Sermon On The Mount | A Spirit of Humility In An Age of Self-Promotion | Noah Nickel

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Intro/Outro: 00:01

Welcome to Garden Church podcast. We're taking a break from our revelation series while our lead pastor Darren Roundson is on sabbatical. During this time, we're gonna continue to push into the Garden's mission of creating resilient disciples by working our way through the Sermon on the Mount. Over the next few weeks, we'll have some amazing pastors from all over the world coming to impart their wisdom and insight on what is the most influential and profound sermon ever given. Enjoy.

Ramin Razavi: 00:29

Well, this morning, friends, we have the incredible honor of welcoming a dear friend of the garden, pastor Noah Nickel, who comes from King's Church in Cleveland, Ohio. Let's show Noah some garden love as he comes up. Noah has walked with Darren for a long time. Noah and I got to know each other about a year ago, through a network of pastors that we're a part of. And what's amazing about Noah is we went out for a coffee that day that we were together, and it was with a bunch of young up start church planters.

Ramin Razavi: 01:00

And Noah's got some mileage under his belt in ministry. He leads quite a significant church in the city of Cleveland.

Noah Nickel: 01:06

Nice way of saying I'm old?

Ramin Razavi: 01:07

No. I'm older than you, I think. But, but you know how it is when people are together and and people all want to share with you what they know? And Noah just quietly, patiently waited, asked a few really incisive questions, dropped gold nuggets of wisdom along the way, and really shifted the whole thing without anybody even really knowing it was him doing it. And I just share that story because that was my first interaction with Noah, and I just grew to love the heart of humility that he carries despite the incredible authority that the Lord has given him.

Ramin Razavi: 01:37

So we have an honor today to receive from pastor Noah. So would you extend a hand as we bless him and pray for him? Lord Jesus, we honor you in this house, and we thank you, Lord, for the work that you're already doing. And we pray, Lord, that what you've deposited in Noah would come forth in the way of your your truth, your light, your your power, god. And I ask you, lord, that you would make us very good soil today, that we'd receive what is being sown and it would bear a hundred times fruit.

Ramin Razavi: 02:05

We play blessing over his church in Cleveland today, over his family, his three kids, and his wife, and we honor you, king Jesus, for the gift that we have in receiving him today. We pray in Jesus' name.

Intro/Outro: 02:15

Amen and amen. Amen. Well, good

Noah Nickel: 02:17

morning, garden. It is a, deep joy to be with you, especially because back home in Ohio, we had to cancel church because of the snowstorms. So it's great to be on the West Coast and, connecting, with you all. I love this church, so much deeply, personally. I love your pastors, and so many of the key team members that are on, your staff.

Noah Nickel: 02:39

And you guys have had a great influence on us over the years actually where we feel the Lord has been leading us in Cleveland and King's Church. So I just wanna say thank you for creating and really fostering an environment that values and believes in the power of the scriptures and the presence in the person of the Holy Spirit. And so even from Ohio to California, you've had a great impact and legacy and influence on us. So, so so grateful. So by way of getting to know each other outside of Jesus, let me just share a quick picture of the most valuable and important things in my life, and that would be my family, which is a gray cloud.

Noah Nickel: 03:14

That's, like, what it looks like to be in a hut right here. That's my wife, Stephanie, on the left. We'll be married twenty years this year. In the middle is my oldest, Paisley. They all had birthdays recently, so she's 15 now.

Noah Nickel: 03:27

On the right, there's my buddy Bear. That's our son. And then on the left is my sweet girl, Sunday. And so, they send their hellos and, so grateful and honored, to get to be a husband and a dad, to them. Hey.

Noah Nickel: 03:43

You are in a series right now on the Sermon on the Mount, three chapters in the book of Matthew where Jesus is expounding this way of how to be human, this idea of how we live and in this thing that he is presenting as the kingdom of God. And he lays out, a lot of different approaches as far as how to live in and live out expressionally and experience the power and the person of who God's created us to be as individuals. There's a method. There's a way. He talks a lot about juxtaposing these ideas of, like, this is how the world does it, and he uses this phrase recurrently.

Noah Nickel: 04:19

You've heard it said, but I tell you. And so what we get insight into is a new way to journey in this life with him and the way that he lays it out. And so if you will, open up your Bible to Matthew chapter six. What I love to do is, two weeks ago, and I've been following along on YouTube. Two weeks ago, pastor Bill did a teaching that he titled the dehumanizing impulse of desire, which is an incredible title to go ahead and put out there.

Noah Nickel: 04:48

But the ethos at the center of that message, I'd love to just carry on, that thought about desire and who we are as created beings and how God created us. And to pick up in some of the words that Jesus shares in Matthew chapter six beginning in verse one, he says this, be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, there's an assumed position, not if you feel like it, but when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Noah Nickel: 05:31

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Now the beauty of Jesus' teachings is that oftentimes you can read them at face value and you get practicality of that. So you see in just a few verses, Jesus is saying, hey. When you're generous, when you give, don't go ahead and toot your own horn.

Noah Nickel: 05:59

Don't blow the trumpets. Don't try and draw attention to yourself, which we can look at that as a surface reading and say there's great value in that. Of course, we don't wanna lead with ego and with pride. We wanna lead with humility. But as is Jesus' teachings often, there's a meaning beneath the meaning, the thing beneath the thing.

Noah Nickel: 06:18

And that's kinda what I wanna hone in on today. Not as much the the practice of generosity and giving, which you guys do so well, but the center of those few verses where Jesus is trying to get at why we do what we do, the the the spirit behind it, the motivation behind it. I'm talking about the desire behind our actions. So I wanna talk to you for a few moments this morning from the subject, the spirit of humility in an age of self promotion. A spirit of humility in an age of self promotion.

Noah Nickel: 06:47

If we could, let's just pray one more time. Father, we are here, and you're here, and that matters. So, lord, you know each and every one of us. You know those that are in person. You know those that are watching online.

Noah Nickel: 07:00

You know the things that we share with everybody. You know the things that we've never told anybody. So, Holy Spirit, would you come and would you meet us in the way that we need to encounter you today? Our hearts are open. Our minds are receptive.

Noah Nickel: 07:15

Holy Spirit, be our teacher, our leader, our guide. Teach us, lead us, guide us into the truth of God's word, we pray. It's in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. In 02/2004, a movie premiered that reframed young love and relationships for a whole lot of people.

