All Right, All Right, All Right

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Excited? Of course, I'm always excited about preaching through the Bible, obviously. I wouldn't be a really good pastor or even a really bad pastor if I was not excited to speak or to preach through the Bible, any part of it. Romans in particular, we're actually going to be spending a lot of our year on Romans, not all at once, not every Sunday, but in major, major shifts, kind of like what we did with Hebrews last year. We're going to be dealing with Romans this year. So I just wanted you to turn to Romans 1. We'll get there in just a second. First, I want to tell you a little bit about my family. My family loves, loves watching movies. I mean, give us the dim lights, the popcorn during the holidays. We celebrate the 12 days of Christmas and we kind of do it a little different. But one of the things that we did, we, Christy, my wife rented the movie, Ticket to Paradise. And we, you know,

we pretty much themed out the whole, Christy pretty much themed out the whole downstairs and we got the island music going, we got the, you know, all the fun, all the fun kind of accoutrements. So we love watching movies, we love watching good movies. We like making fun of bad movies. When you're watching a movie, I don't know if you know this, you should, and if you're ever watching a movie with us, we will hold you to this. If you're ever, there is a certain etiquette when you're watching a movie with other people. Okay? And this list could be a lot longer. I'll just give you three first. The popcorn and the right lighting are staples. Okay? I cannot watch a good movie with all the lights on high and no nothing to snack on in front of me that's not a way to watch a movie shouldn't be done okay that's how you do it that's okay just telling you you're

wrong all right second second and this is this is pretty important if you can guess it don't say it write it down okay if you're watching a movie and you know like you just know when you're hard that cats gonna die okay this this guy's like he's walking in the mouth of a cave and you know there's a big monster whatever. You know that guy's going down, okay? Don't say it. Write it down. If you need to prove later that you knew the whole time, that's cool. Just have a piece of paper, okay? Like, you know, tuck it in your pocket and be like, look, I knew the whole time. Okay, great. Congratulations. But don't spoil it for everybody. Okay. And the third, and this is pretty paramount. If you happen to walk in halfway through anybody watching a movie in in our home, do not ask questions. I mean, what, what's that, a revival in here over there. If you, if you, if you walk in halfway through

and you're like, who's that? What are they doing? Why'd they say it that way? And here's what, here's what I just encouraged. Let the movie come to you a little bit, okay? And look, I've been guilty of this. Like sometimes I just want to, I'm like, oh, what's going on? I'm like, you know, then I get the, the death stare. I'm like, I'm sorry, sorry, you know.

Don't do that. You need to let the movie come to you a little bit. That's what we're saying. So, questions though, when you walk in halfway through a movie, questions are very natural because you kind of don't know what's going on. As my Bible professor used to say, context is king. Context is king. So, if you don't know what's going on in the middle of a movie, of course you don't know why this person just betrayed the other person or why that's a big deal or why everybody's wearing top hats, you don't know. You don't know because you don't have the broader context. You don't get it. And when you study the Bible, it's the same thing when you're studying the Bible. You need to be able to grasp the broader situation, the broader background to really get and understand what you are studying. In fact, the reason that people often do not follow through on reading the Bible. The reason some of you might have already dropped that

New Year's resolution, okay, because it's only, you know, January 22nd and you're already off your wagon, okay. But a lot of times the reason that people do that is because they lack context. That when they open the Bible, they feel like they're walking in halfway through a movie and they don't understand why people are doing that. They don't understand like, why did God do that? What does that mean? Why is that significant? Why is this in King James. So there's a lot of questions. And when you're walking in halfway through... I was kidding about King James. You don't need to read the Bible in King James.

I would say the same thing to you that I would say to somebody walking in halfway through movie, but with the Bible, let the Bible come to you a little bit. Give a shot, read it, keep reading. You don't understand. Don't let that stop you. Just keep reading. Keep reading things you don't understand, okay? Because eventually, slowly, surely, you'll begin to get it. Today, as we begin studying Romans, I want to help you and I want to lead our church through this. I want to read wide for context. I want to help us understand what's going on, what's the background, what's the situation, and to understand where we can kind of put some of these things. And the opposite of that, the opposite of reading wide for context is making one verse or one section of Romans your whole theology. Okay? We don't want to do that either. Okay? Look, I get it, man. Some of you guys, you really need a life verse.

