Brought Near by the Blood

Welcome to Tribe's podcast. Hey, we just wanna say thank you for making this message a part of your week. Our prayer is that these messages will inspire you to make the name of Jesus famous in your life and to the uttermost bounds of the earth. If you're ever in Jackson Hole, we'd love for you to visit our Tribe fam in person. To learn more about us, you can find us online or at Facebook by searching tribejh.com.

Welcome to Tribe's podcast. Hey, we just wanna say thank you for making this message a part of your week. Our prayer is that these messages will inspire you to make the name of Jesus famous in your life and to the uttermost bounds of the earth. If you're ever in Jackson Hole, we'd love for you to visit our tribe fam in person. To learn more about us, you can find us online or at Facebook by searching tribejh.com.

On what flavor church you come from this Sunday is traditionally known as what?

Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday. Sunday. And it is the day that in the Christian church, we remember and memorialize Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem where he filled fulfilled scripture by riding on a donkey. He he rides down from the Mount Of Olives across the Kidron Valley and up through the Eastern Gate into the city of Jerusalem. And as Christians, we remember the fact that according to the Bible, the tradition is, as recorded in scripture, that people would take off their coats and they would lay them down, and they had gathered palm fronds and they would lay their palm fronds down and they were singing Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord and the Hebrew word for Hosanna, it's actually an Aramaic word, and it means save, please.

Like, save us, please. And there was an intensity and a desperation to it. It would be the word that somebody might use as if they had fallen over a boat, treaded waters, treaded water for hours, were at the end of their strength, and at last, the coast guard comes along and with their last breath, they're like, save me, save me, help me, help me, help me before the life ring comes out. That's what that that's the meaning behind the word hosanna. It's great.

It's wonderful. We're not I mean, this is as much as we're gonna do on Palm Sunday. So if you're looking for a Palm Sunday message, that was it. You just got it. So I personally am looking forward to the next time that Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem.

And the Bible tells us that he won't come riding on a donkey, on a foal, on an unbroken colt, but what will he come riding on? Horse. A white horse. A war horse. A horse that has been trained and made ready for battle.

Jesus came the first time as the propitiation sacrifice, the lamb that takes away the sins of the world. He will come again. But as a conqueror, commander of the IDF ground forces, retaking the city of Jerusalem, liberating it from the 10 army coalition nation that has surrounded and besieged Jerusalem in what the Old Testament describes as the time of Jacob's trouble, which will make the Holocaust in World War two look like a drop in the bucket. But in Israel's darkest hour, in the fulfillment of their chastisement, brought about by the loving hand of god. Their their hearts will turn.

And Jesus himself said, you won't see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord. And Israel will have a national repentance and turning towards their Messiah. The New Testament says, think of how amazing the world is when you Gentiles got the message of salvation. I'm really paraphrasing here. And Paul says, how much more awesome will it be when Israel connects the dots?

And receives their Messiah who is Jesus born in the little town of Bethlehem two thousand years ago. Okay. So you just got a Palm Sunday message. You got a return of Jesus message. Now to today's message, we're gonna be talking about Passover, and Passover is a a it is a large umbrella feast that has several different elements to it, and it started last night at sundown with a a Passover special Shabbat dinner.

And the reason why we're going to talk about Passover instead of Palm Sunday is because of this, because God said so. And here's what he said. If you remember, if you've been with our tribe fam for any amount of time, god spoke to our hearts at tribe, and he said, I would like you to recognize and honor the seven feasts laid out the seven major feasts laid out in the Bible. And we're like, okay. But we're not Jewish, and you you got a long way to educate us on because none of us really have ever had much to do with the feast.

And he's like, it's okay. We we got time. And he said, think of my feast less as Jewish holidays because even though some of us in this room might be, like, have some Jew Jewish ethnicity in our background, none of us are practicing or observant or religious Jews. And if you're a religious Jew in here this morning, two questions for you. How'd you get here and what are you doing?

I'm like, so glad you came. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you Free. Free. So none of us are Jewish. So why aren't we doing these Jewish things?

And God said, I want you to I want you to think of these seven major feasts, not so much as Jewish religious holidays, but more like my family traditions. And in the Old Testament, God says, these are my feast. These are my family traditions. And if you're gonna be in my family, then you get to partake in our family traditions. Now it's not too much different among our earthly families.

