South Run Baptist Church - Sermons

The Long Journey from the Head to the Heart Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor | September 13, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The Long Journey from the Head to the HeartDr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor. . . are few. And so for this last season of Church Life, we've been talking about these two different paths, right? There's this one way to live a life in which you find yourself down roads of destruction that you should never have walked down. And then there are ways of living a life that lead to real life. And Jesus warns us, he says, the way to life is not easy, It's narrow. It's probably going to cause you some difficulty at times. This isn't to say it's the easy road at all. If anything, the other Rd. is the easy one. But it is a road that leads to life. And so I've been talking about different ways that this gets played out and different topics. This sermon is A little bit like if you've ever watched a television show where you're watching these characters unfold over a span of time, and then the storyteller goes back in time, right? And the storyteller starts to tell you about the roots of the character. I remember the first time I maybe encountered this completely was the show Lost. They tell you about the various characters, Jack and Kate and a guy named John Locke. And then you're like 3, four, five seasons into it. And then you're finding out about John Locke as a little kid or something and like what happened to his life. Or if you've read good books, maybe, I'm blanking on this, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, right? He does this well. He gives you not just like the world therein, but he builds the world out. This sermon's a little like that, where we've been focused on what Jesus offers these two ways in Matthew 7. But truth be told, Jesus is not making this up whole cloth. He's actually pointing to the passage that Dave just read for us back from Deuteronomy chapter 30. And it's worth knowing this because there's actually a whole history of this that's sitting in your Bible that predates anything that Jesus says or does. And it's worth knowing what's really happening in these scriptures. And so today my hope is to kind of walk you through a few of them to show you what Jesus is pulling on and then to show you that Jesus' intent is to actually fill all of that out and to make a way where before there had not been a way. Let's begin with prayer. God our Heavenly Father, we thank you. for sending your Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for our sins, to cleanse us from our iniquity, that we might have new life. We thank you for raising him from the dead, that he might defeat death once and for all, and offer true life, eternal life for all of us. And Lord, we thank you for sending your Holy Spirit. And we ask right now, here and now, that you send your spirit into this place, that Lord, you speak through my words to the hearts of those listening, that they might know what you are trying to tell them this morning. We pray this in Christ's holy name, amen. So if I were to ask you what is Jesus' famous sermon, you would probably say, the Sermon on the Mount. Is there another one? It's kind of the only one that I am aware of that maybe gets a title, like the sermon something or other, right? If you were to go home today and want to read the Sermon on the Mount, you would go to Matthew chapter 5 through 7. It's long. It's 3 whole chapters long, right? And in Matthew 5 through 7, If I were to ask a follow-up question, like what's the text Jesus is preaching his sermon from, what would you say to that? No, nothing? Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Because here's the truth, right? I would say it this way. He's preaching from the whole of the law. And he's teaching us how to read the whole of the law, which is to say the first five books of the Bible, Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. This is where you find the Torah. Another word for law, by the way, frankly, a translation I would prefer is instruction. These are instructions on how to live a life. both communally, for Israel as a whole, like how Israel as a whole is supposed to live a life, and then for the Israelite himself or herself, or for you, yourself, like how you're to live a life. These are the instructions. And so Jesus is kind of flipping through the instruction manual, and he's then preaching through this sermon of chapter 5 and then 6 and then 7, and he gets to the end of seven, and then he delivers the line that I just read earlier about the two different ways. perhaps not surprisingly, he's doing precisely what Moses did. You see, Moses delivers the law, and he gives us things, the memorable ones like the Ten Commandments, right? And then he gives all these other little laws, and if this happens, well then do that, and if this happens, well then do that, and you shouldn't do this over here, and you should definitely do this over here, and then he gets to the end of it all. In Deuteronomy 30, is kind of the capstone of it. And then he says, he's kind of looking back on all the commandments. And in brief, he says, look, I've laid before you two options. The one option leads to life and the other option leads to death, which is precisely what Jesus does, right? He says, I've preached my sermon, my most famous one, the Sermon on the Mount, and I get to the end of it all and I'm offering you two things. There's the one way that leads to life, and there's the one way that leads to death. So let's take a look at Deuteronomy 30. We'll start in verse 15, though. Deuteronomy 30, starting in verse 15, and we'll see what Moses says. Because this again is filling out this backstory that predates what Jesus is doing a few thousand years later. And so in verse 15, he says, see, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. And if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today. And then he explains like how to obey these commandments. There's 3 parts to it. So if you obey these commandments by one, loving the Lord your God, two, by walking in His ways, and three, by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His rules, well then you shall live and multiply. It's interesting to me, and I think it should be to you, that what Moses gives us here is, here's how to obey the commands. And he doesn't get around to actually telling you to obey the commands until.3. He starts with, you obey the commands by, right here, loving in your heart, loving the right thing, namely the Lord your God. And then the next part is you move from loving to doing the thing, to like walking in his ways. And then finally third, When you're doing that, you are finally keeping the commandments and the statutes and the rules and the instructions and all the things that Moses just laid out in the first five books of your Bible. And if you do those, well, that leads to life. This sounds a lot like what Jesus says, doesn't it? Like you should do these things. And Jesus knows, and frankly, Moses knows, and I'm gonna guess you all know too, that actually doing the thing is a whole lot harder than it seems. It's a whole lot harder. We'll finish up the passage here starting in verse 17. If your hearts turn away, and you will not hear, but you're drawn away to worship the other gods and you serve them, well, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you're going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. I have set before you again two options, life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring, your kids and their kids and their kids. they might live, loving the Lord your God, and here they are again, by the way, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life, He is your length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give to them. Now I'll say, if I'm preaching a sermon like Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, this is a great text to draw from because it's stirring, right? He's putting before you, like, are you going to choose the way to life or are you going to choose the way that leads to death? And then he gives us some ways to actually do this. But what Moses knows And what Jesus definitely knows and what you probably know too is that knowing the thing that you should do and having it sitting here in your heart to do it, two very different things. They say that the 18 inches from your head to your heart is the longest journey you can possibly take. To get something that you know to be true Down inside here, this is a lifetime of a journey. Turns out that knowing the law and doing the law are two entirely different life tasks. If I were to ask you right now, should you lie to your neighbor or your kids or to your pastor? You would most certainly say, of course not. I'm not going to do that. And if I were to say, should you steal from your workplace? should you take things from there? And no. Who's going to do that? Why would I do that? Should you defraud people out of their money? No. I'm not going to steal from somebody. Should you cheat on your spouse? No. way. Should you beat up your little brother, right? No, I shouldn't do that. But somehow the knowing of it is very different from the doing it. And you find yourself in places and doing things that you thought, I shouldn't be doing this. How did I get here? Why? am I here? And for some of you, it's why am I here again? And then again. And then again. You've probably met the doctor who dispenses all the advice and tells you, well, you shouldn't drink and you shouldn't smoke. And then you walk outside after your appointment and there's the doctor smoking away, right? Or I like to I know some ethicists who have PhDs in ethics, and I like to say that these are some of the most clever people knowing how to get around ethics and doing all the wrong things because in their mind they can make the mental gymnastics. Or maybe the lawyers who know all the rules, right? They know the laws, But do they keep them? That's a different thing. And here again, it's this length from the head down into the heart that we're trying to examine this morning. And it's the problem that Moses poses. Moses poses. And Jesus poses and I'm posing to you. What did Moses expect though? If we just back up a few verses to the beginning of what we were reading this morning. Starting in verse 11, Deuteronomy 30, 11, he says this. He says, the commandment that I'm commanding you today, it's not too hard. These are his words, not mine. This commandment, these set of laws, it's not too hard for you. And it's not far off. It's not in heaven up there somewhere that you should say, who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it? And neither is it beyond the sea. It's not like way out there somewhere that you've got to say, who's going to go over the sea to find these commands and to tell us what it is to do? He says, no, it's none of that. The word is very near to you. It is in fact, it's in your very mouth, and it might even be in your heart, so that you can do it. And so Moses is clearly expecting these people, the Israelites, and frankly us, to do the right things. And he's saying it's not too hard. But if you know the Israelite story, What happens to these folks? Well, you just fast forward a few books and you get to the prophets and what is happening to them is the exact thing that's foreshadowed here at the end of Deuteronomy, which is that they are being ushered out of this promised land into a place called Babylon. And they're told very clearly why, which is that they weren't capable and they didn't keep the Mosaic law. They did all things that they shouldn't have done. And there's a people group that did things that they shouldn't have done. And now, well, now they're being ushered out of the promised land, the land of the living, and they are in exile. And this brings us to two more passages that connect deeply with what is happening both here and what Jesus will pick up on later. The first is Ezekiel, chapter 36, 26, and 27. Here, the Israelites are in this foreign land where they can't get back. It seems the promises have been broken. It seems the covenant between them and Yahweh is toast. And yet, God's not done with them. And he says the following. He says, I'll give you a new heart, and I will put this new spirit within you, and I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I'll give you a new heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. And he's basically saying here, a time will come when I will show you how to get this law in here. So it's not just up here in your head, but it's made its way into your heart somehow. And it appears that there's some sort of movement of the spirit that is involved in all of this. Well, then there's this other prophet, Jeremiah, speaking about the same time. Israel is in exile. They're in Babylon. And he too comes saying some promises about what's to come. And in verse 31, 31 and 33, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. This won't be like the old covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. The very covenant, by the way, I was talking about in Deuteronomy chapter 30. And so Jeremiah is saying, it's not going to be like that one. That one was in stone. That one mostly lived up here in their heads, if it lived anywhere at all, but it never made its way down into their heart. And so he says, I've got to make a new covenant. And Jeremiah promises that God is making a new covenant. By the way, if you don't know, maybe you're new to all of this or maybe I just need to teach a little better, but we're going to take communion momentarily. We're going to use these exact words, so pay attention to what's happening here. And Jesus from that upper room is going to say to his disciples in the moment he's handing the bread and the cup to them, he's going to say, this is the new covenant in my blood. And he's using Jeremiah 31. He's directly echoing it. And he's saying, what's happening right now in this upper room? This is the new covenant. And this is where All of these promises back in your Old Testament are finally coming to fruition. Back to Jeremiah 31, 33 now, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. And so the problem back in Jeremiah's day is we need to know how to put the law in our hearts. This is the same problem today. I don't want you to think that you get scot-free out of here without somehow getting it inside of you. I know plenty of people who go by the name Christian and they got all the right things up here, but none of the right things sitting here and the way they live their life is not shaped by the law or by Christ or by anything connected to either of those. The big question for the day is, how does one get the law out there to in here? I want to point you to another passage in Scripture. By the way, if you want, you can just write these down and really dig into them later. But for now, I'll just keep burning through them. This is New Testament this time. This is Romans chapter 10. It's a very famous passage. You've probably heard it before, but if not, we'll certainly read it together. And I want you to notice that Paul here is quoting directly from our passage. He is quoting directly Deuteronomy chapter 30. And he says this, Moses writes, about the righteousness based on the law. That the person who does the commandments will live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, and here's the quote from Deuteronomy 30, don't say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven? You remember this part of Deuteronomy 30? You can go back and read it again. But then Paul adds what's in the parentheses here. He says, that is to bring Christ down. And then he goes on, he says, who will descend into the abyss? This is the way Moses had written it was who will go out to the seas or beyond the seas, right? And then Paul says, that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? And here's still Moses, right? The word is near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart. And this is Precisely. I mean, he's quoting directly from Deuteronomy chapter 30. But he's doing something very unique and you need to know precisely what he's doing. Do you see what he's done? When Moses is talking, Moses is talking about the law. Who will go up to the heavens and find the law up there to teach us how to live a life, right? Who will instruct us on the way we should live? And Moses says, you don't need to go up there. I'm giving it to you right now. And Moses says, you don't need to go over the seas to find the law and to bring it back because I'm telling you right now it's been given to you. But that's not what Paul does. Paul substitutes out the law for Christ. It's A radical move. You have to believe the Jews hearing this might be a little scandalized, But if they've been around the church for a few years, they will know Paul makes this kind of move on a regular basis. He reads his Old Testament and he sees Jesus on these pages. And specifically, he sees Jesus where the law is sitting. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 5, the very beginning of his most famous sermon, he says, I have not come to abolish the law, I have come to fulfill it. I've come to fill it out. And then Paul tells us what this looks like. He's telling us that if you want to know how to live a life and what it means to live abundant life and what it means to have eternal life and the way we were designed to be in this world, well then look no further than the person of Jesus. Paul has a very interesting take on the law generally speaking. But what he definitely does is he says, look at Jesus because Jesus fills out how this law was always meant to work. And if you want to know how this law was always supposed to bring you life, well then just simply do the kinds of things Jesus does. Paul doesn't stop here though. You see, Paul keeps going with this Deuteronomy passage and says something, again, very interesting and now this time very familiar to some of you. Verse 9, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. But the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. We're still left with the question, how does one get the law from their head into their heart? And there are two ways I would want to offer you. One is far more important than the other way. The one way is God. This is an act of grace, a gift that God gives to you. And the other way is your part, the part you play in all of this. And both of these are really important. So what Paul is doing in this passage and what Jesus is teaching us is that in order to have this gift of the Spirit, And to get the law and the person of Jesus into your heart, it requires an act of grace on the part of God. And that we must confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord. And we must believe in our hearts that He has been raised from the dead. And if we do these things, then yes, we will be saved. Which is to say that the movement from the head down into the heart has begun. But then there's also the part that you play. And this is the part where you have to step in and you have to step up and you have to do the things that the law commands of you and that Jesus desires from you. And so if you want to get that 18 inches from the head down into the heart, what we're really saying is that you've got to make the faith that you have really real. It's got to mean something. It can't just stand out here somewhere. It's got to pierce your heart. This is not something I can do for you. I can teach you about it. I can speak to you, hopefully inspire you. But at the end of the day, this is a you thing. And you've got to want it. You've got to desire it. You've got to, use the scriptural term, you've got to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. In just a few seconds, we're going to take communion. The external and the internal are miles apart, and there will be people in the room who take the same bread and cup and they are taking it as an external act, a rote thing that you've done hundreds of times and let's go ahead and get this done so we can head off to lunch and all will be well. And then there are some of you who want to make it really real. who want to actually experience the body and the blood of Christ, who want to take communion because you want to encounter the living God. My prayer for you this morning is that you're in that second camp, is that you are doing what you need to be doing to get God in here. Quick word of warning, Some of you will say to me in private moments, God, or Eric, I've been trying this thing. Maybe you're praying, God, I've been trying this thing where I want to know you're in here and sometimes I just don't know. And I would say to you if you told me this, I get this. And I'm sorry that it doesn't feel real just yet. But I would encourage you to keep showing up. and to show up in this place and to show up reading your scripture, show up reading or praying to God and meeting with others who have a spiritual life that has clearly transformed them in some way and asked them, what was it like for you? What is it like for you? What is it like to follow Jesus for real along the way? And I assure you, over time, the small steps and acts of faith that you participate in will begin to seep its way down into the very core of who you are. Before you know it, you are being transformed and you are being changed into the Christ-like person that you were always meant to be. When we take the bread and the cup, we say, this is the body of Christ and it's broken for you. And this is the blood of Christ and it is shed for you. And this is for the forgiveness of your sins. We do ask for one more step. You and me, that is. And it's the Pentecost step. Pentecost is the day where the Spirit comes down. Because the tradition says that Jesus was raised from the dead and ascends to the Father and is seated at the right hand of God. And that's great and all, but we want the Spirit. We want something closer. We want God here with us. And so the promise is not just that Jesus is far off, but He sends His Spirit with us, to live in us, to participate in our transformation. So this is my prayer for you and for me this morning. Let us pray together. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as we gather around your table this morning, we ask for clean hearts and clean hands because we come with hard hearts and dirty hands. We know that we need you. We know that we have failed you and ourselves and the ones we love. But God, we know that forgiveness is available at this table. We know that you welcome us home with the open arms of the Father with his prodigal son. And so this morning, we come running. We come running back to you, God. But we also ask for a movement of the Spirit so that as we take these elements, or meet us in this place, meet me, meet each person who will walk up and will receive the body of Christ broken for them, the blood of Christ shed for them. Meet them, Lord. And when we eat and drink together, Lord, we will celebrate together what you have done. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen. If my communion service would come forward, we will begin. We have some new folks here with us today. The way we take communion goes like this. We come forward down the center aisle and there will be two stations. One will have, well, Each person will have a bread and a cup and you'll simply put your hands out and they will give you the body of Christ, which is broken for you. And then you'll grab the cup. Now if you need gluten-free or if you want a wafer that's not been touched by one of their hands, we have those where the cups are located as well. But then you'll take that back to your seats. We will take communion together as one body. While you're waiting in the pew with the bread and the cup in your hands, I would encourage you to do some reflecting, some praying, and see if we can't make this really real this morning. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, he gave thanks, he broke it. The body of Christ broke it for you. And he took the cup And he said, this is the new covenant in my blood for the forgiveness of your sins. Please come forward the table is open.

