South Run Baptist Church

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-c8012d0e56982c48af04-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-c8012d0e56982c48af04-1" > Sermon Transcript

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-e12b7b971c6e85aaa5ea-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-e12b7b971c6e85aaa5ea-1" > Sermon Transcript

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-fa34a923ee0d9aa72feb-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-fa34a923ee0d9aa72feb-1" > Sermon Transcript

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-113d8d166ed63d75d3ba-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-113d8d166ed63d75d3ba-1" > Sermon Transcript

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > In this series we are talking about the road to abundant life, but this week we name abundance as a problem. Gluttony, if it is one thing, is an abuse of abundance. And if there is one story in the Bible about such abuse, it shows up in the story of the prodigal son. The younger son in Luke 15 asked for an early inheritance from the father and gorged himself over and over until he had spent every last dollar. When the food ran out, he found himself desiring food from the pig trough. Gluttony is a sin with a bottomless pit. At some point in the overeating and excessive drinking, you lose the joy of why you eat and drink in the first place. 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > What We'll Cover:How the story of the prodigal son is a story about sin, death, and the way back to abundant life, and how gluttony fits into this moldThe difference between a false abundance that leads to death and the Father's abundance that leads to lifeWhat a 30-day fast can teach you about who is actually in control of your food and drink intakeWhy gluttony is on the list of deadly sins, and why it is indeed “deadly”Why confession and accountability is essential to regaining self-controlHow there are seasons for fasting, for feasting, and for ordinary days in between, and how Jesus points us to wisdom in order to determine what time it is 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-7d85c09526f8cf05c1f5-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-7d85c09526f8cf05c1f5-1" > Sermon Transcript Gluttony, the Prodigal Son, and Tying Yourself to the Mast — Sermon Transcript South Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VARev. Dr. Eric GilchrestLuke 15:11–32; Luke 7:31–35Father's Day 2026 This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Rev. Dr. Eric Gilchrest preaches on gluttony from Luke 15:11–32 and Luke 7:31–35. Delivered on Father's Day, this sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" series on the seven deadly sins and addresses true abundance versus false abundance, the slavery of an undisciplined life, and practical wisdom — fasting, accountability, and learning when to feast and when to fast — for breaking free of gluttony. A Father's Day Blessing for the Dads in the RoomHappy Father's Day. We celebrate Father's Day, and I celebrate this with you. The world is in need of good fathers right now, and the job of the father is one that has been perhaps too neglected in our society. We need children raised well. We need strong young men and strong young women. We need households in which fathers are capable of raising the next generation of believers. And so my hope and prayer this morning for you, dads, is that you are that kind of dad, and that you live into that kind of calling, because the world needs you.Before we begin the sermon, I do want to start with prayer, so please bow your heads with me. Heavenly Father, we come and we have gathered here today to hear your word, to be together, to laugh, and to have joy in the company of other believers. Lord, we open our hearts and our minds to what you would have to teach us this morning. We give you thanks for the dads in the room, for the ways in which they have poured out their lives for their kids and for the world around them. As Clint prayed for the sleepless nights and for the strength in times where they probably felt weak, for the times where they needed your sustenance — Lord, we give you thanks for them. And now we ask a blessing over them. We ask for more strength as they will need it, for courage where they need it. But God, we ask for love, that everything they do and are be rooted in a love that mimics and mirrors your kind of love, a love that poured itself out for the world, did not hold back because you loved the world so much. You gave us Jesus Christ, and you showed us the way forward. And so, Lord, this morning as we come, we give you thanks. We give you praise. And we ask for you to open your word to us. In Christ's holy name we pray. Amen. Where We Are in The Jesus Way Series: From Anger and Vanity to GluttonyFriends, we are still on this rather lengthy journey together. If you've not been with us, we are calling it the way, which is to say that there's a way to live and then there's a way to not. There are really these two paths in life. There's a way that leads to life, abundant life, and then there's a way that leads to destruction. And on the ways where we're talking about the ways that lead to life, we're digging deep into the teachings of Jesus. And I'm doing my best to show you how the scriptures, how Jesus himself, is very interested in you living, not just half-hearted lives or just kind of making your way through life. He wants you to live an abundant life, like very full, just brimming over with a sense of what life has for you. I think this is what Jesus wants from each and every one of us. And then there's this other version, and it's a road that leads not to life, but really to death. And it's a false version of the road to life. And there are any number of ways that we can go down that road. And so I've tried to frame this in kind of what the tradition has given us, and we call the seven deadly sins. And so we've already talked about things like anger or wrath. We've talked about vanity. And this morning we're talking about gluttony. Happy Father's Day. And this is one of these that we probably take less seriously. I think there's probably more laughs out of this one because we all are kind of in this together, actually. You might feel called out a little bit this morning, but I want to frame it like this. This sin cannot be measured by the size of the belt you wear. And I will just say, maybe point of confession here, I think I have been given very good genes. This is nothing to do with me, and this is everything to do with my fathers and their forefathers, etc., etc. And I think in a different body — I have not spent as much time in the gym as I should over my lifetime. I've probably eaten things that I shouldn't be eating. And so I give thanks to God for all of this. But this is simply to say that our relationship with food and with drink is one that should honor God. And we all fall short in one way or another. And so if you find yourself in the evening unable to resist the cravings of