We all have family traditions, and if we had time, it would be fun to go around and to hear some of your odd, sweet, precious, quirky family traditions that are unique to to your family, to the Grabowski family, to the Norman family, to the Lack family. But in God's family, he's no different. He has seven family traditions, seven yearly family traditions. And here, I've got a little chart that I want to show you. The the first thing that you'll notice is there's probably is is this is Mark, the month of Mark.

Whoopsies. It's March. It's just March. It's just March. And this line is is blank because I didn't want to rush just filling it in.

I'm I'm kind of slow rolling developing this chart. But as you there's there's a lot here. If you wanna take a picture of it, you can. But these are god's family traditions. There are seven of them.

Four of them are in the spring. Three of them are in the fall. Right now, we are in the family tradition of Passover. You can see the Old Testament references to it. You can see how Jesus is in the feast.

We don't celebrate the Jewish traditions to be more Jewish. We don't celebrate the Jewish traditions because because they're cool. We celebrate them because we see Jesus in them and god has invited us into his family traditions. So, we can see Jesus in the feast. We can see these New Testament verses and then, there are four checked boxes and three unchecked boxes.

So, four of these feasts are for us to help remember what has happened. Three of these feasts are to help us prepare for and plan and rehearse so that when the literal fulfillment of these verses play out on planet Earth, we will be able to say, oh, oh, that you're seeing on the CNN news headline is that which the prophets in the New Testament and Jesus himself told us about. And down here at the bottom, we'll see that Jesus has already fill fulfilled the prophet and the priest role. And someday, when he sets up his governmental administration on planet Earth. As the Bible says, he'll rule with an iron scepter, and the hallmarks of his administration will be peace and righteousness and truth that we will see those fulfilled in the soon coming king of Jesus.

So this kinda gives you the the the big picture. God invited us to honor and recognize these feasts seven times a year to do three things. And for those of you who've been with us in the cycle of the feast, God's family tradition for a few years, you can just shout out, what is one of the reasons that God invites us to honor and recognize these feasts? To remember, to remember what he's done, that we can take a special period of time and focus on the wonderful things that he has done in relation to the fulfillment of that feast. So to remember is one thing.

What else? To It helps us. This is a big part of why God invited us to recognize and honor these seven feasts as we were coming out of COVID. We were like, we gotta make up for lost time and lost ground and go, go, go, and and the the world and The United States and our tribe family and even us as family and friends were like, we've gotta like scramble. Everything was put on hold and everything was topsy-turvy for so long.

We come out of COVID and we're like, go, go, go, and we never had time to like like adjust and and grieve things that were lost and and adjust our whole life. I mean, the world is different now. And so as we were asking the lord, how do we, like, get back on track? How do we resync up with you? He said, well, I it's been in your bible all along.

I have these feasts, these family traditions to help you recalibrate, like tuning an instrument. The more you play your guitar, Corey, does it get more in tune or more out of tune? Out of tune. Out of tune. Because that's just the world that we live in.

When Jesus alright. Trick question. Well, no. Tricky. Not a trick question, but a tricky question for you.

Corey, when Jesus comes back and he establishes his millennial rule and reign on planet Earth and you play your guitar for those thousand years, will that guitar, the more you play it, get more in tune or more out of tune? I should give you a multiple choice. Let's make it a multiple choice. During the thousand year reign of Jesus, will your guitar get more in tune during A) the thousand year reign of Jesus, or after that thousand year where the age is wrapped up and we're now living in combination with the new heavens and the new earth and earth reside heaven resides on earth and vice versa. Just say B.

B. That's right, Corey. In the millennial reign of Jesus, there still will be there still people will have free will. Not everybody will bend the knee of their heart to him. There will still be death.

There still will be pain for the world. For Christians, we will have resurrected bodies because we will have a new assignment, but the world will still carry on more or less like it was before Jesus. He will just be the dominant political, spiritual, world leader of the entire planet. So our guitars will still go out of tune.

I was gonna ask if it was a glorified guitar.

Yeah. But at the end of that thousand years, and we're like way off the page after that point, then our guitars will never go out of tune. It will always be a powder day with zero avi danger. And then here's the third reason why the Lord has invited us to honor these feasts. What is it?

To rehearse. To rehearse. To rehearse. And when we hear the word rehearse, maybe you think of, like, a school play, maybe like Willy Wonka that's coming up. In a few weeks, he went out the door and missed it.

