Joseph's Trip to Egypt: Why?

And pray. Lord, thank you so much. Thank you for this time for us to gather together and to just take some time, Lord, to seek your face as one. Lord, we're here.

We're expecting you to show up and we want to hear from you, Lord. So, God, just settle us, quiet us. Lord, just turn up the volume on your voice, your spirit. You're leading us, we pray. We just want to take a minute, Lord, and invite you, Holy Spirit, to be present here with us today as we just open up your word and think about some things we desperately need. You're leading, your guidance, your clarity.

God, and we just seek that along the way this morning. We seek that as we are just listening to you, Lord. So speak, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. I forgot my buckets. I need these buckets, obviously, for obvious reasons. No, that'll become clear. Okay, cool. So we are, there's a lot going on right now at I-90, and you probably know that.

I mean, if you're new here, and I didn't take much stock, but we are walking into a time as a church that's pretty exciting, or at least I think so, because as a church, we are seriously praying through and seriously exploring the possibility of moving from our current location, right? This building that we're sitting in to a new location.

We'll talk about that in a second. Like we are in a feasibility phase of a, you know, a contract to sell this building to another church, which I mean, it's serious, right? I mean, you're entering into the early phases of a contract. It's serious, but it is not guaranteed, I should say, that that contract will move forward with that buyer. And in fact, there's this past week, like some discussion about repairs that the church wants done.

And it's like, we don't know if we'll be able to figure that out. And so we are in a place where there's not a ton of clarity, right? But we are still kind of moving forward and trying to seek the Lord. We are in a place where we are anticipating that this could happen. And yet we are not 100% sure, which is interesting. It's an interesting place to be. And even more interesting is the fact that we're not exactly sure where we ought to go.

We're not considering a huge range of options. We're not moving to Idaho or West Seattle, right? We've kind of, I have a little map here of the range of possibilities, right? And we talked about this last week. The range of possibilities are we move just like three miles further along to the left there or to the, I guess that's west over there into Issaquah. Or we would maybe move four miles the other direction into the Snoqualmie area,

right? And so there's a range of possibilities that we have felt like maybe this is what God is calling us to. But we're really just open-handedly saying, okay, God, if this happens, if we move forward, where is it going to be? And of course, everyone, I have some thoughts. I have some information. I have some personal preferences along the way.

But so do you and so do other elders. right and so we're just like understanding that like there's a lot of data out there and so we're considering all that data and we're saying okay well lord what do you want to do with all of these thoughts feelings as senses of direction and we are just asking god in this season to speak to us loudly and clearly not not just to the elders but actually to to everyone who calls this place home,

and really if you go back and listen to last week and I don't like insist that you do this a lot but I am insisting if you want information about this process you want some clarity you have to actually listen, okay it's on YouTube it's on podcast and it's not because I need you to hear my voice but like if you want the information if you want to be invited in this process then I have no other way of getting your attention,

right I can't do anything but that so I really want to encourage you go back. If you missed that, if you want to be in the loop, do go ahead and find that. It's on YouTube. It's in our podcast. You go to our website, all the places where you can find that, you can get that information. But to summarize, though not so that you won't have to listen to it, but to summarize, what I asked you last week was to really.

Take seriously the call to prayer and to be diligent in prayer about this open question, right? Because it is a serious thing. And I invited you guys last week to a prayer meeting that we had on Thursday. Some of you guys were able to make out to that. I think that was good. We'll probably have more of those in the upcoming weeks because we're gonna pray individually and we're gonna pray together. And I'm also asked you, and this is a continual call. I asked you to fast last Thursday.

So some of you guys did that. You were fasting in prayer. Even if you couldn't make to the prayer meeting, you were fasting. You're taking some time to be with the Lord and to seek his face. And I'm asking us to do that for the next three Thursdays. So I will be fasting for the next three Thursdays. And I'm asking you to take this call to prayer, to seeking the Lord's face and to pray and to fast along with us on Thursdays. Whatever that means to you. You know, for me, it's just like,

I'm not fasting. I'm not eating throughout the day. I'm having water and I'm having a cup of coffee because I don't want to have a headache all day long while I'm praying because that will be a distraction in prayer. But what we were doing when we fast, what we're doing when we're fast is we are in a whole body, mind, spirit kind of way. Like the whole part of who you are, what makes you, you, you are seeking the Lord.