You got a life verse that's written on the inside of, you know, the inside flap of your Bible, like it's your thing, man. You got it like framed on the wall at your house. Cool. That's great. I don't hate on that, but when you make one verse or a few verses, your whole theology through which you see everything else, then I think maybe sometimes you're lacking context. Okay? You're lacking context. And so let's begin to understand Romans. And just for fun, let's start with verse 16. Chapter 1, verse 16. Okay? It's going to be fun. I promise. Even if you've never read Romans before, It's fine. Don't feel like you have to have read it already. It's not a big deal.

Romans 1:16 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Okay, this is kind of our first flag for context. What in the world are we talking about? Why are we mentioning Jews and Greeks? It seems very odd. Okay. And if you're walking halfway through, if you're walking into the middle of Romans and you're going, that's weird, you're probably asking questions like, why does it say that? Why does it say Jews first?

Well, it's because Romans, the book of Romans, is written in the context of clashing cultures. Romans is written in the context of clashing cultures. Let's go back to movies for just a minute. There are literally dozens of movies that discuss or that portray clashing cultures. Two recently that have come out, Avatar, Dune. Both of those, you've got class warfare going on, you've got clashing cultures. If you wanna go a little older, you can think of my big fat Greek wedding, you can think of The Last Samurai, you can think of even Titanic. The whole premise of the entire thing of Star Trek is on clashing cultures. And if you just want to go Disney, I got Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Tarzan, and the Lion King, all talking about Clash and Cultures. When I say there's literally dozens of movies, I'm not exaggerating. And I really just want you to pick one.

Whatever one I name that you've seen, just pick that one. I want you to pick one. And I want to just say, in each of those movies that I just listed right there, maybe some others that you're thinking of with clashing culture. In each of those, you have an insider culture and you have an outsider culture. And in that kind of that clash, both sides have to face difficult facts about their own culture and have to face difficult facts about the other's culture. Right? And then they have to compromise. They have to admit that there's difficulty going on and they have to learn how to cooperate. Okay, that right there, that is the background of Romans. Romans is a dialogue between a religious, insider Jewish culture and an irreligious, outsider Greek culture, okay? Within the Roman church, both cultures exist, prominently, actually. There's a whole history on that.

And if you want to go grab coffee and we can talk about the background of Romans, then sweet. I'm not going to go through that here. But what I will say is that the religious insider Jewish culture, okay, they're insider because they're the ones that have the Old Testament law. They have the heritage, right? They're Jewish by heritage. And for them to pick up on Old Testament imagery or for them to pick up on the whole, the whole idea of a Messiah. Oh, they're there. I mean, they're ready to go. They're on the couch with the popcorn lights are dimmed. They're ready. But when you're talking about the irreligious Greek culture, no, they're not there at all. The irreligious Greek culture, though, maneuvers inside popular culture pretty easily. The Greek outsider culture can actually sympathize with young Christians, because they've had to recently kind of make that same trek.

And so, throughout our series, throughout our discussion on Romans, we are going to see this idea of religious and irreligious culture, and it's going to be clashing multiple times all within the context of Romans. Now, let me be clear on one small thing about context, okay? You're getting a little bit of like Bible reading 101. This is good, okay? Let me tell you, just because culture clash is the present situation in the middle of the book of Romans, just because that's actually happening and it's written in the middle of that, it doesn't mean that we get to explain things that we don't like, it doesn't mean that we get to explain everything away on that. It doesn't explain everything we see in the book of Romans. For example, sometimes people will say a statement like this. They'll say, well, you know, Paul, the apostle Paul, the guy who wrote Orman's, well, he was a first century male Roman citizen.

Okay? That's true. Then they will say, and what he says about women's roles and homosexuality is not binding at all. It's not, you know, we shouldn't even teach that. Well, no. That doesn't square. Just because we know the context doesn't mean we get to explain everything away. Right? Does that make sense? The context is just the, We can't use context to wipe away everything, right? Context does two things. It helps us discern between truth and situation. Okay, so I'll give you an example. 1 Corinthians 8, 10. Okay, it's just a grab bag example, but it's good. It says, for if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? Okay, first of all, without context, you have no idea how to answer that question. Yes? No? I don't know. And you have subsequent questions to understand it.

