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I can't tell you how excited I am for the journey we'll be taking as a church over the next eight weeks where we're going to be looking at what the Bible has to say about the concept of mattering, the quest for meaning. I'm convinced that the next eight weeks can be transformational for us as we look at some of the most fundamental and basic questions of life through the lenses of Scripture. I'm going to explain mattering more in just a moment. We'll dive into the material, but before we do that, I want to personally challenge you for a minute to take the journey with us. You're going to hear us say it for a couple more weeks. You've heard it a lot. There are three things you need to do to get the most out of the next eight weeks. You need to attend the series, you need to get a guide, you need to join a group. And when I say attend the series, I mean make a commitment to be here every single week of this series. I know because I've been a pastor now for over 30 years. The tendence patterns of people in church today are very different. It's hit and miss, kind of come and go once a month, twice a month. In order for this to get in you the way it's supposed to, you need to be here every week. Make a commitment. I'm going to start this season off right. We're going to start the school year off right. The fall is going to be different. Commit to attend the series every week. Second, get a guide. The first two weeks of the guide are for personal devotion. The last six weeks of the guide can be used the same way, but they're intended to be used within a small group environment. All eight weeks are there. And the guides are in the lobby today. They cost us $15 to produce. That's what we make them available to you for. If for some reason money is an issue for you right now, we will give you a guide because we want you on this journey with us. Attend the series, get a guide, and finally join a group. There's something deeply formational that happens when people get in smaller relational groups to pursue God and study his word together. I talked a lot about that last week. Research has proven, science backs this up, that when churches collectively focus on one topic during a concentrated period of time, it drives the topic deeper into the heart of the individual and into the congregation as a whole. That's why this is a church-wide emphasis. We're studying this in kids. I mean, if you got kids, you got to look at some of this mattering material that our team has put together for your kids. We're studying this in youth. We're studying it in young adults and here in our adult gatherings. But the number one reason we do it this way is this is the way it's laid out in Scripture. In the New Testament church, they gathered on the Sabbath in their larger corporate worship environments in the temple and the synagogue. And then they met daily in smaller groups in each other's homes where they fellowshiped together, they prayed together, and they studied the word together. So we're going to have a group connect next week where when you came in, the lobby looked a little different today. It was going to look even more different next week because we're going to have small group leaders and opportunities out there for you to connect with the group, get plugged in, where you can find a group that works with your schedule, your station of life. You can get connected to a group. Listen, let me say this. I mean, I almost didn't say this, but I think it's important. I've had a lot of people outside of North Place asking, like, hey, we don't go to your church, but what is this mattering thing? I wish we could do this, our church, or I wish we could do this. Uh they're interested in it. And so let me just challenge you. Maybe there are people in your life, family, work, neighborhood, they're more connected to you than they are church. Let me challenge you to be the bridge. Build the bridge. You lead the group. I've recorded some conversation starters, and we're gonna make them available to you. Our small group team is gonna equip you so that we just lower the bar. You don't have to be a theologian, you don't have to be an expert. We're equipping you to just have meaningful conversation around scripture and around this topic. And my challenge is lead the group and challenge those people to do the same three things I'm challenging you to do. Attend the series for the next eight weeks, get a guide, commit to the group. As a leadership team coming into 2026, we were praying, fasting, seeking God. God, what do you want to do in our church this year? And we sensed that God was giving us two specific directives for 2026. And we kind of summed it up this way: give honor, add value. And if we would do this with everybody, everywhere, all the time, like if we would give honor and add value in every relationship we interact with, every environment that we stepped into, that we would become the change agents with the people we're in relationship with, and we would become the change agents in the environments that we step into. Because nobody expects that anymore. This is a negative, tear people down, destroy kind of culture. And when you step in giving honor and adding value to everybody everywhere all the time, you become the change agent. So at the beginning of the year, in our first eight-week spiritual emphasis campaign, we focused on the giving honor piece. This one will focus on the adding value piece. And the key verse that frames this entire series are some of the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew chapter 5. And because we're gonna unpack this in detail in a couple weeks, I'm just gonna highlight, I want to emphasize the highlighted portions of this passage today. Listen to what Jesus says here. Matthew 5, verse 14. In verse 14, he says, You are the light of the world. Down in verse 16, he says, Let your light shine. Two statements. Now go let that light shine. Those two statements are the foundation of this whole eight-week conversation. When Jesus says, you are the light of the world, he's addressing your identity. He's talking about being, he's talking about what you are. He's saying, This is what we as the people of God have become because of grace. Light in a dark and sinful world. You know what that means? He's saying to