honestly, I always felt a struggle when I'd be at camp. 33 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:10,000 Because the thing about camp is that I always see that there were all the athletic kids that were able to do all the camp games and everything. 34 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:18,000 And I'm kind of like, I mean, back then I was not the athletic specimen that you see in front of you today. 35 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:20,000 Don't laugh that hard. Okay. 36 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:26,000 Well, you can laugh a little. But with it, though, is I could not keep up with any of those sports back then. 37 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:30,000 I didn't have friends from the same church going to camp. 38 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:32,000 So I didn't really know the people there as well. 39 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 And it was constantly trying to memorize verses. 40 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,000 There was always somebody better at it than I was. 41 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:46,000 And so going back to the 50th anniversary in some ways was this thing that I was starting to dread. 42 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:50,000 Because I'm thinking, great, this is like a high school reunion kind of a thing. 43 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,000 You're like, I don't want to go. Yeah, I don't want to see all those people again. 44 00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:02,000 Well, the thing is, though, is that one of the old campers that I had been a counselor for had found me and said, 45 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:06,000 I'd like for you to go for this 50th anniversary. 46 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:08,000 And I'm like, how do you say no? 47 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:14,000 But then realizing how he had found me is that he had been thinking to himself, 48 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,000 hey, I need to catch up with my old camp counselor, Jason. 49 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:23,000 And then he was watching a video showing different whiskey tastings. 50 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:25,000 And he sees this guy on one of the videos. 51 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:29,000 He's like, that guy looks a lot like my old camp counselor, Jason. 52 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:30,000 I should reach out to him. 53 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:32,000 And he started telling me about this. 54 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:33,000 I was like, is this Scout reviews? 55 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:36,000 He's like, yeah, yeah, that's me. 56 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:37,000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 57 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:39,000 No, my buddies are like, hey, would you like to do whiskey tasting? 58 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:41,000 And I ended up being the comic relief. 59 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:45,000 But it went pretty well. And because of whiskey tastings, 60 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:50,000 I ended up finding my old camp student that was there. 61 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:57,000 But realizing that that idea of whoever you are, whatever you may be thinking of it, 62 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:02,000 is going to end up being on display one way or another. 63 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:06,000 And that ends up being something that you can't avoid. 64 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:13,000 And that's this image that's in my head when we think about what's happening in numbers. 65 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:17,000 You see, the people were traveling, they'd already left Egypt. 66 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:20,000 The people of Israel had already left Egypt. 67 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:24,000 And they're going from this mountain, I think it was Mount Hor, 68 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:26,000 and they were going over to the Red Sea. 69 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:29,000 But they have to go around Edom. 70 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,000 A descendants of Esau. 71 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:35,000 So there's kind of a weird tension between these groups that are kind of distant cousins. 72 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:39,000 But as they're going around, the people are grumbling. 73 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:41,000 They're complaining. They're upset. 74 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,000 It's like, why are we out here? Why are we doing this? 75 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:47,000 And God is like, fine, if that's the way you want to be. 76 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:52,000 And he sends fiery serpents that are biting the people. 77 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:56,000 And some of them are even dying from it. 78 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:58,000 Now, of course, we are Texans. 79 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:03,000 We know what it is to be bit by things that make you feel like you're on fire. 80 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:06,000 Ours are in tiny little ant form. 81 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:11,000 So, yeah, when you see those things like in a little ball during a flood, 82 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:13,000 and you're like, do not go near those things. 83 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:18,000 Apparently, theirs not quite as terrible as a Texas fire ant, in my opinion. 84 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:27,000 But the fiery serpents biting them are reminding them that they are continuing to ignore 85 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:32,000 what God has promised and continuing to complain about what it is that he's doing. 86 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:37,000 So what is it that as they say, please, Moses, talk to God, 87 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:40,000 there's got to be some way to be saved from this. 88 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:47,000 And God says to Moses, yes, make a serpent out of bronze and put it on a pole. 89 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:52,000 And everybody who looks at that serpent will live. 90 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:55,000 They're not going to not get bitten, by the way. 91 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:58,000 But they will live through it. 92 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,000 And this seems like a really strange thing. 93 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:06,000 Why are you putting a graven image of an animal up on a pole that you're supposed to be looking at 94 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,000 and that's somehow going to save you? 95 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,000 But the thing is that there were two parts to it. 96 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:20,000 One is that as they looked at the serpent, they remembered why they were in that situation in the first place. 97 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,000 It's reminding them of what they had caused to be there. 98 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:32,000 But second is that while you're being bit by snakes, what's going to save you? 99 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:34,000 I'm going to look at a pole. 100 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:36,000 That's somehow going to make it okay. 101 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:40,000 Well, it is if you actually believe what God has promised. 