And fasting is an expression, an embodied, lived out expression of our knowledge that we desperately need God. And so when we fast, we don't engage in the things that we need, right? Food sustains us. You need food. You can't live very long without it. And so we withhold food from ourselves to remind ourselves of what is truer but less obvious to us. And that is that we are sustained by the word of God.

And so we can delude ourselves into thinking we don't need to listen to God and we can figure out our own lives because we're super smart and clever and handsome or whatever, right?

That our skill and our abilities is enough. But when we fast, we just say, Lord, I am 100% sure that I am facing things that I need your counsel on so much so that I'm gonna withhold the very necessity of food from myself because I want to be so aware and to heighten my awareness that actually I need you more than I need anything.

And so would you take some time the next three Thursdays to fast in that spirit of expectation and anticipation that God's going to speak and an awareness that we need him to. Because if we're just like not expecting anything from God, then we're just playing at church. And I don't think anyone here wants that. I don't think anyone here wants that. I certainly don't. Psalm 127.1, famous psalm. This is it, right? This is kind of the banner that we are just kind of raising over here.

It's unless the Lord builds a house, its labors labor over it in vain. And unless the Lord watches over a city, the watchman stays alert in vain. We do things. We're called to be diligent. We're called to make decisions. We're called to take responsibility. And yet we are not going to delude ourselves and think that through all of our skill and all of our intelligence, we're going to be able to do what is required. The Lord has to build the house. We do the work. The Lord has to build the house.

We walk over the church. We work in the church. We consider it. We build it up. We give, we pray, we care, we serve, right? We do all those things. And yet we understand that all of our efforts are totally subject to the working of God.

And so we're coming in that spirit and saying, Lord, what do you want? Please make it clear. Our best thinking is not enough. Our best intentions will amount to very little unless you, God, are in it. So would you please lead us?

And you, please understand this. Do not put that on me. I have taken upon myself an appropriate amount of responsibility because I'm an elder and a pastor, right? Two biblical categories of leadership, right? I have both of those roles and that requires some responsibility from me. but do not lie to yourself and think that that absolves you from any responsibility. Not in the Bible, right? I know how American churches run, right?

And sometimes it is like, oh, well, just, you know, the pastor's gone up to the mountain and he's received a vision. And so we have to go just like, I guess he's the man of God. That's not what the New Testament, I think, paints a picture of in terms of what leadership looks like. Yes, leaders are called to pray and to teach, and they are given authority to make certain decisions because somebody has to make decisions, right?

But sometimes I think that we forget that leadership in the church is actually unique. There's actually some variables that we need to account for that are important, not because God is in the church and absent everywhere else, right? But because through the Holy Spirit, we have a reason to expect that there is a whole set of data that you just don't have other places.

So what I'm saying is this. I'm actually making an appeal to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12.4. He describes the data mine that we have for making decisions and considering complex choices and how do we go about that. There's some methodology built into the church. It's right here. He says, now there are different gifts but the same spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. There are different activities,

but the same God works in all of them in each person. So again, he's painting a picture. What does the competency of a church looks like? Well, it isn't just a single leader who makes good decisions and who can rile everybody up. Actually, there is the Holy Spirit working in the church collectively through different individuals, not just leaders, but everybody, right? Everybody bringing something. He goes on to say, there's a same God, same God working in all these people.

There's a manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good. To one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit. To another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the same Spirit. To another, performing of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, distinguishing between spirits. To another, different kind of tongues. To another, interpretation of tongues.

One and the same Spirit is active in all of these. Distributing to each as he wills. So what Paul is explaining, he's painting a picture of the unique manifestation of the Spirit in the church, the unique source of spiritual data that we have available to us. And it's this, that the Spirit is at work in everybody, and there's a manifestation of the Spirit given to each person, and it's all for the common good.

So when we enter into big questions like the ones that we're considering, like, Lord, where are you calling us to collectively as a church? We understand that the answer to that is dispersed throughout, right?

And each of us is doing this thing. We are on a spiritual data. That's what bucket one is for. We are on a quest. We're looking for spiritual data. It's just information. It's just part of the things that we need to consider. And so, like, I've been collecting spiritual data for a while, which is to say, I've been praying and I've been discerning and I've been sitting with the question, God, what do you want for us to do? And I've been filling up the bucket. It's literally my job.

Like there is in my job description, devotion to prayer. Like if actually in my physical job description, but also in my job description as a pastor and elder from the Bible, I'm supposed to be devoted to prayer. And so prayer is this seeking the Lord, asking God, would you speak? So I've been trying to fill up the bucket, but this bucket is too big for me. And it's not even that big. We all are going towards the Lord.