you, You matter. Your life has purpose, your life has meaning. And he's saying, Do you want to feel that? Do you want to experience that? Then you need to go give your life away. Let your light shine before others with your good deeds. You have value as the light of the world. Now go add value by lighting up the lives of other people. This is what we mean when we talk about mattering. I know it's a simple word that we're using in an uncommon way. It probably needs a little more clarity. So let me explain it this way: we could describe the desire for our lives to matter as a subtle, below the surface ache. Every person gathered here listening today carries that ache at some level or another, every single one of us. It doesn't announce itself, and most of us have never said it out loud, but it sits underneath the surface of our lives, underneath our busy calendars, underneath our hectic commutes, underneath that long list of things we never get done. There is a quiet question that won't leave us alone. Somewhere down in there, do I matter? Not, am I busy? Not am I successful? This is the question beneath all of those other questions. Does my life actually make a difference? Would anyone really notice if I weren't here? Do the people around me know me as a person or just as a function? The provider, the fixer, the one who's supposed to hold it all together. Underneath our striving, all of us are quietly asking whether we're seen, whether we're needed, and whether our presence leaves any mark at all. There's a name for that ache. It's called mattering. Do I really matter? One of America's most beloved and best-selling poets is a lady named Mary Oliver, and she said it this way in one of her poems. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. She died in 2019 at the age of 84. And I think that line of her poem not only captures her ache, I think it captures the ache in every human heart because none of us want to have just visited this world. We all want our lives to matter, to make a difference. And experiencing the fulfillment that comes from knowing your life matters boils down to two very basic things. You gotta feel valued. And then after you've felt your worth and your value, you have to go add value to others. In the words of Jesus, know that you are the light of the world, and then let that light shine before others. You matter when number one, you know your worth, and number two, you know you have worth to give away. It takes both. If all you ever do is try to heal the ache by going on a desperate search for value, you're always gonna need the next bit of affirmation to keep feeling alive. Or on the other hand, if all you do is pour yourself out to everybody else so you can try to prove you have value, eventually you're gonna run dry. Mattering is the two of them held together. The deep assurance that you are valued, and the quiet confidence that your life is adding something to the world. It takes both. This series, using scripture as our framework, is gonna help us experience that deep assurance. And from that place of identity, security, being and belonging to Christ, it's gonna show us how to add something to our world. There's a very important reason we chose the word quest to describe the series, mattering the quest for meaning. That was very intentional. Our team got together and we started preparing for the series and we searched the scripture together, literally as a team, looking through the Bible, trying to find all of God's invitations that call us to a new way of life, to take a journey with Him, to live an adventure with Him. That's what the images, designs, and material for this series was meant to capture. That's why there's a topography map, watermark on the screen, and on the images of the book, and there are mountains and wilderness, and that's when you walked into the lobby today. I mean, there are all those things out there, things that make you want to crawl in and go look for Narnia, you know? It's that way on purpose because God is inviting us to something. But as we researched and we prayed, we realized journey really isn't the right word. An adventure, good word, but it isn't the right word for this. The right word is quest. And here's why. There is a very big difference between a quest and an adventure. An adventure is simply a there and back again story. You go, you have an experience, you leave what's familiar, you see things you've never seen, you collect some stories, you make some memories, but eventually you come back from the adventure, you return home, and you and everything else returns to normal. It's a there and back again story, but a quest is very different. Adventure is something you choose. A quest chooses you. A summons comes, there is a call that interrupts your life. Something larger than your comfort, larger than your plans, and sometimes larger than your own understanding lays hold of you. And once you answer that call, there is no going back to life the way it was ever. You may return to the same house, you may walk the same streets, you may sit at the same table, but the person who returns from a quest is not the same person who left. An adventure changes your scenery. A quest changes your identity. An adventure says, come experience something. A quest says, come become someone. On a quest, you can return to the place you left, but you don't return as the person you were. The quest changes you. You see, we have misunderstood the essence of Christianity because we talk about following Jesus as a life of adventure. But Jesus did not come to add excitement or spirituality or inspiration to the life you are already planning on living. He summons you to a completely different life. He walks onto the shores of the Sea of Galilee and says this to his first disciples in Matthew 4 follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Follow me and I will make you. That is not an invitation to an adventure. That is the summons to a quest. Follow me, leave your nets, trust me, even when you don't know exactly where this ultimately leads. And somewhere along that road, while you think Jesus is actually taking you somewhere more than anything, he is making you into someone. And by the time your life is over, the quest is over, you won't have stories about where you've been. You will have been transformed. This is