that bag of chips that's calling out to you, this is what we're talking about this morning. The Prodigal Son: Two Versions of AbundanceSo in order to talk about gluttony, we have read this morning a passage that no doubt you are very familiar with. Even if you're not churched, you've probably heard the story of the prodigal son. We read it already and we don't need to read the whole thing through. And in fact, we'll probably focus mostly on the front side of it, because this is the son's sin, right? This is where he chooses the wrong path. Like quite literally, he goes the wrong way. But I do want to start actually at the very end. The last lines of it — the father is celebrating, right? His son has returned home. But here's what he says. He says, go ahead and kill the fattened calf and let's eat and let's celebrate. And then he says, "My son was dead and is alive again." This is exactly what we're talking about through this whole series. It's how his son was not dead, right? Like literally dead. But he may as well have been. He was living that other life that leads to death. But now he's found his way back home in the right place, and he's living the kind of life that leads to life — abundant life. And so when we talk about gluttony this morning, I'm going to fit it over the frame of the prodigal son. Is this the only sin sitting in the story of the prodigal son? No. But I do think it fits pretty neatly into this story. There are really three acts to this story. There's where the son takes his stuff and he goes off to the far country. There's the second act where he comes to himself, is what it says — he wakes up and realizes this is not how life should be lived. And then there's the third act where he returns home. And it strikes me, and should strike you too, that the first and the third act are aiming at the same thing for this son. They're aiming at the same thing. And it's a word that I've been using a lot over these last months. Abundance. He is aiming at abundant life. And when he gets home with the father, the father is offering him, once again, abundant life. This is where you're supposed to be. This is the kind of life you're supposed to live. It is filled with joy, and it's even filled with feasting, and it is filled with the people that you're supposed to be around. This is the good life. But the first act is the son trying to find abundance, but he's finding it in the wrong places. And so what happens to him is he strikes out on his own, and he tries to grasp the abundance for himself. And then it all falls apart. Which is to say — this is a very nice opportunity for me to say what this series has not been and will not be all along. If you've heard me saying, God wants abundant life for you, God wants abundant life for you, for the last number of months here, and you're thinking to yourself, like, health and wealth, and all the good things of life, and I'm just supposed to get, get, get from God — that is not really what we're talking about. There's a version of that that actually doesn't lead to life at all. It leads to what happened to this son here, which is his death. The father says he was dead and has to come back to life. And so there is a version of abundance that is a false version, and you need to be alert to it. And then there's a version of abundance that God wants for you and for me. And it is filled with true joy and is filled with true life. And it only happens in the Father's house. Luke 15:11–13: "Father, Give Me" — The Anatomy of Sin Let's turn with me, if you will. We're in Luke chapter 15. I want to point out just a few things that I think connect nicely with gluttony. "There was a man who had two sons." It's a father. It's a good Father's Day sermon. He's got his two sons out there, right? And the younger one says to the father, "Father, give me." We're already off to a bad start. This is how sin is often framed, actually. We could probably put just about any sin into this mold right here, which is to say, I know, Dad, you've got your way of doing things, but give me. I'm gonna do it my way. And here the son is already off to a very bad start. And so he asked for his share of the property that is coming to him. The father divided the property between them. And then, "not many days later" — it didn't take long, right — what happens to the son when he gathers up his stuff and he goes on a journey into a far country. So if sin can be fit into the mold of doing things your way, well, the next part of it is what happens because of the sin, which is to say you are then ushered out of the land in which you are supposed to be living, and you find yourself in a far country. This is the story of Eden, is it not? The story where Adam and Eve are living in the Father's house and enjoying the fruits of the Father, and all is well, and then sin enters the picture, and what happens next? They are in the far country. And ever since, we're trying to get back, trying to get back. Buccee's, Buffets, and Using Food to Control Your EnvironmentAs this young man, the son, heads to the far country, there is no doubt in my mind — my son has asked me to say this — that there's a Buc-ee's along the way. And there is all sorts of opportunity to spend your money and to eat whatever you want. And there are buffets and there are things that just call out to you and are really hard to resist. And doing things my way, when we're talking about gluttony, is to say that you are using food or using drink to do what? To control your environment. To say, you know what, I am feeling really restless right now, you know what will help me is that bag of chips that I mentioned. Or, I've had a really rough day at work, you don't know the pressure that I've experienced, I'm going to go ahead and grab that next glass of wine. And you begin to use things like food to do what? To have some kind of control over you, and to fix the problem that is out there somewhere. And maybe a few too many stops at Bucky's, you find yourself thinking that that's going to solve my problem and this will get me through to the next day. Much like greed, if you recall — when we talked about greed, it was made real by Dante's La Lupa, the wolf, that is skin and bones, and it keeps eating and wanting more and wanting more and wanting more. But the greed, it never gets filled up. There's always one more dollar that you need, one better job, and then you'll feel satisfied. And gluttony is much the same. One more donut, and then I'll feel good about it. But it never satisfies. It never fills you up. Feasting vs. Gluttony: Knowing the Difference I will say you should differentiate this between the meal from the meal that you actually really enjoy. The thing that you sit down and you finish and you say, that was like a slice of heaven, that was a really nice meal — because you've probably shared it with some friends or some family. If you were in Sunday school this morning, you and I enjoyed a wonderful conversation together. And for those of you who weren't there, you missed it. And if at 9:45 in the morning you're just