So I was reading and preparing for this message. We're going to pick back up in our Hebrew series and I'll kind of categorize where we're at in the series in just a moment. But I was reading, studying all these different things. And you might have heard of this guy, St. Francis of Assisi, a big deal in church history, faithfully walked with the Lord, started a movement that was very impactful even through the Catholic Church and all these different things. So I was reading a story. Just, I don't actually know if it's true. I tried to Google and figure out if this is just kind of like a myth about his life or if this was a true story that happened. I don't know. But as a story goes, like he was gardening one day, sitting in his garden, you know, weeding or whatever you do is you garden, because I'm clearly a gardener.

So he's gardening, and this young guy comes up to him is like, out of nowhere, just kind of hypothetically, hey, if you knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow or tonight, like what would you do right now? And the story goes that St. Francis just looked up at the guy and said, I would keep tending my garden. and so the guy then is like, why, like, why would you do that?

And as people have talked about this story and then obviously St. Francis kind of expanded on that,

but as he explained his answer there, he was trying to illustrate to this guy that often,

often when we think about things of God,

when we think about showing up at church, when we think about praying, when we think about

Jesus coming back and all of these different things, our mindset assumes or places all the

value in things that are to come or in a place that is not this earth. Here's what I mean by that.

That might have been confusing.

When Jesus comes back, he is not just going to raise us up to heaven and we're going to float on the clouds. Miles kind of hit on this last week. But he's going to come back and recreate the earth here. And so St. Francis was indicating to this guy, hey, I'm going to keep tending my garden. and I'm going to keep doing these mundane things because I'm going to, one, be faithful in the small things,

but there's also value in this life here on earth. There's value and there's beauty in the small things like gardening, like the things we enjoy. And so as I was processing through, the reason I tell you the story, as I was processing through this series, I've been realizing that, yes, the writer of Hebrews, whoever it is, I don't think it's Paul, but whoever it is, he's writing to this little house church trying to encourage them to persevere through trial, to persevere through persecution, like they're literally at risk of losing their lives, but also some of them are just starting to shrink back. And as we've heard through this series over and over and over again, the way that God is applying to us today in 2025 in Auburn, Alabama, or Nashville, or Birmingham, or Huntsville, where he's applying it to us is that he's inviting us to go deeper with him. And so as you'll see in the scriptures we're going to open today, and you'll even see through the title of this sermon, Life on Earth, I genuinely feel the scriptures that we're going to open

today are emphasizing to us that there is a life available to you and me here and now this

morning on our, you know, spring forward, just loss of basketball game yesterday, dreariness of a

Sunday. There is life available to us

here and now found in the person of Jesus. That there's value here and now in showing up to work

next this upcoming week when, you know, all of your college friends, for those of you who just

graduated, are like, what are you doing for spring break? And you're like, I'm an adult now, so I just have to work this week.

All right. I don't want to do this. I'm just going to be completely transparent. I've told Miles, I think it's kind of corny, but let's do a sword check. And listen, I told him that I was going to mess with him. I think it's a little cringe, but you know what? It's beautiful and I'm more okay with dad jokes, the older I get. So let's go ahead and open to Hebrews 5.

Hebrews 5. Hebrews 5. I could not do it. I could not,

I'm sorry, you guys who know me, I can't force the fakeness of wanting to do it as emphatically as

Miles does it, okay? I did it, but I can't do it as energetically as he can, again, because I think it's cringe. But, um, listen, I love it. When he, when somebody is so bought into what they're doing, I don't even care if I think it's cringe. I'm like, I can respect that. So anyway, now that I've roasted Miles, I'm going to honor him, not just because I'm supposed to or because I was told to, but genuinely, I was processing and thinking through, all right, I'm going to make fun of him, but I also want to honor him because quite honestly, many of you you're like, yes, Miles is amazing. I'm one of the few people, like, at our church, like, Gage is one of them as well, who have been following Miles for a very long time.

Like, this church is almost 11 years old, and Miles has been my leader and pastor for almost 11 years. And so I was processing and thinking, I'm like, I do want to empower Miles, and again, not because he told me and he's not even in the room right now, so this isn't even like getting a checkmark from him. this is genuinely, I wanted to do this.

...