Noah Nickel: 07:33

I was just a few years removed from graduating in high school, and I could remember my immediate friend group, especially the females in that group, watching this movie and coming out of that with a paradigm, a a vision for what romance and relationships could look like, an expectation maybe that they even began to put on those that they dated. And, though, it's tempting to begin to try to place and think about what movie that was because there's a lot of great romantic and romantic comedies movies, movies that came out in 02/2004. You might be thinking, was it Anchorman with Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate, which it was not? Or maybe, breaking all the rules with, Jamie Foxx and Gabrielle Union, which it wasn't. Or you're thinking, I know what movie it is.

Noah Nickel: 08:14

It was the Wayan Brothers' classic White Chicks. That's the movie. That's what laid it out, but it's not. I'm referencing the infamous The Notebook with Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. And among did you hear that collective recognition?

Noah Nickel: 08:35

Among, a plethora of well written young love scenes, there's one that seems to live in infamy more than the rest, and it's this scene that you see right now. Some of you are playing the dialogue word for word in your head with what's happened. For those of you that don't know, Ryan Gosling's character has come to a desperate breaking point right now and wanting Rachel McAdams to once again be his, but she's torn with what to do because they had a young love and they connected and it was meaningful, but then became turbulent. And then they separated. Then she got engaged to another guy who's by himself at a hotel right now, and she was back with Ryan Gosling just recently.

Noah Nickel: 09:12

And now Ryan Gosling finds her in the front yard. She's wanting to leave. He's trying to go ahead and and impose or pull out of her the great deep desire that he believes and he's hoping that she has, and that is to be with him. And you see if it climaxes in this moment with him leaning against this car, but then also emphatically asking her the question, what do you want? What do you want?

Noah Nickel: 09:40

In your heart, what do you want? And her, exasperated by romance and love and torn between two men, she simply states, it's not that easy. It's not that simple. And he, in a moment of passion, lays out his soul, and the question swoon the hearts of many women who would now want a man who would show desperate love and longings with the same way that Ryan Gosling did, his character. Now perfectly curated blonde hair and perfectly three unbuttoned hot buttons on his blue work shirt, and they would want that in a man.

Noah Nickel: 10:13

And for many young men, it gave a prophetic vision and a picture of what their lives would look like with the women that they may love and the interactions around the off asked question repeatedly, frustratingly. What do you want to eat? What do you want to eat? The USS Jeannette was a US Navy exploration ship set sail in the late eighteen hundreds about 1879 under the command of Lieutenant George w DeLonge. Now the aim was to reach the North Pole, but not just the North Pole, but what they believed was kind of behind it via the Bering Strait.

Noah Nickel: 10:52

The expedition, however, was based on a flawed theory that a warm current could provide a a navigable route through the Arctic. And instead, the ship became trapped in what's known as pack ice, and it drifted for nearly two years being beaten and battered by the ice that it encountered before eventually being crushed and sinking. Many of the crew losing their life over those two years, the remainder of the crew having to get off of the ship and begin a thousand mile by foot walk to Siberia. In this journey, many more of the crew, including DeLonge himself, would die from exposure and starvation while a few survivors ultimately were rescued. Now the reason that they took this risk was based on a faulty map and a faulty theory.

Noah Nickel: 11:39

The theory was that there would be a warm current that would pass the ice, which would open a portal of safe travel to what they believe was a tropical island on the other side, an island that, rumor had it, no country had yet gotten to, but every country would love to own and possess. A bad map, a poor promise. It led to a shipwreck and a wandering life for the crew. This is the cyclical story of humanity. We all have longings.

Noah Nickel: 12:11

We all have wants, and we try to voice them. We look for things to help us find them, to point us in the direction. We even, at times, ask the question, maybe emphatically trying to get to the bottom unfulfilled, still wandering, sometimes aimlessly throughout the seventy, eighty, ninety years that maybe God gives us, wondering what is it about desire? What is it about longings? See, desire, it's a subtle push at times, and it can be a raging force at others.

Noah Nickel: 12:48

As one writer said, before we are thinking beings, we are actually desiring beings. Especially in the West and America, we have modern intellectualism that makes us kind of believe the idea, I think, therefore I am. And though there might be some iteration of truth in that, oftentimes, humanity is much more propelled forward, not by their intellect or their reason or their logic, but by their longings, by their wants, by their desires. Nobody in the 10AM, but definitely in the noon, you know some people that are in relationships that you look at and say, it makes no logical sense why you are together. But their response is, I know, but my heart is just compelled to be with them.

Noah Nickel: 13:29

And we live this out in the day to day and the practicalities, our wants, our longings, our our leanings, our desires that push us towards things from big to small. Nobody in 2025 has the question, is fast food healthy for you? We all know it's not. The question we think is, how much can I eat before it gets really bad for me? And I feel that.

Noah Nickel: 13:50

There's moments, especially maybe even on a Sunday, after a day at church, on the way home, I might swing through the golden arches. I'm not far removed from wanting a number one with maybe a Crispy Diet Coke, and it's not because it makes sense. I'm like, this is a good thing for you to consume in your body. It's I have a longing. I have a desire.

Noah Nickel: 14:09

I have a want. And we live in the direction of our wants, the things that we deeply desire. And here's what I think about the Sermon on the Mount. There's a lot of things that Jesus is teaching throughout these three chapters, but one of the concurrent threads, the narratives that goes throughout is the thing underneath the thing that Jesus talks about when it's what you actually desire. You do this thing externally, but it speaks to a heart posture.

Noah Nickel: 14:34

It speaks to something that you want. Pastor Bill, just a few weeks ago, when it comes to intimacy and affection and relationships, it's a innate desire given to us by god. But sometimes, we we don't know how. We have to figure out how to how to steward it, and how do we live it out, and what what happens when it kinda gets disordered or out of whack, and what's God's viewpoint and vision of this thing? The secular world and the church world, I would say, over the past, several decades, share this in common.

Noah Nickel: 15:03

We don't actually know what to do with human desire. We're not sure how to properly steward it or manage it or live into it or live away from it. And so what happens is we split it into extremes, and this might be, for some of you, your upbringing in church. Do you have a framework of faith? When it comes to the idea of desire, if somebody brings that up, everything that could be attached to desire must be sent, and so we never talk about it.