We're saying, God, what's going on? We are inviting the Holy Spirit to speak to us. And we are just trying to fill up this bucket together. We are collecting data. So all that is to say, please pray, fill up the bucket. Collect the spiritual data. Seek the Lord. Like, take it seriously. Take it as if you have some responsibility in this. Be part of collecting this data together in the metaphorical bucket. There is no real bucket. This is just a prop.

It's just like, we collectively have this. So pray and listen. Do it diligently. And like, let me know what, if you have some clarity.

Let me know like if you feel like i'm praying and i can't get away from this and as long as you are dealing with the potential anxieties don't tell me what your anxieties are if you have anxieties that's good that's data but then like take that anxieties before before the lord and if you're like i think this is more than just my anxiety i think this is something that god is saying to us then I want to know about that.

So talk to me, send me an email, call me, send me a carrier pigeon, whatever works. Like the data needs to come in, the data needs to flow. We're asking for data, fill up the bucket.

Please, please, please. If you have a sense, where is God calling us? Like, what is the opportunity? What is the mission and calling and purpose of this church? Like we need to fill up the buckets. Understood? Clear? I think so. So we are reflecting on this decision and we're praying through and thinking as a church, Lord, where are we going? And we've also done this thing because I don't like to get up here and just talk at you.

I like to teach the Bible as much if I can, where we're also going along and we're taking our thoughts and in our convictions and trying to explore what God has.

And we're also like opening up the Bible and we're doing this series, and I'm calling it Journeys in Genesis. I'm a little embarrassed by the title, but it's good. It actually is good. When I say it, it just sounds weird. I don't like rhymes. I think that's it. Journeys in Genesis. It's kind of like rhymes. I don't like that.

So if you've read through the book of Genesis, and especially Exodus, I didn't want to call it Journeys through Genesis and Exodus because that's less good than Journeys in Genesis, right? But early on in this accounting of God's people, of God calling his people and shaping his people, they go on journeys. God's people do not just camp out. They're always moving, especially in the Old Testament.

And last week we looked into Abraham's journey, which really ends up being, I think, super instructive for us. We read about Genesis 12, 1, right? This call of Abraham that he received. It says this, The Lord said to Abraham, go from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to a land that I will show you. Not saying where it is, not here's the instructions. It's just get up and go, and I'm going to show you where we're going.

Abraham responds in faith to this really ambiguous call of God.

And he just says, leave the place that you're comfortable. Leave the place where they speak your language and have the same culture, and just go to this unknown place. And Abraham sets out, right? And as he does so, we're told that he is forging a relationship with God that is defined by faith. Like we know of Abraham like throughout the Old Testament and then into the New Testament, he has pointed to us as an example of faith. Faith is everything to God.

It is the thing that we cannot have a relationship with God without faith, according to the Bible. The unanimous voice of the Bible makes this very clear that faith is so important. And Abraham had faith in his exhibition of a willingness to go and be led, he has faith. In his exhibition of willingness to wait and patiently wait for the child of promise, his son Isaac, he is demonstrating faith.

And so the Apostle Paul in Romans 4, and then all over another place, I mean, Hebrews 12 and 11, all over Scripture, he is lifted up to us as an example of someone who is faithful, and yet a little bit of a doofus, right? Yet for all his doofustry, which is not a word, all his silliness, all his errors, he is still told he's a person of faith.

And that means a lot to God. He responds in faith. And so what does Abraham do? Like, I mean, just like, let's really cruising over the story, right? He responds, he leaves where he's at. He's gone from his hometown of Ur up into Haran and then kind of like up in north of Damascus. And then he heads down into the promised land. God leads him there by some means. And what does he do? He settles there. He has some kids, several kids, and he has one in particular.

He has a son named Isaac who he has with Sarah. And Isaac is just like a miracle baby because at this point, Sarah and Abraham are too old to conceivably have children. It doesn't make sense that they would have children, but he has this baby. He's the son of promise. He is a miraculous gift to. And Isaac, you know, he lives his life. And then Isaac has a son, a son named Jacob, a name you're probably familiar with. And Jacob gets a nickname. It's Israel.

And it's from Israel. It's from Jacob, from his 12 children, 12 boys that he has. Like that's where the nation of Israel begins to form out. And so it's like the touch point that all of ancient Israel has in common is a common ancestor in Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, right? So they can trace their lineage back to this three generations. And from that, that's where Israel is defined as Israel. And so we follow the book of Genesis and the ins and outs and the ups and downs of the life for Israel.