He missed his shout out. But you think of a wedding rehearsal, and the reason why you do a wedding rehearsal is so you walk through, you know where to stand, and so that when that day actually comes, you're less likely to, like, go stand off in the wrong place or or or mess up. In a similar way, the scripture says when in the Old Testament, he says, the this is to be a holy convocation. We think convocation, a gathering, a congregation, a ceremony. It does mean all of those things in the Old Testament, but the Hebrew word included in that definition is a rehearsal.

We are meant to practice, as we celebrate these feasts, practice the future fulfillment of these beautiful family traditions. So to remember, to recalibrate, and to rehearse. Yesterday kicked off the family tradition of Passover, and we should go to that passage now and read about it in Exodus chapter 12. And we like to have folks participate. And so part of the way that we prime the pump for your participation is by inviting you to take turns reading from the passages that we jump around to, and so the first place that we're going to go is Exodus chapter 12, and we're going to read verses one through 14.

And so we have a mic in the room. Kat has the mic. That is for all of our families that are watching the livestream, whether they're traveling or call tribe home from some other place. They get to hear your voice and be a part of the conversation that we're going to have today. And so who would like to start us off?

Gretchen, by reading Exodus chapter 12, start in verse one. You don't have to read the whole thing. You can hand it off, and we'll go to verse 13.

Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying, this month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel saying, on the tenth of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons according to each man's need. You shall make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you should keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.

Whoops. Thought you were done with the blood. Whoopsies. More blood. Who's gonna pick up from verse seven?

Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night, they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire. With the head, legs, and eternal organs, Do not leave any of it till morning. If some of it is left till morning, you must burn it.

This is how you are to eat it, with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. On that Take us all

the way to thirteen. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Indeed. Just a dramatic pause.

Oh.

Received. On that same night, I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you.

No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

Move over James Earl Jones. Thank you, Matt. Last week, I said that we were gonna wind down the our our study, our time in the book of Leviticus. There was a lot of blood in the book of Leviticus, so I was partially truthful with you. We're not in Leviticus, but I guess we're not done with the blood.

So in this passage, we're gonna we're gonna spend our time here and look at this passage, and then we'll go to one or two places in the New Testament. But in this passage, we see God's instruction for the nation of Israel on the night just before they were released from Egypt and led out with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm. And we're going to look at this same idea of Passover from a little bit different perspective now, from our friends at the Bible Project. And so I'm gonna play this video for you about their take on Passover, which which illuminates some additional beautiful truths. So we'll make that video go and Imagine

a bunch of baby chicks under attack, but then a mother bird comes to defend. She hovers over the nest, standing in harm's way to rescue her young. This image was used by the prophet Isaiah to describe how God defends his people when they are under attack. And he uses a rare Hebrew verb, to describe this act of protection. While this verb shows up only a few times in scripture, its related noun occurs dozens of times.

To name one of the Bible's most important festival meals, Passover. So why is the word for the Passover festival the same word used for protecting hovering birds? The backstory begins in Exodus. The brutal tyrant Pharaoh ordered the newborn Hebrew son to be drowned in the nuns. God sends Moses to confront Pharaoh who refuses to let the people go.

God strikes Egypt with nine plagues to force Pharaoh's family, and the tenth is a deadly plague that will attack the firstborn firstborn son at every house, turning Pharaoh's own murderous evil back onto himself. But ultravacca way to survive this final plague, any household can select a blameless lamb and roast it for a meal. Then they are to smear its lifeblood on the door frame of their house, purifying that house from any association with pharaoh's murderous evil. Moses tells the people that if they do this, God will tassach house. Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and he will see the blood on the door frame at the two doorposts, and Yahweh will over the door.

He will not allow the destroyer to enter into your houses to strike. Now this word is sometimes translated as Passover, which might make you think of skipping over or going away from the house. But other translations render the same word as protect, which is how Isaiah used the word. God will his people like that mother bird hovering over the house and not allowing to destroy, which is plague, to enter and strike. So Passover or Pesach in Hebrew is the night when God's protective love held back death.

And after this first Pesach, Moses instructs the Israelites to observe this meal as an annual feast. And so it has been celebrated every year since.

Cool. Gretchen.

I love that video. There's only one thing that I don't like about that video.

Okay.