Noah Nickel: 15:26

So desire is connected with the idea of greed or pride or ego or lust, and so desire is something to be kind of ran away from. There's a an innate fear that comes with desire. And then maybe an overgeneralization, but from the secular side, we live in a world that says whatever desire you have, fulfill. You got one life. Experience as much as you can.

Noah Nickel: 15:46

You do you. Whatever makes you happy, whatever is fulfilling for you, find your value in that. And so oftentimes, we feel like me maybe we only have two options. And I think the life of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus give us a third. It's this idea of, hey.

Noah Nickel: 16:02

It's not to completely discard desire and longings and wants, and it's not to completely fulfill just recklessly anything that you and I might sense or want, but it's this thing to bring them before god and help us navigate to the deep the deepest parts answering the question, like, what is it that we actually want? What is it that we desire? I was, having dinner last night. I had a great couple, Alex and Hannah Absalom, part of your church, and we're having a conversation. And Alex was sharing about the missions, that would have been established throughout history kinda up the coast in California, and it came from the Jesuits who come from Saint Ignatius.

Noah Nickel: 16:36

And Saint Ignatius built a whole theological framework around this idea of desire. He sat with the question long enough, what do you want? And it's not unique to him. He didn't come up with it. It's actually a a question that is scattered throughout the gospels and scripture.

Noah Nickel: 16:50

You open up the gospel of John and the first words that John penned that Jesus states are a question turning to the disciples of John Baptist, and he says, what do you want? What is it that you're looking for? What is it that you actually desire? It was a great psychologist, William Berry, who said, scratch any of these desires a little, even the seemingly most self centered and materialistic, and we will find that we want to know something about god and his relationship to us. And we enter back to the Sermon on the Mount.

Noah Nickel: 17:24

There's a lot of teachings, a lot of things that we can glean from it. But one of the things, again, the common thread that you see throughout is this idea that our our desires kind of move in one way, and then the the message of the kingdom comes, and he's trying to align our desires with the gospel of the kingdom so that they come in sync. And so he presents a new way to live, a new way to think, a new way to navigate. Matthew chapter six, hey. When you give, do it this way.

Noah Nickel: 17:48

Don't look for the idea of attention, value. Don't try to bring, this idea of praise to yourself. Don't rely on the words of others because he knows all of us as human beings have a need, a desire, a longing, a want to hear from somebody else. Good job. I'm proud of you.

Noah Nickel: 18:09

Well done. Some of us, that's our story here this morning. We're byproducts of the words that were never spoken to us. We still live with the sensitivity, the bruise in our soul from a mom or a dad who seemed to give their attention and affection to maybe everybody else except us. And so we can think about moments that we acted out or even aspects of our personality that became flamboyant and and extroverted just to try to clamor for some bit of attention, some bit of recognition.

Noah Nickel: 18:37

We do it in our workplaces. We try to excel. And for some of us, we'd rather our boss or our supervisor or our manager actually say the words good job to us rather than actually get a pay raise.

Intro/Outro: 18:48

I mean,

Noah Nickel: 18:49

we'd like both, but we, as human beings, are wired to get the idea of what we'll call esteem. It was Thomas Keating, who was a Trappist monk and theologian, kind of popularized the idea of six essential human needs that he would often pair together in three sets. They're power and control, affection and esteem, and security and survival. They're oftentimes categorized as the core desires for a sense of well-being, with the first three kind of relating to psychological needs for influence and connection, and the last three representing kind of our basic biological needs for safety and existence. I've been thinking a lot about esteem over the past couple of weeks.

Noah Nickel: 19:32

This idea of trying to find something outside of ourself to feel worth it. It's what forms our identity. What it's what makes us who we are. Oftentimes, a journey, a search, again, for esteem, or even as pastor Bill talked a few weeks ago about affection. I talked with my spiritual director over the past two years a lot about this.

Noah Nickel: 19:52

It centers around the idea of desire and asking the question and sitting with it. What do you want? Why do you want it? Why does it move you? Why does it motivate you?

Noah Nickel: 20:00

What is it that you're trying to construct? What is maybe even the shadow side of that desire and esteem look like in my own life? What you might not know about me is, I love, books. I enjoy reading. And I'm a pretty simple guy, but I've desired to have two material things in my life.

Noah Nickel: 20:18

When I get to the age of retirement and I'm ready to cross over to the other side and go home to be with Jesus, I hope to have two things that I can leave to my kids and my grandkids, and and one that's like a a wood shop where you can do woodworking at, kinda stacked with tools, and the other is like a personal library. And so I love the idea of reading, and and as I've been thinking about this the past couple of weeks, I thought where that started. And I think I've kind of kinda pinned it a little bit in my past. I think it was when I was about nine or 10. It was a Christmas at our house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and, we used to have our aunt and uncle and our cousins, they would come over, and we'd do a gift exchange.

Noah Nickel: 20:53

So our aunt and uncle would buy us presents, and my mom and dad would buy presents for my cousins. And I can remember this Christmas evening, we got together, we're exchanging the gifts, and my parents bring out several gifts for each of my cousins. And my aunt and uncle give me a single gift, which was already off to a bad start. They each have, like, four, five, six for my parents, and I have one box sitting in front of me. And they begin to open their presents, and I can still remember mouthing to my mom, how many presents did you buy them?

Noah Nickel: 21:21

Feeling the sense of bitterness and angst. And it got to me, and I began to open up my present. And it was a box of classic books written for kids. It was things like Moby Dick and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Adventures of Robin Hood. There's about 10 of them that were there.

Noah Nickel: 21:36

And I thought, this is ultimately the worst Christmas gift in my nine years of living that I've ever gotten. It's probably about two weeks after that that finally kind of a sense of bitterness wore off, and I actually opened up one of the books. And I began to read it, and I remember sitting on my blue carpeted bedroom floor and getting lost in the story. I remember the emotion and the creativity and the vividness and the way the author could use words to paint a picture without there actually being a picture. I remember how it kinda fired the synapses in my mind, and I was transported into a world.