kind of chilling and not really doing anything, you should come. This morning in particular was really lively and was really nice conversation. And there was a vibrancy about it. And one of the things we talked about was the difference between feasting and gluttony. And God wants you to feast in the right times, in the right places, in the right ways. And so when Christmas comes around and you've gathered your whole family together and you slaughter the fatted calf and everybody's enjoying themselves, sure, there is an opportunity for gluttony there, but it's also a right time to celebrate. Not unlike the father in this story right here who celebrates with the son who comes home. But as we said this morning, if every night becomes a feasting, this is when we run into some trouble, isn't it? Luke 15:13–16: Reckless Living, the Far Country, and Rock BottomSo the story goes on. He's in this far country. He is separated from the Father. He is living in sin. And then it goes like this. It was there in that far country that he squandered his property — or his inheritance, or the money that was given to him. He squanders it in reckless living. This, too, is a nice definition of how gluttony works. It's a wanting more. It's a taking what you have and giving more. It's an excess. There's no moderation in it, right? And this is what a prodigal is. It's all excess. And then connected with it is the reckless living, which is to say, an undisciplined living. And if gluttony is calling us into one thing — please hear me this morning — it is a life of discipline. A life of discipline. And I would venture to say that life in the Father's house, at the end of this story, is a life of discipline, which might be why this son wanted to run from it. No one really likes discipline, right? Until you do. If the discipline is good and right, then it shapes you into the kind of person. The analogy I like to use, and I've certainly used before, is the piano player, right? It requires discipline to learn how to play that instrument, and it's practiced time and time and time again. But eventually, the young pianist will get better, and then a little better, and a little better, and pretty soon all of that discipline begins to pay off. And what happens? Well, the disciplined child pianist becomes a master and is capable of entertaining and is capable of joy and treats the instrument like it is a symphony. I don't think it's all that different with other parts of our life. Living a disciplined life might not be the most fun thing in the beginning, but it is the way to add structure and to produce joy and to live lives that are indeed full. And you might push against it as a child would push against wanting to practice his piano. But man, when you lean into it, this is where life is found. Gluttony is the opposite of this. This is the prodigal, off in the far country, living the reckless lifestyle. The story goes on, and it says that when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. And this is what we call rock bottom. Now, it's a little harder to envision this with food, but you can probably envision this if you've seen enough television — hopefully not experienced this yourself — but with alcohol. The person who's drinking too much and too much and too much, well, eventually there is a bottom to it that they hit. It usually involves something else. Maybe it's a trip to the hospital, but it might be a spouse who leaves you. It might be a family who disowns you. But there's a rock bottom that happens. And what happens in the rock bottom is a wake-up call. It's what happens next in the story, which is to say, he comes to himself, and he realizes, I'm living out in the far distant country, I'm enjoying the feed that was meant for pigs, there's a better way out there. This is what happens in rock bottom. Trouble with gluttony is that there's not always a rock bottom. This is why it's actually a little more dangerous. Now, the rock bottom might be a heart attack — so that's real. If you eat too much and you really lean into that, at some point your health is going to cause you problems, and then you might have the wake-up call. For a lot of us, that isn't what the rock bottom is. There is none. There's just kind of a drifting through life in a half-hearted kind of way, which requires all the more somebody — maybe me — coming along, ringing alarm bells and saying, wake up, there is a better way out there. There is more life available to you if you live the life of discipline and not the life of excess. Luke 15:15–16: Slavery — The Sign That You're No Longer in ControlThe result of the sin and the far country and the reckless life — the result of it all is what happens there in verse 15. He loses his money. He hits the rock bottom. And so he does what? He hires himself out. This is the slavery piece of sin. The slavery. You are no longer in control of your own life. And in the same way that the son is not in control of his life, he has had to hire himself out now. And he is enslaved to some other master — which is precisely what happens with food or drink when you are living a life of gluttony. You are enslaved to the food, and it is in control of you. You are not in control of it. This is how you know, by the way, if you suffer from this. Fasting is a common and a surefire way to figure out if this is a problem for you. Take, again, alcohol. If you say to yourself, you know what, I wonder if I have a problem here — easiest way to figure out is to say, I'm going to stop for 30 days. If over the course of 30 days you can't make it to 30 days, well then maybe, just maybe, there is a problem there. Or if you say to yourself, I'm going to cut sugar out of my diet, and you begin to notice — oh man, I need those sugary things in my life. And why do I need them? I don't even know why I need them. But man, I keep going for them, don't I? This is how you know if something has more control over you than you over it. You are living a life of slavery. There's another master, and it is not you. Why Gluttony Is Deadly: Killing Us Softly, Killing Our Joy, Killing Our Trust in God Why is gluttony deadly? Let me offer you just three quick reasons. The one is from Roberta Flack and the Fugees. It is killing you softly. It is killing us ever so softly, right? It is making us weaker and weaker. And if discipline is intended to make us stronger and stronger, a lack of discipline makes us weaker and weaker. Two is that it actually kills the joy that was intended to be there. Because we've probably all by now figured out that when you eat too many of anything, that thing that brought you joy at the first eating of it is not really bringing the joy at the end of it all. Now you're just eating it. The third thing, and this is the most important, is that it kills us. It is deadly because we end up trusting it more than we trust God. We trust it to solve our problems more than we trust God to solve our problems. And so if we get to the end of that workday and we grab for the food, instead of trusting that God is going to get us through, this