And it's the how they represent the blood going like this, because the direction is actually to smear it at the top, to smear it on the two sides, and then you you talked about last year the basin at the bottom. And so when you connect them all, it looks like a cross because it all points to Jesus. I And think that that's an important thing to keep in our brains, that it doesn't look like this, but it looks like a cross.

Yeah. I love it. Surrounded. Okay. So if we take what we just read and hold that, click on that, open it up on the desktop of our mind, and then keep the video that we just watched open also on the desktop of our mind, so both of those things are open, we see a beautiful picture of how God covers with the blood on the doorpost.

It is like that bird hovering over Pesach to cover, to protect on the outside those who are inside the house. But there's more. So here's in light of what we've been talking about in the book of Leviticus. I want to add to what we have read, what we what we just saw. So if you remember from our our brief jaunt through the book of Leviticus thank you, Kat.

From our brief jaunt through the book of Leviticus, we saw that the application of blood does several very interesting things. Yes, it purifies. Yes, it cleanses. But here's something else that you that I want you to connect forever with the blood on the doorpost. Whenever in the Old Testament, Moses or Aaron would sprinkle blood on the altar, it was only after a person laid their hands on the head of the animal.

And as we talked about, and if you have gone through that podcast series from the bible project on the book of Leviticus, you know that the intention of part part of the intention of laying your hands on the head of the animal was in essence to transfer your essence into that animal. That animal gives its life, and the Bible says the life of any living thing is in the blood, then that blood gets to go into the holy of holies once a year and sprinkled on the altar so that there could be a commingling of the presence of god and your life force so that the two of you get to be together. The Old Testament picture, man, it was it was it was a stretch. Thank goodness for the New Testament where Jesus says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any of you will open the door, I'll come in, and we'll have a meal together, and we'll dine together as friends.

So here's here's the the the picture that I want you to get into your mind today. Is that, yes, when the blood is put on the doorpost, we are protected from God's kind of standing on the outside. Think of him as like the bouncer that says, nope. You can't come in, and the angel of death continues to to pass on. But in some ways, it's as if all of those families on the night of Passover, after all that they have been through, are left all alone.

They're protected on the outside, but on the inside, they are left all alone. Well, when the blood is sprinkled on the doorpost, it creates if we wanna get blurry for just a second, it's almost like a portal that allows the presence of god not just to remain on the outside but to come into that home and into that household to dwell with the people of each and every household on the night before they were delivered. Yeah, they yeah, they're yeah, they're they're painting it. Okay, let's look at this verse. We'll go to the New Testament now.

Hebrews chapter nine and verse 24 and we'll put it up on the screen here. Hebrews chapter nine verse 24. In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness. So there's a lot of blood in the Old Testament.

We tend to think of the blood as something to be, like, avoided. Like, yeah, blood. Yeah. But in the Old Testament, Hebrew mindset and understanding of blood, the blood that was seen when applied according to God's instructions, it was a beautiful picture of being able to have communion with God. Okay.

Let me see if I can illustrate this further. Cat, in the would you open up that fridge? Are there two fizzies? I need two fizzies. Dealer's choice.

Okay. Take one of those cans of fizzy, open it. Open it, and, like, take a couple of cups and pour the entire contents into a couple of cups, and then people can have a fizzy drink. It's better stewardship than just pouring it in the sink because I need an empty fizzy can. Empty and full.

Okay. Not a magic trick. Let me set these right here. Okay. So this can protects what's inside the can.

Right? Otherwise, you'd just be walking around, like, holding fizzy, like, in your hand or try to put it in a pocket and it wouldn't be very that would be that would be weird. And if you're thirsty, you're trying so it's in this can. The outside the outside protects it. And there is there is there is a lot more strength to this can in its present form than if the contents of this can were, like, say, just in my shirt pocket.

Right? There's a whole lot more there. But let me ask you this, which of these two cans is stronger? The full one. Why?

Because of what's in the can. Okay? So I could take this can

now watch

out. And I could squeeze it. Will's like, squeeze all you want. You're not gonna break it. I'm not fooling him.

And nothing's nothing is gonna happen to this can. It's because it's sealed, and it's the contents within this can that give the can its great, great strength. On the other hand, this can easily crushes because of what's not in the can. Now leave these two things here, and let's go to one other verse. Ephesians chapter two.

And we're going to look at verse 13. Yep. Ephesians chapter two verse 13. We'll put it up on the screen here. But now, you have been united with Christ Jesus.