A Sermon on Forgiveness Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor | September 6, 2026 Download Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript A Sermon on ForgivenessDr. Eric J. Gilchrest, PastorGood morning everybody. A couple of things before we get started. I know Clint already said it, but I am personally so pleased to have Erin Ovenshire as our new admin. She has been wonderful to work with already, and I look forward to good things there. I just wanted to make sure everybody knew and to welcome her in this role. Second, though, so one of my new favorite things these last few weeks has been the number of children in our worship service. I don't know if you feel this way too, but I definitely do. And I also want those parents to feel very comfortable having their children in the worship service. This is something that at South Run Baptist Church, we prize. We hold this as very important. I don't say this enough, so this is part of what I'm doing right now, which is we have intentionality behind having the kids in here. There are many churches you could attend where you ship the kids off and they're gonna be somewhere else for the whole time that you're here. And by kids, I mean like even up through like junior high or something. We've learned, but studies say Having your kids in here, like seeing what the adults do, watching your parents worship, this is very, very important for their spiritual development. And so this is why we want the children in here. With that said, we also want you to feel comfortable taking your kid out if you need to. And so if at any point you need to, we have a room downstairs. I think it's the Birch room, whatever the middle room is down there. where the TV's on with me on it, and you can participate in the service down there if that's what you need at any point. So feel free to utilize that. All right, let's get started here. Please bow your heads in prayer. God, our Father in heaven, your name is holy, and we seek your holy name this morning. God, I ask that you speak your words through your humble servant this morning, that those who are in attendance and those who are listening, whether online or at some future point, will hear you. They will hear you speaking to them loud and clear. Lord, this morning you know what we're talking about. We are talking about forgiveness. And Lord, we are the recipients of your boundless forgiveness. And so we begin with thanks, but we also now open our ears to what you wish to say to us. In Christ's name we pray, amen. We're talking about forgiveness, but we're also kind of the macro level. We're talking about the two ways. There's the narrow way and there's the wide way, and the wide way leads to destruction. And Jesus is trying to get us to walk down that narrow Rd. right? Which is to say it's a harder Rd. to walk and it requires some intention behind it. And it means that we have to pay attention to what we are doing and should not be. And some of those things we're not doing, but we should be. And so this morning, we have a wonderful test case in forgiveness. Forgiveness. This is certainly something that we've all been on both sides of the coin for. We've needed to forgive somebody, but we've also needed to be forgiven by somebody. But I wanna begin with a question that I asked our deacon ordinands on this last Wednesday. We had a deacon ordination meeting, council, where we brought in the two gentlemen who were being tried and tested, and it was grueling, and we really put it to them. They did pass, so next week we will be voting on our deacons, which will now include Brian Sands and Dan Ovanshire. We're very happy to have them on that slate, and you'll get to vote on them along with two others next week. But the question I asked was, what is the gospel, right? What is the gospel? Somewhat simple question. And I would hope that each of you, if you've been around the church for a while and if you confess Christ as Lord, you would have some kind of answer to this. What is the gospel? So I want to offer to you kind of a version in brief of how I think about this. It starts at the beginning of the creation, which is to say that in the beginning, God created all things good. In fact, he finishes it all and says, this is very good. But we know it doesn't stay there for too long. And there's the fall, Genesis 3 happens, and Genesis 4, they're kicked out of the garden. And then we're living in this world. And if you look around, you see what? You would currently see three hurricanes are sitting in the Pacific Ocean. Something is broken with the world itself, literally. There's a flood in Nepal that led to over 1000 deaths. There's all kinds of illnesses that are just waiting to infect each and every one of us. But it doesn't stop with the brokenness in the world, does it? then kind of seeps into us, you and me, or maybe there's other people, right? the sin sickness that covers humanity. And we are all people who do things that we shouldn't do and we don't do the things that we should do. And then when we're really honest, we look inside and we realize that it's sitting in here. And if you think back through your past, you realize, you know what, there are things that I regret There are things that I need forgiveness for, and I'm reaching out to a God that I need forgiveness from. And so then the gospel is God looking down and saying, I'm going to do something about the state of the world. And to do something, well, he sends Jesus, the Son of God, into the world, And Jesus dies on a cross, as we say, every single second Sunday of the month when we take communion, for the forgiveness of your sins, to make things right again. And then he is raised on the third day, defeating death and offering eternal hope into the future. This is what's happening. And so then the macro story says that what God is doing is he's taking the very good thing that had been broken and he's putting it back to rights again. This is good news. And it's the hope that we all hold on to. At the very center of all of it is a God who loves us so much that he keeps coming after us offering forgiveness when we don't deserve it. Offering forgiveness when we don't deserve it. Which then gets to what Paul says to us about forgiveness at large. He says, for example, actually, sorry, slide one, I had this on here. So what is the gospel? It's the good news that God has chosen forgiveness and mercy instead of punishment. He has chosen reconciliation instead of walking away, and he has chosen restoration instead of pushing us out. And here's what Paul, the move Paul makes in Ephesians 4.32. He says, forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. And so this morning, as we're talking about the need to forgive one another, we should be reminded that the gospel story is the frame to it all. And as Paul says, God forgave you. And how did he do this? In Christ, in the story that I just told you, on the cross, through his death and through his resurrection, you have been forgiven. And so we too are to what? We're to take that same model and we are to apply it, everybody around us. forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. Now the goal of forgiveness with both God and man is restoration. If the story of scripture from front to back is a story of restoration, well then that's what we're doing in our relationships when we forgive as well. We're seeking to restore. to make all things new. Now I should say very clearly that this does not mean consequences don't matter. They matter deeply. And so if you are seeking forgiveness from somebody, you must be ready to acknowledge that there is going to be a fallout to whatever it is that you have done in this life. And so consequences matter. There's a famous theologian from the mid-1900s named Bonhoeffer, and he had this famous book in which he talks about cheap grace, cheap grace. And I would offer you, there's something that is kind of a corollary to this, which is cheap forgiveness. Cheap forgiveness wants the benefits of forgiveness without the cost. Costly forgiveness is the willingness to do what it takes by the person who needs forgiveness to be reconciled. And so if you have harmed somebody and you are seeking their forgiveness and you are seeking to be made right again with them, you must recognize that there are consequences and there are costs to whatever it is that you've done. And we'll talk more about that momentarily. I've put a few things at the bottom of your bulletin. Some bullet points that I'm hoping you walk away with after the sermon, if you don't walk away with anything else. And here's one. Forgiveness restores you and reconciliation restores the relationship. Forgiveness restores actually the one who is doing the forgiving. It's the one, when you forgive, like you have been made whole, there's kind of a weird logic to this. And then reconciliation is when the relationship has been made whole again. Now I confess, I've kind of teased two things apart that may not be obvious just from the kind of a flat reading of scripture, but I do think this is really important for you to know that there are two sides to this. And sometimes forgiveness is all that's possible because whatever that other party they're doing, they may not want reconciliation. But in the ideal world, both parties are involved, and that's when reconciliation actually happens. But for the time being, I kind of want you to piece these out and keep them separated one from the other. Forgiveness or restoration and reconciliation are two different things, and it's important for you to hold them apart from one another. But in the best case scenario, both happen. With that then, let's turn to our scripture for today, which is Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 and 22. Matthew 18, 21 and 22 goes like this. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him as many as seven times? And Jesus said, I do not say to you 7, but 77 times. Now the observant among you will immediately say, wait, I thought it was 70 times 7. We could dig into the Greek here and we could look at precisely what's there. And even if we did that, here's what you would find, that we actually don't know what the answer is. It might be 70 times 7, which would be what, 490? Or it might be 77. But the truth is, neither matter, because that's not what Jesus is saying, is he? He's not asking you to count up how many times you forgive, and then once you reach 77, done. No, he's saying forgiveness should be ever ready. This is something that as followers of Christ, that narrow way, like at any moment when somebody calls on us to be forgiven, like really be forgiven, we are willing and ready to offer that to them. The passage today is followed by a parable, which we won't read together, but I'll just simply tell you what's in it. It applies directly to the gospel story that I gave you up front and it goes like this. There's a master and he has a servant and the servant owes him the equivalent of $4 billion, a billion with a B. This is like the math works out this way. And the servant comes and is pleading with the master. He says, please just let me go. He was about to sell, the master was going to sell the servant into to slavery. And he said, please, I can't. And the master had mercy on him and said, you know what? I'm actually, I'm going to forgive the debt, $4 billion, and I'm going to let you go. As the servant left, he found somebody else who actually owed him some money to the tune of about $6,000, which, That's A lot. Like $6,000. Somebody owes me $6,000. You better believe I'm going to want that money back. But if I've just been forgiven $4 billion, you know, I think I might be generous. I would hope. But this servant was not. This servant instead, he went after the guy who owed him $6,000. And then when he couldn't pay, what did he do? Well, he sold him into debtors prison. Well, when the master found out, he said, how could you do this? You are wicked. Do you not know how merciful, how forgiving I have been to you? And then you turn around and with this debt, sure, it's some money, but it's nothing what you've been forgiven already, right? Hopefully you can see the comparison to the gospel itself. God has offered each and every one of us forgiveness in abundance. And so when he calls on us to forgive others, to forgive our neighbors, to forgive those who have done something wrong to us, our friends, our spouses, our kids, or whoever, we should be ready at any moment to say yes. But there are some parameters. And this is worth our time because oftentimes forgiveness turns into that cheap forgiveness. And I don't want it to do that this morning, and I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression about how forgiveness works. And so if you're in the Matthew 18, I just encourage you to back up just ever so slightly because the forgiveness stuff doesn't start there. It actually starts in 1815. And here's what Jesus says here. He says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. And if he listens to you, have gained your brother. The scenario is a simple one. Somebody has done something wrong to you and you go to them and you say, you've done this wrong thing to me. And you're coming with open arms and you're saying, I would like to forgive you. I just need you to own what you've done. And if they say yes, well, then you've got your brother back. Reconciliation has happened, right? Luke actually. gets a little more pointed here. There's a version of this same saying that happens in Luke's gospel. If you return there at some future point, if you want to, it'd be in chapter 17, verses 3 to 4, go like this. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times, I say, repent. Or saying, I repent, you must forgive him. Here's what I want you to know about this passage. Some of us are really good at rebuking others. Others of us are really good at forgiving others. But in my experience, very few are good at both. I want us all to be people who are good at both. rebuking or bringing to someone else, here's what you've done wrong to me. None of this passive aggressive stuff. Just be honest and straightforward and say, you've hurt me. I need you to apologize. Here's what's wrong. And then when that person actually does, and when they own the problem that sits between you and that person, then you forgive them and you make things right. This is the ideal, right? That you're doing both the rebuking and then the forgiving when it happens. Which is another way of saying that in every scenario where forgiveness is involved, there's always two parties. If you were to come to me in pastoral counseling or something and you would say, Eric, I need to talk to you about forgiveness, my immediate question, well, which one are you? the one who needs forgiveness or are you the one forgiving somebody else? Because the conversation is going to look a little different depending on what side of the ledger you're sitting on. So we'll start with the one who's in need of forgiveness. Maybe this is you this morning. The first thing I would say to you in that counseling session would be to own your sin, no matter how big or small it is. Own whatever it is you've done wrong. And maybe you don't even want to call it sin. Maybe it's like, you're thinking it's this thing. But I need you to own it and to say, you know what, I really did that. And then you need to recognize the consequences that happen and flow out of whatever that thing is that you've done. And depending on the severity of the thing you've done, you might expect that some trust has been lost and must be restored with that person. And that again, depending on the severity of it all, it might take a while. It might take years or even decades to restore some of the trust that is lost. Once you're ready for it, I would then encourage you to apologize to the other person. But in my household, we have a way of apologizing that isn't just merely saying, I'm sorry, and then you move on. I would call that cheap forgiveness, and that's what we're trying to avoid this morning. Instead, we have a fourfold model of what apologies look like. includes, I am sorry. It was wrong because in the future I will. And then will you forgive me? Now, parents, you can take this and use it for your kids. That'd be great. But parents, I would encourage you to use it for one another as well. And it goes like this. I am sorry for. And this is when you actually name the thing that you did and you own it. and you say it out loud so that the other person knows what you've done wrong, and they know that it was wrong. And then you say it was wrong because, and here's where you get to explain to the person that you now understand why it was wrong. And you've put yourself into their shoes, and you show them or explain to them what it must have been like for them to be on that side of it all. And then in the future I will. And here is what you should have done instead. It's more than just next time I won't do X, Y, or Z. Next time I just won't get angry with you. It's in this moment that you get to demonstrate that you understand why you did the thing that you did. And so maybe you came home from work and you were just in a rage because somebody at work had offended you, and then you come home and you take it out on your spouse. when you apologize, you say, in the future, if I know I'm in this mood, I'm just going to tell you right up front, and then I'm going to encourage you to maybe avoid me for a short time, and I'm going to go cool off, and then I'm going to make sure that I'm a good man or a good woman so that you have the spouse that you deserve in that moment. And then finally, once you've really explored what went wrong, then you're in a place to say, will you forgive me? Let us make things right. And hopefully, prayerfully, you're with a spouse or maybe it's a friend or maybe it's, again, your kids or whoever it is. This works with anybody. Hopefully they will say, yes, I forgive you. Now the flip side of the coin is the party that needs to forgive. Jesus tells us 70 times 7. If someone seeks your forgiveness, you need to be ready to forgive. This is the way to life. Life abundant is living with a heart ready to forgive at any moment. Again, remember Ephesians 4, forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. Remember, There was the billion dollars and there's the thousands of dollars and the ledgers are very, very different. And I would also encourage you to remember that forgiveness, it restores you. First and foremost, to withhold forgiveness is an affront to the way God operates in this world. And therefore, It is an affront to our truest nature as children of God. If we were made in God's image, and I believe with all my heart that we were, and God is a God who forgives again and again and again, then if we want to live into our truest nature, we must be people who forgive. But if you want a more selfish reason for why you should forgive, it goes like this. It's good for you. To forgive somebody else, it feels good to just let it go. In fact, there's a famous saying that holding on to anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It's not going to happen. And so you must stop drinking the poison and you must forgive the other person and let it go. Now there is a deep struggle that happens if you've been hurt. And the struggle is, do I trust this person again? There are the memories that I have of when they wronged me. There's the fear that they're going to do it again. And so again, depending on the severity of what has happened between the two parties, I just want to affirm that sometimes is going to happen. And that's okay. And it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you and your ability to forgive someone. It is a reminder that trust It's not a guarantee in a relationship, and it must be earned and it must be kept. But the question left then is when do you choose reconciliation and when is it okay not to? I've said that these are two different things, forgiveness and reconciliation. And the goal is reconciliation. Two parties coming back together. This is what God does with us. God is, we are rather, estranged from God, but God seeks us out because God wants to be with us. This is the truest form of forgiveness. But there are times in life where reconciliation may not be possible, because it does depend on both parties participating. But there's also this. There is the example of abuse in a relationship. And so if you've ever been a part of an abusive relationship, whether physical abuse, emotional abuse, or otherwise, you know that there is a gap that sits between forgiveness and reconciliation better than anybody else knows this, or at least you should. And so I would want to talk to you and to say, forgive. but not too quickly. To return to Luke, if your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. You must first learn to rebuke. It is possible that if this abusive relationship you've been in has gone on for too long, you're probably pretty good at the forgiveness side but maybe need to learn some things about rebuking, holding someone accountable for their actions, to build boundaries and to tell someone that they can no longer do this to you. And if they do, there are clear consequences for it. But the other thing that needs to happen is that the abuser must learn to repent. Repentance is actually a big word. It's more than just, baby, I'm never gonna do that again. It's actually walking the walk. It is not cheap forgiveness, like Bonhoeffer warns of cheap grace. True repentance in relationship is the same as it is with God. When we truly repent, it means we turn around and we start walking in a different direction, not just by words, but in our actions. We no longer do what we used to do. We take necessary steps, radical steps, to stop doing the old and to start doing the new. So if the abuser is showing no signs that they are taking steps in the opposite direction, well they aren't getting help from a counselor, or they haven't changed their behavior in some fashion, then repentance has not really begun. Repentance hasn't really begun and reconciliation should be off the table until they are ready to truly repent. If you keep reconciling with someone who refuses true repentance, you are not righteously walking as Jesus teaches us to. You are simply putting yourself in harm's way. And if I were in the room with you, giving you counsel, I would say you need to walk away until true repentance is part of what is happening in that reconciliation. So how to seek reconciliation, how to offer forgiveness, a very quick word to our married couples in the room, but everybody else can listen in because I think this applies to everyone. Empathy is mission critical. Empathy. It's the ability to see the world as somebody else sees the world, to put yourself into their shoes. If you're going to apologize to someone, you need to understand what it is that they're experiencing and feeling in the world. And as they walk through the world, they see it a certain way. And you need to be able to say it and to name it. Because if they're going to understand that you get it, or they're gonna need to know that indeed, you see it and you're able to say it and you're able to speak it out loud. I came across this wonderful quote this week by a guy named Oswald Chambers. He wrote the devotional that, I don't know, everybody in my generation seemed to grow up on. And he says this, spiritual maturity is going from being thin-skinned and hard-hearted to thick-skinned and tender-hearted. I loved this. There's so much wisdom in this. Too many of us Christians who have been in the church for way too long are too thin-skinned and way too hard-hearted. And when it comes to our relationships, we're too thin-skinned and we're too hard-hearted. We're too quick to judge and not quick enough to forgive. But the maturest ones among us are what? They are the thick-skinned ones, and they can see why someone might behave the way they do. And they don't take it personally always. Sometimes they do if they should, but they don't always take it personally because they have this thick skin needed to be a mature person. But more than that, they are tender-hearted, looking out for all the opportunities to make things right in the world, to breathe life into the world, into other people, and to reconcile at every possible opportunity. We are to be people who are thick-skinned and tenderhearted. Back to the gospel. The world was created very good, but we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to atone for the sins of the world and to make all the wrong things right. He forgave you and me 70 times 7 times. The billions of dollars that you and I, oh God, have all been wiped away. So let us heed Paul's advice together. Forgive because in Christ Jesus, God has forgiven you. Let us pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in this place right now, are a group of your children. We're a messy bunch, often harming others and being harmed by others, sinning and having sins committed against us. And so Lord, we need a few things about forgiveness. And so Jesus, we look to you. We look to you to offer us the billions of dollars of wiped debt that we've needed. But we also look to you to show us the way to life, the way that you have already paved for us. You've made abundantly clear on the cross, Lord, the kind of God you are, a God who forgives. And Jesus, you even say, forgive them, and they don't even know what they're doing. Jesus this morning, teach us to be more and more like you, our king, the one who rules on high right now, the one we say that we serve, the one we say that we love, the rabbi that we say that we follow, God make us more like you. We pray all of this in Christ's holy name, amen.

Lust Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | August 30, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Pastor Eric J GlchrestIt's good to be with you this morning. I come bringing an exciting sermon to you.I'm glad you're here today. If you are new to South Run Baptist Church, I first want to say welcome. We are so pleased that you have chosen to join us this morning. I believe you're here for a reason. I do believe that God has brought you to this place at this time because he has something for you. I believe this of all of us gathered together here. But you should know you've come on a unique Sunday because we've been working through, well, actually, I was thinking about this. We're kind of like a set of Russian nesting dolls this year. So the broad theme is transformation. We've been kind of working on that all year long. And then we've been on this two ways journey where there's these two ways that Jesus offers us abundant life, but he says it's the narrow way, right? And so it requires some adeptness at traversing that narrow way. And then he talks about the broad way, which leads to destruction. And on the broad way, it appears that this is in many ways the easy way. This is the path of least resistance. And so we've been, the nesting doll has been on that path of least resistance. And to do that, we've been talking about the seven deadly sins, right? And so here we are, we're at the 7th of seven. And so if you've come for the first time this morning, you've come on a Sunday in which we are talking about lust. Before we get there, this is a test for those of you who have been with us the whole journey to see if you can name the other six. And if you can't, well, then we're going to start it all over again and we'll do it together. So say them with me and I'll parrot them back to you. What would one of them be? Enri. Gluttony, wrath and sloth, greed, I think we said anger, and vanity, somebody said. I think we got them. Those are the six, leaving us today's message on lust. Part of what we've been trying to do with all of them is also tie together how our technologies the phones in our pockets, the computers that we all sit behind every day, they shape us and they form us and they misshape us and they malform us into beings we were never intended to be. And so my hope through this whole time together actually has been to demonstrate to you that the object in your pocket is not value neutral, that it is having an effect on you in one way or another. And I can really think of no better example than this morning's topic. And so we will talk about some sensitive issues. I've tried to do so in a fashion that is sensitive to all of the various ears this morning, but do know that this is what we're talking about. Let's begin with prayer. God our Father in heaven, you look down at your children and you want what is good for us. You want what is best. You want us to live lives filled with life and abundance and all that is good. And God, yet sometimes we choose the lesser way and we find ourselves going down paths we were never intended to go down, being shaped into people we were never intended to be. And this morning, Lord, speak to us. Speak to our hearts. Speak to our marriages and our families, that we might live lives according to your word, but according to the grain of the universe that you have created, the good universe, the one we intend to live in, the kingdom of God. I pray this in Christ's holy name, amen. You should have gotten a handout when you came in, at least the adults in the room. Yeah, I'll take it, just to wave it around. At some point in the sermon, we will get to this. And this may end up being the most practical sermon I could possibly give to you where there's an actual handout that you can take home with you to give you some resources for how to walk this way well. The Bible has a lot to say about sex. If you've ever read the Bible in full cover to cover, you might be surprised about what you find there. And now that I think about it, I should probably use this as a pitch when I try to get you to read the Bible more often because sex sells and it's filled with it. even has a whole book devoted to it. Did you know this? It's called the Song of Solomon. who himself had 1000 wives and concubines and apparently knew something about the matter. If you think it's a prudish book or that its authors would clutch their pearls at the smallest innuendo, well, you've simply not read close enough. But if you're new to the Bible reading thing and you thought this way, you would be forgiven. Because often this is how we Christians approach the topic, sheepishly in whispers And I confess it's how I often approach this topic, especially from the pulpit. I get nervous and frankly a little weird about it, which is why I'm writing this sermon out rather than trying to go off script. It'll keep me from blushing, hopefully. If the Bible is okay with this topic, then we probably should be too. So I'm going to speak frankly about the matter while recognizing that our congregation has members of all ages listening right now. Parents, you shouldn't feel on edge for what is about to happen, but know that it might spark some interesting conversations around the lunch table that I think you're ready for. And in fact, I encourage these conversations. It's a hope that I have for all of us to be a little more open and in dialogue with one another about this matter. But that said, if at any point you feel the need to take a bathroom break with your child, please go right ahead. I won't be offended. In the beginning, God created the Garden of Eden. And he said to that first couple, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And I know of only one way to be fruitful and to multiply. There's also the matter of Genesis 2, 24, in which God tells the first couple while they're still enjoying the safety of the garden, that when the two are joined together, they become one flesh. Two bodies united into one body. Sounds like a description of the topic we're talking about today. which means to me that God creates it as part of the good creation. It is something that is beautiful, is certainly enjoyable, and I would even say it is spiritual. Two becoming one is a mystery. But don't take my word. It's what Paul says in Ephesians 5 when he compares marriage to our union with Christ. And he also raises the two becoming one mystery as a warning to the Corinthian people in 1 Corinthians 6, who are uniting themselves with temple prostitutes. And Jesus raises the two becoming one mystery as a way to affirm marriage and to limit divorce. Which is all to say, that Genesis and Jesus and Paul, they talk about two becoming one flesh as something to happen within the marriage covenant. The covenant binds two people together by law and by custom, and it requires that the two people remain together in sickness and in health and richer and poorer till death do us part. And why? because it is only this kind of union that makes it safe to practice the deep magic we call sex. There are two ways to preach a sermon about sin, one that I would call an Old Testament sermon and the other a New Testament sermon. The difference is subtle but important. The Old Testament sermon relies on the law. It tells you where the boundaries are. are external to you. For example, an Old Testament sermon tells you the rules to keep and then you simply keep them. Don't murder, don't steal, don't lie, don't break the Sabbath and so on. An Old Testament sermon on adultery would stick to the basics. Don't have sex outside of marriage and you're good to go. But A New Testament sermon, the kind that Jesus would give, drives us deeper to the heart of the matter. which is always a matter of the heart. Jesus is helping us fulfill the Old Testament promise that Jeremiah 31, 33 expresses when he says, I will put my law within them and I will write the law on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. Jesus is trying to write the law on our hearts and to do that, You must look below the surface, which is what Jesus is doing in his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5. Please turn there now and we'll read verses 27 to 30. You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Now some people want to read their Bible with a precise literalism that demands that every last passage be understood with no nuance. But let's all hope that Jesus is here using hyperbole. Pulling out your eye or cutting off your hand is a bold move. But I'll say in all of my years of church life, and I've had many, I've met a lot of people with a lust problem. but I've never met a single person wearing an eye patch. Here's what Jesus is saying in brief if you ask me. The root of the external act of adultery happens in your heart well before it happens when you walk into a bedroom. If you are to be a kingdom follower, living life abundant, then you will need to get radical in your attempts to root out the heart condition because the alternative is a road that leads to Gehenna, a place that elsewhere is said to be filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth. If you've ever known someone whose partner has cheated on them or who has been sexually assaulted or abused, or someone who has lost a spouse or a job or ministry because of this sin, then you know that the weeping And the anxious grinding of the teeth isn't just waiting on the other side. It starts in the here and the now. How many lives have been broken by this sin? How many marriages and families have been shattered by it? So let's talk about what's in the heart. When I was a kid, Before the internet existed in my house and well before the iPhone had the internet in everyone's pocket, I remember my mom telling me that I shouldn't look at dirty magazines. When my neighbor, Sam Weissman, came outside with his dad's Playboys, I ran inside because I did not want to disappoint my mom. And then later, about a year later, we were digging in a forested area at my friend's house. His name was Brian. And we dug up a stash of more magazines. And once again, I ran away back home because I did not want to disappoint my mom because I wanted to be a good boy. This was a different age and a time when temptation didn't follow you everywhere you went. The magazines stood waiting in a forest for years. But the screens that you take everywhere are constantly offering temptation. The internet made *********** readily available, cheap and easy to find. The smartphone, it made it available everywhere you went. The algorithm and social media learned who you are and began to feed you whatever it takes for you to spend more and more time on your device. If you're a boy or a young man, the girls too, the algorithm knows, and it knows that lust is a powerful drug, and so it is ready to feed you images again and again before you finally say yes. The magazines no longer stay put. They follow you home and everywhere else you go. Let's start with some statistics. Common Sense Media surveyed teens between 13 and 17 years old in 2023 and here's what they found. 73% have watched *********** online, 54% saw it by age 13, 15% by age 10 or younger. The average age of first exposure is 12 and 58% first encountered it accidentally. That's just the kids, the adults in the room. Barna and Pure Desire did a survey in 2024. Here's what they found. 54% of practicing Christians reported viewing **** compared to 68% of non-Christians. Among pastors, 67% report a personal history and then nearly one in five of those currently struggle. of practicing Christians view it weekly. 75% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women report viewing occasionally. And 62% of Christians agree a person can regularly view *********** and live a sexually healthy life only four points below the general public. Jesus says that lust is part of the broad Rd. that leads to Gehenna. But 62% of Christians seem to disagree. The statistics bear out something very important here. Lust and *********** is something that doesn't just go away when you get older. We must all learn to fight this battle, no matter the age. Running from the magazines weren't the end of my personal history. So for me, I know I need to stay vigilant about this. In my house, we talk about these things openly. We have rules and protocols that I want to share with you around our technology. If you were here for a Sunday morning Bible study, we've talked through some of these and you should have received a sheet of paper, adults, as you walked in that hopefully will guide you through some of what I'm going to say that we went a little deeper this morning in Sunday school. I think of lust a little bit like I think about the weeds in my yard. As long as there's a plan and a strategy that is actively keeping the weeds at bay, the yard is going to look great. But as soon as that stops, the yard goes untended. And then once you start looking for it, you start to see more and more weeds popping up here and there until eventually you look out and you realize there's weeds everywhere. And you wonder how'd that happen? If you're a child, it might happen like this. You're simply playing a video game and up pops an ad with a voluptuous woman in something that can't really be called clothing, encouraging you to visit her website. Or maybe you're simply on a website like me, Bible Gateway, preparing a sermon on lust when up pops an underwear ad. Yes, this did happen. Or you're on X or Instagram and they begin to put pictures and products on your screen that you're not really seeking out. But the more it shows up, the more you're interested and the more you click and then the rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper and deeper. And so what does one do in this situation? You should think of yourself and your marriage and your family in the middle of a castle, and your job is to protect it at all cost. You will want to put up high walls, thick walls, a big moat around all of it. And so I want to offer you some very practical advice in two parts. Part one is how to build the walls, and part 2 is what to do if your castle has been sieged. So the protection piece. The first thing I'd want to say here is that you cannot wait on the technology industry to keep you safe or to keep your kids safe. They will not build this wall for you. In fact, they are selling a drug and they are hoping that you get hooked and that your kids get hooked. You may have heard it before. There are only two industries that call their customers users, illegal drugs and big tech. Therefore, you must get radical and take matters into your own hands. Number 2, start with locking down your devices. There are computers and there are phones and there are iPads and whatever else you have in your house. Each will be a little different, but parents especially, both for yourself and for your kids, learn how to limit their screen time. Learn how to manage their content. Learn how to use what the tech companies actually do give you at their disposal to limit what is coming through those big walls that you're trying to create. Number 3, your computers are a little harder to lock down. And so in my house, we pay for something called covenant eyes. We pay $200 a year for this. It might sound like a lot of money. I think it sounds like a very little amount of money for the peace of mind that it gives me, knowing that I'm offering protection, another wall for my kids and my family to feel safe within. Whatever you choose, I would encourage you to once again get radical. Don't just find yourself floating down the broad Rd. just because everyone else seems to. Instead, you have to take matters into your own hands. Number 4, there is the matter of your internet or your routers. And you can try to create as high a wall and a moat as you can. And one tool in the toolbox is using your internet provider to block certain sites or to even automatically turn off at certain times of day. Let's say 1 A.m. There's no good reason for somebody to be on the internet at that point. Number 5, know that with all your best efforts, there will always be workarounds that you haven't thought of, which gets to the most important thing that I can give you. Have a good relationship. with loved ones, with your kids, especially spouses with each other. Have open, honest dialogue. Reduce the shame. It is the shame that drives you into the closet and into the darkness. And the only way out is to get rid of some of that shame and to be willing to talk about it. And so make this a regular conversation in your house. The more you do it, the less awkward it gets. Men talk to your sons. Women talk to your daughters. Have these conversations with your kids. And please, spouses have them with each other. The easiest rule, no devices in the bedrooms. If you're wondering, what's the one quick win that could come out of here as to how I manage my own household and what the kids can do and can't, This is probably the easiest thing that you could make happen right now. But what happens if the army has already sieged the castle and you're in the middle of a fight that you're losing and you are struggling and you can't seem to find your way out? Well, that's the backside of the sheet that I've given you. I've got 4 steps for you. Step one, step out of the darkness and into the light. It will have control over you until you tell someone who is safe and importantly, someone who will force you to do something about it. Men, I want to offer you this morning that I am safe and I will help you do something about it. I have heard stories from young boys to very old men and nothing will shock me, I assure you. Step 2, depending on your situation, and the level of your problem, you should probably find a group to meet with. There are lots of groups dedicated to helping people break their addictions, some in person and some online. Two groups I'm aware of and I know meet locally are called Pure Desire and Celebrate Recovery. I would start there if you're just simply looking. Number 3, develop a strategy and know where the weak points are in your defense. Share these with an accountability partner. For example, maybe you're on a work trip. We'll have your spouse keep you honest when you come home. Late nights or certain times of day. We'll just know when that is and don't be alone during that time. Maybe it's a certain device. Go ahead and ditch that. Is alcohol involved? It might be time to address that problem too. And know that stress will always cause you to do things you might not do when you're not in stress. So manage that. Fourth and finally, replace the bad habit with good habits. More exercise, a new hobby, intentional time with your family. We had this conversation, as I said, this morning with the Sunday morning Bible study. And it was brought in that we should certainly infuse all of these steps with a healthy spiritual life that loves God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength and our neighbors as ourselves and our spouses as ourselves. But sometimes we maybe keep praying to God and we say, oh, help me with this and help me with this and it never seems to go anywhere. That's what this roadmap is for. It has helped you if you've been there again and again and again and again. One final word I would want to give is to the spouses in the room, because the part I haven't yet addressed is that lust and adultery is not a victimless crime. There is often a spouse or a family that feel the effects of this betrayal. If that is you, know that God sees you too. And you too need help and you need encouragement. And the steps for what you should do are not the same as the above. They are similar. It involves talking to someone. Maybe it's finding a group. Some of the groups offer spouses groups as well. And so if the person who has hurt you needs to build their defenses, I would encourage you to build some of your own as well. Build walls and boundaries that they should not break in order to keep yourself from being hurt again and again. And develop lines that cannot be crossed and communicate those clearly and what would happen if they do get crossed. And finally, do things that will fill your soul as well. In the beginning, God created all things good. And this includes sex. But it is a powerful force. And a desire for it sits deep within us. And we live in a dangerous world where the temptations are everywhere. So let me encourage you to protect it. Keep it safe. Build the walls of a covenant marriage around it. Put them up high. Build a moat around it so that you keep temptation at bay. Talk to your spouses. Talk to your kids. Have these conversations regularly. Help is available. Victory is available. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, let us pray. Father in heaven, Jesus, King Jesus, who sits on the throne, who has power over all the universe, Holy Spirit who has been sent to us to live in us, to dwell in us, to cleanse us from the inside out, empower us this morning, convict us of where we need changes, Give us the path forward. Show us how we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds and to take on the mind of Christ and to live as you would have us live, O Lord. May we walk that narrow way, the hard way, but a way that leads to life abundant because Lord, we know that other way leads to the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. God, this morning, no doubt if the statistics bear out, some people hearing my voice right now, whether in person, online, or on a podcast into the future, they are wrestling. They are wrestling with something that has sat hidden for way too long. It is time to take the thing that existed in the darkness Bring it out into the light. Because God, you have a better way. You have a way that is filled with joy and freedom. So Lord, this warning, convict of sin, but also convince us that you are powerful enough to heal. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen.‍