And Jacob, he has those 12 sons, a bunch of kids, but he has one in particular who goes on a journey that I'm sure if you did Sunday school, you're familiar with this journey, right? So he goes on a journey and we read about that in Genesis 37. It says this. Now Israel, Jacob, loved Joseph, who I'm sure you're familiar with. His amazing Technicolor dream coat, not in the Bible. The Technicolor part, right? Dream coat also. Yeah, no, none of it. It's all just kind of made up.

But we'll read about it here in a second. Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age. And he made a long-sleeved robe for him. And that's the... But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him. And then Joseph had a dream when he told his brothers they hated him even more. And he said to them, listen to this dream I had.

Oh, doe-eyed Joseph. He's so excited. There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field, and suddenly my sheaf stood up, and your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf. And then they say, are you really going to reign over us? They asked him, are you really going to rule us? And so they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said. And then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers.

Look, he said, I had another dream, and this time the sun, the moon, and 11 stars were bowing down to me. And he told his father and brothers and his father rebuked him. What kind of dream is this that you have had?

He said, am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down on the ground before you? His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. So Joseph is greatly loved by his father. He's favored amongst all of his brothers, but his brothers thought he was a twerp. And he didn't really help his own case, right? He could have kept these things to himself but he decides to share these dreams

that he has that he understands to be about his brothers. They're going to come bow before him and recognize how wonderful and great he is. And it's going to be awesome. And he tells them all about them. And at some point, his father, Jacob, says, cool it. Stop telling us about these dreams. It's a little weird. It's a little disconcerting. And yet, as he does that, as he rebukes him the second time for the second dream, he also says, but he keeps it in mind.

He has data, right? It's data. Is this strange? Yes. Is it data that we put in the bucket? Yes. Does it mean something definitive? Jacob doesn't say, well, it must mean that we're all going to bow before him. It must mean that this is going to happen. But he says, well, I'm going to keep it in mind. I'm going to file it away in the spiritual category, and maybe God will make something of it, and maybe he won't.

You get how this relates to what we're talking about? Jacob hears about Joseph's prophetic dreams, and when he does, he does what we do. When we hear God share something, a dream, a vision, whatever, he just keeps it in mind. And that's, look, maybe you're stressed because maybe you think I'm asking you to pray and to give the answer that's gonna be the deciding factor, right?

Like I'm asking you to make a decision. All I'm asking you is to give me your sense, your impression when you go to the Lord and when you seriously pray and we'll just keep it in mind. Just to take the pressure off you a little bit. I want an appropriate amount of pressure in that I want you to take it seriously and I want you to open-mindedly pray about this. And if you feel like God is giving you something, understand that's consistent with scripture.

So bring it back to me. But don't think that I'm going to take that and just say, well, Justine said so, right? And then that's like a lot, you'd be like, I'm not going to say anything. Like, cause if that's going to, cause then he's going to say, Justine told us we had to, and you're going to be like, no, that's not fair. And that's not it. Right? That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, we're going to take that. We're going to put that in there. We're going to keep it in mind.

And it's important. It's important. It was important in this story that he had this in mind because it helps make sense of things later. It helps as he's going on the journey and determining like, what is God doing? It helps to, to, to make clear what God was up to. It helps for, for the people to realize, oh my gosh, God had a plan all along in the midst of all this chaos. We need this. We need to collect a good store of spiritual data if we're going to have clarity on a decision.

So getting back to the story, you probably know what comes next, right? Jacob's brothers are so jealous of him that actually they decide, you know what? He needs to go on a journey. Joseph needs to go on a journey. Sorry, I said Jacob. Joseph's brothers decide Joseph needs to go on a journey. He doesn't know it, but they've decided, okay? So here we see that skipping ahead a little bit. So one day, Joseph set out after his brothers and found them in Dotham.

So he's finding them in the fields in this different town. They've been going around with the flocks and feeding them. And they saw him at the distance. And before he had reached them, they plotted to kill him. They said to one another, okay, look, here comes that dream expert. I love that. So now, come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of the pits. And we can say that a vicious animal ate him. And then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.

And when Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from them. And he said, let's not take his life. Reuben also said to them, don't shed blood. Throw him into the pit in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him, intending to rescue him from them and return him to his father. And when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped off Joseph's robe, the long sleeve robe that he had on, and they took it with him. And they threw him into the pit. And the pit was empty and without water.