102 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:46,000 If you are looking to where God has promised. 103 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:54,000 That's the thing about this, though, is that oftentimes what we do is we can take the blessings that God has given us 104 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:57,000 and we can sometimes make them into an idol. 105 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:07,000 You see, what ends up happening is that this serpent on a pole ends up becoming something that is referred to as the Nuhushetan. 106 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:13,000 The Nuhushetan ended up becoming an idol for the people of Israel. 107 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:23,000 The thing with it is that later on they stopped paying attention to that this pole was meant to remind them of their sin 108 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,000 and that they had to trust in God's mercy. 109 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:27,000 And instead, what are they doing? 110 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:31,000 The people of Israel ended up later on making offerings to the pole. 111 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:36,000 Completely missed the point in the first place. 112 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:44,000 And so what happens is that King Hezekiah has to come and take that pole and destroy it. 113 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:55,000 Because the thing with this is that what has been used as something helpful can sometimes become harmful in a different context. 114 00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:05,000 You see, it's easy to worship what blesses us and let it be something that distracts us from God. 115 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:15,000 See, we can sometimes pick things that are in our lives like habits or people or even our personal belief systems. 116 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:20,000 And we can make those into things that we end up worshiping, that we end up following. 117 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:30,000 How many times do we end up seeing some sort of a social media influencer which apparently is a job? 118 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:33,000 I thought that was just made up, but apparently it's an actual career nowadays. 119 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:38,000 But a social media influencer with a video that is telling you, 120 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:46,000 Hey, I started doing this every single day and now I'm beautiful and amazing and smart and everybody loves me. 121 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:55,000 And don't you want the same thing in your life if you would just do these exact same habits, which I can tell you about from 999. 122 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:04,000 And that somehow whatever they have figured out is going to now magically fix everything in your life, even everything on the inside. 123 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:11,000 Because of course, as long as you're beautiful and smart and loved by everybody, then of course on the inside everything will be figured out too. 124 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:14,000 But sometimes also even people. 125 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:24,000 Is that there may be a person that has genuinely helped us in our life or genuinely said something or done something admirable. 126 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:30,000 Someone that we genuinely like, Hey, I appreciate this. And then what do we end up doing? 127 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:36,000 Is that oftentimes we can turn it into now I have to follow along with anything and everything this person has said, 128 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:46,000 or I have to completely just disregard what I know is right because of who it is that I'm following. 129 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:54,000 Which it doesn't really matter who it might be, but anyone who says that they're the only one who can fix something who isn't God. 130 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:58,000 Be wary. Please be wary. 131 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:02,000 But even our belief systems. 132 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:10,000 See, we make sure at least within the Lutheran church by and large, there are definitely some exceptions, 133 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:21,000 but by and large is that we fully believe that we are not going to come up here and tell you how you vote and how your politics run. 134 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:27,000 Because each and every one of you has a very good reason for why it is you go in the direction that you do. 135 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:32,000 And for various reasons, that is the direction we don't want to go in. 136 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:41,000 But what is funny is whenever we discuss something that someone might think is political. 137 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:53,000 But the thing with this is that we are called to continually look at what we think, what we believe in light of what God is wanting us to consider. 138 00:11:53,000 --> 00:12:03,000 So my hope is that for every one of you is that we're continuing to ask you to look at what you assume to be true. 139 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:11,000 And what you think must always be good and just pause and say, is that actually what God is saying today? 140 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,000 Whatever your leanings might be. 141 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:20,000 And that's the thing with this is that we can oftentimes take these things that we trust in. 142 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:25,000 And we can use them the opposite way of how God has intended them. 143 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:30,000 See, seeing the bronze serpent was meant to humble the people. 144 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:34,000 It wasn't a way for them to feel that they were in control. 145 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:42,000 How readily do we think we're in control and then we get shocked and surprised. 146 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:46,000 But what is it that God ends up doing? 147 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:53,000 See, God ends up taking those sins, those issues, those struggles. 148 00:12:53,000 --> 00:13:10,000 God ends up taking those parts of ourselves and puts them up on a pole because he wants us to look right at them and consider what he's doing in our lives. 149 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:14,000 Oh, he can go back one. 150 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:18,000 I actually don't like this kid. 151 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:23,000 I give him a hard time. I don't want to look at his picture often. 152 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:30,000 Because this kid, whenever I think about him and I remember him and I look and I see that photo in front, 153 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:38,000 is it's reminding me of someone who kept trying to prove himself to everybody else. 154 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:44,000 That somehow he thought he would be safe and secure in life as long as he could just somehow convince people to like him. 155 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:50,000 Whether he was smart enough or he got enough pins or badges on his little Cub Scout uniform, 156 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:56,000 or whether somehow he could say the right thing at the right time. 157 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:03,000 That kid kept trying so hard just to make everybody happy. 