Noah Nickel: 22:08

As CS Lewis says, great literature will cause you to be a thousand different characters and yet still be yourself. And I remember engaging in that world even at a young age and beginning to appreciate a desire for books and for reading. The problem was when I got into junior high and high school, I wanted to do everything else except learn, especially reading. If it didn't have to do with skateboarding and punk rock music, I didn't wanna have anything to do with it. And so as I would get homework or reading assignments, my philosophy and if you're a teacher in here, I apologize on behalf of all students that had this perspective.

Noah Nickel: 22:41

But this is what I thought at at that age. I thought, hey. If you can't teach me what I need to know in the seven hours that you have me in class, don't consume my evening with three or four hours of extra homework. That's not on me. That's on you.

Noah Nickel: 22:55

I got stuff to do. And so fast forward to about the past ten to fifteen years. The desire for reading has kind of reignited, and so I've begun the journey, the process of curating and building a personal library. And I do enjoy it. I love it.

Noah Nickel: 23:11

And I think there's a good desire in reading. But about two years ago, I had a friend just kind of point blank ask me at one point. He said, okay. Alright. Alright.

Noah Nickel: 23:19

What's with all the books, man? Why are you buying so many books? What is it? And the response that I gave him not only kind of set him back afoot, it also kind of made me and my own soul be surprised at the response that I gave. And I said the reason that I bought so many books and that I have so many is that was probably in part to cover up some deep insecurity that I have about my lack of intelligence.

Noah Nickel: 23:42

Then I look back on my junior high and high school years, and I realized I missed out on a lot of formation. I've missed out on a lot of education. I feel a little bit behind. And now I stand in a position where I get to stand up and tie try and teach people and tell people information and and educate them whether that's spiritually or naturally. And so one of my kind of shadow side of desires of esteem is I'm afraid that people are gonna think I'm not smart.

Noah Nickel: 24:06

And so I utilize a good desire for books and literature also, though, as a false identity. That I want people to walk in or see a photo or just know about me, that I have a lot of books and probably think in their mind, well, he must know something. He must be smart knowing that at times, I use that as a ploy, as a cover up. I want esteem, but I want it at the cost of you not really knowing who I am. And so I put on a false front, and there's something deep within the human soul that craves recognition.

Noah Nickel: 24:35

We're wired with a longing to be seen, valued, to be known, whether it's the applause after a performance or the admiration of our peers or even the validation that might come through things like social media. We chase after that feeling of being esteemed. But Jesus, in Matthew six, in the Sermon on the Mount, warns us about this hunger. He tells us that if our righteousness is merely a performance for others, then the only reward that we receive is their fleeting praise. We can personalize this.

Noah Nickel: 25:07

Some of you, you lost who you are because you sacrificed it on the altar of relationship. You wanted that person to like you so much that you became a false self. You covered up aspects of who you genuinely were. You muted it to the point now where you don't really know how to discover it, and you might feel a little bit lost. And who am I genuinely?

Noah Nickel: 25:27

Robert Mulholland talks about the, the conforming to the image of Jesus, that at times, we might think that just means everybody acts the same. All Christians are supposed to be like Jesus. What he says, though, is really conforming to the image of Jesus is finding out the true depths of authenticity of who God's actually made you to be and living into that fulfillment in Christ. And so all of us, for whatever reason, begin to wonder about who we are and can sacrifice identity on the altar for praise and for esteem. And the tension between humility and esteem is not just about giving to the poor in Matthew chapter six.

Noah Nickel: 26:02

It's a spiritual battleground, really, in every aspect of our life. So we, through the gospel and through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, begin to reorder the idea of esteem with the way of the kingdom. Theologian Ronald Rohlhage that says spirituality is ultimately about what we do with our desire. James K. A.

Noah Nickel: 26:22

Smith in his book writes, Jesus doesn't encounter Matthew and John or you and me and ask, what do you know? He doesn't even ask, what do you believe? He asks, what do you want? This is the most incisive piercing question Jesus can ask of us precisely because we are what we want. Our wants and longings and desires are at the core of our identity, the wellspring from which our actions and behavior flow.

Noah Nickel: 26:46

Our wants reverberate from our heart, the epicenter of the human person. Jesus is a teacher who doesn't just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn't content to simply deposit new ideas into your mind. He's after nothing less than your wants, your loves, and your longings. His teaching doesn't just touch the calm, cool, collected space of reflection and contemplation.

Noah Nickel: 27:08

He's a teacher who invades the heated, passionate regions of the heart. We see this echoed in Solomon's wisdom in Proverbs, guard your heart for out of it flows the issues of life. Out of it, it begins your longings, your desires, the the central part of who you are determines the course, the direction of our life. And so let me, in our closing time, just distill this down into practicalities. Alright.

Noah Nickel: 27:32

No. I get it. That sounds kind of ethereal. You had me with the notebook thing. That was funny.

Noah Nickel: 27:36

You kinda lost me along the way with all the quotes. Can we circle it back around here? Let me give you something that when you walk away today, it's tangible. Like, I can put this into practice. So what do I do with the idea of desire, and how does God play into that, and what does it actually all really mean?

Noah Nickel: 27:52

Let me just give you three manner and methods. One way to align our desires with the kingdom is to check these out. Now this isn't an exhaustive list. It's just three because that felt better than trying to present to you 13. So here's manner and motives.

Noah Nickel: 28:07

Number one is this, that we just routinely check our heart. That it's a practice that we routinely investigate and inspect with the help of the holy spirit, our heart. I would assume it's the same in California as it is in Ohio. Before we go to bed at night, we check the doors. We make sure they're locked.

Noah Nickel: 28:26

If you have an alarm system, you set your alarm system. Why? Because you're cognizant that there are things that you value that are precious in your home. It's possessions. It's your life.

Noah Nickel: 28:36

And so you're also aware that there are times that things on the external wanna make its way inside to rob you or to strip you of those things. It's the same with our heart. Again, Proverbs. It's out of the heart that these things flow. And so we have to check our heart to monitor, one, what comes in, but, two, what does go out and how it is forming us as people and as individuals.

Noah Nickel: 29:01

And it serves us well to daily check this, the door of the heart, to determine the entrance and the exit, to check the motives of the heart. Why is it that I'm doing this? Which is what Jesus is getting out of Matthew six. Why are you giving? When you give, why do you do those things?

Noah Nickel: 29:16

Why do you post what you post? Why do you talk the way that you talk? Why do you drive what you drive? Why do you consider that to be successful, and why do you want to attain those things? Why do you want that relationship?