Sloth Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | August 23, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript TranscriptPastor Eric J. GilchrestGood morning. It's great to be back with you. I've missed you.I wasn't here on Sunday, last Sunday that is. I was dropping Ezra off at college, which was an incredibly emotional, powerful experience. And then I had been out of town on sabbatical for a time, but I'm promising you I'm here for a while. Does anyone else hear that? It's the sound of... Oh, it is. Yeah. It's the 250th. There's like flyovers happening. I was going to say, I never hear, you know, anything quite like that. Yeah, we'll let the airplanes kind of die down a second. They'll be done in a moment, hopefully, unless it keeps going for a time. Yeah, just turn me up. Thank you. All right. Where were we? Where we were for the last month is we are talking about the way, which is the name for the earliest Christians. They were called the way. They were the ones who followed Jesus appropriately. And then we were also talking about the fact that there are these two ways that Jesus talks about. One way that leads to destruction. And this is the path that We've been talking about the seven deadly sins for. It is the path we're talking about today. It is the path in which we lead lesser lives, and we lead lives that are not intended to be led by God. Today we're talking about sloth, and this is, as it says, following the wrong way home. There's a lot of city stuff in the picture if you're looking at this, and there's a lot of hubbub and there's a lot of movement, and you might be thinking that's not very slothful. But actually, it kind of is. If you were in the Sunday morning Bible study, what we learned is that there are two faces to sloth, actually. The one that is the slow creature from Zootopia, who's amiable and enjoyable to be with, but is is so slow that it's infuriating, right? And they don't do much. But the other face of sloth actually is the person who's so busy and is distracting himself or herself with all these other things in life, and they're not attending to the one thing that they should be attending to. Our lives are actually filled with these sorts of slothful moments where we distract ourselves quite easily and we escape into our devices and we lead lives that are in constant distraction and not attending to the one thing that we should be doing. So Jesus talks about this road that leads to destruction. And this morning we're going to talk about sloth in that way. But he does talk about a road that leads to fullness of life, abundant life. And all year I've been trying to get you to realize there is abundant life waiting for each and every one of you. And this is in fact what God wants for you. Jesus wants this for you. It's the promise. It's frankly the great promise of Christianity. It's what Jesus teaches us, and he shows us the way. He walks the path before we ever do. And so when I got captivated earlier in this year by what I take to be a very simple idea, and the longer I sit with it, the more powerful it gets. And the idea is very simple, that Jesus lived a life showing us how to live a life. And if we just simply model ourselves after the life of Jesus, if we do the things Jesus does, if we speak like he speaks, if we walk like he walks, if we do what he does, then we too can have abundant life. So this morning, before we jump into sloth and we talk about what this means and what it doesn't mean, let us begin with prayer. Heavenly Father, We come this morning and we lift our hearts to you. We slow down in an appropriate way as you call us to every 7th day taking a Sabbath, a rest from the busy work of life, but not to be lazy, but to fall back in love with you, to be open to what you have to say to us and how you're directing our lives and where you're trying to move us to, the ways in which you are trying to grow us and the ways in which you have kingdom plans for each and every one of us. May we attend to you this morning. In Christ's name we pray, amen. I want to begin with an analogy from marriage. If you are not married, hopefully you can grasp what is happening here. This analogy takes place on the 2nd anniversary of a marriage when a couple is past the honeymoon phase and the 2nd anniversary happens and the husband forgets that it's the anniversary. And the wife is now deeply frustrated with her new husband and lashes out and says, how could you forget? James down the street, he took his wife to the Bahamas. You didn't even remember that it was our anniversary. You are a terrible husband. How dare you? And she storms off to the other side of the room. The husband, feeling very defensive and stonewalling, He just kind of turns in on himself and he walks to the other side of the room and he says, doesn't she know? I work so hard for this family, 80 hours a week. I am just, the pressure is so great. And so what? I forget one day, right? And he begins to get defensive. And so the couple is on each side of the room and And they both know that they love each other, right? This is why they married. They both know that they love each other. But the love requires sacrifice. And it requires the both of them to do the one thing that in this moment they're not sure they really want to do, which is to walk back to the center of the room and figure some things out. And to try to understand the other person and where they're coming from. And so what do they do? Hopefully they do what you don't do. They actually stay on the other sides of the room and they nurse their grievances and they choose sloth over love. And they choose to not reconcile. Instead, of choosing to die to self and to choose to try to work it out and love one another. If you've been married, then you know that building a relationship is not easy. What it really requires of this couple is to not exactly just figure it out in that moment. It actually requires figuring it out over a lifetime what the other person needs and what makes them happy and what makes them tick and what you need and where you need to stand up for your own self. And relationships require work and they require growth and they require you to talk about it and to do some hard things and to dig in together. Maybe on occasion going to a counselor or somebody who can help you grow together. And so a good relationship It doesn't just come together in that moment and all is well. It requires day in, day out, doing the hard thing. But if you don't want to do the hard thing, we call this sloth. Sloth is the willful rejection of growing into the person that God wants you to be. It is the willful rejection of growing into the person that God wants you to be. The marriage is just an analogy. It's an earthly analogy that should then be understood in terms of the spiritual realm, that God desires a relationship with you. And this God wants something from you, and he wants you to grow. And he wants you to be a bigger person, as we talked about again in Sunday school. He wants you to be magnanimous, which is to say big sold. But it's going to require work. And it's going to require some pain, maybe some late nights, some early mornings. Sometimes it requires eating some crow and saying, I'm sorry, and man, I really messed up. And coming to God and saying, please forgive me. It requires doing some soul searching. And it requires understanding what is it that God has called me into this life for? Why am I on this planet at all? And how can I serve the kingdom of God? Sloth is one of these sins that requires us to think about what sin is. Most of the time, someone might tell you, well, it means don't kill anybody. Check, not done that. Don't commit adultery, check, right? Don't steal, right? Okay, And you can think of all these things that you're not supposed to do. Sloth doesn't work this way. It requires actually the opposite. Sloth is what you don't do. It's the sin of not doing. It's the sin of not showing up when you should show up. It's the sin of knowing, I really should go do, I should really call this person, I should really go say I'm sorry to my wife and then not doing it. That, is the sin of sloth. The Book of Common Prayer has lots of prayers in it. one of which you might be familiar with. The prayer goes like this. Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought and word and deed by what we have done. And these are all the things that you've done. And it's a moment and opportunity of confession, right? To say, I've thought these things and I've said these things and I've done these things and God, I'm sorry for those. But the prayer continues and it says, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. And it's that. That's the sloth. That is what you're also saying. God, I am sorry that I didn't show up in this way. And then it goes on and says, we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. Often, the not loving others and not loving God with our whole hearts is just as much about what you leave undone as it does what you actually do. And the prayer ends, we are truly sorry and we humbly repent. This year is a year of transformation. If you've been here since January 1st, we gave out bracelets and it says transformed on them and we read from Romans 12, 2, and it says, be transformed, right, and take on the mind of Christ. And this whole year, my hope has been that you have been engaging in thoughts and words and deeds that are in fact transforming you. We even had a marriage conference where we came together and the hope is maybe we can transform some marriages. And we've talked about doing hard things. Sloth is enemy number one against transformation. It is week two of the transformation process where you say to yourself, you know what? I'm going to be the guy who wakes up at 5.30 in the morning and I go to the gym and I'm going to start each day with a good workout. And then by week two might be generous, right? A few days later, you're thinking to yourself, boy, It is early. I think I'm going to stay in bed this morning. That's the physical forms of sloth coming at you. But there are spiritual forms of this too. It is where you say to yourself, I'm going to be a guy who prays regularly. Or I'm going to be the guy or woman who comes to church every Sunday. That's who I want to be because that's important to me. prioritize this. I'm going to be the dad who shows up for his son's or daughter's stuff, right? And spiritual sloth can creep in and we shrink back from how it is that God is trying to form us and to shape us. In this year of transformation, we began with Romans 12, 2, and I would ask that right now you open your Bible to that chapter. Because interestingly, our passage for today comes from this very chapter, Romans chapter 12. As you're turning there, I'll go ahead and start reading from verse 1. The passage today is from verse 9, but we'll get there. Paul says, mind you, while you're turning there, Chapters 1 through 11 are what often get called orthodoxy. This is Paul teaching you how to think right. These are the things that matter and how we are to understand what Jesus did on the cross and what his resurrection means from a kind of cognitive viewpoint. 12 and after is orthopraxy. This is the life you are to live in light of all of those things from chapter 1 to 11. And so this is what Paul says here. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, your very lives, as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And then the passage for the year, do not be conformed to this. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Be transformed. These are lofty ideas, aren't they? And if you've been trying this for the last eight months, you realize lofty ideas turn out to be really hard when you're doing it for a while. And the process of real transformation takes some time. And it takes some energy. And sometimes it's just easier to forget about it and to give up. In fact, this whole living sacrifice thing from verse one, every day, a living sacrifice, you're telling me I've got to put myself back on that altar day after day after day? Eric, that's a lot to ask. I would say to you, it's not me who's asking for it. Paul is, but this is the life of faith. He goes on, and in verses 3 to 8, he calls us all together and he kind of reminds us of what it means to be the body of Christ together. And he says, we each play a part in this body and we each have things to do. And being a living sacrifice means playing my part in the body of Christ that is the church, both the capital C church and the lowercase C church, the church worldwide and the church local. And he says, for by grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not have all the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. What does all that mean? I just say it like this. To be a living sacrifice means giving back to the body of Christ. If you're a deacon, be a good deacon. If you're a Sunday school teacher, be a good Sunday school teacher. If you're making meals on a Wednesday night, make great meals on a Wednesday night. But find some way to give, to be plugged in, to do something. Because that is part of what it means to be part of the kingdom and to do the things of the church. But he goes on, and this is our passage for the day. He says, let your love be genuine and hate or abhor what is evil. Love what is good, hate what is evil. It's really that simple. And hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. one another in the showing of honor. And then here it is, right? How I landed here at all. Do not be slothful in zeal, but be fervent in the spirit. Now let me just kind of back up one second. There's 2 ideas sitting here. Don't be slothful in your zeal, but be fervent in the spirit. The slothful in zeal, these are two words we don't really use ever, sloth and zeal, right? This means don't let your passion wane, but instead be fervent, another word we don't use a lot, but it really means boiling over. But be somebody who is alive in the spirit, and the spirit is boiling within them. And what Paul is calling us to in this in some ways is perhaps quite simple. He's saying that when you became a believer and you said yes to Jesus and maybe you walked down an aisle or at a camp you gave your life or you prayed, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, I will be your servant. There's probably some kind of fire burning within you in this moment. What he's saying is, don't let this fire die. Don't let it die. Instead, let it boil up. Because it's the boiling of the passion that then is very useful to the world that is around you. But if the passion that is in your heart, and all of these deadly sins, by the way, are heart issues, they're malfunctions of the heart. And if that heart is, it's lost its passion, then I don't know what's going to happen next. There is this ancient word that gets used for sloth. It's a nice fancy word. You can use it with your friends to impress them. It's called acedia, A-C-E-D-I-A, acedia. And it means, well, the word a means not, and cedia means care. It means you don't care. It means your heart isn't in it. means you've lost passion for the thing. If I could take you back for a minute to the couple standing on the other sides of the room. There's a real danger that might creep in if that couple doesn't figure out a way to get back to the center of the room. The real danger is that in year 20, when they are celebrating the 20th anniversary, and they no longer really celebrate much of anything, and they kind of, maybe they even sleep in separate rooms, and they've no longer come back to the middle. They have acedia. They no longer care. And the worst thing that could happen is that wife stops yelling at the husband to say, why didn't we celebrate our 20th anniversary? Because she no longer cares. And the husband no longer gets defensive and he no longer needs to protect himself because he too no longer cares. This is what sloth is. It's the stopping of caring. I coach soccer sometimes, although in the fall here I'm hanging up my coach's hat for a minute. I hope to again someday. But if you've ever worked with kids, you know what I'm about to say to be true, which is I can deal with kids, of course, the ones who care deeply and are really passionate about things. And then I can deal with kids who are passionately negative about something and they have some skin in the game and yet it's not working and they get upset about it, right? What I can't deal with is the kid who says, I don't care. That is a lack of love, if nothing else. If they say, Whatever. Okay, sure. Fine. Fine in my book is a four-letter word. It starts with the letter F. The reason being is it means that there is no passion. There is no love. There is only a cedia, a not caring. Sloth. is the willful rejection of growing into the person God wants you to be. For a lot of us, this happens because we stop caring. Sloth has a bodily form and it has a spiritual form. It's easy to see the spiritual form if we kind of first look at the bodily form. I mentioned last week we took Ezra down to Blacksburg and we dropped him off and it was a very emotional experience. I've never really had that kind of emotional experience before where I was deeply sad for myself and deeply happy for him because I know he's entering this window of life that is awesome. College is so much fun. There's so much growth that happens. And to be honest, there are days where I miss working with college students because of that window of time that is so cool. Yesterday, it hit me. Ezra wasn't there to mow the lawn for me. I had gotten out of the habit of mowing lawns It's been a few years, six years, my wife tells me. And I looked outside and my lawn was very full. And I thought, well, he's not here to do it. And Lizzie's, well, I don't know, I could try to train her. And Ezra's, Ashra's a little too young and looks like it's on me. I didn't want to do it. the sloth in me was saying, just stay inside, the air conditioning is comfortable. Maybe you could find another high school student out there somewhere and start paying that student. But I tried to, I overcame it and you'd be proud of me. I went out there and I mowed my lawn for the first time in six years. And it was fine. But sloth creeps in, a variety of ways. When we stop doing something over and over again and we offload it, right? And maybe it is like a physical thing, like mowing the lawn. But as I've already said, there are these other ways in which we become spiritually sloth. It's possible that like as parents, you were raising your kids in the house and And you knew, what, it's important that I teach this child like some things. And so I'm going to teach them how to pray. And I'm going to teach them to maybe read their scriptures. I'm going to teach them a few things about the life of the spirit. And then, they grow up and they leave the house. And well, now you don't have anyone to teach. And perhaps some of those muscles, for some of you older folks in the crowd, have begun to atrophy some. What I'd ask of you is to not let sloth jump in there. In fact, now's the time more than ever. There are people in this church who need you. They need your years of wisdom. They need what you've learned over a lifetime, and they need the food that you are able to feed them. Sloth can present itself in the body, but frankly, it's the spiritual sloth that is most dangerous. What should we do about sloth? With just very quick, I've got 5 steps I want you to take and then I'll pray and we can go home. But the five steps go like this. One, wake up. Wake up to the ways in which you've allowed a smaller life to creep into your life. in which God has called you into something bigger, but you've said no again and again. Or maybe it's like a sin that is sitting in your life right now, and you've just kind of grown accustomed to it, and you've allowed it to sit there, and at some point you say, I should probably work on this. I shouldn't let this just keep rotting inside of me. That is sloth on top of whatever that other sin might be. And so wake up, Number 2 would then be to rekindle that passion. So if Paul says in Romans 12, don't let sloth steal your zeal, but boil in the spirit, I'd encourage you to find that passion again. What was it that made you come alive? Or maybe it is in the workplace. what makes you come alive in life generally speaking? When I talk to young people and they ask, what should I do with my life? I often point them to, well, when you do something that makes you feel like invigorated, what is that thing? Because likely that is your gift to the world somewhere in there. And so what's that passion that is inside of you and how can you be using that for the kingdom? Number 3 would be to raise necessity. Raise necessity, which means somehow you've got to take this thing that God is trying to do in you and you've got to make it a necessary part of life where you are uncompromising about it, where you say, you know what, I'm going to do this no matter what. I'm going to drop all these other things and I'm going to do the one thing that actually matters. And then four would be to find accountability. Tell somebody, tell me, tell your friend, tell your mom, tell whoever and say, hold me accountable. This is my one thing. This is where God's growing me. I know it's going to be hard. I'm going to wake up at 5.30 one morning and not want to do it. And I need you to hold me accountable to it. And #5, just stay in the game. One foot in front of the other. In January, we started the year with transformation. My hope is some of you made some commitments. Some of you thought, you know what? I really do this year. I want to work on this. And over time, maybe you drifted. And this is the sermon that's ringing the bell to say, wake up and get back on track and do one thing, 1 foot in front of the other, in front of the other. Because sloth is coming for us And it's trying to steal our lives from us. And those screens that you keep looking at, they're taking your time and they're taking your attention. And that's part of what we need to put down in order to live the lives that God is calling us into. Let us pray. God our Father in heaven, we come this morning with confessions. Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought and word and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. And so, Lord, we are truly sorry and we humbly repent. God, it is our desire this morning to live lives that are magnanimous that are big-souled, in which we are challenged by what you are calling us into. We are ready to take the next step of faith. And it's going to require some sacrifice. It's going to require being a living sacrifice if the transformation is going to happen. And so, Lord, I know my part. I'm saying yes this morning. And I know there are people in this congregation who are saying yes too. Let us find some accountability. Let us find some necessity. Let us fix our eyes on you, the perfecter of our faith. We thank you. In Christ's name we pray, amen.

The Body of Christ Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | August 9, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript

The Deadly Virtue of Certainty Jim Weavor | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript

The Deadly Virtue of Religious Devotion Jim Weavor | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript

The Deadly Virtue of Discernment Jim Weavor | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript

The Deadly Virtue of Childlikeness James Weaver | Guest Pastor Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript

Holy Rhythms Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | July 5, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript

Gluttony Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | June 21, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The Good Samaritan and the Age of Life: Love, Eternal Life, and the Narrow Road of Luke 10 — Sermon TranscriptSouth Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VARev. Dr. Eric GilchrestLuke 10:25–37June 14, 2026 This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Rev. Dr. Eric Gilchrest preaches on the Parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25–37. This sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series and addresses what eternal life actually means in the original Greek, why love and life are inseparable in Jesus' teaching, and how the Good Samaritan parable reveals that walking the narrow road means active, costly, others-centered love. Opening Prayer: A Church on MissionHeavenly Father, we come today offering you thanksgiving for Ian and for Emma, the great work that they're doing at GW, but also for this church and for the work that those who are in these walls do for those who are outside of these walls. We, Lord, desire to be a church on mission, and we need to keep that front and center. And so, Lord, plant it in each of our hearts that as we go where we go throughout the week on Monday and Thursday and random points on a Saturday afternoon, that we be reminded that we bear your image, we bring your word to the world, and we make new disciples. And so, God, we pray all of this in Christ's holy name. Amen. Where We Are in The Jesus Way SeriesWe are in a series on two ways, right? There is the narrow way that leads to abundant life, and this morning we are talking about that way, and the way that Jesus teaches us to walk — a way that leads to abundance and to life eternal. And then the other way we'll get back to next week, and that's the broad way. It's the easy way, frankly, and it's the way that leads to death and destruction. On Father's Day next week, we will cover the lovely topic of gluttony, so you definitely won't want to miss that, dads. You're welcome. For today, though, we are in a parable that you are probably familiar with. Whether you've been around the church much or not, you definitely know what a Good Samaritan is. We even have like Good Samaritan laws, right? Well, I want to dive down deep, and I'll say this whole framing for me — the whole like two ways, the life, death — has become clarifying, we'll say, in ways that I've not anticipated and I have quite enjoyed as we've gone throughout this series. And I almost think of it as like this lens that I take and then I put it over top of the scripture that we're reading and then I kind of see what pops out, like what's new. And so here we are in a very familiar passage and it is, well, it came as a little bit of a surprise to me, exactly how Jesus frames this. So I hope you have a Bible with you. If you don't, go ahead and grab the one that's in front of you — we definitely want to turn to Luke 10 together. Luke 10:25–28: A Lawyer Asks About Eternal LifeSo again, Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25. It starts this way as you're turning there. "Behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test." Here we have lawyers doing what lawyers do, right? A lawyer, though, you should know in this day and age is not what you're thinking of as a lawyer. He does not work for the IRS. He does not do like tax law or something like this. He is a lawyer of the Torah, the Jewish law, right? And so this is a man who knows his law well, but very specifically the first five books of our Bible. And this is going to become important because Jesus is going to say to him, like, what does the law say? Like, what does our Bible say, the one you and I share together, right? And so this lawyer, he has spent lots of time in the law, as we'll see, as good lawyers often do. They know the law in order to kind of skirt through it, and he's trying to do this in this passage, but he actually knows what he's talking about. So the passage goes on, and he says, "Teacher" — rabbi, this is Jesus here, our rabbi, the one we should be listening to and following — "what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And as I'm pulling that lens, remember, and I'm putting it on and I see this phrase, eternal life, I think to myself, well, here it is. This is part of what we're trying to do for this season of our church history — looking at ways that lead to life and ways that lead to death. And here Jesus is being asked like the exact question I'm asking you and I'm trying to get us all talking about, and that I think is of utmost importance. We might even say a matter of life and death. And he says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, if you were asked this question, if somebody on the street came to you, it's worth asking, like, what would you say? How would you answer that question? What "Eternal Life" Actually Means in the Greek: The Age of Life vs. The Age of Death Backing up just a minute, this phrase eternal life needs just a little bit of clarification. The word for eternal here is not exactly the platonic, like, eternal sense that you and I often use it. Now, it might mean that to a degree, but only in like a secondary sense. It actually comes from a Greek word, eon — or the English version is eon. Eon is an age, right? There's one eon, and then there's the next eon, there's one age, and then there's the next age. And he's asking him, well, how do I get myself into the age of life? It's important that you know that there is an age of death — or as Paul calls it, the evil age, right? This age actually is that, right? It's the age that ultimately we all know is hovered over by these two things of sin and death and evil, and it lurks about, and none of us get out of here alive, right? That's why this age is the age of death. And this is why the Bible speaks to this matter over and over and over again. And this is the final enemy, death. And so the man is asking a very good question, which is, how do we make it out of the age of death and then make it into the age of life? And he has in mind — he thinks like a good first century Jew — and I need you to think this way for a second so that we can maybe make it a little more complicated. His timeline goes like this. There's the age in which we live, the age of death. There's then an ending to that, and there is a resurrection that happens of all people, good and bad. And then there's a judgment that happens, and the people are either judged good or bad. And then there is the age of life. That might be how you're thinking of things right now, in fact. But here's the important wrinkle. A resurrection has already happened. A resurrection has already happened. And so when Jesus is resurrected, the timeline gets shoved into the present. And then also, with that happening, there is a real sense in which judgment has also happened, and yet is also going to happen. It's a both-and. And Paul, if we had time, he gives us both of these. But the point is actually this — what Jesus does is he drags eternal life and he puts it smack dab into this life. And this life is where eternal life begins. And he'll say things like, "the kingdom of God is in your midst, is among you." He's referring to himself. He's saying, through me starts this eternal life. It's here and it's now. And so when Jesus is being asked this question — what must I do to enter into this age of life? — he doesn't say it out loud, but he is saying, well, it starts right now. It's not something we're pushing off to the future. We don't just kind of do all the right things now and then punch a ticket and then we get into the thing. No, you're in it right now. Jesus Tosses the Question Back: How Do You Read the Law?And so he says to this lawyer — well, he refuses to answer his question, actually. What does he do? He tosses it right back to him. And he says to him, well, you tell me, you lawyer, you know the law. What's written in the law and how do you read it? I actually love that last question — the "how do you read it" — that is so important. I don't have time to dig down deep here, but just know that we should all be asking, like, how do we read this scripture? Like, how do you read it? We all read it slightly differently, but Jesus wants to teach us how we read our scripture. And so the man says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus, maybe to his shock, certainly to my shock, says, wow, you're correct. You got it right. Like, that is the answer. And in fact, in the other Gospels, Jesus is the one to say these things. Who knows? Maybe this lawyer got it from Jesus. And he says, you're supposed to love God. And by the way, all of those categories — that just simply means your whole being, everything you are. You're just supposed to love God with like every last ounce of who you are. And then love your neighbor as yourself. And this is the simplification of all things. It's the simplification of the law, the scriptures, what God is trying to do with the world. It is just love, right? Love God, love your neighbor. Now, I'd add this. When we talk about loving our neighbor, the Bible breaks down for us to love God with our souls and our minds and our strength and all these various aspects of who we are. And I would say, well, that's just a description of how to love. And we should do the same with the people in our lives. We should love them in similar kinds of ways, with our whole being. "He said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live." Again, there's our word — life, right? Well, how do we live a life? And how do we do it right? And how do we stay on that narrow path? He says, well, do this. The guy gets it. "Who Is My Neighbor?" — The Question Jesus Refuses to Answer DirectlyAnd if we stopped there, we would feel really good about this passage and it'd all be done. But the man, remember, he's a lawyer and he knows his law. And the job of the lawyer is to get around the law and to kind of sneak through it. And so he says the follow-up. He wants to justify himself and says to Jesus, well, excuse me, who is my neighbor? Jesus does not answer this question. I'll just go ahead and say that very clearly here. Jesus does not answer who the neighbor is. He pulls up the example of somebody being a good neighbor — that is the Samaritan — treats the robbed man that we're going to meet here as the neighbor, but the Samaritan is not actually technically the neighbor here. He's the one who's doing it right, who is loving his neighbor well. All of this explodes the boxes that this lawyer no doubt has, and it should explode ours too. And I can't go into exactly what a Samaritan is, but I assure you, the lawyer is thinking the Samaritan is not one of us. Whoever the "us" is for you — not one of us. He's over there. He's one of them. And Jesus is saying, well, look at the them. Whoever your "them" is, they're doing it right. They're the one who's loving well. And it should cause us to stop in our tracks and to ask, well, if they're able to love well, and they're finding what Jesus is calling eternal life or abundant life in this life that's leading to this eternal life, well, maybe I've got some work to do. Jesus replies to the question that the lawyer asks. He doesn't answer it. He, of course, does what Jesus does, which is to either ask a question — which is what he did the first time — or to tell a story, which is what he does this time. Luke 10:30–32: The Priest and the Levite Pass ByAnd so he says, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, there was a priest going down the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Well then likewise, a Levite came to the place, saw him, passed by on the other side." I assure you, the Levite knows the law too, right? And the priest, well, he knows the law too. And Jesus is saying, do the priest or the Levite do the law? That is, do they love their neighbor? And the answer is very clearly no, right? They do not. Luke 10:33–35: The Samaritan and the Meaning of CompassionNow the Samaritan, whether or not he knows the law is actually not exactly clear, and in some ways not even to the point. The Samaritan does the law. He does the thing that should be done here, which is he sees the man half dead, and he goes to help him. I would stop here for just one minute and point out this word to you — compassion, at the end of verse 33. Compassion. This word shows up only three times in your gospel of Luke. It shows up in the following ways. The widow of Nain — Jesus encounters this woman who already is a widow. She's lost her husband. She then loses her son in the story that is being told. And Jesus looks at this woman who has lost her husband and her son, and he has compassion. Which is to say, the word itself means like his insides are like turning outside, and he's like physically in pain watching this woman and is feeling her pain, right? It also shows up in the passage we're going to talk about next week as you join us for gluttony, which is the story of the prodigal son, actually. When the prodigal son returns home from his gluttonous encounters, the father is there and he looks at him from afar and he has compassion on him. His insides are turned outside. And then here, the Samaritan — he looks at this man and he has compassion on him. I would say if we are going to love at all, we need compassion. If we are going to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is going to require us to put ourselves into the very shoes of the neighbor, to walk the mile with them, to see ourselves as the dead man on the side of the road who needs help, and to ask the question, if I were that dead man, what would I want this priest to do for me? If I were that dead man, what should that Levite do? I'm crying out for him, and he walks right on by. That is not keeping the law. But the Samaritan — the Samaritan sees him and is able to put himself into his place and to see the position that he's in, which is helpless, and he has the ability to do something, and he does. Interestingly, this idea of love is then here for the next few verses explained not as a feeling the Samaritan has — because we all have the feeling when we see something bad happen, and we're like, oh, that's awful, oh man, I feel so bad for this person — love requires action. It requires actually doing something, which is precisely what the Samaritan does in the verses that follow. In verse 34, "He went to him, to the man dying on the side of the road, and he bound up his wounds, he poured on oil and wine to heal them, and then he set him on his own animal, and he brought him to an inn, and he took care of him." This doesn't even account for the fact that he took time out of his own, no doubt, busy schedule to stop and to help this man and to assist him to a place. And he probably missed a really important meeting. And I'm sure some friends and some family were probably upset with the Samaritan who was supposed to be home for dinner. And he missed the kid's soccer game. But he did this very important thing that was in front of him. But it doesn't even stop there. "The next day, he took out two denarii. And he gave it to the innkeeper. And he said, take care of him. And if you spend more, keep track of that, because I will repay you when I come back." This is a man who loves in a way that goes above and beyond, and it is active. It's not just a man who walks and says, oh, there's a person that is almost dead over here, and that's tragic, as he keeps walking on by. This is the kind of love that God is calling us into as well, and this is the narrow road that leads to life. You might understand why now it's a narrow road, because it's difficult to walk. It's the road less traveled. It's the one that requires something of you. "Go and Do Likewise": Love and Life Are InseparableAnd then Jesus finishes up. He says, "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" And the lawyer has to confess, well, I guess it's the one who showed mercy. And then Jesus says again, well, you got it right. "Go and do likewise." Go and do likewise. When I think about this passage and this idea that we are to walk down this narrow road that leads to life — life and love, in my mind, are almost like one in the same. They all come together, these two come together in ways that are almost impossible to pull apart as you dig down deeper and deeper and deeper into what a full life is. I was trying to wrestle with the question, why does this road lead to life? Like, why does loving someone lead to life? And here's what I think Jesus is doing. Remember, Jesus has pulled eternal life into this life. The very one that you're in now, listening to me speak. And love in this life, this eternal life we're hopefully, prayerfully in — it is the substance of it all. Love is the design of humanity. It is what we were made for. In Eden, when we were created, we were created to love God. And then it was not good for man to be alone. So he creates Eve, and we were meant to love one another. And then he looks at the first couple and he says, multiply, make more of you, and then love them too. And this is what it's all for and all about. The God who made us is in himself self-giving love — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If the Trinity means one thing, it means pouring out love one to the other to the other. And we are made in that kind of image, which means the great commandment — love God and love neighbor — this is not a rule that gets bolted onto the side of life, as if it's like some sort of external hope that you might do this at some point. It is the manufacturer's description of how this whole thing runs. Withholding love doesn't keep you safe, and spending love doesn't drain your life. Jesus, in fact, says, do these things and you will have life. Jesus Is the Good Samaritan: He Crosses the Road to Find Us Half DeadWe see this love most clearly in the person of Jesus. When he pours himself out on the cross, he redeems us. He snatches us out of death and delivers us into an age of life, eternal life. If Jesus has done this for me, well, then he must love me, right? And if Jesus has done this for you — and he has — then he must love you. But Jesus has loved the whole world and God has sent his son that we all might have eternal life, that we all might be entered into the age of life. And why love? Because God loves you, and he wants us to love one another and to love him as we were intended to do. Communion: The Table as the Place Where Love and Life MeetAs we come to the table this morning, it is important that we recognize that this two-fold command of love — to love God and love our neighbor — it is kind of one thing. I would suggest to you that when God says to us that we are to love him, what he does not mean is that we have like a really nice worship service together and I have all the feels and it's just me and God and I'm loving every minute of it. And I don't even think he means like, well, I love God and therefore I pray every day and I love God and I'm reading my Bible every day. These are all very good things and they actually do lead you to God. So don't misunderstand me. But what I think he means is he pairs that with love your neighbor, because that is the ultimate understanding of whether or not you love God well. Because every person in this room around you right now and every person you've ever met in your life is bearing the image of God. And if you can't love them well, it is worth asking whether you're loving God. And so this morning as we come to the table, we are reminded that Jesus has poured himself out for us. He has shown us what love looks like. He literally puts his hands on the cross like this, and he opens himself up for humanity. And he takes the penalty that was due to us, and he offers us a way to God. I find Jesus directly in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In fact, many interpreters have. It turns out he's not the priest, he's not the Levite, he is the Samaritan, though. He is the outsider, the despised one, yet the one who actually does the law of love. And he comes to our roads where we are lying half dead and he has compassion on us. He looks at us in our estate and he is moved. His insides turn outside. He says, I want something better for this child of mine. I want them to live a full life now, and eternal life forever. This is what I want for them. And so what does he do? He binds up our wounds. He pours the oil and the wine on them. He pays the price. And he promises he will come back to pay the rest of it. And this is what the table is. On the night before Jesus died, he took bread and a cup and he said, this is my body and this is my blood. And it is poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. We have all been robbed by the age of death. But we have also participated in the age of death. And we need forgiveness from that. So Christ, he crosses the road and he offers us a hand up and out of it. And this morning we get to participate in the forgiveness of sins that he offers to each and to every one of us. Our Call: To Be the Samaritan for OthersHe then expects something of us. As people who are walking down that road with him, the dust of the rabbi getting all over us — you remember that? — as we walk that way of love, we then too must take up the role of the Samaritan for the others who are around us. Our job in this world is to bandage those who are hurt and broken and to pour whatever oil and wine Jesus has given to us onto their wounds too. And we're to lift them up out of their estate. And this, this is what it means to be a follower of Christ. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit, you are self-giving love, perfected. God, we have fallen short of your glory, no doubt. We have sinned and are in need of a Savior. And so, Jesus, this morning, we come asking one more time for your salvation. Some of us, this might be the first time, saying, I need a Savior. I need someone to bandage up the wounds that are just too deep. I can't do it myself. Or somebody is lying there saying, I am half dead. I can't do this by myself. And Jesus, we know you are saying to them right now, I am here for you. I am here to bind those wounds and to raise you back to life again. So God, as we prepare our hearts for the communion table, we ask that we do so with sincerity and with gravity, knowing the cost that you have paid — your very life. And that out of this should flow for all of us gratitude, a thanksgiving. And for all this and more, we give you thanks and praise. In Christ's holy name we pray. Amen.‍ ‍South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