158 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:12,000 Or other times whenever I look up and I see this guy, 159 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:20,000 and this guy who never actually had a lot of self-esteem, 160 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:29,000 basically would look in the mirror and is like, that guy, wow, why is he such a dumb, ugly guy? 161 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:37,000 And spent so much time focused on certain individuals in his life to the exclusion of others. 162 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:45,000 Waiting to somehow feel like he had arrived as long as he thought that he was being approved. 163 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:50,000 Or this guy. 164 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:57,000 This guy who has at least a little bit better taste in t-shirts, 165 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:10,000 who ended up going over there to Montana and ends up somehow offending his friends so much 166 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:17,000 that he doesn't end up talking to him for about five years. 167 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:26,000 And then wondering what it was that he had said in the first place that was such a terrible thing. 168 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:32,000 Or maybe this last one. 169 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:38,000 This guy here who apparently has worse taste in hats. 170 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:46,000 But as much as he knew that he was conquering mountains and teaching and leading youth 171 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:52,000 and was able to somehow manage to find a place in the world, 172 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:58,000 he still keeps saying, God, I know that you may be doing stuff in my life, 173 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:07,000 but I could not possibly imagine how you could be leading me to be leading any of your people. 174 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:14,000 Because that guy couldn't see anything other than the flaws. 175 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:23,000 And when I look up and I see myself, is that I try to run from those photos 176 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:30,000 because I don't want to think about those struggles from before. 177 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:37,000 But the thing with this is that God doesn't have these things here just because they're meant to continue to haunt us, 178 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:45,000 but rather is because he wants us to look and say, I want you to see what I was doing in your life the whole time. 179 00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:50,000 I want you to know what it was that I was doing all along. 180 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:56,000 That your flaws, that your struggles, that the things that keep haunting you 181 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:01,000 were ways in which I was continuing to show myself through you. 182 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:07,000 And I realized that that was the same thing this last week, is that there I was around some pastors 183 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,000 that I had even graduated from seminary with. 184 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:19,000 And that out of all these years, that about a decade of it, I hadn't been doing the same work that they had been doing. 185 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:25,000 And that it was this thing where it was just hard to see it in front of my eyes. 186 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:31,000 But the thing with this is that it wasn't about any of that. 187 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:39,000 It was that I was spending my time, as Jesus says in the Gospel, in my mind thinking I'm hiding in the darkness 188 00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:42,000 and that I was afraid of the light. 189 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:46,000 But the thing about the light is that the light does show everything. 190 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:51,000 It does make everything clear and apparent to us. 191 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:55,000 But that doesn't mean that we have no place in it. 192 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:04,000 What it is, is that God is also now showing this is also what I'm saving you in the midst of and through and from. 193 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:10,000 And that God is saying that this flawed person is my child. 194 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:16,000 And I have plans for him and I have plans for you. 195 00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:20,000 And that's the thing about the light and the darkness. 196 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:25,000 Is that we're not called to now ignore or pretend that all those serpents are never there. 197 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:33,000 That image, that animal that had continued to haunt us and to strike us from below. 198 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:39,000 But rather is that Jesus is saying I want you to look and see. 199 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:46,000 And that's the thing about Jesus being lifted up on the cross is that when we see him there, 200 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:50,000 we see one of us. 201 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:59,000 We see in him ourselves, but we then see what's even harder is we see the one that we put up there. 202 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:05,000 And we took all of that, all of what we have pent up, all the things that we want to avoid. 203 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:10,000 And we just look to blame someone and we're going to crucify him. 204 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:17,000 And he says, because I love you, I will let you. 205 00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:25,000 And that's the thing about this is that as we look to that is that we don't just see the things that we wish we could hide from. 206 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:30,000 But we also see the forgiveness that comes with it. 207 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:33,000 See, what are we afraid to see? 208 00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:41,000 That God wants to use not only to humble us, but also to bring us to repentance and to true change. 209 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,000 I don't know what it is that causes your mind to struggle. 210 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:49,000 I don't know what it is that you can't quite get off your mind. 211 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:58,000 But as much as we think about hiding in the darkness is that God puts right in front of us and says, I see this too. 212 00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:02,000 But I also love this person. 213 00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:05,000 I want you to grow through it. 214 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:10,000 And I want you to become more of the person I always intended you to be. 215 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:17,000 So instead of hiding from it or pretending it doesn't happen, may we see it? 216 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,000 May we know it? 217 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:29,000 And may we change not because we've got it figured out, but because that God who is up on that tree for us is changing us. 218 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:34,000 And making us each and every day into the person he's called us to be. 219 00:20:34,000 --> 00:21:00,000 Thanks be to God.