Noah Nickel: 29:27

Why do you want him? Why do you want her? You see how this begins to infiltrate every aspect of our life. It's the actions. It's the intentions of the heart.

Noah Nickel: 29:37

Saint Augustine, the North African church father, said it was pride that changed angels into devils. It is humility that makes men as angels. Can I share with you one of my least favorite Psalms that David ever wrote? I think he could have done without this one, personally. Psalm one thirty nine verses twenty three and twenty four.

Noah Nickel: 29:56

Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. I read this, and I'm like, time out. Really?

Noah Nickel: 30:11

David, that's the invitation that you wanna give to the creator of the universe. You're just kinda full bore exposure. Like, hey. Show me all the stuff wrong in my heart. Go ahead and I want you to actually test me, point these things out to me.

Noah Nickel: 30:24

I don't like that. I like the version of spirituality, my relationship with God, that when sin gets bad enough and I know I can't hide it, I can just quickly confess, repent, and move on. David's Psalm, I don't like because it takes too much time. It sounds like I have to sit with this thing. It sounds like I have to invite God in to inspect the places of my heart that I don't invite anybody else into.

Noah Nickel: 30:47

He offers an invitation to, hey. Test me to know my anxious thoughts. I don't want God to test me. I don't wanna know some things. I just wanted him to pat me on the back and say, you're forgiving.

Noah Nickel: 30:56

Get better next time and move on my way. I got stuff to do. I got places to go. I have a person to be. And oftentimes, that person doesn't have time to slow down and to align with the person that god wants me to be.

Noah Nickel: 31:08

And the only way that you and I can be the people that god wants us to be is to invite him into the places that we are equipped to ignore and to move past. The issue with pornography, the fear when it comes to greed and money, the fact that we're in a marriage that we quickly are trying to figure out how to get out of, but also feel locked into and trapped, and so we feel guilty. For you as a mom, you wanted to have a kid so desperately because you found identity in that. And now you have a child, and you wouldn't tell anybody this out loud, but you despise your kid at times. It's deep seated.

Noah Nickel: 31:41

It's a bruise. It's something we carry in our soul soul that we try to figure out. I thought I was going to be. I thought I wanted to be. I had this so I could be, and now I'm not.

Noah Nickel: 31:50

And now I don't. And I wanna figure a way out. And I'm trying to figure out, God, because everything's getting a little bit convoluted. Is that you? Is that me?

Noah Nickel: 31:59

Is that sin? Is that the devil? Are you interested? How disconnected are you from this reality? And there's so much enmeshment that's happened in my life right now that sometimes everything gets a little bit cloudy, and I need some clarity when it comes to what it is I actually want in my life.

Noah Nickel: 32:17

It's in the words of maybe the great twenty first century philosopher, Kendrick Lamar, when he sums it up, be humble and sit down. That we have to sit with God, and we have to go through the journey of exploration, and honest exposition of our heart, and the desires and longings and the things that we want. You're taught well as a church. You know this one of the practical ways to do that is to incorporate the prayer of examine in our life, where maybe at the end of each day, before we close our eyes, we sit, we pause, we invite the Holy Spirit in to reflect on the past day. Why did I do what I did?

Noah Nickel: 32:55

Why did I say that? Why did I present myself that way? Was that from a sincere place, a place of humility, or was pride mixed in that? Was sin mixed in that? Was anger or resentment or or quickness mixed in with that, that I should have slowed down and been more gentle or kind.

Noah Nickel: 33:10

We have to examine the places of our hearts and routinely check its motives. Number two is we learn to serve selflessly. How do I reorient my desire for esteem and who I am and the identity that I present to the world to make sure it's in alignment with the genuine me that god created me to be? One is to go ahead and check our hearts, but two is to serve selflessly. It echoes the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 23 verses 11 where he says, the greatest among you will be your servant.

Noah Nickel: 33:38

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. The beauty of humility is it relinquishes control. And so humility says, I don't have to be the hero of my own story. I don't have to control my life. I don't have to go ahead and put on a false representation or an image or or kind of adorn my life or my social media feed or what people think about me with these external things to show that I might be something that I'm really not so that in their eyes, I feel validated and esteemed.

Noah Nickel: 34:09

Humility lets us be honest. It lets us serve. It lets us be vulnerable. There's a legend that tells of a well respected rabbi who had vanished from his synagogue for a few hours each Sabbath. His mysterious absences sparked curiosity amongst his students, who wondered if their teacher maybe had found a secret place to commune with God.

Noah Nickel: 34:28

So one Sabbath, they decided that a particular student would discreetly follow him to uncover the mystery. And in amazement, the student watched the rabbi change into the rough clothing of a beggar and weave through the city's back streets to a humble shack. And through a small window, the student observed as his mentor tenderly cared for an elderly bedridden man, changing his clothes, cleaning his room, preparing his meal, and returning to the synagogue, the other students gathered around this young man greeted him with the eager questions. Hey. Did he ascend into heaven?

Noah Nickel: 35:04

They asked him. The student looked down, quietly replied, yeah. Perhaps even higher. For in the act of mercy, he had witnessed a glimpse of true holiness. See, what humility does is it lays down the shadow side of us for the service and the benefit of others.

Noah Nickel: 35:26

And what humility does is it grants heaven access to our lives. That's why James, the half brother of Jesus, writes that God gives more grace to the humble, that I'm empowered by God to find out who I am, the gifts, the direction of my life, not by putting on a false representation to the world, but by trying to serve with meekness and humility, that I have to learn to be interruptible. And one of the challenges with humility is that humility is accompanied with interruptibility. And this is hard for us in the in the West because we got stuff to do. Right.

Noah Nickel: 36:02

I'm trying to 10 x this life right now. Okay? I don't have time to slow down and be interruptible. I got an agenda. I got a place.

Noah Nickel: 36:08

I got a schedule. I got people to meet. I got places to go. Right? I we got stuff.

Noah Nickel: 36:13

And when we live with a posture of humility and serving others, we find out that the Holy Spirit has a way of deeply inconveniencing our plans. Did you ever have those moments? Here's the prayer as I pray. God, I wanna experience heaven on earth. God, I want the thin places.