A lawyer asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life, and the answer is “love.” Love God and love neighbor. But because the lawyer is practiced in manipulating the law, he follows this up with a question we all secretly ask: who can I exclude from my love? Jesus answers with a story that inverts everything. Not only is the Samaritan the neighbor, he is the very one who does the heart of the law by loving the neighbor, and by virtue of this fact, it is assumed that he is the one to inherit eternal life. Jesus' point is this: if you want to walk the path of abundant life now and eternal life in the future, you must learn to love. Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | June 14, 2026 The Good Samaritan Download Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. What We'll CoverWhy eternal life begins now, not in the next lifeWhy "Who is my neighbor?" is really a question about exclusion and why Jesus refuses to answer it on those termsHow you can tell whether you actually love God (hint: it's not about your feelings on Sunday morning; its about how you love your neighbor)Why love is a verb, and the difference between the right words and the right worksWhat the Samaritan teaches us about empathy and compassionWhy self-giving love isn't a rule we're forced to keep but the design we were made to live Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The Good Samaritan and the Age of Life: Love, Eternal Life, and the Narrow Road of Luke 10 — Sermon TranscriptSouth Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VARev. Dr. Eric GilchrestLuke 10:25–37June 14, 2026 This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Rev. Dr. Eric Gilchrest preaches on the Parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25–37. This sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series and addresses what eternal life actually means in the original Greek, why love and life are inseparable in Jesus' teaching, and how the Good Samaritan parable reveals that walking the narrow road means active, costly, others-centered love. Opening Prayer: A Church on MissionHeavenly Father, we come today offering you thanksgiving for Ian and for Emma, the great work that they're doing at GW, but also for this church and for the work that those who are in these walls do for those who are outside of these walls. We, Lord, desire to be a church on mission, and we need to keep that front and center. And so, Lord, plant it in each of our hearts that as we go where we go throughout the week on Monday and Thursday and random points on a Saturday afternoon, that we be reminded that we bear your image, we bring your word to the world, and we make new disciples. And so, God, we pray all of this in Christ's holy name. Amen. Where We Are in The Jesus Way SeriesWe are in a series on two ways, right? There is the narrow way that leads to abundant life, and this morning we are talking about that way, and the way that Jesus teaches us to walk — a way that leads to abundance and to life eternal. And then the other way we'll get back to next week, and that's the broad way. It's the easy way, frankly, and it's the way that leads to death and destruction. On Father's Day next week, we will cover the lovely topic of gluttony, so you definitely won't want to miss that, dads. You're welcome. For today, though, we are in a parable that you are probably familiar with. Whether you've been around the church much or not, you definitely know what a Good Samaritan is. We even have like Good Samaritan laws, right? Well, I want to dive down deep, and I'll say this whole framing for me — the whole like two ways, the life, death — has become clarifying, we'll say, in ways that I've not anticipated and I have quite enjoyed as we've gone throughout this series. And I almost think of it as like this lens that I take and then I put it over top of the scripture that we're reading and then I kind of see what pops out, like what's new. And so here we are in a very familiar passage and it is, well, it came as a little bit of a surprise to me, exactly how Jesus frames this. So I hope you have a Bible with you. If you don't, go ahead and grab the one that's in front of you — we definitely want to turn to Luke 10 together. Luke 10:25–28: A Lawyer Asks About Eternal LifeSo again, Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25. It starts this way as you're turning there. "Behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test." Here we have lawyers doing what lawyers do, right? A lawyer, though, you should know in this day and age is not what you're thinking of as a lawyer. He does not work for the IRS. He does not do like tax law or something like this. He is a lawyer of the Torah, the Jewish law, right? And so this is a man who knows his law well, but very specifically the first five books of our Bible. And this is going to become important because Jesus is going to say to him, like, what does the law say? Like, what does our Bible say, the one you and I share together, right? And so this lawyer, he has spent lots of time in the law, as we'll see, as good lawyers often do. They know the law in order to kind of skirt through it, and he's trying to do this in this passage, but he actually knows what he's talking about. So the passage goes on, and he says, "Teacher" — rabbi, this is Jesus here, our rabbi, the one we should be listening to and following — "what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And as I'm pulling that lens, remember, and I'm putting it on and I see this phrase, eternal life, I think to myself, well, here it is. This is part of what we're trying to do for this season of our church history — looking at ways that lead to life and ways that lead to death. And here Jesus is being asked like the exact question I'm asking you and I'm trying to get us all talking about, and that I think is of utmost importance. We might even say a matter of life and death. And he says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, if you were asked this question, if somebody on the street came to you, it's worth asking, like, what would you say? How would you answer that question? What "Eternal Life" Actually Means in the Greek: The Age of Life vs. The Age of Death Backing up just a minute, this phrase eternal life needs just a little bit of clarification. The word for eternal here is not exactly the platonic, like, eternal sense that you and I often use it. Now, it might mean that to a degree, but only in like a secondary sense. It actually comes from a Greek word, eon — or the English version is eon. Eon is an age, right? There's one eon, and then there's the next eon, there's one age, and then there's the next age. And he's asking him, well, how do I get myself into the age of life? It's important that you know that there is an age of death — or as Paul calls it, the evil age, right? This age actually is that, right? It's the age that ultimately we all know is hovered over by these two things of sin and death and evil, and it lurks about, and none of us get out of here alive, right? That's why this age is the age of death. And this is why the Bible speaks to this matter over and over and over again. And this is the final enemy, death. And so the man is asking a very good question, which is, how do we make it out of the age of death and then make it into the age of life? And he has in mind — he thinks like a good first century Jew — and I need you to think this way for a second so that we can maybe make it a little more complicated. His timeline goes like this. There's the age in which we live, the age of death. There's then an ending to that, and there is a resurrection that happens of all people, good and bad. And then there's a judgment that happens, and the people are either judged good or bad. And then there is the age of life. That might be how you're thinking of things right now, in fact. But here's the important wrinkle. A resurrection has already happened. A resurrection has already happened. And so when Jesus is resurrected, the timeline gets shoved into the present. And then also, with that happening, there is a real sense in which judgment has also happened, and yet is also going to happen. It's a both-and. And Paul, if we had time, he gives us both of these. But the point is actually this — what Jesus does is he drags eternal life and he puts it smack dab into this life. And this life is where eternal life begins. And he'll say things like, "the kingdom of God is in your midst, is among you." He's referring to himself. He's saying, through me starts this eternal life. It's here and it's now. And so when Jesus is being asked this question — what must I do to enter into this age of life? — he doesn't say it out loud, but he is saying, well, it starts right now. It's not something we're pushing off to the future. We don't just kind of do all the right things now and then punch a ticket and then we get into the thing. No, you're in it right now. Jesus Tosses the Question Back: How Do You Read the Law?And so he says to this lawyer — well, he refuses to answer his question, actually. What does he do? He tosses it right back to him. And he says to him, well, you tell me, you lawyer, you know the law. What's written in the law and how do you read it? I actually love that last question — the "how do you read it" — that is so important. I don't have time to dig down deep here, but just know that we should all be asking, like, how do we read this scripture? Like, how do you read it? We all read it slightly differently, but Jesus wants to teach us how we read our scripture. And so the man says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus, maybe to his shock, certainly to my shock, says, wow, you're correct. You got it right. Like, that is the answer. And in fact, in the other Gospels, Jesus is the one to say these things. Who knows? Maybe this lawyer got it from Jesus. And he says, you're supposed to love God. And by the way, all of those categories — that just simply means your whole being, everything you are. You're just supposed to love God with like every last ounce of who you are. And then love your neighbor as yourself. And this is the simplification of all things. It's the simplification of the law, the scriptures, what God is trying to do with the world. It is just love, right? Love God, love your neighbor. Now, I'd add this. When we talk about loving our neighbor, the Bible breaks down for us to love God with our souls and our minds and our strength and all these various aspects of who we are. And I would say, well, that's just a description of how to love. And we should do the same with the people in our lives. We should love them in similar kinds of ways, with our whole being. "He said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live." Again, there's our word — life, right? Well, how do we live a life? And how do we do it right? And how do we stay on that narrow path? He says, well, do this. The guy gets it. "Who Is My Neighbor?" — The Question Jesus Refuses to Answer DirectlyAnd if we stopped there, we would feel really good about this passage and it'd all be done. But the man, remember, he's a lawyer and he knows his law. And the job of the lawyer is to get around the law and to kind of sneak through it. And so he says the follow-up. He wants to justify himself and says to Jesus, well, excuse me, who is my neighbor? Jesus does not answer this question. I'll just go ahead and say that very clearly here. Jesus does not answer who the neighbor is. He pulls up the example of somebody being a good neighbor — that is the Samaritan — treats the robbed man that we're going to meet here as the neighbor, but the Samaritan is not actually technically the neighbor here. He's the one who's doing it right, who is loving his neighbor well. All of this explodes the boxes that this lawyer no doubt has, and it should explode ours too. And I can't go into exactly what a Samaritan is, but I assure you, the lawyer is thinking the Samaritan is not one of us. Whoever the "us" is for you — not one of us. He's over there. He's one of them. And Jesus is saying, well, look at the them. Whoever your "them" is, they're doing it right. They're the one who's loving well. And it should cause us to stop in our tracks and to ask, well, if they're able to love well, and they're finding what Jesus is calling eternal life or abundant life in this life that's leading to this eternal life, well, maybe I've got some work to do. Jesus replies to the question that the lawyer asks. He doesn't answer it. He, of course, does what Jesus does, which is to either ask a question — which is what he did the first time — or to tell a story, which is what he does this time. Luke 10:30–32: The Priest and the Levite Pass ByAnd so he says, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, there was a priest going down the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Well then likewise, a Levite came to the place, saw him, passed by on the other side." I assure you, the Levite knows the law too, right? And the priest, well, he knows the law too. And Jesus is saying, do the priest or the Levite do the law? That is, do they love their neighbor? And the answer is very clearly no, right? They do not. Luke 10:33–35: The Samaritan and the Meaning of CompassionNow the Samaritan, whether or not he knows the law is actually not exactly clear, and in some ways not even to the point. The Samaritan does the law. He does the thing that should be done here, which is he sees the man half dead, and he goes to help him. I would stop here for just one minute and point out this word to you — compassion, at the end of verse 33. Compassion. This word shows up only three times in your gospel of Luke. It shows up in the following ways. The widow of Nain — Jesus encounters this woman who already is a widow. She's lost her husband. She then loses her son in the story that is being told. And Jesus looks at this woman who has lost her husband and her son, and he has compassion. Which is to say, the word itself means like his insides are like turning outside, and he's like physically in pain watching this woman and is feeling her pain, right? It also shows up in the passage we're going to talk about next week as you join us for gluttony, which is the story of the prodigal son, actually. When the prodigal son returns home from his gluttonous encounters, the father is there and he looks at him from afar and he has compassion on him. His insides are turned outside. And then here, the Samaritan — he looks at this man and he has compassion on him. I would say if we are going to love at all, we need compassion. If we are going to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is going to require us to put ourselves into the very shoes of the neighbor, to walk the mile with them, to see ourselves as the dead man on the side of the road who needs help, and to ask the question, if I were that dead man, what would I want this priest to do for me? If I were that dead man, what should that Levite do? I'm crying out for him, and he walks right on by. That is not keeping the law. But the Samaritan — the Samaritan sees him and is able to put himself into his place and to see the position that he's in, which is helpless, and he has the ability to do something, and he does. Interestingly, this idea of love is then here for the next few verses explained not as a feeling the Samaritan has — because we all have the feeling when we see something bad happen, and we're like, oh, that's awful, oh man, I feel so bad for this person — love requires action. It requires actually doing something, which is precisely what the Samaritan does in the verses that follow. In verse 34, "He went to him, to the man dying on the side of the road, and he bound up his wounds, he poured on oil and wine to heal them, and then he set him on his own animal, and he brought him to an inn, and he took care of him." This doesn't even account for the fact that he took time out of his own, no doubt, busy schedule to stop and to help this man and to assist him to a place. And he probably missed a really important meeting. And I'm sure some friends and some family were probably upset with the Samaritan who was supposed to be home for dinner. And he missed the kid's soccer game. But he did this very important thing that was in front of him. But it doesn't even stop there. "The next day, he took out two denarii. And he gave it to the innkeeper. And he said, take care of him. And if you spend more, keep track of that, because I will repay you when I come back." This is a man who loves in a way that goes above and beyond, and it is active. It's not just a man who walks and says, oh, there's a person that is almost dead over here, and that's tragic, as he keeps walking on by. This is the kind of love that God is calling us into as well, and this is the narrow road that leads to life. You might understand why now it's a narrow road, because it's difficult to walk. It's the road less traveled. It's the one that requires something of you. "Go and Do Likewise": Love and Life Are InseparableAnd then Jesus finishes up. He says, "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" And the lawyer has to confess, well, I guess it's the one who showed mercy. And then Jesus says again, well, you got it right. "Go and do likewise." Go and do likewise. When I think about this passage and this idea that we are to walk down this narrow road that leads to life — life and love, in my mind, are almost like one in the same. They all come together, these two come together in ways that are almost impossible to pull apart as you dig down deeper and deeper and deeper into what a full life is. I was trying to wrestle with the question, why does this road lead to life? Like, why does loving someone lead to life? And here's what I think Jesus is doing. Remember, Jesus has pulled eternal life into this life. The very one that you're in now, listening to me speak. And love in this life, this eternal life we're hopefully, prayerfully in — it is the substance of it all. Love is the design of humanity. It is what we were made for. In Eden, when we were created, we were created to love God. And then it was not good for man to be alone. So he creates Eve, and we were meant to love one another. And then he looks at the first couple and he says, multiply, make more of you, and then love them too. And this is what it's all for and all about. The God who made us is in himself self-giving love — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If the Trinity means one thing, it means pouring out love one to the other to the other. And we are made in that kind of image, which means the great commandment — love God and love neighbor — this is not a rule that gets bolted onto the side of life, as if it's like some sort of external hope that you might do this at some point. It is the manufacturer's description of how this whole thing runs. Withholding love doesn't keep you safe, and spending love doesn't drain your life. Jesus, in fact, says, do these things and you will have life. Jesus Is the Good Samaritan: He Crosses the Road to Find Us Half DeadWe see this love most clearly in the person of Jesus. When he pours himself out on the cross, he redeems us. He snatches us out of death and delivers us into an age of life, eternal life. If Jesus has done this for me, well, then he must love me, right? And if Jesus has done this for you — and he has — then he must love you. But Jesus has loved the whole world and God has sent his son that we all might have eternal life, that we all might be entered into the age of life. And why love? Because God loves you, and he wants us to love one another and to love him as we were intended to do. Communion: The Table as the Place Where Love and Life MeetAs we come to the table this morning, it is important that we recognize that this two-fold command of love — to love God and love our neighbor — it is kind of one thing. I would suggest to you that when God says to us that we are to love him, what he does not mean is that we have like a really nice worship service together and I have all the feels and it's just me and God and I'm loving every minute of it. And I don't even think he means like, well, I love God and therefore I pray every day and I love God and I'm reading my Bible every day. These are all very good things and they actually do lead you to God. So don't misunderstand me. But what I think he means is he pairs that with love your neighbor, because that is the ultimate understanding of whether or not you love God well. Because every person in this room around you right now and every person you've ever met in your life is bearing the image of God. And if you can't love them well, it is worth asking whether you're loving God. And so this morning as we come to the table, we are reminded that Jesus has poured himself out for us. He has shown us what love looks like. He literally puts his hands on the cross like this, and he opens himself up for humanity. And he takes the penalty that was due to us, and he offers us a way to God. I find Jesus directly in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In fact, many interpreters have. It turns out he's not the priest, he's not the Levite, he is the Samaritan, though. He is the outsider, the despised one, yet the one who actually does the law of love. And he comes to our roads where we are lying half dead and he has compassion on us. He looks at us in our estate and he is moved. His insides turn outside. He says, I want something better for this child of mine. I want them to live a full life now, and eternal life forever. This is what I want for them. And so what does he do? He binds up our wounds. He pours the oil and the wine on them. He pays the price. And he promises he will come back to pay the rest of it. And this is what the table is. On the night before Jesus died, he took bread and a cup and he said, this is my body and this is my blood. And it is poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. We have all been robbed by the age of death. But we have also participated in the age of death. And we need forgiveness from that. So Christ, he crosses the road and he offers us a hand up and out of it. And this morning we get to participate in the forgiveness of sins that he offers to each and to every one of us. Our Call: To Be the Samaritan for OthersHe then expects something of us. As people who are walking down that road with him, the dust of the rabbi getting all over us — you remember that? — as we walk that way of love, we then too must take up the role of the Samaritan for the others who are around us. Our job in this world is to bandage those who are hurt and broken and to pour whatever oil and wine Jesus has given to us onto their wounds too. And we're to lift them up out of their estate. And this, this is what it means to be a follower of Christ. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit, you are self-giving love, perfected. God, we have fallen short of your glory, no doubt. We have sinned and are in need of a Savior. And so, Jesus, this morning, we come asking one more time for your salvation. Some of us, this might be the first time, saying, I need a Savior. I need someone to bandage up the wounds that are just too deep. I can't do it myself. Or somebody is lying there saying, I am half dead. I can't do this by myself. And Jesus, we know you are saying to them right now, I am here for you. I am here to bind those wounds and to raise you back to life again. So God, as we prepare our hearts for the communion table, we ask that we do so with sincerity and with gravity, knowing the cost that you have paid — your very life. And that out of this should flow for all of us gratitude, a thanksgiving. And for all this and more, we give you thanks and praise. In Christ's holy name we pray. Amen.‍ ‍South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Deen Salami | Guest Pastor Standing Firm: A Look at Stephen Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript Standing Firm: What Stephen's Martyrdom in Acts 6–7 Teaches Us About Faith Under Fire — Sermon TranscriptSouth Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VA Guest Preacher: Deen SalamiActs 6:8–7:60June 7, 2026This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, guest preacher Deen Salami preaches on the martyrdom of Stephen from Acts 6–7. This sermon addresses how Stephen — an ordinary believer full of faith and the Holy Spirit — stood firm against hate and persecution before the Sanhedrin, what his conduct, his defense, and his death reveal about the cost of following Jesus, and why the church's first martyr was not a tragic accident but a catalyst for the spread of the gospel. Opening: A Passage That Can Almost Preach ItselfI am a little excited today about the message. We've got a lot of ground to cover. There's a large section of scripture that I want us to go through. I'm going to act as your guide. It's not very often that there are passages of scripture that actually can preach themselves. This passage just might be one of them. So what I'd like to do is just to act as your guide. I'll read through big chunks of scripture and I'll just make a couple of observations for us to consider as we do. To do that, though, I'll only need about another hour. Are you guys good with that? I know better than to get in the way of lunch, so I'll make sure that I'll get through this thing in a reasonable amount of time, and I promise we'll survive the experience, all right? All right, why don't you join me in prayer? Gracious God and Father, behold this time. It is you who have called all these people here. None are here by accident. You have assigned me to this task for this day and this hour, and I just pray, Lord God, that you would act and move. Empower now your servant to be able to bring forth this majesty for your people's benefit and for the glory of your great name. May everything that be said and done would be pleasing to you. We pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. Context: Who Was Stephen, and Why Does He Matter?Now, we've already had the first section of our passage read to us. We're going to look at the first martyr of the early church. If you guys know, that is a follower by the name of Stephen. Before he was crucified, Jesus warned the disciples that the world would hate them because of him, and as a result, they would suffer persecution. So how do we stand firm against the hate and persecution? Well, Stephen is going to help us answer that question because he experienced exactly what Jesus said he would. How he handles the hate is a great example for us to follow. Now, again, we've already read that first section in Acts 6:1–8, but as we go into the commentary of it, I want you to consider three simple things: the charges brought before Stephen, his conduct throughout this whole trial, and what it costs him at the end. Three things — charges, his conduct, and the cost. The gospel was being preached early on. It's the early part of the church's existence. The gospel was being preached, and after an early reception by the masses, opposition began to rise, specifically from the religious leaders. Stephen was a Hellenistic Jew, which means that his native tongue was not Aramaic, but it was Greek. He was also a Diaspora Jew, meaning that he was not born and raised inside Israel proper. He was born and raised outside of Israel. He came to Jerusalem, heard the gospel, and became a believer. He was not one of the original 12. He had no special place of prominence. In fact, when we first learn of Stephen a few verses earlier, he was in charge of food distribution for the church. In other words, Stephen was a simple, normal person, just like any one of us. His only desire was to serve and to be used by God. Now look at how he was described in this section. It says that he was full of God's grace and power, and he performed great signs and wonders. Up until this point, that description was only made of the apostles. But he ran into his fellow Diaspora Jews, and they could not withstand him in debate, because the Spirit of God had given him great wisdom. Since they were unable to defeat Stephen in debate, they slandered him, brought him up on trumped-up charges, and dragged him before the Sanhedrin. And this, by the way, is the third time that a follower of Jesus was dragged before the Sanhedrin. The first time it was Peter and John for healing a lame man. But because the crowds were praising God, they let them go. The second time was with all 12 apostles. They were beaten and sternly warned no longer to preach the gospel. This time, the Diaspora Jews were mobilized as a mob against Stephen, and if you were hearing properly and paying attention, you noticed that Stephen is alone. Incidentally, this is the same council that sentenced Jesus to death. The Charges Against Stephen: Disrespecting Moses and the TempleSo let's hear the charges brought against Stephen. It was the disrespect of the law — which is referred to as Moses — and the disrespect of God, the temple, because they believed that God's presence was in the temple. But Stephen is going to take these two charges and turn them on his accusers. But for now, I want to draw your attention to how Luke describes Stephen as he stands before the Sanhedrin. He says that he has the face of an angel. Now, I doubt very much that the Sanhedrin thought Stephen was hot, right? But what is it that made his appearance unmistakable? The question I want us to consider is, how is it possible that a normal person like Stephen — who was not part of the inner circle of Jesus — is able to do the things that Stephen had done and was described the way Luke describes him? Acts 6:5 — Full of Faith and the Holy Spirit: What That Actually MeansAnd I believe that the answer is found in verse 5 of chapter 6. This is the very first description we have of Stephen: he's a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. But the question is, what does that mean exactly? Let me start with full of faith. Because there are three aspects of faith that we see in Stephen. First, there's an intellectual determination. What do I mean by that? It simply means that he's asking himself, is the gospel true, and do I believe it? Am I a sinner, like the gospel says, and do I need a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ? Stephen's answer is yes. The second is, do I trust Jesus? Will I submit my life to him and proclaim him as my Lord? Again, Stephen answers, yes. But finally, will I commit everything to him, even if it means my death? And as we will see, Stephen will answer that question yes as well. But let me ask us all a question here. How are we doing in these three aspects? For most Christians, they're okay intellectually up here. Do I need a Savior? Yes. But it's the other two that they stumble at. Is he actually Lord? Am I running my own life? Do I just need Jesus as an advisor — I'll call on him when I need to? Or is he actually Lord? Do we actually commit our lives to him, willing to die? Because Stephen was all in with Jesus, it gave the Holy Spirit free reign to use Stephen any way he wanted. Not like a puppet, but as an active and willing partner in the work of advancing the kingdom. It's like the Fellowship of the Ring. Do you guys remember the Fellowship of the Ring? Remember when Frodo said he was going to go and take the ring to Mordor? Aragorn said to him, if by my life or death I can protect you, I will. Why? Because the fate of Middle Earth hung in the balance, right? But for us today, it's the souls — the eternal souls of people — that hang in the balance. And the only hope for them is Jesus Christ. Amen? If by our life or death, if we have the opportunity to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, will we? Are we all in like Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit? What the Sanhedrin saw in Stephen was the very presence of the divine emanating from him. But let's move on and see what happens next. Acts 7:1–16: Stephen's Defense Begins — Summarizing Genesis 12 Through Exodus 1 from Memory I'm going to read from chapter 7, verse 1. "Then the high priest asked Stephen, are these charges true? To this he replied, brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. Leave your country and your people, God said, and go to the land I will show you. So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no children. God spoke to him in this way, for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, God said, and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place. Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later, Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs. Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace. Then a famine struck all of Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit. On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was. And Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family. After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, 75 in all. Then Jacob went down to Egypt where he and our ancestors died. Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money. And as the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die." Now, for those of you who may have picked up on it, Stephen just summarized Genesis 12 all the way through Exodus 1. Genesis 12 is where we have God's promise to bless the world through Abram. Stephen starts there and ends in Exodus chapter 1. That is approximately 39 chapters that he summarized from memory under pressure. Now, if you were on the Sanhedrin, what would you be thinking right now about the charge of disrespecting the law? At least at this point, it looks like that charge is on kind of shaky ground. In fact, some of the Sanhedrin might be looking at Stephen and secretly giving him a thumbs up. Way to go, bro. Good job, all right? Why Stephen Uses Geography and the Stories of Joseph and Moses StrategicallyWhat I don't want you to miss, though, is how Stephen is telling this story. I want you to notice the way Stephen is making use of geography — Mesopotamia, Haran, Israel, Egypt. He is summarizing what God did in those places, but why is he doing this? Also, I want you to keep in mind what he says about Joseph and his brothers. I'm going to develop that here in a minute. Just be patient, okay? Now, before we move on, I want to highlight how Stephen addresses his adversaries. To the mob, he refers to them as brothers. To the Sanhedrin, he refers to them as fathers. This mob who dragged him forcefully before the Sanhedrin, and this council that not only sentenced Jesus to death but beat the 12 apostles — the question on the table is, why is Stephen so cordial? A few observations. First, he does not seem to be taking their behavior toward him personally. The moment is not lost on Stephen. He's acutely aware of the danger he is in, but he remembers his mission, which was the same as Jesus. He does not want to condemn them. He wants them to know the truth. So he speaks to them in a way fitting that purpose. He does not retaliate against them for mistreating him. Second, Stephen understands that their behavior is symptomatic of a bigger issue. He knows what the Apostle Paul will later go on to understand and share with Timothy. As we read in 2 Timothy 2:25–26, Paul says this: "Opponents must be gently instructed in the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will." Stephen understands that these people have been taken captive by the devil so that they would do his will. But Stephen hopes that they will come to their senses. So he begins by instructing them gently. And in his approach, Stephen is reflecting the very heart of God. Back in Ezekiel 33:11, we hear God say this: "As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways. Why will you die, people of Israel?" Stephen does not clap back at them. Third, he is gentle because he is focused. He knows it's not about him. This encounter is much bigger than Stephen, and he is keenly aware of it, and we can tell by the way he conducts himself. It's a powerful lesson for us today, isn't it? If we're going to stand firm against hate and persecution, we will resist the urge to take people's behavior toward us personally. We remember that their behavior is symptomatic of a bigger issue. They are captives of the devil, and what we want to stay focused on is our mission to be active agents in freeing them through spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now one last point before we move on. We are 19 verses into Stephen's speech and in all his words, Stephen is not trying to defend himself. He has not yet answered the question that was put before him: are these charges true? He hasn't quite answered that question, at least not directly. Acts 7:20–43: Moses, the Burning Bush, and the Pattern of Rejected MessengersBut let's get back to the rest of Stephen's speech, because I think we'll find some more for us to consider. "Now at that time, Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months, he was cared for by his family. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. The next day, Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you want to hurt each other? But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons. After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say, I am the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt. This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, who made you ruler and judge. He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for 40 years in the wilderness." Once again, Stephen has done an excellent job in summarizing that next section. He pretty accurately brings the story to the lawgiver himself, the man Moses. But let me begin to tie some pieces of this puzzle together for us. Stephen brings up Joseph and Moses very strategically. Joseph, with his dreams, and Moses, even at his birth, were both marked by God for God's use and for the good of his people. But in both cases, they were originally rejected. In other words, our ancestors, says Stephen, missed God's messengers the first time. Even though the signs were there, they rejected their God-appointed leaders the first time. And Stephen is about to be very clear about the implications of this for them. He mentions God being with Moses in Midian and in Egypt. All the geographical references that Stephen has made is the point he's taking aim at — the misunderstanding of the temple. They refer to the temple as this holy place. But yet Stephen reminds the Sanhedrin that when Moses was in Midian on Mount Sinai, Moses was commanded to remove his sandals because where he was standing was holy ground. So which is it? Is it the holy ground that Moses was standing on in Mount Sinai in Midian? Or is it this holy place, the temple in Jerusalem? Wherever the presence of God touches down becomes holy. What Stephen is saying is that God is not bound by any single location. This is what the Sanhedrin failed to see in their attempt to defend the temple. And it is a pattern that Stephen is pointing out for them. In addition, Jesus sternly rebuked the religious leaders when he turned over the tables of the money changers and called the temple a den of thieves, because they were keeping people from God. God had left the building, and they were completely oblivious. Let me highlight the wisdom Stephen is using here. First, he knows the word and how to apply it to the situation he is presently in. Second, he understands the charges brought against him and how to use those same charges to highlight the error of his accusers. And finally, he does not lose focus of his mission. And the question on the table for us is, if we were under this pressure, could we do the same? Acts 7:44–53: Stephen Flips the Script — You Are the Ones Who Violated the LawNow Stephen is about to end his time with the Sanhedrin, and it's going to be a colossal end. Let's finish reading. "This is the Moses who told the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people. He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living words to pass on to us. But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him, and their hearts turned back to Egypt. They told Aaron, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in it in what their own hands had made. But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon, and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: did you bring me sacrifices and offerings 40 years in the wilderness, people of Israel? You have taken up the tabernacle of Molech and the star of your God Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore, I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build me, says the Lord? Or where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things? You stiff-necked people, your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You were just like your ancestors. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. You who have received the law that was given through angels, but have not yet obeyed it." Stephen ends his speech with a powerful rebuke of the Sanhedrin and this mob. The history of the Jewish people had been one of rebellion, culminating in the murder of Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah. Just as they did with Joseph and Moses, they missed Jesus the first time. I want you to underline verse 53. Stephen courageously tells the truth and provides a proper diagnosis of their problem. In so doing, he flips the script. So you accuse me of violating the law and desecrating the temple? I'm not guilty of either one of these, but you are. The evidence he provides is rightly in the law of Moses, and he records the embarrassing incident with the golden calf. This was abject idolatry, which got them exiled, and it's clear that their stubborn rebellion continued to blind them. Making the Means the End: The Sanhedrin's Fatal Error with the Law and the TempleThe inherent problem the Sanhedrin and the mob suffered from was that they made the means the end and did away with the end itself. What do I mean by that? Well, in Galatians 3:24–25, Paul says this: "So the law was our guardian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian." The law was the means by which we would be ready for Christ, who was literally the end of the law — he was what the law was preparing us for. But they made the means, the law, the end, and did away with the end itself, Jesus. Jesus says the same thing about the temple. In Mark 11:17, Jesus says this: "My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." The temple was the means by which all the nations would come to know who God is and pray to him. They turned the temple into a money-making machine, and they did away with God altogether. It's the same pattern. Acts 7:54–60: The Stoning of Stephen — Dying Like His LordLike all who stubbornly live in rebellion and refuse to hear the truth, they go after Stephen. "When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of the young man named Saul. And while they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. When he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of their killing." Stephen took a bold stand and it cost him his life. But here's the beauty of this passage. Stephen died in the same way his Lord did. He dies praying for the forgiveness of the people stoning him, just like Jesus. And because Stephen was so faithful to his call, the heavens opened so that Stephen sees the Lord Jesus rise from his throne to welcome his faithful servant home. How to Stand Firm Against Hate and Persecution: Look Up, Not AroundHow do we stand firm in the face of hate and persecution? First and foremost, we look up, not around. We look to Jesus. We need to be focused on Jesus because he is all he's asking us to be, and he has done all he's asking us to do. That includes suffering for his sake. Second, we need to remember one important thing. We're not simply spectators or victims. We are active agents of change. In other words, we do not lose sight of the mission, because this is why we are here. You know, I know some people — I've spoken to some people about this passage — and they seem to think that it's unfair for Stephen to have died. After all, why couldn't God have saved him? He saved the apostles. He saved John and Peter. Why couldn't he have saved Stephen? But if we read Acts 1:8, where Jesus told the disciples that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and in the uttermost parts of the world, we begin to realize one important thing. Up until this point, guess where the church was localized? Jerusalem. Guess where they had their small groups? Jerusalem. Guess where they had their worship time? Jerusalem. But where were they supposed to go? But after Stephen was killed, we read this: "On that day, a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria." Stephen's death was the catalyst for the advancement of the gospel outside of Jerusalem. Remember, our faith is not a faith that we simply talk about. Our faith is a full contact sport. If by my life or death I can advance the gospel, I will. Stephen did it by his death. Closing: Active Agents of God's Redemptive WorkLet me read you one quote as I close. It says, "Suffering becomes the ongoing evidence that creation awaits restoration. And believers, bearing God's image and indwelt by the Spirit, participate in that redemptive work. Rather than passive victims of evil, they become agents through whom God's original creative intention progressively reasserts itself against the disorder introduced by sin." Will you be a part of that? Because this is our purpose. And once we understand our purpose and totally embrace it, then we look at the world very differently. We can stop asking why the world is the way it is. Because that's really the wrong question. The right question is, what are we going to do about it? Because we are supposed to be the active and willing participants in God's redemptive work. Is this work dangerous? Yeah. Stephen found that out very clearly. Remember, Jesus died for us first. So it is not like God is asking us to throw away our lives cavalierly. Far from it. Stephen understood the stakes and was keenly aware of the moment. But he determined that his life was worthy of sacrificing for the gospel. He stood firm. Can we? Let me pray. Our gracious God and Father, we thank you for this time that we can be in your word. We are reminded, Lord, that it's you who preserved your word, lo, these 2,000 years for us, this generation of believers, to learn and glean from. I pray, Father, for whatever lessons that may have been brought out here, that those seeds would be scattered in the hearts of your people and that they would grow into folks that would stand firm for the advancement of the gospel. Our only desire, Lord God, is like Stephen. We ask humbly that you would use us as we serve, and that you would be glorified. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