Once you were far away from god, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. The Old Testament picture of the application of the blood ended with this outward like candy shell covering. Protected on the outside. Just great, wonderful, fantastic, adequate. But one of the things I love about god, he always goes one step further than what you expected.

Because of what transpired on the cross, we have been brought near by the blood, which is in fact the title of this morning's conversation that you can write at the top of your notes. We have been brought near by the blood. We are not left inside sacrificing the Passover lamb, roasting it, and eating Passover meal with our jackets on and our knapsacks packed, huddling in fear of what's going on out there and hoping that when the daylight comes that we'll be led into freedom. But at that meal, we recline. We relax because not only is God Pesach covering over us, but because of the blood that was shed, Jesus we have been brought near so that Jesus lives in us, providing us not just with with protection on the outside like this but dwelling rich richly and fully inside of us to give us the strength that we need in order to withstand the pressures of the world outside.

I've done a lot of talking this morning. I'd like to hear from you. What are some of your thoughts or connections that you're making regarding what we've said so far? Somebody said, wow. And to to let it sink in a little bit more, you can write this in your notes.

God's family tradition of Passover reminds us that God shields us from wrath and fills us with His presence.

I think about what Lisa said first, and she talked about, if he had only been done this, it would have been enough. Yes. And if he had only done that, it would have been enough. But not only did he cover them in the blood and protect them from outside forces of trouble, evil, fear, whatever, but empowered that he empowers us from within, which is like Christ in us, the hope of glory. Right?

It's incredible.

In you,

the hope of glory.

In union with him. Yes. I think that many Christians live their lives thankful for, humbled by, ingratiated to the what Jesus did with the application of his blood to the outer door frame of the house of their heart. Thank you that I am saved and saved from wrath. Thank you so much for that.

And I know that someday in the sweet by and by, I will be reunited with you in heaven someday. Until then, I have to, out of my own strength and resources, try to live this this Christian life. And that's a great way to get your can squished pretty quickly. Not only does he shield us from the wrath from wrath, which is an expression of God's nature and character, by the way. It's his attitude and his antagonism towards sin in all of its form and manifestation that is unrelenting only to be propitiated by the sacrifice of his son on the cross, but that it fills us as well.

Also, the blood, you know, it was an act of obedience for them to do that to to put the blood over the door. I mean, I'm I'll I'll I'm a very visual person, and I love seeing that, you know, it was an act of obedience, and not everybody did it, I'm sure. You know? So the others that were watching these people do it, you know, what were they thinking? You know, Look at these people doing this that you know?

Do they really believe putting blood over their door, not realizing what that blood symbolized?

Sure. The Egyptians were certainly clueless. What what what are you doing? Do you think that there were any Hebrew families that ignored that instruction? Perhaps.

Do you think that they suffered the consequences? I I would think so. We don't have any scriptural indication of that directly. However, as I asked that question, I thought of in the New Testament, Paul says all of them were baptized in the cloud, all of them were baptized in the sea. All of them ate the manna, yet most of them perished in the wilderness because of their lack of faith and obedience.

Okay. Okay.

What I see in this is that I think that one of the devil's greatest tools is to keep us busy, to distract us, and what I see here when it talks about being filled is just kind of submerging ourselves in God's word. You know, we're we're such so many people don't aren't inspired to read and study and what every day and I think that's what we need more and more of is to be filled with not only the spirit but with god's word so that we can be prepared for what Satan throws at us every day.

Absolutely. Not just a rote ritualistic heart disconnected reading or memorization of God's word. So that's the logos of God. Think of it like an apple seed. That seed must be planted in the fertile soil of a person's heart so that it can come alive and become the rhema of god.

That's where the transformation happens. That's where that's where we get filled with the spirit is when we not just intellectually agree with or memorize or or say, yep. Sounds good. But when we invite that word and plant it deep in our hearts to surrender and obedience to his word, asking the Holy Spirit, illuminate the scripture. Help me to obey your word.

And we we surrender ourselves. Like I use this this picture comes up in my mind so many times of of two men entering a combat arena and one man surrenders to be vanquished by the other. That when he in in the gladiator arena, when he knew that he was bested, the most honorable thing that he could do was drop to his knees and receive the point of the victor's sword and place it right here to receive the death blow so that the conqueror could just take that sword and jam it straight down to win the to win the victory. All that we would receive the sword of the spirit and place it at our neck. That we would die to ourselves to receive the empowerment of God's holy spirit that will fill us with strength to resist the pressures of the world as they increase.