Noah Nickel: 36:31

Right? I wanna see moments of the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. I wanna go ahead and see your power move. It didn't even have to be through me, but I would love a front row seat to it. God, move in great ways in my lifetime.

Noah Nickel: 36:44

Can you just do it, like, maybe once a year between the hours of 1PM and 4PM on an off Saturday that I don't have something going on? Humility lives with a posture of saying, god, I'm ready. Any place, anytime. Can I, at at the risk of presenting a false self, share a story about a a time that I got it right recently, but 84 out of 85 times I get it wrong? There is a moment that I remember getting ready, and I had a meeting at the office at 9AM that morning.

Noah Nickel: 37:16

I leave a little bit early because I wanna stop at one of my favorite coffee shops, grab a cup of coffee before the meeting so I got time to go. I have my quiet time. I have my devotional time that morning, and I remember that morning praying, God, make me interruptible. I wanna see more thin places of where heaven engages with earth. And I prayed that prayer, I think, probably, maybe 40% sincere.

Noah Nickel: 37:36

And then I left. I went to the coffee shop, get my coffee, go down to the end to pick it up, making good time. I still got a couple of minutes. I grab it and I walk out, and this is about November in Ohio, so the weather's changing. It's starting to get brisk and cold enough.

Noah Nickel: 37:50

And as I leave and I walk outside, at the table they had outside is a friend of ours, Carlton. Carlton's a houseless individual that we often see around our offices, and we've had interactions and conversations before. I see Carl in there. Morning, Carl. How are you doing?

Noah Nickel: 38:06

I'm doing I'm doing alright. You know? You want a coffee, Carl? Yeah. I want a coffee.

Noah Nickel: 38:12

Okay. I got a couple minutes. I'm gonna go get you a coffee. Is that what you need? Yeah.

Noah Nickel: 38:15

Go in. Hey, and I want a breakfast burrito. Alright, Carl. I'll get you and no meat. Vegan.

Noah Nickel: 38:22

Okay, Carl. Go in. Hey. Can I get a a black coffee and a vegan breakfast burrito for, my buddy, Carl? They're out there.

Noah Nickel: 38:29

Sure. We got okay. Alright. Alright. I get this meeting and and coffee.

Noah Nickel: 38:33

I'm on my way out. I drop it off. Hey, Carl. Here you go, brother. Have a good day.

Noah Nickel: 38:37

Stay warm. And as soon as I get ready to leave, what I hadn't noticed, and in the meantime that I was in there, our other friend, Daniel, walked up. Daniel, he's got a lot going on. He's got a lot going on mentally. He's got a lot going on physically.

Noah Nickel: 38:48

He's in the same kind of position that Carlton is at in this season of life. Daniel's hard to have a conversation with because he doesn't make sense. He kinda just mumbles his way through things. And and I saw Daniel walk up, and as I'm giving things to Carlton, Daniel looks at Carlton's coffee and his breakfast burrito, then he looks at me, and I'm like, not today, Daniel. Too little, too late, brother.

Noah Nickel: 39:13

He looks alright, Daniel. You want a coffee? Yeah. You want a you want a breakfast burrito? Yeah.

Noah Nickel: 39:19

Yeah. You want meat on it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Noah Nickel: 39:22

Alright. I got you. Go back in. Hey. Can I get another coffee?

Noah Nickel: 39:25

Give me a sausage breakfast burrito. Get this together. And I'm waiting for them to give it to me at the end of the line. And in the meantime, Daniel actually walks in to the coffee shop. There's a lot going on, a lot of commotion, and people are getting their coffee.

Noah Nickel: 39:39

They're in and out. It's already filled with people that are working. And and as is a lot of places, people tend to be okay with individuals like that on the outside. But when they come inside, there's a hesitation. What do they want?

Noah Nickel: 39:50

What's gonna happen? And you can feel the tension the moment that he walks in the room. So I get the coffee and the breakfast burrito. I hand it to Daniel. I was like, oh, sugar and cream.

Noah Nickel: 40:00

Oh, you want sugar

Intro/Outro: 40:00

and cream? Yeah. Okay. Alright. We go over to the he's making it.

Intro/Outro: 40:03

We get it. Okay. I hate but I gotta

Noah Nickel: 40:05

I gotta go. Hey. Good good seeing you. And he pulls out of his pocket a little half sheet of paper. It's all crumpled up, and it's a it's an invitation.

Noah Nickel: 40:13

It's a kinda like a spiritual gathering. It's not Christian. He hands it to me, like, hey. Would you come to this? And I look at it, and in the middle of kind of this kind of bustling coffee shop, and I've already been inconvenienced twice to go ahead and slow down my day.

Noah Nickel: 40:26

I see this and I simply reply to him, oh, Daniel, I said, hey, I appreciate this. But to be honest with you, Jesus has my heart. Jesus wants your heart, Daniel. It was in that moment that he looks up and makes direct eye contact, and it's like the glaze is removed, and he's fully present. And with clarity of mouth and word, he says, Jesus has your heart.

Noah Nickel: 40:50

And I said, yeah, Daniel. And Jesus wants yours. And in the moment right there, I see the prayer that I prayed an hour ago and the manifestation of, Noah, you wanted heaven and earth to become thin. And this is a sacred moment that you're engaged in this place with, but you have to learn to slow down and to be interruptible. You have to look for opportunities to serve.

Noah Nickel: 41:13

It's Henri Nouwen that says, the humble life is the life in which we say to God, use me as you will. I trust that your way for me is best. A third and final thing in closing. I think one of the ways that we embrace the way of the kingdom when it comes to living out our true identity and navigating the steam is that we share our struggles, that we're vulnerable, that we're open. Let me share a story about your pastor.

Noah Nickel: 41:40

Couple years ago, I'm not much of a, like, a streamer. I don't watch a lot of shows. I'm probably good for, like, maybe one or two a year. And I remember, this particular year, a season two had come out of a show that I'd watched the year before. And I saw that I was out there, and I was like, well, I'll check this show out.

Noah Nickel: 41:56

And so I enjoyed the first season, and I start the second season. I get in bed. It's gonna be one of those nights. I kinda pop in my headphones, and I'm watching it. We get about fifteen minutes into the first episode.

Noah Nickel: 42:06

I'm like,

Intro/Outro: 42:07

I don't I don't know if I should watch this.