What is enough? How do you know when you have enough? Is the answer: “Just a little more . . .”? If so, you're not alone, but you're also on a dangerous road. From the rich fool who built bigger barns to the algorithm that lives in our pocket, something has always been working to convince us that the next thing is the thing that will finally make us secure. But Jesus names a deeper truth: greed isn't really about money at all. It's about where we go for safety, and whether we trust our stuff or our Father to be the ground beneath our feet. Greed Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | May 31, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. This Sunday we're exploring:The rich fool of Luke 12 and how building a bigger barn was a dangerous replacement for the work only God can doHow the algorithm and our social media networks form us every day into people who can never quite be satisfiedGreed as a trust problem: the quiet transfer of our security from God to the things in our closets or our bank accountsWhy the offering plate is one of the most counter-cultural things we do — and how the practice of charity and generosity is an important way we take the offramp from greed back onto the narrow road that leads to abundant life Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript South Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VAPastor Eric GilchrestMark 3:1–6; Matthew 5:21–22; Exodus 34:6–9; Jonah 4May 10, 2026 — Mother's DayThis is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Pastor Eric Gilchrest preaches on anger and wrath as part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series on the seven deadly sins. Drawing from Mark 3, Genesis 4, Exodus 34, Jonah 4, and Matthew 5, this sermon takes the congregation on a biblical tour of what Scripture says about anger — the difference between righteous and unrighteous anger, what Jesus' own anger reveals about the nature of God, and how to keep the fire in the fireplace. Announcements: Bridge Walkers and a Joint Service on May 31stGood morning, friends. It's good to be with you. Before we get started, there's just a couple things I want to say. There's something that I haven't alerted you to yet, but this is as good a time as any. So a few weeks ago, right before Easter, I was invited into a group of pastors who met over the course of two days, and there was an evening together. We stayed at a hotel. There was a grant connected to it. And it was a group of white pastors and a group of black pastors in the area here, in the Virginia, D.C., Maryland area. And the hope of this — it's a group called Bridge Walkers, which gets its name from the walk from Selma to Montgomery back in the 60s. And as somebody who lived right outside of Selma in Marion, Alabama, I know the scene well. In fact, I was there at the 50th anniversary of it in 2013, and it was a really powerful event. And so the meeting was one that I definitely wanted to participate in. And as we gathered together, we had some really frank discussions about race in the United States and in the church, and how we can be, as a church, agents of reconciliation.And so the fruit of this and the hope of where this all goes is for our churches of these pastors to do some things together over the coming year or two. And so the first of these is coming up May 31st, which happens to be the exact same day as the picnic. I did not get to pick this, it just kind of happened this way, which is in part why we are holding the picnic immediately after the service. And Jeff was right. I will be dressed for the part, and I need you to be dressed for the part too. The picnic will be fun. We'll have games. We'll drag stuff out. But then we wanted to give enough time for those of you who would like to attend this service to get home, maybe take a nap, or do whatever you do on your Sunday afternoons. And then at 6 p.m., it's up in Glen Arden, Maryland, we will have the first of these services together. I don't know what to expect, but I do expect that God will move, and I expect the Holy Spirit to be present, and I expect some of our preconceived notions to be challenged. I expect transformation is always beckoning us, and I am deeply hopeful for what might come out of this. So put that on your calendar. This is May 31st, just right around the corner, and it is 6 p.m. that evening.Happy Mother's Day: A Childhood Binder and a Mom Who Saw All of YouToday is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to the mothers and the spiritual mothers in the room. I was trying to think of what to say at this point, and what came to mind was a collection of photos that I found from my childhood that my mom had gathered together. It was one of those binders that back in the 1998 time frame when I graduated from high school, that people would put photos into and they'd put words about what was happening at that time. And my mom was way into this. And so she chronicled my whole childhood from zero to 18 and then presented me with this big binder. And now as a father of an 18-year-old, I think about that a little differently.And I think about what it means to be a dad, only because I can't think about what it means to be a mom, because I'm not one. But I know this much on the receiving end of it all. I had a wonderful mom who looked after me in ways that I don't think I'll ever be able to fully appreciate. She saw every last bit of me and who I was, and she was there every step of the way, even if I didn't realize it. And so for all the moms in the room, I am grateful. We are all grateful. And for those of us who have moms who are still alive, may we reach out to them today and give them the thanks that they deserve.Let's begin with some prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray a special prayer of blessing over the mothers in this room today. Lord, the kind of love that you call us into, that agape love, a self-giving kind of love, I can think of no better human example than what mothers do on a day-to-day basis for their children. And so, God, may we all aspire to that. We give you thanks for them, and we give you praise for that kind of love, and may we be drawn into being those kinds of people too. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.The Jesus Way Series: Vanity, the Seven Deadly Sins, and Today's Stop — Anger All right, we are — if you don't know — we are on a road together, a path, right? And this began a few weeks ago. Well, I mean, it kind of began a long time ago, but we're on this transformation kick. But then since Easter, we've been walking in these two ways. And I've been trying to show you that there is this narrow way, right? It's the way that Jesus is drawing us into. It's narrow because fewer people choose it. It's a little hard. There's more friction to it. It requires something of you to be on it. But it is the way to life and to fullness of life and to eternal life. And this is what Jesus is trying to get us to do. But then there is this other way. There's this broad way. It's bigger and wider, and it's much easier to find yourself on it. And it's marked by a number of things. And so two weeks ago, we talked about vanity as one of the markers of this way. And it's easy to just kind of slide into vanity. And then today, we're talking about the broad way again. And I want to talk about anger. And I know it's Mother's Day. So apologies ahead of time for this. I do want you to know there was a toss-up between this and gluttony. And so I put gluttony on Father's Day. So, you know, you can get ready for that too. And I'll say, all of the analogies are aimed at the men in the room today. So all the stories — you know, like I'm looking at guys here — women, you get the day off. So you're welcome. All right, so just clarify a couple things up front. I originally had the name wrath for this sermon, and I was afraid that it might draw up like the wrong image for you. But here's the truth of the matter. The word anger and the word wrath — actually, it's the same thing. The roots of these are the same, like the down deep parts of it. They're just two different words for the same thing. The goal of what I want to accomplish in this sermon today is to really lean into the middle section of this rotten tree that stands before you. We've already touched on vanity, the far left, and we'll get to each of these branches at some point over the weeks here. And then just to remind you, at the base of all of this is your pride and your ego. It's kind of the thing that is the last thing that will die in this earth, right? Because if you could just simply root that part out, then it would take care of the rest. But pride is much trickier than simply just plucking it out like a weed. It has roots that go much deeper than you or I can really frankly imagine. So today we're just focusing on the middle one. We're talking about wrath or anger. And I have thoroughly enjoyed this. Maybe I enjoy it too much. I'm realizing this right now as I said that. I have like a thousand things I want to tell you, and I will only tell you maybe ten of those. And so if you think to yourself, well, Pastor Eric, I wish you had talked about this — I probably could have and maybe should have. But I'm glad that you're leaning in and you're really digging into what you need to know about anger and wrath. Also, it's a pitch to come to Sunday morning Bible study where we do go deeper for a whole hour on this topic. The goal of the sermon is, with the theme of roads and ways and all, to take you on a tour — like a driving tour of your Bible — and the things that it has to say about anger. Think of it this way. We've got a few key destinations I'm trying to get us to. And then as we go to those destinations, there's like bathroom stops I want to point us at, or maybe just a couple things that you should have in your view as we head to these main stops. First Stop — Mark 3:1–6: Jesus Gets Angry in the Synagogue The first stop is the one we read already, which is Mark chapter 3. And so I'd encourage you, please, open your scriptures, open your Bibles to Mark chapter 3 as we dig into what Jesus demonstrates for us about anger. Mark 3:1 to 6. Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, come over here. And then he said to the Pharisees, he said, is it lawful? Does the law permit? Does your Bible tell me that it's okay to do good or harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill it? He's asking them, how do you read your Bible? What's the right thing to do here? But they were silent.And then he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he said, I'm going to teach you how to read your Bible. And I'm going to teach you what it looks like to keep the Sabbath. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out and they immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him.There are two angry parties here. Jesus gets angry and clearly the Pharisees do as well as they seek to destroy him by the end. There are just a few things that I want to point to in this passage that will become important. And the goal as we make these stops on this journey together is to maybe build up a case of the kinds of things we can say about anger based on what we find in our scriptures. The first would be simply that Jesus does get angry. And it's actually okay for you to be angry too sometimes — with a huge caveat around it. Because anger is actually one — it's the only sin on the list of the seven deadly sins — that it's okay to, we'll say, participate in when it's not a sin. The sin looks a whole lot like the not-sin. It's the only one that looks like this. Knowing how to distinguish between the sinful version of anger and the righteous version of anger, it takes wisdom and it takes maturity. I don't recommend it to the littlest ones among us. It's a little bit like holding a knife. Like, you want to teach someone how to do this and to train them well, or they're going to do what? They're going to cut someone, maybe themselves. And anger is much the same way. And we need to learn how to use it in a controlled manner.But Jesus does get angry. And then I'll say this about his anger. If you read closely, what is he angry at? It's actually remarkably precise here in Mark. He's angry at their hardness of heart. He's not precisely angry at them, just generally, as if Pharisees are awful people or something like this. No, he's angry at something specific. The object that he's directing his anger at is their hardness. There's something in them. And he says there's something really wrong with that. And it provokes some anger in him.The other thing I'd say is that his anger is connected to justice, which is what anger is always connected to, by the way. Usually — well, actually both in the righteous form and the unrighteous form. When something's gone wrong in the world, righteous anger says, something's wrong with the world, and I want to fix it. When anger is unrighteous, usually you're saying, something's wrong with my world, and I want to fix that. The last thing I'd say about this passage is maybe the most important of them all, which is that if you really look closely at verse 5 there, it says this: he looked around at them with anger, grieved. Two emotions are sitting together — anger and grief. Anger and grief. How does one have anger and grief sitting side by side? Well, the only way is if you manage to find empathy for the one you are angry with. It's when moms and dads say it — and I promise they mean it, kids — when they say, this is harder for me than for you. Well, they mostly mean it. I feel grief over having to discipline. I feel grief because I want your world to be right. And Jesus here is feeling grief for the Pharisees, saying, I wish your hearts were not so hard. I could teach you a better way. I could teach you a way to life.Thumos and Orge: Two Greek Words for Anger in the New TestamentAll right, let's keep going on our journey here. Actually, let me pause one more minute. This is a good opportunity to introduce two words that appear in our New Testament. Both of them are words for anger, and they are thumos and orge. It's a hard G. We're still talking about the sin of anger here. Thumos and orge.I want you to think about anger as a fire. This is the metaphor for anger often. And fire, much like a knife, is something that can do damage or it can do good. Thumos is the damaging kind. It flames up quickly. It's the road rage. It's somebody getting upset, right? And it's named specifically in Galatians 5:20 and Ephesians 4:31, if you want to look those up. Galatians 5:20 is right next to the fruit of the Spirit. You know the fruit of the Spirit? These are the ones we love to talk about. But there's the fruit of the flesh right before it. And in this fruit of the flesh is thumos. It's that anger that rages up, right? This is what we're trying to avoid.But the one next to it is orge. And orge — sometimes it is unrighteous anger, it's not always righteous — but it is a controlled anger. It has some measure of control around it, as I say, a controlled burn, right? There are times where if there's a fire in your fireplace, that's a great thing, and it's controlled. But if that fire jumps out of your fireplace and is uncontrolled and creeps up the walls, now we've got a different kind of problem. Our goal today is to learn how to keep that fire in the fireplace.Pit Stop — Genesis 4:3–7: Cain's Anger and the Sin Crouching at the Door All right, we'll move on. We need to take a quick pit stop, however, on this journey and look at Genesis chapter 4, verses 3 to 7. This is the famous story of Cain and Abel. You probably know what happens to Abel and then maybe to Cain. Cain murders his brother. But before he does, we read a little bit about how this gets set up.In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering. But for Cain and his offering, he did not And so what happens? Well, Cain was very angry, and here we see the burning starts, right? The fire begins to burn. And Cain's face fell, and the Lord said to Cain — the question you should be asking yourself this morning — which is, why are you angry? Why are you angry? When you get angry, why? What is under that for you? It's a very good question. And why has your face fallen? And then he says — God says to him — if you do well, won't you be accepted? And if you do not do well, and here's the key, "sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must master it."And what is the sin here? The sin is anger, and it's burning in him. And he says, you must master it, you must keep this in the fireplace. And if you don't keep this in the fireplace, it's going to destroy everything. We know exactly what happens. The sin that was crouching does what? It leaps out of that fireplace, and Cain kills his brother. And we have the first murder in all of Scripture.Murder is a terrible sin. It's actually not one of the deadly sins, is it? It's not one of the seven. Because underneath murder — and Jesus teaches us this in Matthew 5 — underneath murder sits the thing that's in our heart. We call that anger. Second Stop — Exodus 34:6–9: God Reveals His Nature as Slow to AngerAll right, the next stop on our tour is Exodus chapter 34, verses 6 to 9. I would encourage you, go ahead and pull your Bibles there now. Exodus 34:6–9. This is where Moses is up on the mount, Mount Sinai. He's getting the Ten Commandments. But in this very important scene, God reveals his nature to him. And he tells us, and he reports to us, what kind of God he is.And I'll say God is angry at times. God can have wrath. I do not deny this, and I don't want to even diminish this in any way. But I'd encourage you as we read through this to recognize a very important fact — that even for God, maybe especially for God, who is perfection and the thing that we are trying to strive for — God's wrath and anger flows from his love. Love is the primary, and out of that flows his anger. You might wonder, well, Eric, how in the world does that work? That doesn't seem obvious to me at all. But I would point us back to maybe Mother's Day or the fathers in the room. When you get angry as a parent, like in a good way, a good angry, when you see your child being hurt by somebody and that mama bear rage wells up — why? Because you want to protect your child. An injustice has happened or is about to happen and you want to protect them. God is not dissimilar. He knows what is good for us. He knows when the world is off kilter. He knows when you are off kilter. And he knows that when it is and when you are, that this is destructive to you. And he wants to save you from your destruction. And we call this anger. And it's him maybe punishing or reaching out and trying to fix the situation. And sometimes — and parents know this — the discipline requires something harsh.So it goes like this in verse 6. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed. And this is what the Lord is saying about himself. "The Lord, Yahweh" — and he says it twice, Yahweh, Yahweh — "I am a God who is merciful and gracious, and I'm slow to anger." And there it is, right? I'm not quick to anger. I am slow to anger. I am gracious. I'm merciful. I'm slow to anger. I abound in this. The word here is hesed. It's a steadfast love. It is a love that never quits. It is like a mother's love — like, you can do all kinds of things, but your mom is just going to love you throughout and throughout and throughout. And this is what God is saying of his very self, that he has this kind of hesed love, a steadfast love, of faithfulness. And he keeps steadfast love for thousands. And more than that, he's forgiving. And he forgives all the kinds of words for sin that appear in your Old Testament. Sometimes we call it iniquity, sometimes transgression, and sometimes sin. And he says, I'm willing to forgive all of these things. He then does go into the fact that he is a just God, and there needs to be justice. And so he says he doesn't clear the guilty just by virtue of wiping it away. And he, in fact — and this needs some explanation, and fortunately this is going to have to wait for another day — he visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children so that the third and the fourth generation, they sometimes feel the effects of the father's sin. I think you know this to be true just if you look through your family history and you think about your father and his father and his father and the ways in which their failures have a way of creeping through a family line. I think that's what God is teaching us here.And so Moses quickly bows his head toward the earth and he worshiped and he said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, oh Lord, please let this God — let you, God, the one who is merciful and slow to anger — that is the God we need in our midst. Because we're a stiff-necked people and we need you to pardon our iniquity."This is a remarkable passage in its historical context. There are lots of gods in the ancient world, if you don't know. There's a group that's praying to a God named Asherah at this point. And that God happens to be really good at fertility matters. Or there's the folks who are crying out to Baal. And Baal is one of these like really fickle gods who may get angry with you and then doesn't. And you never know who you're going to get with Baal. Or if you fast forward in time, you might get the God of Mars, who is the God of war. And that's the God you're going to meet in the pages of history.But this God, Yahweh, is unlike all the other gods. There is no other God named in history, certainly at this point, who describes himself in the ways that our God describes himself. This description literally changes the course of history. Because we should look to our God, to this God, and say to ourselves, thanks be to God that you are the God who is all of these things, and especially the God who is slow to anger.This passage is, again, as I said, one of the most important in all of the Old Testament, and we know this with certainty because — I've just got a couple here, Psalm 30 and Micah 7 — but you could do a Google search later on how many passages from the Bible as a whole, but especially our Old Testament, appeal to and quote from Exodus 34, and you'll be amazed. The Bible repeats this part of the Bible over and over and over again. Psalm 103, Nehemiah 9, Psalm 86, Joel 2 — or the next stop on our journey, Jonah chapter 4.Third Stop — Jonah 4: HOT Anger and Everything Jonah Gets WrongLet's turn there together. Jonah chapter 4. Jonah is a troubled prophet. I would encourage you, whatever you do, do not look to Jonah as an exemplar. He will let you down. Jonah is one of these — actually he's the only prophet who I can really say that about. The whole book is an upside-down prophet. He's not doing what he should be doing, and he's doing what he should not be doing, and we see this ever so clearly in chapter 4 here.We'll read it. For the sake of time, I'm not going to spend nearly as much time in it, but what we see is an angry prophet. Now, prophets are actually often angry. You should know this. The other prophets are too. They're just angry, typically in the righteous kind of way, because again, if justice is the name of the game for anger — the prophets are looking out and they're seeing injustice and unrighteousness everywhere. And they're shouting at their people, you got to fix this. And they're angry with them. And they say, the world's not right, and it should be. And you need to be doing something about it. Jonah is angry as well, much like the prophets. But he is, we'll say, more self-centered than he should be. And so it goes like this. If you don't know the story of Jonah, the lead up to this point is that he has taken his word of disaster to the Ninevites, and he has said, you need to repent. And they said, okay, we will. And they did. And then God relents, and he does not destroy them. And Jonah is not pleased with this. Chapter 4, starting in verse 1: "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." There you go. It's just kind of on the face of it. He's displeased. He's angry. What's he angry about? That God was the merciful God. He wanted the war God, the wrath God. He wanted Mars. He wanted Baal. But instead, he got Yahweh. And he prayed to the Lord. And he said, "Oh Yahweh, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish." If you don't know that part of the story, he didn't even want to go to Nineveh at all, and so he fled. And so he says, this is why I left. I didn't want to come here. And then he just says it outright. "I knew you were a gracious God. You were merciful. You are slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster." He said, this is why I didn't want to come. I was looking for Mars. I was looking for the God of war. I wanted you to come in and destroy this whole place. And I knew, I knew you wouldn't do it.Jonah's upset. Does he have a righteous anger? Let's all say it together. No. No, he doesn't. He's showing us all the wrong ways. And he goes on: "Therefore now, Lord, please take my life from me." Twice he's going to ask for this — "for it's better for me to die than to live." And then God asks him the same question, or a similar question to the one Cain gets, right? Do you do well to be angry? Again, the question maybe you're being asked right now. Do you do well to be angry? And Jonah went out of the city, and he sits east of the city, makes a booth for himself there. He sat under the shade till he should see what would become of the city. And the Lord God appointed a plant to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head to save him from the discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of this plant. But when dawn came the next day, God appoints a worm that attacks the plant and it withers. And when the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that again he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. And God asks another time, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And Jonah says, yes. Wrong answer, Jonah. But he says, yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. And the Lord said — and here's the convicting part — he says, you're angry about all the wrong things. Your anger is an unrighteous anger. You're targeting the wrong targets. You are not upset about what I get upset about. Your anger is self-serving. This is what he's saying when he says in verse 10: "You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. But shouldn't I have pity on Nineveh, a great city in which there are more than 120,000 souls? Shouldn't I care about that? Shouldn't I have pity on those people? And shouldn't you too, Jonah?"And then the story ends very abruptly. It's kind of one of these where you feel like maybe there's a missing chapter somewhere and someday we'll uncover it. But for today, this is what we get.Diagnosing Your Anger: The HOT Framework — Wrong Heat, Wrong Object, Wrong TimingThere's a few things from this that I want to kind of put into your cap to maybe help you remember something about anger that will help you diagnose it later on. I'm calling this HOT — H-O-T — hot, Jonah's hot anger. So there's the wrong heat, which is to say the wrong heat level. He gets too angry about the wrong things. His anger is the wrong intensity — he gets so angry about this plant. But he's not angry about the right things with regard to the people. And then the wrong object, right? The wrong object of his anger. So he's angry not about what is just or unjust. He's instead angry at God. He's angry at God's mercy and ultimately at the loss of this plant. He's very interested in this plant. And then lastly, the timing of it all is wrong. He stays angry for too long and it burns for too long. He's still upset about leaving Tarshish. He brings that back up, right? That was sitting somewhere in his heart that he didn't even want to go at all. And so he's mad at God for taking him out of Tarshish and his own land and heading over to Nineveh. And he's holding this grudge.But all of this speaks something to your anger and my anger, which is sometimes our anger is too hot for the situation. And when the kid spills the milk at the table and you blow up — is that the right heat level? No. No, it's not. The object of our anger — maybe you do blow up at the table, Dad. And you get angry with the kid in that moment. But that's not even the object of your anger. You're angry from work earlier that day where your boss said something to you that you didn't like. And now you're upset generally speaking, and then when the kid spills the milk, you yell at him. That is not the object of your anger. Don't take it out on him. Or the timing of it all — maybe you've been holding this grudge for years, and you've just been gathering it over time. This is why we need to forgive, and we need to reduce our resentments. And if we are going to walk this Jesus way, the way that leads to life, it is going to require some wisdom around all three of these things. Final Stop — Matthew 5:21–22: Jesus on Anger, Murder, and What's Sitting in Your HeartAll right, one more stop on the way. This one's Matthew 5:21 and 22. This is Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. This is perhaps the passage maybe I should have preached from, so I am. "You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry" — and there Jesus is just calling it out for us, even if you've got anger in your heart — "will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire."There's a lot in this passage. A lot can be said, so I'll just keep it simple. If anger is sitting at the root of this and it's sitting in our hearts, there are any number of fruit that can come out of that anger. Sometimes it's murder. I hope that's not the case for any of us. But sometimes it's just calling someone, you fool, you idiot. Or maybe it's just the rolling of your eyes at that person you think is an idiot. Or maybe it's you online. Maybe it's what you're saying in the comment box, right? To say, you don't know what you're talking about. And it's a self-righteous kind of anger. And it sits there and it burns.And here's what I'd say about all this. There is a destruction that is happening. Jesus calls this the way of destruction for a reason. Because you are aiming at God, believe it or not, when your anger is unrighteous. Because you are saying, the world is not as it should be, and I don't trust God to fix it. So I am going to fix it myself. And then the damage you're doing is all around you too. This one's a little more obvious — if you walk through the world and you're an angry person, constantly throwing barbs at other people, you are affecting them. You are changing the climate of the room when you just simply walk into it. But then also, what may be missed is that you — you are destroying yourself from the inside out.And it may actually feel good to be angry. I learned this. I didn't realize. I am a non-confrontational person by nature. I don't like conflict. But I have learned over the years some people love conflict. They actually like the fight. To them, it feels good. It feels like you're alive. But what's happening in that situation, and really any situation where anger is burning within you, is that from the inside out, you are being hollowed out. Three Antidotes to Anger: Soft Answers, Lament, and HopeThere are some antidotes to anger, and I will keep these brief, and three. One, Proverbs 15:1 tells us that a soft answer turns away wrath. Jesus teaches us the gentle way, the gentleness, gentle startups. This is always the first step forward. Anger might come way down the road, right? But you need to be slow to it. Number two, lament. Learn to grieve like Jesus grieves in Mark 3. Learn to grieve even alongside your anger. And I would encourage us mere mortals — unlike Jesus, us mere mortals — we should probably start with grief and allow the anger to follow, because it's going to be a much more trustworthy form of anger if we do. And the last thing is hope. Hope. You see, the angry person, as they rage at God — Jonah, as he rages at God — ultimately is saying, I don't trust you, God. I don't trust your way to be the right way. But we need to be people of hope and people of faith who trust that even though it seems like the world is all cattywampus — and it is, like it's all upside down — we hope and we trust that the God of the universe is fixing all the things. And we play our part. And we live as people who expect the unrighteous to receive their due reward and for the wrongs to be made right again. And that we only have control over ourselves and our hearts. And so we better take control of them, lest that fire jump out of the fireplace and begin to burn the house down all around us. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, you are a passionate God. We are to be passionate people. And some of the angriest among us can show us something about what it means to have passion. But God, it can be dangerous to hold that fire. And so, Lord, we ask for your wisdom. We ask for people who will gather around us and be honest with us about the nature of our anger — whether it's the slow-burning anger that leaps out of the fireplace eventually, or whether it's the kind that just flares up all the time. God, you are teaching us a better way, a narrow way, a way that leads to life. May we walk with you down that. Lord, we pray this in your holy name. Amen.‍ ‍South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