is the problem. What to Do About It: Fasting, Tying Yourself to the Mast, and AccountabilityAll right, so then that leaves us with one more question, which is, well, what do we do about this? I've already mentioned fasting. Highly recommend if you're wondering — does this have mastery over me, or am I in control here? Again, simply just say, well, I think I'm just going to give this up for a month and see what happens. And you'll see how much control you really do or don't have. The second thing, though, comes to us from a movie that's coming out this summer called The Odyssey. It's Homer's Odyssey, from the 800 BC, I think is when it was written. There's this scene in this, I look forward to, where Odysseus is on the boat. And he's sailing by an island with sirens on it. Do you know this story? And he tells his crew, put wax in your ears. Because if you hear the cry of these sirens, they are going to tempt you to come to the island, and you're going to crash into the island. But he says, I'm not going to put wax in my ears. And instead, here's what I want you to do. I want you to tie me to the mast so that as we ride by, I'm going to listen to them. And whatever I say, whatever I say, do not let — do not listen to what I'm telling you to do. And so if I tell you to go that way, do not go that way, right? And so the boat, indeed, sails on through, and there's Odysseus tied to the mast, and they've all got the wax in their ears blocking them. The lesson here is that gluttony, or food — whatever the cravings are — they are calling out to you. And maybe it's the drink. You need to get radical sometimes, and to tie yourself to the mast, or to put the wax in your ears. And what this might mean is, if you don't want that bag of chips at night, well, you shouldn't have the bag of chips in your house at all then. Or if the drink is maybe too much, then just get it out of the house altogether. And don't put yourself in the situation where it's even possible. And so if gluttony is calling out to you, I would encourage you this morning to get radical with this. Along with it, Odysseus wasn't alone. He had accountability. He had friends there who had rallied around him, and they all had a pact together on how they were going to get through this. What this might look like for you is a single friend that you reach out to today, and you say, look, I'm trying to solve this problem in my life because I want to be better than this. I want to be stronger than this. I want to serve God rightly. I want to be a righteous person. I want to be a man of character or a woman of character. And so you pull someone into your orbit and you say, I want to deal with this. There have been a few times over the course of the last few years since I've been here where I'll offer to you — tell somebody about whatever it is you're wrestling with this morning. I want to offer you that this morning. You should tell somebody. I would encourage you, if you need somebody, I would be happy, more than happy to be that person. Because sometimes people have come to me, and they've shared this with me, and I assure you, this is the best thing that you can do. To bring light into the situation. To not be alone. To not try to muscle through this. But to bring somebody into it. To help you along. To tie you to the mast. And when you say, I don't want to do this anymore, me or somebody in your life says, you're right, we're not going to let you do that. Luke 7:31–35: Jesus, the Pharisees, and Learning When to Feast and When to FastThere's an appropriate version of fasting, an appropriate version of feasting. If you turn back just a few pages in your Bible to Luke chapter 7, there is something quite nice here that I don't want you to miss. Jesus calls for wisdom in how this kind of life is lived. And if you start in verse 31, you might be surprised a little bit about the kinds of things that were said about Jesus and the kinds of things that he does in his life. And it goes like this. "To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?" And here he's talking about his critics, just so we're clear. He's talking about the critics. "And they are like children sitting in the marketplace, and they're calling to one another. And he says, we played the flute for you" — Jesus is the one playing the flute, or John the Baptist too — "and you did not dance" — which is to say, when you should have been rejoicing, you weren't rejoicing. "And then when we sang the dirge, and you did not weep." And when you should have been weeping and grieving and fasting, you weren't doing that. And so you didn't know when to fast, and you didn't know when to feast. And then he says — and this is the part that will surprise you — "For John the Baptist" — those Baptists — "they came eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you said he's got a demon." John knew how to fast, apparently, and a lot of Baptists do too. Actually, that's only half true. "But the Son of Man has come eating and drinking. And you say, look at him, he's a glutton and he's a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Which is it, Pharisees? Are they supposed to fast and do nothing, or are they supposed to feast and then you call them gluttons and drunkards? Which is it? And Jesus is saying, you must learn to feast at the right time and to have that kind of joy, and you must learn to fast at the right time and to know when it is appropriate to mourn with others or to limit yourself and to not give in to excess. And how do we do this? He says it in verse 35. Wisdom. Wisdom is the way. "This is what is justified by all her children." Closing: Two Stories of Abundance — Which Will You Choose?There are two stories of abundance in the prodigal son. There's an abundance in which we try to take it for ourselves. And then there's an abundance that the Father wants to give to us in his household, on his terms, in his way, with his kind of discipline. The offer this morning is, which will you choose? The one leads to life and the other to death. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we believe that you are a good father and that you know how to train your children and you know how to teach us the way to live a life. The question is, will we trust you? Will we do what we need to do? Will we give our lives to you? Or, like the prodigal son, will we flee? Will we take it for ourselves? Will we live in excess? Will we live the undisciplined life? God, this morning, may we be people who choose you and people who choose discipline. 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

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-d32a016c2988f8752059-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-d32a016c2988f8752059-1" > 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

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-626d5e3e8e30532d529a-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-626d5e3e8e30532d529a-1" > 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