So what does he mean by you who have knowledge? What's the big deal with eating in an idol's temple? Okay? Why is food offered to idols a hot topic? Okay? Without the greater context of 1 Corinthians, we miss a great truth there. And here's the truth that that's illustrating. The truth is that we need to love, care for, tenderly, care for less mature believers, okay? If you don't know the context of 1 Corinthians, you have no idea that that's there. And so you've missed the truth because you lack context, because the situation that they're talking about is foreign to you, literally, okay? We're first century, you know, wrong. Okay, that's very different than 21st century Burleson. Sure, there are some things that are similar, but it's still pretty foreign. Without context, we don't understand that. We just get lost in the foreignness of it all. Does that make sense?

So context helps us discern between truth and situation. So we can see that's the situation. We're talking about idols. We're talking about, you know, eating in an idol's temple. We don't deal with that. So what does that have to do with us? Where are we with that? Well, that actually is an encouragement to love less mature believers. It's just hard to see it because the context is weird. The second thing we need to know is that the Holy Spirit uses those situations particularly to speak the truth to us today. In other words, the context of clashing cultures in the middle of the Book of Romans, okay, that situation seems completely accidental to us. We're coming to that and we're going, oh, okay, Paul just happened to be writing in the middle of all that. No, no, no, no, no. That's not true. The truth is that that context was chosen specifically. That it's not as if the Holy Spirit's like, wow, man, I wish I had a better situation.

This will do. Okay. Clash of cultures in the middle of Romans. That's not what's going on. That it's chosen, that the Holy Spirit uses that as a specific context to bring specific truths to light. Okay? So, with Romans, you have the context of these two clashing cultures, and that's great, but the Holy Spirit is going to use that particular context way back in first century Rome to speak to us today. Okay? And that is the miracle of reading a Bible. Okay? That is what I've just said about Romans. I can say about any book. Okay? When you read Scripture, there are particular situations that you can see here. Okay? You're like, yes, you're in the 600 BC, yes. Okay, but there's still something that the Holy Spirit is going to use in that situation to speak to you today. It's still going to mean something today. Not just what it means to you, but it's going to mean something.

So even though context is very important, there is much more to Romans than just its context. Okay. So I want to show you two other things about the book of Romans as we kind of go through these first few verses. Okay. So I want to tell you two more things. First, I want to tell you that Romans is a heartfelt letter. Okay. If we're going to understand Romans, we need to see it as a letter. It's a letter from a pastor to a church. Okay. So Romans chapter one, we're going to stay in one the whole time. Romans one, seven and 11, we're just going to combine that together. So to all those in Rome, first of all, let me just say the way they wrote letters in the first century is different than how we write letters today. We would write a letter beginning with the person receiving the letter. So if I wrote a letter to my wife, I would say, Dear Christie, I'd probably say, Hey, babe, but Dear Christie, just to be formal, comma.

And then I would start my letter and then I would sign it at the end. The way in first century Greek it works is, first century Rome, is that it actually starts with a person who's writing the letter. So he introduces himself. So it says in Romans 1, chapter 1, verse 1, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. So Paul's actually saying like this is the person writing the letter. He doesn't get to the people he's addressing until verse 7, okay? The people he's addressing is to all those in Rome, to the church in Rome, who are loved by God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then listen to verse 11, it says, for I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. It goes on and on like this where Paul is saying, I want to be with you. I love you. I care about you. I want you to grow.

Paul has been doing this by the time he's writing the book of Romans, Paul has been starting and growing churches for 25 years. He's been doing this for 25 years. It was 25. This is written 25 years after the Damascus Road experience. If you know anything about Paul's life, okay? When he's saying that he wants to do that, he's speaking from a deep well of experience, a deep heart, a deep passion, okay? And though he did not start the Romans church, he didn't like, you know, start it from nothing, he does want to see them. And so this is a letter from a pastor to a church, it's also a letter from a missionary raising money. So look at verse 13, it says, "'I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented in order that I may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles." He's talking about money.