What if Jesus' most demanding words are actually his most life-giving? On Senior Sunday, Pastor Eric unpacks three commands from Matthew 16 — deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me — and makes the case that this isn't a burden to bear but a blueprint for a life worth living. Science, biography, and Scripture all point the same direction: the people who grip their lives the tightest end up with the least, and the ones who give themselves away end up with everything that actually matters. Meaning Over Happiness Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | May 17, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. What We're Talking AboutWhat Jesus would actually say in a commencement speech — and why it's harder and better than the usual adviceWhat "deny yourself" means, and the trap of thinking it means killing the passions God planted in youWhy doing hard things isn't punishment — it's the path to the life you actually wantThe hedonic treadmill: what science finally caught up to tell us about pleasure, pain, and why your phone is making you miserableHow to follow Jesus wisely — and why who else you follow matters more than you think Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript South Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VAPastor Eric GilchrestMatthew 16:24–26May 17, 2026 — Senior SundayThis is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Pastor Eric Gilchrest delivers a commencement address to the church's graduating senior class from Matthew 16:24–26. This sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series and addresses three commands Jesus gives his followers — deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me — and what each one means practically for young people stepping into adult life. Opening: A Pastor-Dad Starts to Feel the FeelsGood morning. It's really nice to have the room fuller and to be with all of you who have gathered for this class of seniors. As I was sitting over here, I think I've made a grave error. I thought to myself, I'm going to do something a little different this morning. And Danny, despite what you said, my gift to you all is that this message will be a little shorter today. The grave error, though, is that I don't have notes to read, which I think was going to be fine until I was over here and thinking, this is not the morning to just...Someone was asking me earlier, like, how do you feel about all this? Because I have a senior, in case you don't know. One of my seniors in the room here, one of the 11 — there's 11 of them — is mine. And the question was, how do you feel about that? I said, you know what? I feel fine. I've not had any time to process. I've just kind of been doing the thing. And then as I'm sitting over here, I'm starting to feel the feels. And I'm like, this could go terribly. So my hope is that it doesn't.I'm going to talk to you all this morning, and they can listen, and this message is for you. What Would Jesus Say in a Commencement Speech?As I was thinking about what to talk about, the question popped into my head: if Jesus was asked to give a commencement speech, what would he do, right? What would Jesus do, WWJD? And, you know, if you were at the homeschool commencement yesterday, Dr. Yingling gave a very nice commencement speech. Let's go ahead and practice what he said. He said, you need to remember four things, right? They are — as we're kind of cheated — yes, lead courageously, and then the second was? Yes, accept responsibility. The third was? Reject passivity. Adam, can I just say, you did something right here. Three out of three so far. The fourth is? The most important one. Invest eternally. Yeah.I went home from that, and I thought that was beautiful. And then I opened up the social media, and I saw that there's a musician named Eric Church. He gave a speech yesterday, and he was up there with his guitar, and he had six points, the six strings of the guitar. Each were their own point, and the bottom E string was that you need faith, and you need a belief in God, and this will see you through life. All of these would be great. But this is not how Jesus talks. And so he doesn't usually give us the six points to living the right life. As much as I would wish he did, by the way, I really do. But instead, he often talks in parables and enigmatically. He gives us things like we heard this morning: if you try to save your life, you'll end up losing it. And yet if you lose your life for his sake, you find it, right?And so this morning, I want to give you some of what I think to be Jesus' wisdom. Again, as a dad who's in the middle of my life and have a few years under my belt now, and the thought of sending one of my own out into the world — what would I want to say to you? Like if this was my last chance and I never got to talk to you again, what would I want to say? Before I do, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come this morning and we ask that your word is spoken here. Lord, we believe that you have something to say to these seniors especially, but to everybody in the room. God, we are on a path of some kind — a narrow path, prayerfully, one that leads to life. But some of us on that wider path that leads to destruction. And so Lord, this morning, as we think about the future that sits in front of us, let us choose wisely. Speak clearly. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Matthew 16:24–26: Three Points for a Life Worth LivingI believe with all my heart that Jesus wants each and every one of you to live really full lives. When he promises us abundant life, I think he means it. When he promises us that this path, this narrow path, is one that leads to life, I think he means it. But it's narrow for a reason. And sometimes that narrowness gets so small, it feels like a tightrope, like you might fall off on one side or another.And so with the shorter time that I have, Danny, I want to give you not the six strings of a guitar and not even the four. I'm going to go three. And I think they come straight from Jesus' word to us this morning. I'd ask that each of you open up to Matthew chapter 16. I want to show you what he says.First of all, if we get to the end of the passage from today, which is verse 26, he offers a warning. And the warning is this. He says, what's the profit of a man if he gains the whole world, if he gets to the end of his life, and he has achieved everything. He is the king of it all. He's sitting on top of every throne, and he has all the money, and he has all the fame, and he's got whatever you've wanted in this life, but he has forfeited his soul. What does he profit? And of course, Jesus is saying nothing. And so what he's really talking about here is how do we live a life where we keep our souls intact? How do we live a life of integrity and character? How do we live a life that leads to life and fullness?And I think he does give us a bit of a roadmap here. He gives us, we'll say, three things. Verse 24: "If anyone comes after me, let him" — and here's your three points — "deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." These are the three things. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.Point One: Deny Yourself — What It Means and What It Doesn't MeanWe'll start with the deny yourself piece. For this, I want to tell you what it means and what it does not mean.To deny yourself is to say that the world and human nature is such that the operational mode — like the mode you just start in — is selfishness. It's just how it works. We walk through the world in a way that is, I'm at the center of my own world, right? Wherever I go, there I am. I'm in the frame at all times, and there's no getting around that. And so it requires something of you to think about other people and to prioritize others and to put them ahead of yourself. And so when Jesus is saying to deny yourself, he's saying you need to find a way to love other people well and to think about others — whether it's your moms, and you're supposed to call them when you go off to college, whether it's your friends, whether it's your younger siblings or the people in your life that you meet that need you — you've got to find a way to bend outside of the frame that is our life, the selfish frame, and to think of others.Here's, though, what deny yourself does not mean, and this one is very important to me, and I wanted to make sure I got it in here because I fell into this trap many, many times in my life. What deny yourself does not mean is to deny the passions of your life, the things that you love, the things that make you come alive, the things that God has rooted way deep down in you. God's put those there for a reason. And you don't need to deny those. You might need to train those and to make them proper loves, but you don't need to deny them. In fact, those might be the very gifts that God has given to you, that you are then supposed to give to the world. Point Two: Take Up Your Cross — Doing Hard Things and the Hedonic TreadmillThe second thing that Jesus says is to take up your cross. Take up your cross. I've got two points on this one too.There is the bigger sense of what this means. To take up a cross means to go to your death. It's a very sobering thought. Thankfully, as a preacher, I get to talk about sobering things, and so I want to take this moment to do so. I would encourage each of you to ask yourself in a very sincere way, maybe in a quiet moment: what would I be willing to actually die for? What would I die for in this life? Who would I die for? If you're entering into the military, you might really be asked this question. Your country, your family, your faith — what is it? For whom and for what would you be willing to take up your cross?The second thing, though, is maybe lesser, but also very important, which is to say, Jesus is calling us to a life that costs something, that has some measure of pain to it, that has some measure of devotion. And you can do hard things. This is what I want you to know. You can do hard things. You need to do hard things in life. And there's something about the doing of the hard thing that actually makes you stronger and ready for the next harder thing until you've done that. And then you're at the next hard thing. And pretty soon, you're a whole lot stronger than you thought you were. And picking up your cross means doing the hard thing over and over and over again.Jesus leads his disciples into some pretty hard places, and the Peter we meet in the Gospels and the Peter we meet in the letters of Peter are two very different people. The one is deeply immature. He's probably really young. He might be your age, and he does some really foolish things. But by the time he's at the end of his life and he's the fully mature Peter, he has done some very hard things in life. And if tradition has anything to say, he died a martyr's death just like his Savior did. You can do hard things, and you should do hard things. I've got this whole bit about the hedonic treadmill, and you know what? I'm doing all right on time, so I'm going to say it. It goes like this. There's a way of living that seeks to just do the next pleasurable thing. Whether that thing is sitting on your phone, whether it's chasing some kind of fun thing out there, whether it's doing things you shouldn't be doing — maybe it's things that you think are harmless — but it's a life that seeks those pleasurable dopamine hits, okay?The truth of your brain, and science has finally caught up to faith here, is that this is not sustainable. The hedonic treadmill goes like this. Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure and pleasure and more pleasure and more pleasure. And to do so requires increasing amounts of pleasure, and that becomes unsustainable. And what really happens is you find the pleasure in the momentary hit of the dopamine, whatever that might be for you, and then the baseline of your life, the in-between spaces, gets lower, and then it gets lower again, and then it gets lower again. And this leads to things like depression and anxiety and just a general malaise. The opposite of this is to do hard things. It's why when you work out, if you go to the gym and you push some weights around, in the moment you're doing the hard thing, and then what happens is there's this rush after the fact and you feel better about yourself, and your mind is clearer, and the world just seems like a better place. And it's because by doing the hard thing, you've actually pushed down the opposite way, but then the baseline of it all, the in-between places — it comes up. This is a very important lesson in life, because you can't just chase the pleasure and skip the pain. It's all one bundle together. And by doing the hard things of life, you actually make room for the more pleasurable experiences to even be received as such. A couple weeks ago, I told a story or I had this illustration about a boy mowing the lawn with his dad. If you were here for it, it was awesome. And I forgot my prop again. The boy comes in from mowing the lawn with his dad. He did nothing — he had a plastic mower, if you weren't here for it. But he comes in, and he's sweating too. And the dad's sweating too. And they're both enjoying a glass of lemonade together. And they're both looking at that lawn, and the little boy is like, we did such a great job, dad. And there's something about the hard work of it all that makes that moment of the lemonade worth it completely.Let me offer you two people. One person spends a lot of his life building a business — lots of late nights, lots of early mornings, lots of probably coffee involved, like sweat and no doubt some real tears in building this business and building this life. And then five and 10 and 15 years down the road, that business turns into something awesome. And he becomes a millionaire. And then there's this other person, and this person won the lottery. And they became a millionaire overnight. You tell me — those two people, the one who built the business and the one who won that million dollars overnight, which one appreciates that life that has been built for them? You know the answer, right? It's the one who worked for it. It's the one who put in the hours. It's the one who was doing the hard thing, was receiving some of the pain. But then the pleasure on the backside of it all — this was worth every minute because now this person has built a life. And so part of this is picking up your cross — being willing to do the hard thing. Point Three: Follow Jesus — and Be Careful Who Else You FollowBut I'd be neglectful if we didn't say the third part, which is actually part of the cross bearing, which is the third thing that Jesus says here: to follow him. To follow him. I have two things I want to say about this. One is to follow Jesus is exactly what he's talking. He's not just talking about following some divine source out there. He's talking about Jesus has a way for you. And the message that I've been trying to give to you for the last 18 years of your life is that the Jesus way is a way worth walking. It's a path that you are intended to walk down. And if you walk it well, then it will lead to life. It won't preclude all the hardness that I've talked about. The cross bearing is still real. All of that is still real. But the meaning of life will be abundant at that point.And then the second thing goes along with following. And it, again, is a lesser point here, but it's really important. Because here's the truth. You're going to follow someone in life. You're actually going to follow many people in your life. And I need you to be very careful about who you trust. Who do you entrust yourself to? Who do you entrust your mind to? Walk in a discerning way. Follow discerningly. But you'll follow somebody. So find the right people to trust. I would encourage you to find people with character. People who love you. People who have a certain amount of humility about them. But people who have lived a life that you would want to actually live. That you would be proud of living. Follow those kinds of people. A Word from a Dad Who Got LuckyI've said my three points. And so there's just one more thing to say. I am proud to be your dad. And I'm proud to be your pastor. I don't know how I got this lucky in life. My life has been winding and it's been its own path. But to find myself here in the middle of my life, standing on a stage, getting to talk to 11 amazing seniors who have awesome lives waiting in their future — God has given me an amazing thing. And I want amazing things for each of you. I believe God has amazing things in store for each of you. And I would just encourage you to walk the path with integrity, to keep your souls intact, to follow his ways. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for these students, these young men and these young women. Lord, they are a gift from you. They are a gift to me. They are a gift to this church. They are a gift to these parents, their families. And Lord, I am looking forward to what you are going to do with these fresh young lives. They very well might change the world. There are 11 of them, just like the 11 disciples who were following you, and they changed the world. And so, Lord, my prayer is that each of these 11, these disciples of Christ, that they walk the way with a steadiness, that they choose you every time. And we ask that you prepare the way for them. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Anger is the one vice that almost always believes it's a virtue. We rage, we seethe, we simmer — and we're usually convinced we're completely justified. This Sunday we're taking a road trip through Scripture to look honestly at the fire inside us: what it's telling us, where it goes wrong, and what it looks like when it burns the way God intended. Anger Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | May 10, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. This Sunday we're exploring:Why the object of our anger tells us more about ourselves than the thing we're angry about When anger is righteous and when it is not, and how to tell the differenceWhat the Bible actually says about God's anger, and why the God who is "slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love" is not the same God many of us grew up fearingThe “HOT” diagnostic — three questions to ask when the fire rises: is the Heat of my anger proportionate, is the Object of my anger right, and is the the Time I've held onto anger appropriate?How social media has industrialized anger as a commodity to be bought and soldWe're exploring the following passages: Mark 3:1–6 · Genesis 4:3–7 · Exodus 34:6 · Psalm 30:5 · Micah 7:18 · Jonah 4:1–9 · Nehemiah 5:6–7 · Proverbs 16:32 · Matthew 5:21–22 · 1 John 3:15 · Ephesians 4:26–27 · Psalm 4:4 · James 1:19–20 · Romans 12:19 Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript South Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VAPastor Eric GilchrestMark 3:1–6; Matthew 5:21–22; Exodus 34:6–9; Jonah 4May 10, 2026 — Mother's DayThis is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Pastor Eric Gilchrest preaches on anger and wrath as part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series on the seven deadly sins. Drawing from Mark 3, Genesis 4, Exodus 34, Jonah 4, and Matthew 5, this sermon takes the congregation on a biblical tour of what Scripture says about anger — the difference between righteous and unrighteous anger, what Jesus' own anger reveals about the nature of God, and how to keep the fire in the fireplace. Announcements: Bridge Walkers and a Joint Service on May 31stGood morning, friends. It's good to be with you. Before we get started, there's just a couple things I want to say. There's something that I haven't alerted you to yet, but this is as good a time as any. So a few weeks ago, right before Easter, I was invited into a group of pastors who met over the course of two days, and there was an evening together. We stayed at a hotel. There was a grant connected to it. And it was a group of white pastors and a group of black pastors in the area here, in the Virginia, D.C., Maryland area. And the hope of this — it's a group called Bridge Walkers, which gets its name from the walk from Selma to Montgomery back in the 60s. And as somebody who lived right outside of Selma in Marion, Alabama, I know the scene well. In fact, I was there at the 50th anniversary of it in 2013, and it was a really powerful event. And so the meeting was one that I definitely wanted to participate in. And as we gathered together, we had some really frank discussions about race in the United States and in the church, and how we can be, as a church, agents of reconciliation.And so the fruit of this and the hope of where this all goes is for our churches of these pastors to do some things together over the coming year or two. And so the first of these is coming up May 31st, which happens to be the exact same day as the picnic. I did not get to pick this, it just kind of happened this way, which is in part why we are holding the picnic immediately after the service. And Jeff was right. I will be dressed for the part, and I need you to be dressed for the part too. The picnic will be fun. We'll have games. We'll drag stuff out. But then we wanted to give enough time for those of you who would like to attend this service to get home, maybe take a nap, or do whatever you do on your Sunday afternoons. And then at 6 p.m., it's up in Glen Arden, Maryland, we will have the first of these services together. I don't know what to expect, but I do expect that God will move, and I expect the Holy Spirit to be present, and I expect some of our preconceived notions to be challenged. I expect transformation is always beckoning us, and I am deeply hopeful for what might come out of this. So put that on your calendar. This is May 31st, just right around the corner, and it is 6 p.m. that evening.Happy Mother's Day: A Childhood Binder and a Mom Who Saw All of YouToday is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to the mothers and the spiritual mothers in the room. I was trying to think of what to say at this point, and what came to mind was a collection of photos that I found from my childhood that my mom had gathered together. It was one of those binders that back in the 1998 time frame when I graduated from high school, that people would put photos into and they'd put words about what was happening at that time. And my mom was way into this. And so she chronicled my whole childhood from zero to 18 and then presented me with this big binder. And now as a father of an 18-year-old, I think about that a little differently.And I think about what it means to be a dad, only because I can't think about what it means to be a mom, because I'm not one. But I know this much on the receiving end of it all. I had a wonderful mom who looked after me in ways that I don't think I'll ever be able to fully appreciate. She saw every last bit of me and who I was, and she was there every step of the way, even if I didn't realize it. And so for all the moms in the room, I am grateful. We are all grateful. And for those of us who have moms who are still alive, may we reach out to them today and give them the thanks that they deserve.Let's begin with some prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray a special prayer of blessing over the mothers in this room today. Lord, the kind of love that you call us into, that agape love, a self-giving kind of love, I can think of no better human example than what mothers do on a day-to-day basis for their children. And so, God, may we all aspire to that. We give you thanks for them, and we give you praise for that kind of love, and may we be drawn into being those kinds of people too. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.The Jesus Way Series: Vanity, the Seven Deadly Sins, and Today's Stop — Anger All right, we are — if you don't know — we are on a road together, a path, right? And this began a few weeks ago. Well, I mean, it kind of began a long time ago, but we're on this transformation kick. But then since Easter, we've been walking in these two ways. And I've been trying to show you that there is this narrow way, right? It's the way that Jesus is drawing us into. It's narrow because fewer people choose it. It's a little hard. There's more friction to it. It requires something of you to be on it. But it is the way to life and to fullness of life and to eternal life. And this is what Jesus is trying to get us to do. But then there is this other way. There's this broad way. It's bigger and wider, and it's much easier to find yourself on it. And it's marked by a number of things. And so two weeks ago, we talked about vanity as one of the markers of this way. And it's easy to just kind of slide into vanity. And then today, we're talking about the broad way again. And I want to talk about anger. And I know it's Mother's Day. So apologies ahead of time for this. I do want you to know there was a toss-up between this and gluttony. And so I put gluttony on Father's Day. So, you know, you can get ready for that too. And I'll say, all of the analogies are aimed at the men in the room today. So all the stories — you know, like I'm looking at guys here — women, you get the day off. So you're welcome. All right, so just clarify a couple things up front. I originally had the name wrath for this sermon, and I was afraid that it might draw up like the wrong image for you. But here's the truth of the matter. The word anger and the word wrath — actually, it's the same thing. The roots of these are the same, like the down deep parts of it. They're just two different words for the same thing. The goal of what I want to accomplish in this sermon today is to really lean into the middle section of this rotten tree that stands before you. We've already touched on vanity, the far left, and we'll get to each of these branches at some point over the weeks here. And then just to remind you, at the base of all of this is your pride and your ego. It's kind of the thing that is the last thing that will die in this earth, right? Because if you could just simply root that part out, then it would take care of the rest. But pride is much trickier than simply just plucking it out like a weed. It has roots that go much deeper than you or I can really frankly imagine. So today we're just focusing on the middle one. We're talking about wrath or anger. And I have thoroughly enjoyed this. Maybe I enjoy it too much. I'm realizing this right now as I said that. I have like a thousand things I want to tell you, and I will only tell you maybe ten of those. And so if you think to yourself, well, Pastor Eric, I wish you had talked about this — I probably could have and maybe should have. But I'm glad that you're leaning in and you're really digging into what you need to know about anger and wrath. Also, it's a pitch to come to Sunday morning Bible study where we do go deeper for a whole hour on this topic. The goal of the sermon is, with the theme of roads and ways and all, to take you on a tour — like a driving tour of your Bible — and the things that it has to say about anger. Think of it this way. We've got a few key destinations I'm trying to get us to. And then as we go to those destinations, there's like bathroom stops I want to point us at, or maybe just a couple things that you should have in your view as we head to these main stops. First Stop — Mark 3:1–6: Jesus Gets Angry in the Synagogue The first stop is the one we read already, which is Mark chapter 3. And so I'd encourage you, please, open your scriptures, open your Bibles to Mark chapter 3 as we dig into what Jesus demonstrates for us about anger. Mark 3:1 to 6. Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, come over here. And then he said to the Pharisees, he said, is it lawful? Does the law permit? Does your Bible tell me that it's okay to do good or harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill it? He's asking them, how do you read your Bible? What's the right thing to do here? But they were silent.And then he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he said, I'm going to teach you how to read your Bible. And I'm going to teach you what it looks like to keep the Sabbath. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out and they immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him.There are two angry parties here. Jesus gets angry and clearly the Pharisees do as well as they seek to destroy him by the end. There are just a few things that I want to point to in this passage that will become important. And the goal as we make these stops on this journey together is to maybe build up a case of the kinds of things we can say about anger based on what we find in our scriptures. The first would be simply that Jesus does get angry. And it's actually okay for you to be angry too sometimes — with a huge caveat around it. Because anger is actually one — it's the only sin on the list of the seven deadly sins — that it's okay to, we'll say, participate in when it's not a sin. The sin looks a whole lot like the not-sin. It's the only one that looks like this. Knowing how to distinguish between the sinful version of anger and the righteous version of anger, it takes wisdom and it takes maturity. I don't recommend it to the littlest ones among us. It's a little bit like holding a knife. Like, you want to teach someone how to do this and to train them well, or they're going to do what? They're going to cut someone, maybe themselves. And anger is much the same way. And we need to learn how to use it in a controlled manner.But Jesus does get angry. And then I'll say this about his anger. If you read closely, what is he angry at? It's actually remarkably precise here in Mark. He's angry at their hardness of heart. He's not precisely angry at them, just generally, as if Pharisees are awful people or something like this. No, he's angry at something specific. The object that he's directing his anger at is their hardness. There's something in them. And he says there's something really wrong with that. And it provokes some anger in him.The other thing I'd say is that his anger is connected to justice, which is what anger is always connected to, by the way. Usually — well, actually both in the righteous form and the unrighteous form. When something's gone wrong in the world, righteous anger says, something's wrong with the world, and I want to fix it. When anger is unrighteous, usually you're saying, something's wrong with my world, and I want to fix that. The last thing I'd say about this passage is maybe the most important of them all, which is that if you really look closely at verse 5 there, it says this: he looked around at them with anger, grieved. Two emotions are sitting together — anger and grief. Anger and grief. How does one have anger and grief sitting side by side? Well, the only way is if you manage to find empathy for the one you are angry with. It's when moms and dads say it — and I promise they mean it, kids — when they say, this is harder for me than for you. Well, they mostly mean it. I feel grief over having to discipline. I feel grief because I want your world to be right. And Jesus here is feeling grief for the Pharisees, saying, I wish your hearts were not so hard. I could teach you a better way. I could teach you a way to life.Thumos and Orge: Two Greek Words for Anger in the New TestamentAll right, let's keep going on our journey here. Actually, let me pause one more minute. This is a good opportunity to introduce two words that appear in our New Testament. Both of them are words for anger, and they are thumos and orge. It's a hard G. We're still talking about the sin of anger here. Thumos and orge.I want you to think about anger as a fire. This is the metaphor for anger often. And fire, much like a knife, is something that can do damage or it can do good. Thumos is the damaging kind. It flames up quickly. It's the road rage. It's somebody getting upset, right? And it's named specifically in Galatians 5:20 and Ephesians 4:31, if you want to look those up. Galatians 5:20 is right next to the fruit of the Spirit. You know the fruit of the Spirit? These are the ones we love to talk about. But there's the fruit of the flesh right before it. And in this fruit of the flesh is thumos. It's that anger that rages up, right? This is what we're trying to avoid.But the one next to it is orge. And orge — sometimes it is unrighteous anger, it's not always righteous — but it is a controlled anger. It has some measure of control around it, as I say, a controlled burn, right? There are times where if there's a fire in your fireplace, that's a great thing, and it's controlled. But if that fire jumps out of your fireplace and is uncontrolled and creeps up the walls, now we've got a different kind of problem. Our goal today is to learn how to keep that fire in the fireplace.Pit Stop — Genesis 4:3–7: Cain's Anger and the Sin Crouching at the Door All right, we'll move on. We need to take a quick pit stop, however, on this journey and look at Genesis chapter 4, verses 3 to 7. This is the famous story of Cain and Abel. You probably know what happens to Abel and then maybe to Cain. Cain murders his brother. But before he does, we read a little bit about how this gets set up.In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering. But for Cain and his offering, he did not And so what happens? Well, Cain was very angry, and here we see the burning starts, right? The fire begins to burn. And Cain's face fell, and the Lord said to Cain — the question you should be asking yourself this morning — which is, why are you angry? Why are you angry? When you get angry, why? What is under that for you? It's a very good question. And why has your face fallen? And then he says — God says to him — if you do well, won't you be accepted? And if you do not do well, and here's the key, "sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must master it."And what is the sin here? The sin is anger, and it's burning in him. And he says, you must master it, you must keep this in the fireplace. And if you don't keep this in the fireplace, it's going to destroy everything. We know exactly what happens. The sin that was crouching does what? It leaps out of that fireplace, and Cain kills his brother. And we have the first murder in all of Scripture.Murder is a terrible sin. It's actually not one of the deadly sins, is it? It's not one of the seven. Because underneath murder — and Jesus teaches us this in Matthew 5 — underneath murder sits the thing that's in our heart. We call that anger. Second Stop — Exodus 34:6–9: God Reveals His Nature as Slow to AngerAll right, the next stop on our tour is Exodus chapter 34, verses 6 to 9. I would encourage you, go ahead and pull your Bibles there now. Exodus 34:6–9. This is where Moses is up on the mount, Mount Sinai. He's getting the Ten Commandments. But in this very important scene, God reveals his nature to him. And he tells us, and he reports to us, what kind of God he is.And I'll say God is angry at times. God can have wrath. I do not deny this, and I don't want to even diminish this in any way. But I'd encourage you as we read through this to recognize a very important fact — that even for God, maybe especially for God, who is perfection and the thing that we are trying to strive for — God's wrath and anger flows from his love. Love is the primary, and out of that flows his anger. You might wonder, well, Eric, how in the world does that work? That doesn't seem obvious to me at all. But I would point us back to maybe Mother's Day or the fathers in the room. When you get angry as a parent, like in a good way, a good angry, when you see your child being hurt by somebody and that mama bear rage wells up — why? Because you want to protect your child. An injustice has happened or is about to happen and you want to protect them. God is not dissimilar. He knows what is good for us. He knows when the world is off kilter. He knows when you are off kilter. And he knows that when it is and when you are, that this is destructive to you. And he wants to save you from your destruction. And we call this anger. And it's him maybe punishing or reaching out and trying to fix the situation. And sometimes — and parents know this — the discipline requires something harsh.So it goes like this in verse 6. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed. And this is what the Lord is saying about himself. "The Lord, Yahweh" — and he says it twice, Yahweh, Yahweh — "I am a God who is merciful and gracious, and I'm slow to anger." And there it is, right? I'm not quick to anger. I am slow to anger. I am gracious. I'm merciful. I'm slow to anger. I abound in this. The word here is hesed. It's a steadfast love. It is a love that never quits. It is like a mother's love — like, you can do all kinds of things, but your mom is just going to love you throughout and throughout and throughout. And this is what God is saying of his very self, that he has this kind of hesed love, a steadfast love, of faithfulness. And he keeps steadfast love for thousands. And more than that, he's forgiving. And he forgives all the kinds of words for sin that appear in your Old Testament. Sometimes we call it iniquity, sometimes transgression, and sometimes sin. And he says, I'm willing to forgive all of these things. He then does go into the fact that he is a just God, and there needs to be justice. And so he says he doesn't clear the guilty just by virtue of wiping it away. And he, in fact — and this needs some explanation, and fortunately this is going to have to wait for another day — he visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children so that the third and the fourth generation, they sometimes feel the effects of the father's sin. I think you know this to be true just if you look through your family history and you think about your father and his father and his father and the ways in which their failures have a way of creeping through a family line. I think that's what God is teaching us here.And so Moses quickly bows his head toward the earth and he worshiped and he said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, oh Lord, please let this God — let you, God, the one who is merciful and slow to anger — that is the God we need in our midst. Because we're a stiff-necked people and we need you to pardon our iniquity."This is a remarkable passage in its historical context. There are lots of gods in the ancient world, if you don't know. There's a group that's praying to a God named Asherah at this point. And that God happens to be really good at fertility matters. Or there's the folks who are crying out to Baal. And Baal is one of these like really fickle gods who may get angry with you and then doesn't. And you never know who you're going to get with Baal. Or if you fast forward in time, you might get the God of Mars, who is the God of war. And that's the God you're going to meet in the pages of history.But this God, Yahweh, is unlike all the other gods. There is no other God named in history, certainly at this point, who describes himself in the ways that our God describes himself. This description literally changes the course of history. Because we should look to our God, to this God, and say to ourselves, thanks be to God that you are the God who is all of these things, and especially the God who is slow to anger.This passage is, again, as I said, one of the most important in all of the Old Testament, and we know this with certainty because — I've just got a couple here, Psalm 30 and Micah 7 — but you could do a Google search later on how many passages from the Bible as a whole, but especially our Old Testament, appeal to and quote from Exodus 34, and you'll be amazed. The Bible repeats this part of the Bible over and over and over again. Psalm 103, Nehemiah 9, Psalm 86, Joel 2 — or the next stop on our journey, Jonah chapter 4.Third Stop — Jonah 4: HOT Anger and Everything Jonah Gets WrongLet's turn there together. Jonah chapter 4. Jonah is a troubled prophet. I would encourage you, whatever you do, do not look to Jonah as an exemplar. He will let you down. Jonah is one of these — actually he's the only prophet who I can really say that about. The whole book is an upside-down prophet. He's not doing what he should be doing, and he's doing what he should not be doing, and we see this ever so clearly in chapter 4 here.We'll read it. For the sake of time, I'm not going to spend nearly as much time in it, but what we see is an angry prophet. Now, prophets are actually often angry. You should know this. The other prophets are too. They're just angry, typically in the righteous kind of way, because again, if justice is the name of the game for anger — the prophets are looking out and they're seeing injustice and unrighteousness everywhere. And they're shouting at their people, you got to fix this. And they're angry with them. And they say, the world's not right, and it should be. And you need to be doing something about it. Jonah is angry as well, much like the prophets. But he is, we'll say, more self-centered than he should be. And so it goes like this. If you don't know the story of Jonah, the lead up to this point is that he has taken his word of disaster to the Ninevites, and he has said, you need to repent. And they said, okay, we will. And they did. And then God relents, and he does not destroy them. And Jonah is not pleased with this. Chapter 4, starting in verse 1: "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." There you go. It's just kind of on the face of it. He's displeased. He's angry. What's he angry about? That God was the merciful God. He wanted the war God, the wrath God. He wanted Mars. He wanted Baal. But instead, he got Yahweh. And he prayed to the Lord. And he said, "Oh Yahweh, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish." If you don't know that part of the story, he didn't even want to go to Nineveh at all, and so he fled. And so he says, this is why I left. I didn't want to come here. And then he just says it outright. "I knew you were a gracious God. You were merciful. You are slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster." He said, this is why I didn't want to come. I was looking for Mars. I was looking for the God of war. I wanted you to come in and destroy this whole place. And I knew, I knew you wouldn't do it.Jonah's upset. Does he have a righteous anger? Let's all say it together. No. No, he doesn't. He's showing us all the wrong ways. And he goes on: "Therefore now, Lord, please take my life from me." Twice he's going to ask for this — "for it's better for me to die than to live." And then God asks him the same question, or a similar question to the one Cain gets, right? Do you do well to be angry? Again, the question maybe you're being asked right now. Do you do well to be angry? And Jonah went out of the city, and he sits east of the city, makes a booth for himself there. He sat under the shade till he should see what would become of the city. And the Lord God appointed a plant to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head to save him from the discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of this plant. But when dawn came the next day, God appoints a worm that attacks the plant and it withers. And when the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that again he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. And God asks another time, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And Jonah says, yes. Wrong answer, Jonah. But he says, yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. And the Lord said — and here's the convicting part — he says, you're angry about all the wrong things. Your anger is an unrighteous anger. You're targeting the wrong targets. You are not upset about what I get upset about. Your anger is self-serving. This is what he's saying when he says in verse 10: "You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. But shouldn't I have pity on Nineveh, a great city in which there are more than 120,000 souls? Shouldn't I care about that? Shouldn't I have pity on those people? And shouldn't you too, Jonah?"And then the story ends very abruptly. It's kind of one of these where you feel like maybe there's a missing chapter somewhere and someday we'll uncover it. But for today, this is what we get.Diagnosing Your Anger: The HOT Framework — Wrong Heat, Wrong Object, Wrong TimingThere's a few things from this that I want to kind of put into your cap to maybe help you remember something about anger that will help you diagnose it later on. I'm calling this HOT — H-O-T — hot, Jonah's hot anger. So there's the wrong heat, which is to say the wrong heat level. He gets too angry about the wrong things. His anger is the wrong intensity — he gets so angry about this plant. But he's not angry about the right things with regard to the people. And then the wrong object, right? The wrong object of his anger. So he's angry not about what is just or unjust. He's instead angry at God. He's angry at God's mercy and ultimately at the loss of this plant. He's very interested in this plant. And then lastly, the timing of it all is wrong. He stays angry for too long and it burns for too long. He's still upset about leaving Tarshish. He brings that back up, right? That was sitting somewhere in his heart that he didn't even want to go at all. And so he's mad at God for taking him out of Tarshish and his own land and heading over to Nineveh. And he's holding this grudge.But all of this speaks something to your anger and my anger, which is sometimes our anger is too hot for the situation. And when the kid spills the milk at the table and you blow up — is that the right heat level? No. No, it's not. The object of our anger — maybe you do blow up at the table, Dad. And you get angry with the kid in that moment. But that's not even the object of your anger. You're angry from work earlier that day where your boss said something to you that you didn't like. And now you're upset generally speaking, and then when the kid spills the milk, you yell at him. That is not the object of your anger. Don't take it out on him. Or the timing of it all — maybe you've been holding this grudge for years, and you've just been gathering it over time. This is why we need to forgive, and we need to reduce our resentments. And if we are going to walk this Jesus way, the way that leads to life, it is going to require some wisdom around all three of these things. Final Stop — Matthew 5:21–22: Jesus on Anger, Murder, and What's Sitting in Your HeartAll right, one more stop on the way. This one's Matthew 5:21 and 22. This is Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. This is perhaps the passage maybe I should have preached from, so I am. "You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry" — and there Jesus is just calling it out for us, even if you've got anger in your heart — "will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire."There's a lot in this passage. A lot can be said, so I'll just keep it simple. If anger is sitting at the root of this and it's sitting in our hearts, there are any number of fruit that can come out of that anger. Sometimes it's murder. I hope that's not the case for any of us. But sometimes it's just calling someone, you fool, you idiot. Or maybe it's just the rolling of your eyes at that person you think is an idiot. Or maybe it's you online. Maybe it's what you're saying in the comment box, right? To say, you don't know what you're talking about. And it's a self-righteous kind of anger. And it sits there and it burns.And here's what I'd say about all this. There is a destruction that is happening. Jesus calls this the way of destruction for a reason. Because you are aiming at God, believe it or not, when your anger is unrighteous. Because you are saying, the world is not as it should be, and I don't trust God to fix it. So I am going to fix it myself. And then the damage you're doing is all around you too. This one's a little more obvious — if you walk through the world and you're an angry person, constantly throwing barbs at other people, you are affecting them. You are changing the climate of the room when you just simply walk into it. But then also, what may be missed is that you — you are destroying yourself from the inside out.And it may actually feel good to be angry. I learned this. I didn't realize. I am a non-confrontational person by nature. I don't like conflict. But I have learned over the years some people love conflict. They actually like the fight. To them, it feels good. It feels like you're alive. But what's happening in that situation, and really any situation where anger is burning within you, is that from the inside out, you are being hollowed out. Three Antidotes to Anger: Soft Answers, Lament, and HopeThere are some antidotes to anger, and I will keep these brief, and three. One, Proverbs 15:1 tells us that a soft answer turns away wrath. Jesus teaches us the gentle way, the gentleness, gentle startups. This is always the first step forward. Anger might come way down the road, right? But you need to be slow to it. Number two, lament. Learn to grieve like Jesus grieves in Mark 3. Learn to grieve even alongside your anger. And I would encourage us mere mortals — unlike Jesus, us mere mortals — we should probably start with grief and allow the anger to follow, because it's going to be a much more trustworthy form of anger if we do. And the last thing is hope. Hope. You see, the angry person, as they rage at God — Jonah, as he rages at God — ultimately is saying, I don't trust you, God. I don't trust your way to be the right way. But we need to be people of hope and people of faith who trust that even though it seems like the world is all cattywampus — and it is, like it's all upside down — we hope and we trust that the God of the universe is fixing all the things. And we play our part. And we live as people who expect the unrighteous to receive their due reward and for the wrongs to be made right again. And that we only have control over ourselves and our hearts. And so we better take control of them, lest that fire jump out of the fireplace and begin to burn the house down all around us. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, you are a passionate God. We are to be passionate people. And some of the angriest among us can show us something about what it means to have passion. But God, it can be dangerous to hold that fire. And so, Lord, we ask for your wisdom. We ask for people who will gather around us and be honest with us about the nature of our anger — whether it's the slow-burning anger that leaps out of the fireplace eventually, or whether it's the kind that just flares up all the time. God, you are teaching us a better way, a narrow way, a way that leads to life. May we walk with you down that. Lord, we pray this in your holy name. Amen.‍ ‍South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Bartimaeus was blind, broke, and sitting on the side of the road. His desperation led him to shout past the crowd—who were telling him to shut up—and to get the attention of the one who could do something. This Sunday we're talking about the kind of bold, persistent, holy-hustle faith that refuses to stay seated and discovers that Jesus is already waiting, already asking, already wanting to hear all about how he can answer your deepest needs. Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. This Sunday we're exploring:Why faith is not passive and what bold, persistent faith actually looks like in practiceThe question Jesus asks twice in Mark 10, and why he answers it differently each time — What do you want?Why the version of Christianity that tells you to want nothing and need nothing is unbiblical and antithetical to the Jesus wayHow sacred striving and holy hustle are not opposed to grace but the key that unlocks the grace that awaits youHow the mature follower of Jesus knows who they are, knows what they need, and is satisfied with the God's answers to their requests Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript What Do You Want? — Sermon TranscriptSouth Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VAPastor Eric GilchrestMark 10:46–52This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Pastor Eric Gilchrest preaches on the healing of blind Bartimaeus from Mark 10:46–52. This sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series and addresses the question Jesus asks Bartimaeus — "What do you want me to do for you?" — exploring what it means to bring our deepest desires to God, why active faith matters, and how to pursue the abundant life with what Pastor Eric calls "holy hustle."Opening Prayer: The Hope and Possibility That Children RepresentHeavenly Father, I thank you for these children, for the life that they represent, the energy, the possibility, the hope of their future. They are a reminder to us all, the adults in the room, of just what is possible when we give our lives over to you. And so, Lord, today we do so again, and we ask that you speak to us right here, right now. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.What Do You Desire from God? A Question That Broke a Pastor's BrainA few years ago, I was part of a small group of pastors. We met about once a month, and it was over Zoom, and in the first meeting that we had together, it was in person, and it was for a full day. And during this full day session, we really got to know each other well. We hadn't really met each other prior to this, and so there was just a lot of sharing, a lot of honesty, and then periodically in the meeting, we would be given a prompt that we would then have to go journal about for about 30 minutes or so.The very first prompt that we were given and we were supposed to go journal about was really quite simple. And it's a question, which is: what do you desire from God? What do you desire from God? And I remember I took the question, and I still have the journal, and I went off to my own little place, and I wrote the question at the top of the journal, and I sat there, and I felt like my brain was breaking, because despite 40 years of living on this earth at that point, I had never really asked that question. Like, I was always tuned to ask, what does God want, right? What does God desire from me? And I think this is a very good question, too, but they were asking me to think about, what do I desire? Like, what do I want in this life?And this is the question Jesus asks to Bartimaeus today — what do you want from me, is what he asks him. And it's the question I think you should be asking of yourself. And the truth is this, right? Even if you say, well, I don't have a desire, or I'm not supposed to have one — it's always there. It's lurking underneath. You're just kind of squashing it down. There are things sitting in your heart right now. You just simply need to be honest about them, and you need to bring them to God, and you need to see, like, God, is this what you desire? And then we tune our desires with the desires of God. And God may say, as he said to Bartimaeus, a big yes, be healed. And he may say no. And we must learn what it means to receive both of these answers.But with this sermon, my hope for you today is that as we continue down this path together of the Jesus way, the abundant life way, we get serious about what it is that we actually want ourselves in this life, but then we do something about it — that we don't just sit still and we don't wait for the thing to happen and we sit on our hands and do nothing. We actually then pursue and we proceed to go somewhere.Mark 10:46–52: Blind Bartimaeus on the Road to JerichoJesus is asking Bartimaeus today, what is it that you want me to do for you? And I actually think God is asking this same question of each of us. What do you want me to do for you? The truth is this: it's obvious that only you can live your life. No one's going to live it for you. God's not even going to live your life for you. And so part of being a follower of Jesus and finding our way down that path toward abundance is walking with an active kind of faith — moving and doing, pursuing, working in the world. And as we do so, coming back to God regularly, daily, asking God, is this what I should be doing in the world? Use me today for your ends.Let's go ahead and pick up Mark. If you've got your scriptures, we're in Mark 10:46 to 52. If you don't have a Bible with you, there's definitely one in the pew back, and I would encourage you to pull that out right now.Jesus is nearing the end of his life. He's heading out of Jericho and actually into Jerusalem for the very last time, and this is where we pick him up. It says:"They came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside."I really want you to envision this scene. I want you to put yourself into it. I want you to be Bartimaeus. I want you to sit there blinded for decades. I want you to be the beggar on the side of the road who is desperate. And then you know who Jesus is, and he's walking by. I want you to ask yourself what you would do in this situation.We continue in verse 47: "When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me." And he cries out. Oh, you might do this too, right? You might cry out and you know this is your one shot. You're going to shoot your shot and you are going to find that man that can actually do something.But then there's probably some of you in the room who might think, well, he's a very important person and he's got other big things that he needs to do. He's on his way to save the world, in fact, and probably doesn't want to be bothered by my petty needs. And so maybe I'll just continue to sit here and do nothing. But this is not what Bartimaeus does, right? Bartimaeus shouts out, and he says, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Help me out. I'm in a desperate place.And he goes on. "Many rebuked him, and they told him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me." Second time around, he is told by the crowds, be silent. Stop speaking up. And what does he do? Does he listen to the crowds and say, yeah, they're right, I probably should just sit here and be quiet? No, he shouts out all the more. And he says, Jesus, help me.Bartimaeus as the Opposite of Vanity: Seeking Jesus Above the Crowd's OpinionNow, if you were here last week, we talked about vanity, right? And if you remember what vanity is, it's being more worried about the crowds and what they think than about the one audience you should be seeking. Bartimaeus is a beautiful example of the opposite of vanity. He cares nothing about what the crowds think. He is not worried at all if they think he is immoral, if they think he is not worthy of Jesus' attention, if they think whatever they might think of him. He's a nuisance on the side of the road. He does not care about them. He cares about the only one in the room who needs to care for him. And so he shouts out all the more. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.Jesus hears him and stops, says, call him to me. And they called the blind man, and they said to him, take heart, get up, he's calling you. And what does he do? He throws off his cloak, he sprang up, and he came to Jesus. And Jesus says the question of the day: "What do you want me to do for you?" And the blind man said, "Rabbi, teacher, let me recover my sight." And Jesus says, "Go your way. Your faith has made you well." And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.Holy Hustle: The Active, Pursuing Faith of BartimaeusA couple key pieces of this that I want to draw out — really just one big one — is the nature of his faith, Bartimaeus. It is an active faith. He is pursuing Jesus. He is shouting out, not once but twice. He is not allowing the crowds to stop him. He is not allowing people to say, no, no, no, go over here and do this other thing. He is going to pursue Jesus actively, and he's going to go after the one who can indeed help him. And then when he gets the call, what does he do? He doesn't sit there in the dust. He throws it all off. The cloak, by the way, is everything he owns. And he leaves it all behind, unlike the rich man who appears just prior to this. He gives it all up, and he begins to follow Jesus in this moment.This is what Bartimaeus does, and he represents what I'm calling this morning holy hustle. Holy hustle. He is somebody who in a holy kind of way is hustling and doing something to reach the ends that not only he desires, but it turns out God desires these ends for him as well.The Persistent Widow of Luke 18: Another Portrait of Holy HustleLuke tells the same story about Bartimaeus. Luke tells it slightly differently. This will appear, if you want to look it up at some other point, in Luke chapter 18. But what Luke does in 18 is he pairs it with what happens in Luke 1 to, I want to say, 6 or 8. And in that little passage, Jesus tells a parable. And this parable is about a widow. And it's a widow who has been treated unjustly — something has been done to her that is unjust. And if you recall this parable, what does she do? Middle of the night, she goes and she finds the judge, the one who is supposed to mete out justice in the world, and she goes and she knocks on his door.It turns out he is an unjust judge. He doesn't really care about her at all. But what does she do? She knocks again, and then she goes again, and then she goes again, and she is persistent. She doesn't stop. She too has this holy hustle. And then finally, what happens in this parable? Well, this unjust judge who the passage says is evil and unrighteous, well, he finally relents and he gives her what she wants because he's just tired of her asking.And then it says, but if that's an unjust person, if that's somebody who is evil, imagine what a good God does when he hears our needs, our desires, and our prayers. What does that God do? Well, he looks upon us, as Bartimaeus asks for, with mercy.The Plastic Lawnmower: What Grace Actually Looks Like in PracticeThere is a holy hustle about the persistent widow. There is a holy hustle about Bartimaeus this morning. Now, all of this, by the way, gets at the nature of maybe one of the Bible's biggest topics, which is grace and how grace works. And I'm going to guess that at this point, some of you might be a little uncomfortable with the notion that you are somehow doing something to affect God's grace in your life. Because many of us have grown up in a Protestant tradition where we recite good Protestant phrases like sola gratia, by grace alone, and it's all God's doing and it's none of our doing. I'm not going to necessarily take aim directly at that, just close to it.Because what I think about how grace works is there is a part that you and I must play in it. Bartimaeus, for example, he could have sat there and said nothing, done nothing, waited, watched Jesus walk by, and then he would have remained blind for the rest of his life. But this is not what he does, is it? He shouts out. He is active. His faith pushes him to do something.I want you to think of it this way. I meant to bring a prop, by the way. I don't bring props often, and I was really happy about this one, and now I'm very sad that I didn't. So I want you to imagine, up on this stage is one of those plastic lawnmowers that kids have. Do you know these? We have one at our house still. A child who is five years old says to his dad, I want to help you mow the lawn. Now the dad chooses to give him the fake plastic lawnmower that does very little real good, but the fake plastic lawnmower is still something. And then the dad goes out and grabs his real metal lawnmower, one that is quite dangerous, but very effective. And he begins to mow. Well, alongside him is this five-year-old with the plastic mower, thinking that he is mowing the grass very well alongside his father.This is not a perfect analogy, but that little boy is doing something — something very important. He is showing up. He is engaging with the father. He is participating alongside of him. It looks like he's mowing, even though he's clearly not. If someone walked by to see this scene, they would know immediately that the father is doing all of the mowing out there. But when the grass is finally cut, and the father and the son walk inside, sweating profusely, and grab a drink, both of them have had a hard day's work together, and no doubt, the five-year-old son will look at the dad and be proud of what they did together. Did the son do anything? Yes, he did. Did the father do everything? Yes, he did.But you can also imagine a very different scene in which the five-year-old does not ask to mow with the dad. He just stayed inside and he watched. He wasn't part of it at all. He didn't ask the father for a mower, and he didn't walk alongside the father every step of the way. When the grass is cut and the father is inside getting the long drink, will that son look at the yard and say to the dad, look what we've done together, dad? No, he will not.This is what grace looks like. It is God who is doing it all. Obviously, it is Jesus who heals Bartimaeus. Jesus effectuates the grace. Jesus does the work of healing that blind man. Jesus does what Bartimaeus cannot. Bartimaeus sat there for decades, blind, begging, and could do nothing about it. And Jesus comes along, and he does what Bartimaeus simply cannot do — much like the five-year-old cannot do anything about really mowing that lawn. But he can show up. And he can be with his dad. And he can choose not to stay indoors, but to go outdoors and to mow with the father.I think the showing up is what Jesus rewards here. It's not that Bartimaeus has done anything, and yet he's done something — something very important. He has opened himself to the grace that God offers. That is what Jesus is asking of you right now. He is walking by and he wants you to call out. Maybe to be obnoxious and to forget about what the crowds are saying and to seek his grace.Two Traps to Avoid: The Genie Lamp and the Bootstraps TrapNow I will warn you, there are two traps that we should talk about. I don't want you to be confused. The first has to do with the play that I saw last night, Aladdin, in which there is a genie that pops out, and you rub the lamp, and you simply ask for your wish, and the genie says, your wish is my command, and he gives it to you. This is not how God works. Not at all, in fact. And we know this with certainty, because if you turn with me back to Mark chapter 10, I'll show you something that would be easily missed.You see, if you go to the passage right before this one, it's a passage about two men, James and John, the brothers, and they come to Jesus, and they have a request themselves. And so in verse 35, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and they said to him, teacher, we want you to do something for us, whatever we ask of you. We want to rub the lamp, right? And we want our wish to be your command. And so he says to them, interestingly, what do you want me to do for you? This is the precise question — like word for word — what he says to Bartimaeus, right? What do you want me to do for you? And they proceed to say, well, we want to sit at your right hand and your left hand in glory, right? We are self-seeking in this moment, they may as well say out loud. And Jesus says, you don't know what you're asking. Sometimes this is God's answer to us. We might be in prayer and rubbing what we think is the God lamp and saying, God, we want you to give me this thing. And sometimes God says back to us, you don't know what you're asking for.But sometimes it's actually a little deeper than that. I don't know if you caught the 60 Minutes this week, but there's a former senator from Nebraska named Ben Sasse. He's in his mid-50s. And in December of last year, he was given a cancer diagnosis, and he should not and probably will not make it to the end of this year. He is an honorable man. He is, in terms of politicians, we'll say he's one of the good ones. And he is a man of deep faith. And it is interesting to watch him because he has certainly asked God to take this cancer away from me. And God's answer has been to this point, no. No, I am not going to take that away from you. And this is sometimes the answer we get from God. Our desire, our will, our hopes, our dreams are much like Bartimaeus' — and we want to be healed of the blindness or whatever it is that's besetting us. But sometimes God says, no, I have other plans.And then Ben Sasse shows us a way forward. Because he will stand there and he will say, I trust the God of the universe to have a plan that is in all of our best interests. And so I am going to use the rest of my life, the life that I have left, that God has given me, and I am going to pour life into this world as long as I have breath in my lungs. And so this is what he has set out to do for however many months he has left.The second trap we might fall into — I was struggling to find a name for it — it might be like the bootstraps trap or the entitlement trap or the ownership trap, which is to say that that little boy that goes out there and mows the lawn with his father might turn around and then tell one of his friends, hey, look what I did, right? I am the keeper of this lawn. This is my domain. I own all of this. Look at how great I am. The holy hustle only remains holy if you don't fall into the bootstraps trap, which is to say that when the success comes, if the success comes, you always recognize that it's grace. From top to bottom, it's grace. And so you always point back to the one giving the grace, and you give him thanks for the successes that you have in life.Three More Traps: Suppressing Desire, Dying to the Wrong Things, and the Trap of InactivityBut there are some traps that this whole sermon has been trying to keep you out of, and I want to make sure you catch those as well. One of those traps says that we have or are supposed to have no desires or wants or needs. But as I started with, this is just silly. Of course, you will always have desires, so I think it's better to simply name them and to start working on them and to try to figure out if they are holy or not, if they are God's desires or not.Another trap says something along the lines of, we're supposed to die to ourselves, right? And this is true. The scriptures talk about this all the time. But sometimes we end up dying to the wrong things. We are supposed to die to that which makes us unholy, that which works against the grace of God working in us and through us. But instead, some in this room, and myself included, have fallen into the trap where we die to noble things and good things, things that actually give us life — maybe even desires that God himself has planted deep in your soul. And we say, we're not allowed to have those desires. I'm supposed to die to that old self. And to you, I would simply say, it's quite possible God has planted that seed in you and is really trying to grow it and is trying to nourish it and wants you to nourish it because that part of you might be the very thing that is going to change the world that is all around you. But this requires wisdom, knowing what parts of yourself to die to and what parts of yourself to live into — this is a life's journey. And it requires wise guides and people in your life, being discipled by someone else or others, coming to church on Sundays.Finally, there is this other trap. And this other trap is the trap of inactivity. It's just sitting there, waiting for God to move or to do something. It's as if Bartimaeus had not called out to Jesus, or the persistent widow had not walked next door to the judge's home and knocked on it ten times. The trap of inactivity says, well, God will do what God will do when God wants to do it. And I would encourage you, maybe the right thing to do is to get up, and to shout out, and to be a little obnoxious, and to go knock on somebody's door, and to do something about what God is trying to do in your life.This walking with Jesus on the narrow road to life requires a tremendous amount of wisdom. And here's why. The scriptures tell us routinely to wait on God. And so one might mistake what Bartimaeus is doing as not waiting on God. Bartimaeus is maybe being too active. And so it requires wisdom to know when I lean in and when I wait. This again requires good friends and wise counsel and people who are helping you discern what to do with your life.Easter Morning, the Amphitheater, and the Shout That Surprised a PastorOn Easter morning this year, in that early service, many of us gathered outside at the amphitheater down there, and something remarkable happened, for me at least. I don't know if you remember this, but for me it was a moment. You see, I didn't think it was going to work, and then it did work. I said to the congregation, I want you to be thinking of something that you're hoping for this year, something that you're dreaming about, something that you want, a desire that's deep down in you, and I'm going to ask you to shout it out. We're not doing this again this morning, by the way. And then I thought, well, no one's gonna do it, or they're just gonna whisper it. And so I kind of prompted it, and then we got to the point where I asked, okay, shout it out now — and like everybody shouted at the same time. And I was shocked because you clearly had some strong desires deep down in your hearts that you want, that you hope for.And I want you this morning to name those again. Not out loud this time. But I want you to name them in your heart and in your head. Because the first step toward living a faithful life is to name what we desire, to start walking toward it, and then allowing God to course correct along the way. To hustle, but to make sure it's a holy hustle.What Is Your Deep Desire? God Is Asking You the Same Question He Asked BartimaeusAnd so this morning, just to kind of prompt you and pump the well a little bit, you might be hoping or longing or desiring for one of these things. To be a present, engaged father. To find a spouse. To leave the job that is killing you and find the courage to do what you were made for. You might be desiring to find freedom from that thing that you've never told anyone about. To get sober. To get into the right school or the right grad program. To experience the real and living God rather than just study about him. To find a community where you actually belong, where someone knows you and you know them. To have one real friend. To eat right and to lose weight. To see a family member come to faith. To leave something behind that outlasts you.I don't know what your deep desire is. But God wants to know. And God is coming to you this morning and asking you the same question he asked Bartimaeus. What do you want? It starts with honesty. And God's answer may be no. But God's answer may be yes. And he's just waiting for you to say it out loud and to start walking toward him.Because there's this other part of the story that would be easily missed again, but I don't want us to miss it. Because right at the end of all of this, Bartimaeus comes forward, and he tells Jesus what he wants, and Jesus heals him. And then it says he followed him on the way. Which is everything that Jesus is trying to get us to do this morning — to follow him along the road. And our hopes and our dreams and our desires, it should all be aiming for that road of life, for that way of Jesus that he wants to walk us down.But God is not going to live this life for you. And yet, paradoxically, he is the one who will enable all the work you are supposed to be doing. He's got his mower out and he's ready. You just have to pick up your plastic mower, head outside, and walk where Jesus walks the path ahead of you, following where he has prepared a way. A path that is intended for your good and for the good of all around you.Let us pray together. Jesus, we come this morning and we hear echoing in our ears, what do you want me to do for you? What do you want me to do for you? God, sometimes we don't answer that question out of fear. Fear that we actually don't have faith, that we don't trust you enough to give it over, that you might disappoint us, that maybe you're not even really there. And so God, this morning, give us that faith to trust you enough, to hand over our life's deepest desires to you. And God, whatever answer that is that comes back, whether it's that resounding yes or a quiet no or a I want to make you holy — God, I pray this morning that we trust you, that we have the faith of Bartimaeus to leap up and to ask you for exactly what we want and then to follow you along the way. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen.South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11amServing Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia.Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

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