Noah Nickel: 42:10

Something's not something's not sitting right. And it's not like because there's, like, a bunch of, like, sex scenes and kinda like your typical things that you would see. It was, like, more spiritually based. That kind of stuff doesn't normally bother me, but for whatever reason, I was sitting there. I was raised Pentecostal.

Noah Nickel: 42:23

And so the church mothers always used to say, if you get a check-in your spirit, you gotta stop. And that's what it was. I've had, like, this check-in my spirit. I was like, I don't know if I could watch this. And watched a couple more minutes, really kinda felt like, ah, this feels gross, and now, alright.

Noah Nickel: 42:37

I'm gonna turn it off. And, godfather, forgive me. I'm not gonna watch that. I I don't know what was going on with that. I I I repent.

Noah Nickel: 42:42

That was right. Forgive me for not shutting it off the moment that you said. Go on about my day or that night, fall asleep. Two days later, it's bedtime, and I'm like, I gotta be spiritually mature than I more than I was two days ago. I could handle this.

Noah Nickel: 42:58

So I pull it back out, and I fire it back up, and I finish the first episode. And, again, get to the end of it. I'm like, oh, man. I I shouldn't I shouldn't have watched it. I don't know what it I can't put my finger it just doesn't feel right.

Noah Nickel: 43:09

I got the check-in my spirit. God forgive me. Hey. I I know I shouldn't watch that. Whatever is in it, whatever is on it, I don't want it, and I can tell that I am grieving your spirit by watching this.

Noah Nickel: 43:21

Forgive me. And wouldn't you know, like human nature, three days go by. Friday night comes around, got an early bedtime, kids are in bed. And at this point, I think I probably just ate some bad stuff that was maybe not really the Holy Spirit. Let me give it a go a third time.

Noah Nickel: 43:35

So I fire it back up, episode two. I start watching it. I got about fifteen minutes into this one as well. And I knew if I finish this episode, I will finish the rest of the season. And I got to this moment of, like, a crossroads where I was like, alright, god.

Noah Nickel: 43:51

I'm I'm forgive me. I'm not gonna watch. I I really shut it down, and I meant it. God, that's the third time. I'm sorry.

Noah Nickel: 43:59

And, and I never went back, but a couple weeks goes by, and I still feel, like, the lingering residue in my soul. It's the best way I can say it. Like, this it's still with me. Like, I genuinely repented. I confessed to God.

Noah Nickel: 44:10

I know that he forgave me. I I didn't think God was holding something against me, but I was like, why is this, like, still here? And I remember early one morning, I was in the shower getting ready for work, and I was praying, talking to God about it. And And I was like, what's with the, like, residue in my soul of that thing? You know, I genuinely repented.

Noah Nickel: 44:27

It's been weeks now. I have no desire to open that thing back up. I'm not gonna do it. Why why is it here? I know you forgive me.

Noah Nickel: 44:34

Why am I feeling it? And I felt like, not audible, but impressed on my heart that the Holy Spirit said, text Darren what you did. And I thought, well, I'm not gonna do that. So what's option b? You have you have those moments where you barter with God?

Noah Nickel: 44:52

Like, I'm definitely not doing that. And so we gotta have it out. I honestly, I I don't know how better to say it. I have it out with God in the shower. Like, I'm just like, I'm not doing that.

Noah Nickel: 45:00

He's like, you're doing that. I'm like, I'm not doing that. Please? He's like, you're doing that. And I'm like, alright.

Noah Nickel: 45:06

So I'm like, this is gonna be so weird. Hey, dude. Sorry. Just random text. I wanna tell you.

Noah Nickel: 45:11

Watched this show I shouldn't have watched and right. All what I'm thinking, my ego. What's he going to think about me? My identity, my persona, esteem, how I live in this world, what I am to him in his mind. That text.

Noah Nickel: 45:29

Obviously, there's time change, so couple hours go by when he wakes up. And send a long text to him explaining everything, and he sends a simple text back. Hey. Thank you, brother, for confessing this. You're forgiven.

Noah Nickel: 45:41

Go in peace. And when I read that text, I can't explain exactly what happened other than it felt like that lingering residue on my soul wiped away. It was gone. Now listen. I don't believe Darren forgave my sins.

Noah Nickel: 45:56

Okay? Like, I don't have a theology of that. I know God forgave me. But what I know I tapped into it that I might not even be able to fully explain is when James says, confess your sins one to another so that you can be healed. That it was a moment where I just share my struggles and my earnestness and my honesty.

Noah Nickel: 46:18

Because David also talks about when I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Because sometimes you just have to simply name it to tame it. You gotta put language to it and not broadcast it to the world, but you find one or two or three close friends. That you begin to share the deepest parts of your struggle and your sin, your identity with, and invite them in to pray and to encourage you. Let me close with this story.

Noah Nickel: 46:50

About a week and a half ago, not not just this past Friday, but the Friday before, it was morning time. And my son, Bear, seven, woke up, and he walks out of his room. And I'm at my desk, and it's kind of right down the hallway from, his room. And as he walks out, he's got his blanket in one hand, always only in underwear, and he's got his water bottle in the other. And he walks out, and he goes, my throat my throat hurts.

Noah Nickel: 47:11

And it was one of those parental moments where you're like, let's wait and see how this goes. Like, is it dry? You just need to kinda wake up a little bit. Are you genuinely sick? And that Friday goes on, and it's kind of back and forth.

Noah Nickel: 47:22

There's There's long stretches where he seems totally normal and totally fine, then he'll pause, it'll slow down, and, like, my throat really hurts, and so I I don't know. I don't know what's going on. So Friday night happens, and he gets more ill. Throat's really kind of flamed up and bothering him, and temperature rises slightly. He's just uncomfortable.

Noah Nickel: 47:41

And it's it's the MO in our house. Whenever our son is sick, that means I'm gonna find myself sleeping on his bedroom floor. So he takes forever to fall asleep only to wake up just an hour or two later and another dose of Motrin, a cold rag on the head, help him fall back asleep. And as this is all happening, I am keenly aware of what I have coming up over the next two weeks. I had some really important meetings that week, and I was like, I cannot miss these meetings.

Noah Nickel: 48:05

I have this trip coming up. I have another trip tonight. I have to fly out. I have to go somewhere else for a couple of days. And so I'm processing through all of this.

