[laughs]

And occasionally domesticating raccoons.

I have not succeeded at that yet.

But we're not here today to talk about social media.

That's just an illustration about how we like to share the things that we love with the other people in the world.

And what we're here to talk about is the most important message in the universe, the most important thing to share with those around us.

Because you and I, sisters, you and I, Ruby women, we are the messengers that carry the most important message in the universe.

[laughs]

When we read the big story of the Bible and remember that it's the story about who God is, what He's doing, and how much He loves His kids, we can see His goodness everywhere.

Right, Ms. Tara Lee? That's right, Ms.

Emily.

So let's go all the way back and review the big story so far.

In the very beginning, God sets out to build a relationship with His family, but their sin gets in the way.

It hurts that relationship.

But God is sovereign and not at all surprised by their sin.

There are a lot of rules about

Where did that phrase come from? He's where

the joy is.

It's from Psalm 1611.

That's King David.

In your presence there is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

And I am a pleasure-seeking creature.

So Terrilee, what would you say is one piece of encouragement you give to ministry leaders today based on the things that you're seeing?

Like, what would you say to that person?

I would ask them, I would ask them, this is going to be a nuanced question in every conversation.

So there's no general advice that's going to help everyone.

Right.

do they have a guide? Do they have accountability? And then also, so like an actual, if you're using a guide that's online, like if you're doing the Bible recap, it's still great to do the Bible recap with a friend, with your sister, with your, you know, it, because I'm not going to call you and say, I noticed you haven't listened to the last three days.

Like, I'm not accountability for you.

I'm a guide for you, but I'm not accountability.

Yes.

Oh,

I, when I am looking at this passage and I'm thinking about repentance and how I grow and how I want to have a heart of humility and things like that, it reminds me of some advice I heard goodness, over a decade ago that I've really taken to heart.

And it's a pastor said, find the things in life that stir your affections for God and saturate your life in them.

Find the things that steal those affections and eradicate them.

And so I went in my journal, and I made a list of steals and stirs.

What are the things that stir my affection for God, and what are the things that steal my affection for God? And my initial impulse was to try to eradicate the things on the steals list, like just get rid of all those things.

But what I found was that the more I—and it's important to do that, especially if some of those things are blatantly sinful.

Lord.

Mm

... which has been...

They, they've gone, "Okay, I've tried it all, and that actually wasn't it, and I've, I've come back to this." But I think, I think that high anthropology is at the, is at, at the root of all that, that idea that, "I deserve more than this." So for instance, for me, just good Christian girl, you know, A student, checked all the right boxes, didn't cuss, didn't watch R-rated movies, no sex before marriage, no drugs, no drinking, all those things.

And in my, in my sphere, the language was, "Oh, oh, y- you know, God is...

You're gonna have a great husband someday.

God's gonna..." Guess what? Still single.

It still has not panned out the way everyone told me that it would pan out.

Yeah

Right.

No.

Like, they've all three eternally existed in perfect unity, and scripture tells us that they all have the same personality, character, will.

T- they are unified in their character and their personality and will.

Jesus, like, scripture says that Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father's nature, and that the Spirit is the one who, who shows us all that in our hearts, but that Jesus is the one who demonstrated it to the world.

Jesus came to show us what God the Father is like.

Jesus is pointing back to the Father.

Yes.

They don't get to go into the land God promised them, but their children do.

God raises up a new leader, Joshua, who leads the Israelites into the promised land.

Because Joshua listens to God and does what he says, they take the land.

Hooray! They divide up the land and spread out by tribe.

Then they're supposed to drive out all their enemies, but they don't.

And so just like God warned them would happen, they disobey him, and they get further and further away from him.

God gives them judges, who are like military leaders, to lead them.

God is building an eternal family, and it's bigger and more beautiful than they could have imagined.

Wow.

They all have the same traits and the same will, and they are on the same team to make that will happen all together, but they play different roles.

And so what we see throughout scripture is if you look at the story of creation and the story of the baptism of Jesus, we see that the roles that the, the, each person of the Trinity plays in those, both scenes are the same roles.

I'll explain that in a second.

Um, but they also do that elsewhere in scripture.

So we see God the Father is the one who initiates, and he speaks creation commands, and he speaks from heaven at Jesus' baptism, "This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased." Jesus is the one doing the physical acts in both scenes.

So like I said earlier, Colossians 1 and John 1 tell us that Jesus is the one who did the manual labor in Genesis 1.

Amen.

Even though God rescues His family, they're still sinful.

But God is merciful, and He gives them rules for living holy, set-apart lives.

There are a lot of rules about cleanliness and sacrifices and even about celebrations and so much more, but these rules are necessary because God is holy and the Israelites are sinful.

God wants them to remember who He is and how much He loves them.

But instead of remembering, they keep on forgetting.

They either get fearful and disobey, or they get prideful and disobey.

And because they disobey God, they spend 40 years in the wilderness of the desert.

Right, Miss Tirley?

They don't get to go into the land God promised them, but their children do.

God raises up a new leader, Joshua, who leads the Israelites into the promised land.

Because Joshua listens to God and does what He says, they take the land.

Hooray! They divide up the land and spread out by tribe.

Then they're supposed to drive out all their enemies, but they don't.

And so, just like God warned them would happen, they disobey Him, and they get further and further away from Him.

God gives them judges who are like military leaders to lead them.

You know, David made so many bad decisions, so why does the Bible call him a man after God's own heart?

Mm-hmm.

This one comes from day 146, Psalm 139:23 through 24, which reads, "Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." So our question, why does David ask God to search him and know him? Doesn't God already know everything about us?

Mm-hmm.

And that brings me to the other thing that something you said made me think of a quote by a, a theologian.

I'm gonna read this quote.

Um, this comes from a book called The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller.

"To be loved but not known is comforting, but superficial.

"How do you hold both truths?"

Yeah, I ...

Okay, I'll start this one.

So I believe both of these things, and I also recognize that I truly don't fully understand in my less than infinite mind how both of these things somehow work together.

Mm-hmm.

And so, um, the faith that is demonstrated by the people of God, Saul had this ...

It wa- it wasn't a whole faith, it was a broken faith.

It was like a, um ...

What are some simple, everyday ways to talk about God that don't feel forced or preachy?

Yeah.

With doing the Bible Recap as a family, now, that to me is one of the ways that I think is best to open up conversations.

I'm sure there are other, if you go to church and you're sitting in the service with your children, you can talk about the things that happen in the service.

Like, oh, I really liked this part.

That part was really interesting to me.

What did you find interesting? And with doing the Bible recap, hey, this stood out to me today.

So if you could encourage parents to focus on one spiritual practice that could have lasting impact on their kids, what would you encourage them to focus on?