And they sat down to eat a meal. And when they looked up, there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying aromatic gum, balsam and resin going down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, what do we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come on, let's sell him to these Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him for he's our brother, our own flesh.

And his brothers agreed. And when the Midianite traders passed by, his brothers pulled Joseph out from the pit and sold him for 20 pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites who took Joseph to Egypt. So Joseph is on a journey. He goes to Egypt. His brothers just sell him out. He's a captive. And things, I mean, in the story, I mean, it's a really awesome story. It's probably one of the most exciting 10 chapters of scripture, right? Just a lot of stuff goes on. It made for a good musical, right?

And things don't look good throughout this, right? I mean, He's sold into slavery. Slaves are not well treated. But miraculously, throughout all of this, God sustains him. And through a crazy series of events, Joseph goes from a prison, well, serving in a household to a prison cell. And then he's suddenly elevated to be the right-hand man of Pharaoh. And that's not the end of the story, right? Actually, should we continue on as we read this journey that Joseph goes on? It resolves.

See, there's this famine coming into the whole region. Israel, all the way up into Mesopotamia, inclusive of Egypt, really everywhere. It's revealed to Joseph in a dream that a famine is coming. But Joseph interprets this dream to Pharaoh, and he sees it coming, and he convinces Pharaoh of the meaning of this dream that Pharaoh had. And the meaning is that there's gonna be like years of plenty followed by a ton of famine.

And so in these years of plenty, don't be silly, store up the excess so that when the famine comes, you will have enough. So it's wisdom, it's revelation, it's God speaking through prophetic dreams to prepare his people for something. And he is able to persuade Pharaoh to do this. and Pharaoh appoints him to be the guy who's in charge of it all. And so he does this work of storing up the grain.

And then when the famine comes to Egypt, Egypt is totally prepared, but his brothers back home are not. Back in Israel, the famine has hit them just as hard as it has hit in Egypt. And so Joseph's brothers come down to Egypt because they hear through the grapevine. They don't hear, oh, your brother's down there. They hear, there's this smart person down in Egypt who saw the famine coming and he stored up a lot and they have so much.

And you can go down there and you can buy some of the food so that we won't all, you know, die. And Joseph's brother said, well, we'd rather not die. And so they travel down to Egypt and they stand before Joseph. They don't recognize Joseph because they assume he's dead and they haven't seen him in a long time. But Joseph recognizes them. And after an appropriate amount of messing with them, right? Joseph reveals himself.

And we read about that in Genesis 45. Then Joseph said to his brothers, please come near me. And they came near. I am Joseph, your brother, he said, the one who sold you into Egypt. And now don't be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting.

God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me the father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler of the land of Egypt. So Joseph has gone on this crazy journey, not a journey he intended it to do, but as he proclaims to his brother, it was a journey that God intended.

It was a great trial for him, but at the end of it, Joseph attests that he sees what God was doing. And it says, God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land. It says, God is using my trial and my humiliation and elevation here in Egypt to sustain you guys back at home. God preserved his people by sending them on a journey. By sending Joseph to Egypt, he kept God's people alive through a famine, right?

And they go on. The rest of the story is that the brothers and Jacob all move down to Egypt, and they spend 400 years there until Moses delivers them out. Question though, okay? Great story, right? The story is God works in unexpected ways, sends Joseph on this journey, and the result is that God protects his people, Israel, his chosen people from famine and death. Have you ever wondered this? Because we're talking about God.

Why don't you know? Why wouldn't you just not have a famine, right? Wouldn't that be the simpler solution to not have his people starve is that just don't send a famine, God, or maybe just have the famine just not be in Israel, right? You have this kind of intricate plan where you're like moving down and going on a journey and like being sustained in Egypt and then like getting stuck in slavery for a long time and then out.

Wouldn't it have been easier to say, you know, save everybody a lot of stress if we just say stayed in Israel and not had the famine, just cancel the famine? Would have been a lot easier. Less good story, certainly But certainly a more artful A more straightforward solution to the problem at hand.

So we are as we've been saying we're looking at a move we're praying and the question has come up and it's a fair question and i don't think i've adequately answered it i've i've tried in different ways but i realized we just need to we needed to go nuclear on this thing we've asked the question why why can't we just stay like why consider a move in the first place like we have this building, it's here it's ours why don't we just stay can't if god is able to control

everything can't he just make this like this place like and like can't we just face the challenges that we we face the moment like through faith and can't god just overcome the challenges and it's a really it's a very fair question and and my very short answer and i'll expand on it in a second is that is that I and the elders have just been, over the course of a long period of time of prayer, persuaded that, yes, God can do anything he wants. And we have been hopeful and expecting him to move.