He's being real cool about it there in those verses, but that's exactly... He's raising money, seeking financial help on behalf of other poor churches. He's actually not taking a paycheck. So Paul himself has a job as a tent maker. So he does that, that's how he earns money. He's asking for money from this church on behalf of other poor churches. And he does the same thing in 1 Corinthians and in a lot of other places in the New Testament. It's a very, very common practice. But when we read that, we need to know that this is a letter, this is heartfelt, it's also seeking to raise support. But it doesn't take 16 chapters to convey all that, so Romans is actually a lot more than a letter. And here's kind of where I want to help you see kind of what's in the book of Romans, right? Romans is a blueprint for the gospel. So it is a letter, right? It's a heartfelt letter.

But it's also a blueprint for the gospel. And you can see it in the very first verses. If you look at verses one and two of Romans chapter one, it says, Paul, again, remember, he's introducing himself. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle. That means one who is sent. set apart for the gospel of God, this gospel which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. So early on, early on, you get all these flags, all these things telling you the gospel's really, really, really important. A very weighty thing here is the gospel. The apostles Paul we see in verse one that he has set apart for the gospel of God. The gospel in And verse 2 is promised beforehand through the prophets in the Old Testament. And look, that's not just Whistle and Dixie. That's a big thing to say. To say that all these minor, all these major and minor prophets, dozens of prophets in

the Old Testament were all pointing toward this thing, all prophesying about this thing, this gospel that's coming up. So Paul is saying this is a weighty thing. Verse 9, Paul says that he serves the gospel. In verse 15, he says, I am eager to preach the gospel to these Roman Christians. So what we see, even in the beginning verses, even in the first 17 verses, which is all we're going to be able to get to today, we see the gospel come up several times over. The gospel is waiting. And the gospel is not something that we should guess at. There's an article by a man named Benjamin Verbicek and it's called The Gospel in 140 Characters. If you're unfamiliar, Twitter, the social media platform, used to limit everything that you'd post to 140 characters. They've since doubled it in 2017 or something. So this is written kind of before that. The Gospel and 140 characters.

And he saw, he was inspired to write this article when he saw the Gospel conveyed on a minivan in shoe polish. Okay, so he sees a minivan, it's got shoe polish written on the side, what does it say? Quote, and I think the quote's up here, there it is. Heaven is for real, so is hell. Jesus Christ is your only escape, receive him today. So Benjamin Verbichek, as he is quoting this minivan, okay, he didn't meet the people who were in it, as he's quoting this minivan, he's saying, he's saying, look, I don't love that gospel presentation, right? I don't love that, but why? Why don't I love it? What's wrong with it? How would I change it? And so then he puts the question on himself. He goes, well, how would I write the gospel out in 140 characters? And my question to you this morning, and we're not, You're not going to turn in homework, I promise, but how would you do it?

If you had to write the gospel in 140 characters, could you do it? Let me tell you, you would need to choose your words carefully, not just for meaning, but also for tone. And then what kind of punctuation are you going to use? I mean, there's definitely two exclamation points at the end of today. What does that mean? It means like more exclamatory there than in the previous sentence. If so, what does that mean? I mean, you can really break it down. How would you do it? I want to tell you that the gospel itself has indispensable parts, right? That getting the gospel right, correct, or as it is, is extremely important. In fact, it's so important that it takes up most of the Book of Romans. for people, for us to understand what the gospel is. Because if you get the gospel wrong, right, if you lose one of these indispensable parts, it really, it's not just that, you know, like you'll sort of just be limping