Last verse. Last verse. And and it's worth turning there. Revelation Revelation chapter three verse 10. These are red letters in your Bible.

So, who's speaking? That's right. He says this, because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing or tribulation that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world. Squeeze test. Everybody's can is gonna get squeezed.

That would be a funny quote to take out of context for old PB. Remember one of the reasons why I said we come back. Remember one of the reasons why I said we celebrate the feast of Passover, to remember to recalibrate, but also to rehearse. Establishing a the muscle memory now of daily and regularly inviting the person of the Holy Spirit into your heart and into your life to live his life through you is what we would call rehearsing. We are rehearsing and practicing for the day that the Bible has clearly in the Old Testament and New Testament told us about the time of tribulation in the Old Testament, time of Jacob's trouble.

And I wrote you can write this in your notes. In the same way that God delivered Israel through, not from, the plagues, so God will again protect and preserve his people who have invited him into their hearts. Tribulation, micro and macro. Micro could just be your own individual circumstance that you might find yourself in. I am going through tribulation.

I am going through opposition, difficulty. It's hard right now. It's hard inviting Jesus and the person of the Holy Spirit into your heart to live his life through you is what gives you strength to to not just make it through, but to thrive in the midst of tribulation on a micro level, but also on a macro level in the days ahead. Because it is it is tribe's position that the church will be delivered through the tribulation, not pulled from the tribulation. It's that tribulation that the Bible speaks of that will purify, that will purge superfluous silliness, refine the gold in the bride of Christ, making her radiant and ready for her soon coming bridegroom.

Remember Paul says this, don't be unequally yoked. He's talking about marriages on earth. Well, why would that not also equally apply to Jesus and the bride that he's coming back for? Do you think that Jesus wants this bride or this bride? Lord, as we recognize the feast of Passover this week, we invite you to fill our hearts.

Shield us and protect us on the outside. But beyond that, we invite your holy spirit In the best way that we know how to say that humble prayer, we invite your holy spirit. Fill us. Fill me. Fill my heart.

Fill my life with your presence. So that as the world tries to shake us and if the world were to try to crack us open Hillary is like, I'm out of the splash boat. Splash oh, damn it. What's gonna come? Nothing but the holy spirit.

All over. Take just a moment and and talk with the lord about the things that we've discussed today. Okay? Fill us There's a verse in the Bible in the book of Proverbs that says, to the full, food tastes bland. Like when you're stuffed with turkey and then grandma brings out the yummy pumpkin pie, you're like, I couldn't.

But to the hungry, even bitter food tastes sweet. And here's the idea. I feel like the holy spirit put on my heart to share with you just now in this moment. You are saying, fill me, fill me, fill me. The Holy Spirit's like, bro, there ain't no room.

You're so full of other stuff. There's no room for me. Why are you holding on to the past? Trying to live in it today. It's in the past.

You have to let it go. Why are you so full of your own pride and your own strength to handle the things that you're facing. Oh, how I long to protect you and shield you and fill you, but there needs to be an exchange. What are you willing to let go this morning?

As we transition to worshiping the lord one more way, this morning before we all get out of here. That last bit that Brian was talking about with the tribulation and God providing a way of protection through trials is a theme that shows up through all the Bible. When I think about suffering, I think about James one where James says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds. For the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. God loves to grow us, and he gives us opportunity to grow us when we trust him with our finances.

And it is a tangible, tangible, easy to measure and see way to sacrifice the things that we hold dear to him as part of rehearsing, as part of saying, god, when it's really not that hard, here's a portion of my finances because then we will be ready for when it is hard. Great. I was like, do I have anything else? No, that's it. I want you to bow your heads and pray with me over the offering today.

Father god, we give you all that we have, god. We surrender all of our lives to us or to you, god. Take us, use us, god, And as we surrender a portion of our finances and our tithes and then above and beyond that in the offering, God, we ask that you multiply what we give, God. That you use us to further your kingdom here in this valley into the ends of the earth, God. And in the process, grow us.

Show us more of you as we lean in, God, and as we long to go deeper with you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Few ways to give here at Tribe. We've got a little lockbox right there in the corner and a black box down on the outside of the door.