He can make us prosper here. He can overcome the obstacles about our particular situation, right? The situational realities. He can overcome those things. Of course he can. But he can also just, like, it's his prerogative to decide maybe that we take a longer, more complex journey to go around these things. Like, it's God's decision. Yes, he can take the issues away. But he doesn't have to. He also has, in Scripture, dealt with things that seem like there is a simple solution here, God.

He's dealt with them in funny, circumstantial ways to bring things about. We know this about God. He can do what he wants. And so we've just been asking, what is the thing that you want, Lord?

And at this point, the elders, right? And we've been praying about this for longer. And that's just the way it is. It's not hierarchical, but it's like we have more information. And so we pray about that information and we've done it for a long period of time. And we've actually talked about this over the last two and a half years. I think we've just mentioned this possibility that we might move in different venues and different settings at a vision night up here from time to time.

We've talked about it. We've just thrown it out there. It wasn't as serious then. So it was just kind of presented as, Hey, maybe this is a thing. We don't know what God's going to do. Right. But now we're at the point where We're sustaining a conversation about it because it's more serious, right?

So we believe that God can do whatever we want, but at least the elders, as we pray, we believe that God is calling us to move. He's calling us to a journey. So, okay, I want to think about this. How did we get here and what has the process been? Because you should know this, okay? And today and then next Sunday, I'm just going to lay out all the data that I have about that. So look, we talked about how the church makes decisions at the beginning of

the message. And my point is that we need to collect a lot of data, right? And we have a data source and it's spiritual data. And we have through the working of the Spirit in the church, we've been collecting this. And we've talked about this now actually in pretty open ways over the last four months in different groups and different settings. and people have given their opinions and we're asking you to continue to pray and we're still collecting data, right? We have a lot of data, right?

Spiritual data, and I'm asking for more and we need more and more and more spiritual data. So let's keep filling up this bucket. But here's the thing.

We also have another data source and you do too. We have factual data. There's just information, there's facts. You have, so this is like, this actually, I wanted to spend time and do this visually because this is actually a good example of how you can also make prayerful decisions in your own life. Because inevitably, when you're trying to figure something out, you're heavy burdened. You have two things. You've got on one side the facts, right? And this is a heavy thing, right?

You have facts about, man, realities that you face in your life. And so maybe you have some relational challenges and one of the facts is you have a jerk in your life, right? That's a fact. And you don't need, think about faith, okay? Sometimes Christians think, oh, well, we can just chuck the facts because this is all we need. And so, like, you know people like that? Are you one of those? It's okay. It's okay if you are. It's all right.

Like, sometimes we're like, we can just ignore everything. We can just close our eyes to the realities because we live by faith. What I'm saying is, I don't think that's what living by faith is. Now, living by faith certainly involves, it doesn't involve only carrying this bucket. That would be living by the flesh. That would be just like trying to sort out all your problems with your mind. That's not spiritual, right? But it doesn't involve only this bucket. I mean, think about David.

David fought Goliath, right? And he was commanded for fighting a giant, a little child fighting a giant with a sling. But did he do this? Did he say, all right, Goliath, let's go. I'm going to close my eyes. Where are you, Goliath? He actually, what he did is he knew where Goliath was. He could see how big he was. It was nine feet tall. I don't know. I remember how many cubits it was, right? Do you know how many cubits it was?

Do you know what a cubit is? No, I don't know. But Goliath was a lot of cubits tall. Is that, or was he hands? I can't remember. He's super tall, right? And David didn't say, oh, he's not tall. That's just a fact. I don't care if he's tall. David said, oh yeah, he's tall. He's super tall. I've got wide eyes. I can see. That's a fact. He's tall. Boy, he is tall. But he also said, but I have other data. And this other data is irrelevant to these facts. Like I serve a God who's more

powerful than that. Like, it doesn't matter that he's tall. God is able if he wants to deliver me. And then he also says, or he could just kill me and it's okay. Right? This is this attitude of faith that says, it's not blind to facts. We have this bucket and we carry it around and you have, when you come to difficult decisions, you have facts. Don't act like you don't need to consider facts. But here's the thing. What do you do with these two buckets?