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. While you’re at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > This Sunday we’re exploring:How Greed is like the hungry wolf within, that is never satiated, never satisfied, and never content no matter how much it gobbles upThe 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-0aa69bda446788e60743-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-0aa69bda446788e60743-1" > Sermon Transcript The Hungry Wolf: Greed, Anxiety, and the God Who Has Enough — Sermon TranscriptSouth Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VAPastor Eric GilchrestLuke 12:13–21; Matthew 6:24–34May 31, 2026This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Pastor Eric Gilchrest preaches on greed from Luke 12:13–21 and Matthew 6:24–34. This sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" series on the seven deadly sins and addresses how greed works as a hungry wolf that can never be satisfied, how our technology and online consumption feed our covetousness, and why the tithe is one of the most powerful weapons against the greed that sits in all of us.Where We Are in The Jesus Way Series: The Broad Road and the Seven Deadly SinsIf you haven't been here, if you're kind of forgetting — there's this road that Jesus talks about that leads to life, abundant life, good life, eternal life. And then there's this road that leads to death or destruction. It leads to like a half-life in this life. And it frankly leads to eternal death. And so he opens up for us this way of thinking about how we operate in this world. And I keep pivoting back and forth between the two. And one Sunday, I'll talk about things that are encouraging. And so a couple weeks ago, we were talking to the seniors, and we were talking about, you know, what does it take to live a good life? And when you get to the end of it all, how can you look back and know that was a life well lived. And then the week before that, we had been talking about the broad way, the way that leads to destruction. And for that specific day, we were talking about anger. But we've also talked about vanity, right? And today we're talking about greed. We are back on that broad road. It's one that leads to destruction.And I hope over the course of all of these — these are the seven deadly sins that we're walking through — my hope is that over the course of all of these, you come to realize that as Jesus and scriptures are teaching us how to live a life, whether it's the Ten Commandments or the laws or the, quote, rules that the Bible gives us, they're not actually meant to squelch life. They're not meant to tsk, tsk, don't do this bad thing, you know, and question our morality or something like this. They're there to protect us. They are the guardrails on living a good life. And if you follow these rules, it actually increases your chance of living the life that you were meant to live and that how you're supposed to operate in this world. And it's the design that God has for your life.And so as we talk about greed this morning, there are two ways you can think about it. It's a preacher getting up here yelling at you, don't be a greedy human being. But that's not the kind of preacher I am. Instead, I want to come at this as God has a better way for you. There's a better way of living a life than a greedy one. And this better way leads to fullness of life. And God wants that for you. I want that for you.How Technology and Amazon Feed the Greed Inside All of UsAnd then with all of this, I am trying to remind us of the ways in which our technology influences us. And I think there's a misconception out there — or maybe it's not even a misconception, maybe it's just like a blindness — that whatever we're doing online, whatever we're seeing on our computer screens, or maybe it's TV screens, or right on the phones in our pockets, that it's actually not really doing much to us at all. But the truth couldn't be more opposite. When we talk about these two roads, it's easy to think of a road in real life, right? We've got roads all around us, and you can think about the ways in which we walk through the, quote, real world. And you can be a greedy person or a not greedy person in the real world. But the truth is this, and we need to come alive to this — what you're doing on your devices, when you spend time online, and each of us is spending more and more and more time online, it is shaping us. It is changing us. To go back to earlier sermons, it's making us more vain people, as your social media is driving you to want more likes from that post that you put online. Or anger — your social media is generating lots and lots of rage. This is how they get you to come back. It's one of the greatest tricks that they pull on you: if I can make them angry again, if I can make you think, oh, those bad people over there, you're going to come back to my device, to the app that I've created for you. And what they're doing is they're hacking us. They're hacking the deadly sins that plague all of us. And they know this quite well, and they do it anyway. And so this morning, as we talk about greed, I would encourage you to think: how does my internet consumption change my desires? How greedy or not I am, like what I want in this world, what I think will bring happiness in this world. I've got Amazon up here as an example of a product that pumps greed in and through us. And why? Well, because you can get on Amazon — you can buy anything on Amazon now, it's both a miracle and an awful kind of miracle, whatever that might be called — and you can think, I want a new shirt, and you can find it, and you can click buy now, and within 24 hours, or pretty soon they'll have the drones coming and dropping at your door within a few minutes, and you can literally go from a thought or a desire to the actual product being in your hands within minutes. And boy, that's seductive, right? Boy, that's seductive. Why? Because you might think, yeah, if I just buy that shirt, well, then I'll be happy. Like, it'll fill this void. But man, if you've done that enough, then you know what? That shirt's not going to fill that void, is it? And so this is what we're talking about this morning. The ways in which greed and these pieces of who we are — they actually are an infection, and God wishes to heal us of these infections. Before we begin, let's start with prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you, and we give you thanks for Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, the one who goes before us, who leads us down that narrow road, who has shown us how to live a life, who is teaching us how to live a life, and who has died for us and for our sins, to whom we give thanks and honor. But more than that, we give allegiance, and we say, Jesus, you are our God, and you say so, so we will follow you. We trust you. We trust you for life. We trust you for eternal life and for the forgiveness of our sins. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen. Dante's Inferno and the Hungry Wolf: What a 700-Year-Old Poem Says About GreedWhen I was in college, my sophomore year, I was at a place called Asbury College, and I was taking a class called Western Literature. And it is a class in which you read through the major pieces of literature in the Western canon. This is actually the class that I first met my wife in. Dr. Strait was the professor, and Dr. Strait was one of my favorite professors of all time. He, in fact, attended our wedding — a brilliant man. And one of the pieces that he had us read was called Dante's Inferno. Perhaps you've heard of it. Just a few weeks ago, I decided, you know what? It's been about 20 years. I'm going to pick up Dante's Inferno again, and I'm going to try to read through this. And I have, and I've been enjoying it thoroughly. One of the reasons I wanted to read through it again was because he actually really digs into these deadly sins that we're talking about. And I was fascinated. This was written like 700 years ago. What might this man have to say to me, living in 2026, about any of these topics? And it turns out quite a lot. So he begins the Inferno. The opening passages — like if you go home and do one thing here, this is a worthwhile read. He's a man in the middle of his life, which already started to ring a little too true. And he finds himself lost in a woods. And he's struggling to know what to do. And he's kind of darkened. And if you ask me, it sounds like he's in a midlife crisis. And he's wandering in this wood when he comes along three beasts. He meets a leopard, and many think the leopard represents lust. And he's able to avoid this beast, and he kind of gets around it, only to meet a second beast. This one is a lion. And the lion is representative of anger and even violence. We've talked about this already. He manages to evade that. And these are not the two things that send him down into hell, into the inferno. It's the third one. He comes across la lupa — a wolf. And the wolf is described this way. It's bony. It is gaunt. You can see it's very hungry and sickly looking, and it's going to devour anything in its path. And Dante comes upon the wolf and cannot get around it, cannot outmaneuver it, cannot trick it. And so this wolf eventually leads him down into the inferno, where he is then guided by Virgil — if you've ever read it — through hell. And then back on the other side, has to get out of hell, up into purgatory, and eventually into heaven. But as he's heading into hell, he is driven there by the wolf. The wolf almost certainly represents what we're talking about today, which is greed. You see, the wolf will devour, and it will devour, and it will devour, but it will never be satiated. It will never feel contentment. It will never experience a fullness. And so that wolf just wants more, and it wants more, and it wants more. But there is no such thing as enough. This is what greed is. Greed is you looking at your 401k and saying, just a little bit more and then I'll feel good about my future. Or looking at your bank account and saying, just a few thousand dollars more and then we can do this. Or just a little bit more. Or it's maybe your salary and you're thinking to yourself, you know what would be great is a pay raise — if I could just, if I were making this, then, right? It's all of these ways in which we say, if I just had that one more thing. You're walking through the mall, if I had that suit, you know, I'd feel really good about myself and the trajectory of my life. And then the hungry wolf that sits inside of all of us is never satisfied with these, right? And there's always something more to consume. And this is precisely what greed is. It's the wolf in all of us. And Jesus is showing us this, and he's saying, don't try to feed that. It is a never-ending cycle, and it doesn't lead to life. It actually leads to a lesser life, a half-life, and eventually just destruction altogether, because that wolf will devour you. Luke 12:13–21: The Rich Fool and the Question of What You've Actually PreparedLet's take a look at our passage for today. This is Luke 12:13 to 21. In Luke 12, there's a few things happening. I really would like you to turn there with me. If you don't have your own Bible with you, there's one right in front of you. I would encourage you to open it up. We're in the Gospels. This is Jesus teaching, and he is showing us both the good way, but in this case, he's showing us the way of greed and this broad way that he's encouraging us not to go down. It starts in verse 13. We'll start in 13, Luke 12. "There was someone in the crowd who said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" A couple things right off the bat. There's a guy coming — I can imagine someone, maybe one of you, coming to me and saying, hey pastor, tell my brother that he needs to split all of the possessions with me — and me saying, that's not my job. I'm not a judge, right? I'm not an arbitrator. But you did get one thing right. You called him teacher, rabbi. This is who he is, right? And so he takes this moment. He's like, I can't make this call for you. I'm no judge, but I am a teacher, and so I'm going to play my role here. I'm going to teach you something. The thing that you really need to be worried about anyway, because the inheritance is great and all. But as we talked about a couple weeks ago, you can gain the whole world and lose your soul. And this is what this man is about to do. And so Jesus goes on and he says to them, "Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." The word covetousness here in some of your translations is going to read greed, and it is precisely the word we're talking about this morning. Pleonexia is the Greek here — greed. Be on guard against all greed. And then he makes it very clear: your life is not about your possessions. We have a saying in our family that is something along the lines of people over possessions. What matters most, right? If one of our kids breaks the toy of another child, yes, we try to make it right. But we try to also explain that people are more important than possessions. Greed will tell you the opposite. It will tell you that those possessions are really, really important to you, and you should be aggrieved and you should make sure you get that thing back. But people are always more important than possessions. And it turns out that one's life, as Jesus says, does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And what I take him to be saying here is that the road to the fullness of life, to abundant life, is not about all the toys you acquire in this life. That is not the way. It may be fun to ride those jet skis. It may be fun to have all the newest and latest gadgets, but that is not the road to an abundant life. And in fact, he warns us that the greedy life is one that is quite the opposite. And as I started, it is that ravenous wolf that will never be fully satisfied. But he goes on here, and so he starts to tell a parable in verse 16. "He told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what should I do? I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I know, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods." Now let's