That is for cash or check. You can give through our website on the give tab or the easiest way is you start a new text to 84321 and you type in any dollar amount. If it's the first time you do it, you have to put in a little bit of info, but after that, it's as easy as texting a friend. As we talk about Palm Sunday and Passover today, that means that Easter is right around the corner. Whoop whoop.

That means we will be having a good Friday service here at 06:00. We'll have a short message, get to do some worship, dive into some scripture together, and take communion to prepare our hearts for a beautiful, beautiful Sunday. So again, that is here at 6PM this Friday. And then Easter Sunday, we will be at the Virginian, doing a big old family Easter service. And then afterwards, we're gonna be doing an awesome lunch altogether.

We have a sign up sheet on the fridge to bring things for food. We would love for this to just be an awesome community potluck. It was amazing last year just to have everybody throwing in, and we got to eat tons of food and play tons of fun games afterwards. It was a blast. And we are starting a men's book study, pretty soon.

The info and sign up for that is also on the sheet as well. We'll be going through Birthright. This one is a great, great read, And I'm excited to be able to dive deep and get the community of men together of all ages and tribe just to be able to love on each other and grow deeper together. Yeah. We we as young adults do a lot of stuff together, and we I have been really looking forward to this as an opportunity for the younger men of tribe to be able to be in deep community and conversation with the older men at tribe, the ones who are wiser and and further along than we are.

And so I'd encourage you. I know a lot of young guys are gonna be wanting to eat this up. But if you're not one of the young guys or you count yourself as one of the young guys, Brian, we would love, love, love to have you be a part of it. I think that's all we got. Yeah.

Jump on up here. You wanna pray us out?

Thank you. When does that start?

It's gonna start the first Monday in May. May 5. There we go. Yep. Which is right after one of my personal favorite days of the year.

May the fourth be ready. Two

two last things. Number number one is May seventeenth and eighteenth. That may sound like a long way away, but it's coming up, like, really fast. Doctor. Laura Sanger is coming to share at Tribe, and if you don't know who Doctor.

Laura Sanger is, she's wonderful, amazing. If you go to our website right now and you go on the happenings tab, you'll see various events that we have. There is a link that will take you to her website and her ministry. She is, two, three years ago, I don't think we could have received doctor Laura Sanger's message. Our we didn't have the wineskin to hold the message that she brings, but we're ready for her now.

And we're talking with her. I just spent about two hours with her on the phone this week talking about how to love on our tribe fam when she comes. She's just coming from down the road in Salt Lake City where they live. She travels all around the world. She's a published author and she's wonderful and amazing.

We're going to do one service on that Sunday. We're looking at, do we have it reserved yet? Sure. Ish. We'll get to go back to our old stomping grounds of the Virginian Saloon so that we can accommodate more folks for that service.

That will be on Sunday morning but we're also talking about doing either a workshop or a ministry night or something either Saturday, Saturday afternoon or something. We've already received several emails from folks that follow doctor Laura's ministry that will be coming in from out of town. So that will be kinda cool. Speaking of out of town or visitors, next week, we're gonna have a lot of visitors. And here's what tends to happen, and I wanna address it right now.

We tend to, our tribe fam, we tend to assume the posture of a visitor when we have a lot of visitors. And what a lot of visitors do, they just stand back with their hands in their pockets. Granted, it's new. It's different. They're taking it all in, but they become spectators.

What you had here today in worship, package it up, add to it, and then unleash it for all of those visitors that will be here next Sunday. I am looking forward to you celebrating the resurrection of your lord and savior with your voice by spreading resurrection cheer loudly for all to hear.

At the Virginia.

At the Virginia, alright? No hands in pockets. Hand hands up. Stand up. Let me pray for you.

Lord

Jesus, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much that during Passover, you came to shield us from the angel of death that passed over. Thank you for protecting us on the but you went a step further. You didn't leave us to huddle and to cower alone on the inside, but because of the blood smeared on the door frame that allowed you and granted you access to come in. So, Jesus, holy spirit, come into our hearts this week. Fill us with your life.

Fill us with your presence. I command a blessing over all of our tribe family that are gathered here today. Fill us with your holy spirit and build within our hearts an eagerness and an expectation for what you're gonna do in the lives of people that will come to Easter service next week. We pray these things in Jesus name, the strong son of god and everybody said, Amen. Amen.

I love you so very much. All of you students in the room, hang in there. Summer break is coming someday. Remember, you got this.

You got this.