Well, here's what you do. Spiritual data can cleanse facts. It can take factual data. And what I have found, and I think this is true of the life of faith, is that sometimes these big things, these big heavy and hard things that are rocks, right? That are factual data, they're actually faith soluble.

And you guys are nerds, so you know what I mean, right? Which is to say that if we inundate them with faith, prayer and seeking the Lord, waiting on God, hopefulness and expectation that God is able to take care of these immovable, difficult things, that if we bathe that with seeking after him, he's able to reveal what we need to make those facts irrelevant.

So maybe you're struggling with, I don't know, whatever the thing is, relational difficulties, financial difficulties, you have a big decision on your mind, something in your heart and it's weighing you down. The facts are heavy. We are called 100% to seek and gain spiritual data through prayer, through counsel, through other people who are wise and they can reveal to you what God's will and help you understand that.

You don't just delegate your thinking to them, but it just becomes information that you keep in mind and we can serve each other that way by pouring our spiritual data into our fact situations. And sometimes, oftentimes, I think nine to one. The difficulties soften, they break up, they become smaller, they become less serious and less burdensome. When we seek the Lord with spiritual data, the spiritual data can clean the facts.

And if you are concerned, and it's a fair concern, that we're just carrying around like just the factual data and we're not enough doing work of faith because can't God make this work? Isn't this like a good place to be? Can't God overcome the obstacles that we face? Like if you're worried, like I'm not saying don't worry, I'm cool. Like I'm saying there's been a process we've gone through and what I want to give you is some insight.

And so here's the thing, there are two buckets and what I'm trying to do is to give you a sense of what's in each of those buckets. So the factual stuff, like I just know things that you don't know. You don't want to know them. They're actually kind of boring, right? You've got a job. I've got a job. And because of that job, I know things about the situations that we face and that's is what it is. And so like, I realized I've gone and I talked to a lot of people about this, this potential move.

And like 70% of the people I talked to, I want to, I want to be like, Oh, Hey, can I tell you the reasons why we would consider leaving? And they're like, you don't need to.

I, I have at least one or two reasons that I feel like, yes, we, we, we, we ought to like there's there's some awareness among in some people not everybody like but i would say more than half of the people that i've talked to or they're just like yeah i i get it or they don't take much convincing like if they think about they realize that there are some some challenges that we face here but some of you guys like need more information so look on the back as

you leave out the double doors the last double doors in the middle there's like on the shelf there's a six page paper i know six page single spaced single space and honestly like i didn't give you this before because i honestly didn't think you would want to read it but if you want to read it if you want to read say hey like pastor trey what are what are the things in this factual data bucket like what

are the challenges if you want to read that i have written that and i have extensively edited it. I probably spent like 20 hours writing that this week. I know that seems like an absurd amount and it is, but I want it to be clear enough. I'm not, I'm not, by the way, I'm not giving this to you to persuade you. I'm just giving it to you, making it available to you. If you want insight about what are the things that I see and what they are, like they just, just for you to have.

So there's, I printed 15 copies. I didn't know how many of you were actually going to be interested. So I printed 15 copies and I'm also going to email it by Tuesday. So just like the factual information, if you're on our email list, you will get it because it's important. What is not included in that yet, which is coming next week. I tried to get it done for this week. I just couldn't do it. I'm sorry.

You ever like do a bunch of like, like you ever do like too many sit-ups? For me, that's like 10. For you, it's probably more, right? But at some point, you just can't keep going. Because you're using the same muscles over and over again. And I had to write a sermon and then spend like 20 pages writing paper. And then I realized I went to go write the rest and my body was like, no. There will be no more writing papers this week. So I didn't get to finish it all the way out.

But I want to give you actually part two of this, which is gonna come by Thursday. That's my goal. Have it done by Thursday next week. So I'll email it out on Thursday. So you'll get two emails, just what you wanted. You get two emails from me today. And that's gonna be like this data. Because we've gone through this process and I've gone through this process for a long time of just like praying, like, because I get the factual data.

Oh man, I wish Britt were here. I would have a little chuckle with her. Britt was our executive pastor when I first got here. Hi, Britt. She's watching. I'm sure she'll watch at some point. And let's say, look at this. So I was hired in the middle of COVID by a church that had lost its founding pastor. And the thing that every pastor knows is that that's not a good idea. Like, it's actually really, it's like 75% of pastors who follow founding pastors fail.