be honest. Let's try to take the side of this man for a minute. If you come into a significant amount of wealth, what would you do? How would you behave in this circumstance? If you found yourself suddenly living in the ancient world in first-century Galilee, and you're a rich man, and you have a bunch of crops, and there's a bumper crop year — well, you've got to find some place to store those, right? It's the prudent thing to do. And it seems like he's doing the right thing according to much of our logic today. Much of the logic I would even espouse. And I'll be honest, this sermon has been hard for me to pull together because there's this real fine line that sits between prudence on one hand — saving and being thoughtful about your future and making sure there's enough food in the barns for the years to come, which is certainly a good, godly thing — and then on the other side of the ledger is the sin we're talking about, which is greed, which is hoarding. And there might be people out there that actually need this food in that circumstance. And Jesus is clearly aiming at the sin side of all of this. And I don't want to take away the wisdom and the prudence side, but I do want us to get a little uncomfortable this morning and to ask ourselves, where are we hoarding when we could be giving? What is the status of our hearts as we build — whether it's our 401ks, our bank accounts, or our closets, or whatever it might be — what is the status of our hearts? There are a few places in your scripture that tell us that the love of money is the root of all evil. And we talked about this this morning in the Sunday morning Bible study, and we said that it's not that money is the root of all evil, but the love of it is, which is what Jesus is getting after all the time. He's always asking you, what do you love? Where's your heart with this? We could have said the same thing — actually, he could have, or scriptures kind of do — about any of these deadly sins. If we're talking about lust, the love of sex is the root of all kinds of evil. And it's true, it is. Or the love of food is the root of all kinds of evil. It kind of is, right? And so if we love things in the wrong way, watch out. But the scripture is pretty clear that there's something different about money. That there's something about money and possessions. We want to hoard it and we want to glom onto it. We want to make sure we have it. Jesus keeps going here and starts to explain a little bit why. And so in verse 19 he says, this is now the rich man — he gets called a rich fool, by the way — "I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat and drink and be merry." Again, I feel bad for this guy a little bit. He just wants to retire, just like the rest of us, right? He just wants to know that there's enough food and there's enough money in his bank account for him to get to the end of his life. And now he can eat and drink and be merry and go to Cancun when he wants to and go to Europe when he wants to and he can do all the things and live this full life. And then Jesus comes along and delivers some bad news. And he says, "God said to him, fool, tonight your soul is required of you, and the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?" And it's that part that should probably stop us. What have you prepared? We don't know the rest of the story. This is just a parable here. Jesus doesn't fill out the parable. But I take the assumption to be that this man was so focused in his life on the hoarding of goods and the hoarding of food and the hoarding of money that he didn't actually prepare other parts of his life for the things that matter. And he chose possessions over people. And he didn't give to those who were in need. And he didn't think about the things of God. And so Jesus says he dies this night and the soul is required of him. And he says, "So is the one who lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God." He has not been rich toward God like he should be. Matthew 6:24–34: You Cannot Serve Both God and MoneyJesus tells something similar if we look in Matthew 6:24 and following. Keep your finger on the Luke passage, because I'm going to want to show you something in a minute. If you look at Matthew 6, this is the Sermon on the Mount. It's a classic Jesus teaching here about money and how to think about it all. And he says, "No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and money." Some of your translations say God and mammon. What Jesus is getting at in this passage, and I think in the other one too, in the Luke one, is that in life we choose who we trust. And Jesus is always asking, who do you have faith in? Do you trust me, Jesus? Not me, Eric. But do you trust me, or do you trust you? And when you toss your lot into greed, you are saying, I trust me. I trust me to hoard the goods, to have enough, to get myself to the end of it all. That's who I'm trusting. And Jesus is saying, I need you to trust me. I need you to trust God. The God of all abundance has more than enough to give. We sang all about it this morning, by the way. Beautiful songs, great choices. It's all about gratitude, about the generosity of the Father, about his willingness to meet every single need that we might have. But to live those lives is kind of hard, because the one thing we want is security. We want to know that everything is going to be okay. And Jesus is telling us you can trust the Father. He is a good, good Father, as we sang this morning. The Same Teaching Follows Both Passages: Don't Be Anxious, Seek First the Kingdom There's one little piece, and I said I wanted to show it to you. So hopefully you've got your fingers in Matthew 6 and in Luke 12. You see, Matthew 6 is this nice kind of teaching about money — and we didn't even read the parts before, but this is where he's saying, don't lay up treasures on earth, lay up treasures in heaven, right? And then the Luke passage we've already read. Both of them are followed by the exact same words of Jesus. They're words you've probably read before or heard about, and I'm going to read you the Luke version, but if you want to look at the Matthew version, you can see that they're the same teaching. And so Jesus finishes these two teachings on money with a teaching on anxiety. And he says it this way. "Therefore, I tell you, don't be anxious. Don't be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will put on." And this is exactly what greed is trying to do. It's trying to make you anxious. It's what the advertisers are doing on your social media, whether it's your television, whether it's the billboard as you drive down the street. They're trying to make you anxious to say, I don't actually have enough, right? Oh, if I just had that one more thing, then, then I'd be good. And Jesus is telling you, do not be anxious. Don't believe the advertisers. They are paid to lie to you. He's saying, don't be greedy. Don't give in to pleonexia or covetousness. Instead, don't be worried about what you'll eat or your body, about what you'll put