along, it's that you're going to drift into a different gospel that is not good. You don't want to do that. You want to understand and know the gospel. And we need to look at it in terms of indefensible parts, because without these parts, it really does cease to be the gospel. Okay, so let's look at those parts. And those parts aren't just logical, they're also emotional, they're also spiritual. Like it's not just that we're, you know, grammarians trying to figure out the most perfect way to set up a sentence. We're trying to capture something in words. It's important. So let's look at verses three and four of Romans chapter one. It says, this is the gospel, okay, concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is a lot, but we need to understand in the gospel, Jesus is God's son. The gospel is not just facts about history in real time, real space, but it is facts about history real time and real space. In other words, it's not just news like you would see in a newspaper, but it does deal with facts. In other words, it's not based on theory or perspective or kind of the way the world sort of works. It's not, this is an actual person, Jesus of Nazareth. We just went through our Advent season where we celebrated his birth. This actual person was the Son of God. That is the core of what you believe. You believe a man was born who was God. That's the essence of being a Christian. If you're saying, I don't know about that, I'm going to say, hey, that's cool. Wrestle with what you need to wrestle with. But until you're willing to admit that, or you want to say that you believe that Jesus

is the Son of God, if you're not ready to do that, then you're not a Christian. I'm not trying to judge you. I'm just telling you what's part and parcel with becoming a Christian, with being a Christian. is that Jesus Christ, the actual person, Jesus of Nazareth in history is the Son of God. The second thing that we see in these verses is that Jesus is our Lord through resurrection, that Jesus' resurrection from the dead authenticates his sonship. In other words, Jesus quite literally beat sin and death through his resurrection. Okay, again, facts and history, but it's not just historically true. It's also personally true. And you need to see this because we can argue facts all day. That's cool. But you need to understand that because Jesus really beat death, that means that freedom and hope are available to you in a way that would be impossible otherwise.

That means that the Son of God rising from the grave informs us of a great hope, of really the only hope to be had in this life, that death is not the end. And this isn't a guess. I'm not wondering. I know I'm still alive and haven't died, so I can't exactly prove it personally, but But I will say that when Jesus rose from the grave and he defeated sin and death, I can place my hope in that knowing that death is not the end. And moreover, that our sin slavery doesn't have to be our future. Whatever rut I am in spiritually, whatever sin I am beset with at this moment in time, I know that that is not my future. And that's why I can say to somebody who's addicted to drugs, who is dealing with some kind of besetting sin, I can tell them, clear-eyed, straight-faced, no regrets, sleeping fine on my pillow at night. I can tell them, Jesus can help you. Jesus can make you whole.

You have hope beyond whatever rut you are in right now. And that's not because I'm doing some feel-good seminar. because the fact in history remains that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, that he resurrected from the dead and defeated sin and death. Historically true. Let's keep reading Romans 1, verses 5 and 6. This is talking about Jesus. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations. including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Okay, so in the gospel, we need to understand that Jesus gives grace. It says through whom we have received grace. So the gospel, and let's really understand this for a minute, just really get it. I know I'm giving you like some intro to Romans class, trust me, I understand. But all of this is important, and it's really going to help you read the book of Romans on your own.

And it's going to help you follow even further in the following Sundays. It's important. The gospel is gracious both in its content and its demeanor. In other words, you cannot spitefully say that God has made peace between you and another person. You can't do it. It doesn't work. You cannot disdainfully say that God accepts people, right? In other words, when you are understanding the gospel correctly, it doesn't just change your mind, it changes your posture, it changes your heart. It changes the way that you see other people, right? The gospel is gracious in both its content and demeanor. Jesus, the bringer of grace is gracious. This grace that we receive makes us gracious.

This grace makes our church a family. And it's not because I'm gracious, it's not because I'm worthy, it's not because you're gracious Or you really been working on yourself or anything? No, the basis for all of our grace is Jesus' grace toward us first. We love because we were first loved. We are gracious because one was first gracious to us when we didn't deserve it. The gospel is about receiving grace. In the gospel, Jesus doesn't just give us grace, He also entrusts us with apostleship. Okay, it doesn't mean you have to start writing a Bible tomorrow. Apostleship just means sent one. You are one who is sent, okay? You are commissioned. You are sent as a messenger, okay? And so the gospel entrusts us with apostleship. In other words, Jesus kicks us into gear. When we believe the gospel, we are moved to action. Idle Christianity is contradictory on its face.