That's like, that's a statistical, that's in this bucket, right? And so it's like, oh, yeah, okay, that's fun as we're praying about, I don't know what that's going to be like, right? I don't know how that's going to go. So like, but like within one month of getting here and kind of just taking stock of all the, trying to get a full picture of all the facts, right? I sat Britt down and I got a read of Britt's personality. and Britt doesn't

like you to sugarcoat things, right? You guys know Britt. She's not interested in that. I said, Britt, there's a good chance we won't make it, right? Just like, let's be honest about what the facts are. Founding pastor's gone. Church is a third, maybe, of the size that it was afterwards. We're still in the middle of a pandemic. No end in sight. We've got controversy around masks. I've never done this before. Oh, and we have some financial things.

I'm not actually going to say those because I'm not going to say them right here, right now, because I can't communicate them in a way that I want to. Is that fair? And we've never, so I'll say this, we don't have a crisis right now. We are not in a financial crisis. We are not in like a situation where it's like, oh, today we have a problem. But it's just looking at the challenges. And there are challenges, again, outlined in that paper.

It's just been a process of praying, okay, God, like, what do we do with these? Is it, stay, does faithfulness for us, right, look like one of these two possibilities?

Is faithfulness stay content yourself just keep doing what's in front of you and i'll take care of the details or is faithfulness i am sending you on a journey so that you can get through this season which has been challenging this this transition for this church so that you can get settled where where we have you a place of security and safety because faith can be both for those things. And so it's a process of assessing those facts and then washing those facts in prayer.

Worship team is going to come up here. So I've been totally off my notes. Did I miss anything? No, I don't think so. Okay. So that's where we're at, guys. You've got faith. We've got facts. We can combine those things. And we just say, God, you're going to do what you want. Dissolve the difficulties. Yes, please, Lord. For four years, that's been the plan. God, we're just going to keep doing what we can do here.

We're going to try to be the unique church that we are in this place and try to make things work. And things have been good. And yes, if you have questions, read that thing. I love this church. If you just made me decide what do I want, I would say I want to stay. I like pastoring a small church. This has been really restorative to me. I really burned out in my last role.

And so to come here and have things be a little bit quiet and a little bit small and a little simple, still challenges, but simple has been so good. I don't think I would be in pastoral ministry had I not made a move, right? And had I come into a more contentious and difficult situation. This has not been difficult. These facts don't make life difficult here, but it's the question, God, are we going to thrive here through just continuing on, or are you bringing us somewhere else?

And so I'm not moving. I really, I need you to know, I'm not moving from discontentment. I'm not saying, oh... Some like ambition or some sense of anxiety. Like, I mean, don't get me wrong. I have my anxieties, but like God has given me a lot of peace that surpasses understanding about those things. And so this move for me and for the elders, this potential move is not about trying to think or work our way out of problems.

It's having come to a place where we have been doing this faith thing for a long time. And we believe there is maybe an indication that faithfulness is going, is not sticking public. And so that is a whole other side, like the spiritual data thing. And I am going to have, like I said, I'm gonna write a similar page paper, probably similar length. So you get 12 whole pages, lucky you.

Just explaining like what I have seen the Lord doing and the reasons why I and the elders are feeling like, no, this isn't like, oh yeah, it's not gonna work. And so we're gonna give up and do something else. We've actually been feeling like God positively nudging us towards leaving, like giving us real, like a road and a path, like no, that's what we should be doing and that's what faithfulness will be. So I'm gonna give you all that information and I'm gonna share some of those

stories on Sunday next week. And it's part of our time of gathering here. But again, I want to remind you, pray this Thursday, gather the data. We still need more. There's still open questions. And some of the questions aren't even, you might say, well, like, oh, aren't we just going to go? Like, if I, if I, if I, if I pray, like, does it even matter? And the truth is that yes, it does. Because number one, this whole thing could fall apart. And I don't know what's

going to happen with that. So, so pray. And number two, we have no idea where we're going to go. I really, we really don't know. Like we are open-handed about it and we're asking the Lord to open up the doors and we need him to do it. So please, please, please, would you be a part of this work of gathering up this data and seeking the Lord together? So that's it. And this Thursday, please pray and be here on Sunday. So Lord, just go before us. Lord, speak to us, reveal to us.

Lord, fill us with a confidence that you are everything you say you are and you can do whatever you want. But we just have faith, Lord. So give us wisdom, hope, perseverance, love as we set out this week in Jesus' name. Amen Let's stand and worship.