on. "For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They don't sow or reap. They don't have money. They don't have barns or storehouses, but God feeds them. And how much more valuable are you than the birds? And which of you, being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Or the lilies — imagine how they grow. They don't toil, they don't spin, they don't collect money. But I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. And if God clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more is he going to take care of your needs? Oh, you of little" — and here's the word — "faith." He wants our faith. He wants our trust. And greed is coming at you saying the opposite. Trust no one. Trust yourself. Hoard. You can do this. And Jesus is saying, no. Trust. Have faith in the Father. Do not seek what you are to eat or drink or be worried, for all the nations of the world seek after these things. This is the broad way. And your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek what? His kingdom. And then all these other things, they get added. Seek first his kingdom. Our Technology Is Designed to Feed the Deadly Sins, Not Fight ThemOur technologies, as I've been saying, they tell us a very different story. They are not designed to aid you and to help you in righteousness. They are not designed to lessen your anxieties. They are not designed to help you with your greed problem, or your lust problem, or your gluttony problem, or any of these problems. Instead, they're designed to actually feed them all. And so I would encourage us to be careful. Very careful about how we spend our time online and on our devices, because they are feeding things that they should not be feeding. And they often do so unwittingly. We're blinded to them. We just think it's part of the world, but it should not be, and it need not be. The Tithe as a Weapon Against GreedAs far as greed, though — if there's one way that the church has consistently, over time, talked about combating greed in this life, it's the tithe. It's the tithe. And I know there's a lot of bad press out there about churches and tithing and the greediness and the rampant misuse of funds or whatever's out there. I don't know what you've experienced. But the true heart of what the tithe really is, and what it's supposed to be, is a weapon against the greed that sits in all of us. And the weapon goes like this. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. It is all God's. He created everything you've ever seen out here, everything you've ever smelled, touched, tasted — it's all God's. It was all created by God. You can take none of it with you, and everything you've received in your life, even no matter how hard you've worked in this life, it is still all a gift from God. That is step one. Step two is the tithe itself, to say, you know what? I'm going to give some of this back to God as a way of voting with your pocketbook to say, I don't want to be a person who hoards. I don't want to be a person that is so self-reliant that I don't need God. But instead to say, God, this was yours anyway, so I'm giving it back to you. That is what a tithe is. And we put 10% on it typically, because that's what the word tithe means, a tenth. But the truth is this: some people should be way higher than that. And for some of you at different stages, it might be lower. But the goal of all of us should be to notch that up some over time. To trust more, and to trust more, and to trust more. And to be generous givers — and not just to the church, but out in the world. So that when someone comes to you and says, I need X, you say yes. Luke 12 Closing: Fear Not, Little Flock — Where Your Treasure Is, There Your Heart Is AlsoJesus concludes this whole Luke passage in a way that I quite like, and it digs down one more layer deeper about our fears and our anxieties and how greed undermines all of this, and what Jesus wants for us. And he says, "Fear not, little flock. For it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, give to the needy, provide yourselves with money bags that don't grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that doesn't fail, where no thief approaches, no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart is also." Let's pray. God our Father in heaven, we thank you for your many good gifts. You are teaching us the way of life, a way of abundant living, a way in which you shower your gifts upon us. Lord, our request this morning is that you teach us to be people of faith and trust, that we might trust you with all that we are, all that we own, all that we have in this life, and that we seek first the kingdom of heaven, and that we store up our treasures there. We pray this in Christ's 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

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-yui_3_17_2_1_1779243329295_4243-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-yui_3_17_2_1_1779243329295_4243-1" > 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

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-yui_3_17_2_1_1779243899327_4416-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-yui_3_17_2_1_1779243899327_4416-1" > 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

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > 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. What Do You Want? Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | May 3, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gy/podcast/south-run-baptist-church-sermons/id656244462" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper applepodcast" aria-label="Apple Podcasts" > <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0uw8DZAXcXob00pPyyjYv6" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper spotify-unauth" aria-label="Spotify" > <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SouthRunBaptistChurch" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper facebook-unauth" aria-label="Facebook" > <a href="https://www.instagram.com/southrunbaptist/?hl=en" target="_blank" class="sqs-svg-icon--wrapper instagram-unauth" aria-label="Instagram" > 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. <a href="https://southrun.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1213203?open-in-church-center-modal=true" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Listening online? Let us know. <ul data-should-allow-multiple-open-items="false" data-accordion-icon-placement="right" data-is-last-divider-visible="true" data-is-expanded-first-item="false" data-is-divider-enabled="true" data-accordion-title-alignment="left" class="accordion-items-container" data-is-first-divider-visible="true" data-accordion-description-alignment="left" data-accordion-description-placement="left" > <h3 class=" accordion-item__title-wrapper " data-sqsp-accordion-block-item-title > <button id="button-yui_3_17_2_1_1778212846029_4505-1" class="accordion-item__click-target" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="dropdown-yui_3_17_2_1_1778212846029_4505-1" > 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