Noah Nickel: 48:12

Like, I can't deal with sickness right now. The problem is my seven year old son could care less about what I have going on. He won't even sleep in his bed. He gets out of his bed and snuggles right next to me on the floor just breathing right in my face. Right?

Noah Nickel: 48:29

I have this moment where I'm thinking in my head, I should just isolate you in a room. I should go in another room, talk through you talk to you through from, like, a walkie talkie. Hey. Let me know what you need. I'll slide it under the door.

Noah Nickel: 48:41

Please wait fifteen seconds once it slid through for me to back away so that we don't have a contagious kind of exposure exchange, and and we'll be good to go. I wanna be a good dad. As parents, you know this. You're just fully exposed in those moments. You're like, here we go.

Noah Nickel: 48:57

And I found myself repeatedly that night as he would wake up and sit up asking him the question, what do you want, buddy? What do you need? What is it that you want? And here's the thing about desiring God, is that when we come face to face with our sinful desires, we have a tendency to think, I need to pull away from my father, clean up, heal up, get right, and then he'll invite me back into relationship with him. Here's where I think God is at.

Noah Nickel: 49:28

He's like, hey. Breathe all of the stuff on me. Give give it all to me. I wanna know how you feel like you lost your identity. I wanna know how that relationship stripped those things from you so I can help you begin to restore it.

Noah Nickel: 49:41

I wanna talk about your problematic online behavior that you try to disclose or or discard or cover up, I should say, by having a false name. I see it. I know it. Bring it to me. Don't think you gotta figure it all out before you come.

Noah Nickel: 49:54

Let me walk with you through that. That's the invitation from the father with desire is that when they're disordered, he doesn't say, order it, get it right, come to me. He says, let me walk with you to reorder those desires. Let me walk with you to go ahead and figure those things out. He asked the same question that I asked my son as an imperfect dad.

Noah Nickel: 50:16

As a good heavenly father, he echoes the same words from Jesus in the gospels. What do you want? What is it you really want? What is the desire in your heart? Let's go ahead and pray.

Noah Nickel: 50:29

Father, we thank you for the few moments that we've had this morning. Lord, all of us live with longings and desires, dreams, and hopes, aspirations, wants. It's part of who we are. It's how you made us. God, we also know that sometimes those become disordered.

Noah Nickel: 50:45

They get out of whack. And so what we see throughout the gospels and the Sermon on the Mount is an invitation to reorder them, to bring them into alignment with kingdom living in the way of Jesus. So, lord, as we get ready to close in just a few moments of worship and prayer, we bring our desires before you. I ask everybody to just stand to your feet in a posture of prayer, your hands out in front of you as you often do. It's a way that we are here to just simply give to God what we have, but also to receive from him what he's offering.

Noah Nickel: 51:19

So, God, we bring who we are. We bring our five year plans. We bring our ten year plans. We bring our past. We bring our present.

Noah Nickel: 51:28

We bring the things that people have said about us that have shaped us into who we are, and we bring the deep pains of what nobody ever said about us us. I've also shaped us into who we are. Wanna just maybe name a few things,

Intro/Outro: 51:44

as we get ready to just have a

Noah Nickel: 51:45

moment of ministry, a time of ministry that might resonate with somebody here in person, or maybe even watching online. One, when I just alluded to that a little bit ago, your online activity. It's under a screen name. So you think that you're hidden. It's a false representation of what you bring before the world, but you engage in things that are meeting a disordered desire.

Noah Nickel: 52:08

And I think as best as I can discern and tell that the Lord has given you an opportunity this morning to confess that. Because the enemy eventually will use that to expose you and embarrass you. But if you'll trust God with it now and bring it before him, as a good father, there's a level of protection that he'll walk through with you. For some of you, you are in a marriage, and it's not that you need to get out of the marriage by any means, but you feel like you've lost your identity in the marriage. Maybe whether that's through verbal or unverbal expectations from your spouse or your kids, or maybe your extended family, or the in laws that you've been married into.

Noah Nickel: 52:48

And I think the invitation from the Holy Spirit is this morning to begin to reclaim your identity. For some of you, you've lost an identity from a previous relationship. They didn't like that about you. Hey. You're too loud.

Noah Nickel: 53:01

Stop being that way. Or you're too quiet. Be more extroverted. And so you began to, in a way, to serve and appease somebody else, be something that you're not. And now maybe that relationship has ended, but you feel a little lost of, like, who am I?

Noah Nickel: 53:16

Do I have permission to be me? And I think the Holy Spirit wants to meet you here and begin to reclaim that. That today starts a journey for a lot of you that maybe you feel like you've lost your identity. And then the last thing is you've had a family of origin and upbringing. That things, again, whether spoken or unspoken, were expectations of the kind of personalities that live and exist in this household.

Noah Nickel: 53:40

And for whatever reason, there were aspects of you that you felt were kind of out of bounds. And whether, again, it was direct conversations or even it maybe even implementations from a a father or a mother. We don't do that. Don't be like that. Turn it down.

Noah Nickel: 53:57

Be better. You feel like you are here today, and there's a part of you that wonders, is this who I really am? And again, the invitation is for redemption, reclamation, and that today, the sense is that God wants to begin with you the journey of discovery. As of you seeing and having permission to be the person that he's fully created you to be, and that in that journey and that flourishing, you also see and sense the love of the father. And so if any of those resonate with you in just a moment as we begin to worship, the garden prayer team will be down here, and as as they begin to sing, make your way down to receive prayer.

Noah Nickel: 54:39

And for some of you, it's just I need to confess and get this out. That point number three was I gotta expose this thing. So I'm holding on to bitterness or resentment or anger. I've let pride gear my business. I've let, insecurity determine how I manage money, and I just need to I need to expose that in a moment this morning of prayer.

Noah Nickel: 54:56

The invitation, I think, from the father is to do that. So, Lord, we thank you for the time we've had this morning, and the opportunity. Would you meet us here in a unique way? Thank you for freedom. Thank you for kindness.

Noah Nickel: 55:07

Thank you for grace, and thank you that you are a dad that wants to be so close in all of it. In the good times, in the times of flourishing, in joy, and also in the messy, sick, sinful disorder times as well. You are the same God in all things and at all times. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Intro/Outro: 55:32

Thank you for listening. For more information, please visit us at garden.church.