Jesus, the one who is sent to us, and again, we just celebrated that through Christmas, Jesus, the one who is sent to us, also sends us. This apostleship makes us move. This apostleship, apostleship, doesn't just make our church a family, it makes our church a movement. We are part of a larger movement called the Kingdom of God that is breaking in on this world. We're one of many beachheads toward that end, but we are moved and sent into people's lives, into our jobs, into our families, into friendships with hopes with hopes that we can see the gospel change hearts and lives, not just our own, but other people. Because of Romans 1, 5 through 6, we can understand that as a church, we are a family full of grace. We are also a movement that is getting into gear. We're both. We're not one or the other and we don't need to choose. Jesus, by giving grace and apostleship,

makes people come alive. It alters everything about us. So Jesus, this historical person literally be death and spends time bringing people to life. How would we sum this up? How would we capture this in 140 characters? Well scripture does it, not in 144. It actually does it in 266 characters, if we're counting. Romans 1, 16 and 17. This is how the writer of Hebrews would sum up the gospel in this context. It says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it, the gospel, is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. We'll get to that. For in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. before you pull out the penalty flag to cry foul, it's not 140 carriers, 266. It does give us a good grasp of the gospel, right? It helps us to see that the gospel is God's power and that God uses his power

to bring salvation to everyone who believes in Jesus. And we see that in the gospel, that God's righteousness is revealed, whatever that means, okay? That's kind of a big thing right there. And so again, I want to ask you, if you had 140 characters, how would you describe the gospel? How would you put those words into the gospel? How would you put Romans 1 through 17? Romans 1, 1 through 17. How would you summarize that in 140 characters? Well, here's my shot. And it's 132 characters. I like to overachieve. It's not that great. OK, here it is. Here's my shot. Jesus making people right by forgiving sin and beating death. Jesus making people alive to his grace and mission. Our part, belief. That's how I'd sum up the gospel. Jesus making people right by forgiving sin and beating death. I want to tell you, if that's the first time you've heard the gospel, or if you're just not really familiar with it,

Maybe it's the first time in a long time. Or maybe you thought the gospel was something totally different. What I wanna just help you see, just beyond anything else, is that the gospel is a message of good news. It's not good advice. It doesn't tell you make yourself a little better incrementally. It doesn't tell you work on that bad habit. The gospel is good news. In other words, it stands whether you acknowledge it or not. It would be like if I told somebody in here, hey, it's raining outside. That's news. It's raining outside. It's not advice. Advice would be, hey, maybe you should grab an umbrella. That's advice. But the news, it's raining outside. I hope that it moves you toward different behavior, right? I hope that you understand, oh, it's raining outside, I should. Okay, it's great. But let's not confuse it. The gospel is not advice. The gospel isn't, hey, you should work on yourself

to get yourself a little, you know, do a little better. The gospel is that God has used his power to bring salvation to everyone who believes in Jesus, Jew or Greek. Translation, it doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, it doesn't matter what side of the tracks you're from, it doesn't matter about your heritage, It doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter what you've thought about doing. It doesn't matter what you've attempted. It doesn't matter any about that. Not at all that if you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, if you believe that you can have salvation in Him by accepting His free gift of grace,

if you want to follow Jesus with your life, that is a free thing to do. And that is the message of the Gospel. that God will bring salvation to everyone who believes in Jesus and that He's going to reveal His righteousness in it. Jesus making people right by forgiving sin and beating death. Jesus making people alive to His grace and mission. Our part, believe. And that really is it. Regardless of how many characters you use, the gospel still cuts us all right at the heart. Right at the hard. And it asks you the question, do you believe? Do you believe? We normally close our services with a time of invitation, and we recently kind of adjusted that, so I want to help you know kind of what to do. Over to my left, your right, there's just two chairs, and there could be more chairs if there's a lot of people, that's fine. We can just pull chairs over. After our service is over, I'm going to be standing over there kind of

lingering. It'll be awkward. I'll look awkward. It's okay. If you can't stand awkward, just turn away. Just hide your face from me. It's fine. Just don't do it. What I'm going to be doing though, standing awkwardly right there, is I'm going to be waiting for anybody who has questions. You want to talk about a sermon. You're not really sure kind of what to do next. What's that going to look like? I don't know. You thought that sermon was terrible and you've got it one rewritten already and you're going to give it to me. We can talk about it right there. It might not talk long if that last one is your option. But what I want to do is just open that up. I just want to have that open for you after the service. So people are going to be building.