more than just collecting stories. You're gonna have been transformed into someone that would have never existed had you refused the call, the summons, the invitation. A real quest unfolds in three movements. For it to be a quest, you you've got to leave what you've known. Second, you've got to become who God created you to be, and then you pour yourself out for the sake of others. You leave, you become, you empty yourself for the sake of the mission. And the whole Bible is a quest-shaped story. You read it. It's about Abraham leaving Ur looking for a city. It's Israel leaving Egypt, looking for a promised land. It's Ruth leaving Moab. David moves from the pasture to the throne. The disciples leave their nets. Paul leaves his entire former identity behind. The writer of Hebrews describes God's people as pilgrims seeking a better country. And the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, ends not with our escape from the world, but us as spiritual travelers finally arriving home to a completely renewed creation. They all leave, they all come, become somebody different along the journey, and along the journey, they pour themselves out for God's mission, which means the Christian life is not a life of aimless wandering. We have been summoned by someone. We are being transformed into someone's likeness. We have been sent for his mission and we are traveling toward the fullness of his kingdom. For each of the eight weeks in the series, there's kind of a one-word title that summarizes the direction of that week. So all eight weeks in the guide, there's a one-word title. Today, week one, this is invitation, because that's what Jesus is offering you an invitation. When he said in Matthew 4, follow me and I will make you. We call that statement an invitation, and it is. That's why invitation is the title of this week in the guide. But I want you to look a little more carefully at Jesus' statement. Notice something, follow me. That is more than an invitation. It is a summons. You may even see it as a command because he's not really asking, he's telling, follow me. He's telling you, if you want the promise on the other side of this, you gotta say yes to the life I'm calling you to live, and only then can I make you and form you and shape you into who God wants you to be? After we had printed the guides, I started looking at week one invitation, and I'm really wrestling with this. Is the statement from Jesus, come follow me? Is it a invitation or is it a command? Well, when you look at it through the whole of Scripture, it's it's really both. Because the Bible is full of what you could call God's invitational commands. We say that Adam and Eve were invited to cultivate creation. When you go back and look at it, they were commanded. Noah was invited to build the ark. No, he was really told. Abraham was called to leave everything familiar. Moses was commanded to confront Pharaoh. Mary isn't asked, she is told she will carry the Messiah. Ordinary fishermen are summoned to become disciples. The church is commanded to participate in Christ's missions in the world. And then the very last book of the Bible, one of the very last verses there toward the end, there is one final command in Scripture. The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Now, technically, none of those are invitations. They are all commands. And from Genesis to Revelation, the story of redemption advances through God's commands. So where is the invitation in all of this? The promise that is connected to our obedience on the other side of this is what makes God's command also an invitation. He's saying, if you want the blessing, if you want the contentment, if you want the flourishing, if you want the fulfillment and the security that I offer and I promise, you gotta say yes to the quest. Sure, God is telling us to do something, but he is also inviting us into something. And that's why all of God's commands are also invitations. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 11 come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and then what will happen? You will find rest for your souls. Is that a command? Or is that an invitation? Technically, there are several commands here. Come to me, take my yoke upon you, learn from me. But because there is a promise attached to our obedience, it also becomes a glorious invitation. Because when we say yes to the summons to live that life, we find supernatural, deep rest for our weary souls. That's the promise, and that's what makes it an invitation. To give a command requires authority, to issue an invitation requires generosity. In the Lord Jesus, we see authority and generosity perfected. And understanding that Jesus never issues a command that is not also an invitation changes our relationship to him and our view of following him. And understanding this is foundational to this whole conversation about mattering. Jesus is summoning you, he's giving you an invitational command to follow him on a quest that will transform your life. Saying yes to the quest, saying yes to follow him is the only way he can make you, form you, shape you, transform you into whom he wants you to be. And it's the only way you're gonna experience your real worth. And it's only after you experience your real worth and value that you can truly make a difference in somebody else's life. Now think with me for a minute about what it means for God to invite us into anything. The fact that God would ask you and I to do anything, think about what that says about our value, our dignity and our worth for the creator of the universe to invite us into anything. God doesn't summon us because he needs us, he invites us because he values us. Invitation is one of the highest expressions of dignity and value. We don't invite machines, we operate them. We don't invite tools, we use them. Invitation is reserved for relationship. So every time God says, or you read in the scripture, Jesus says, Come follow me, he's communicating something about who we are, our worth, before he ever tells us what to do. An invitation declares our worth before it establishes our assignment. That's why Jesus started with, you are. The light of the world. You have to know who you are. You have to know what you are. You have to have a healthy identity. You gotta know you're valuable because only then will you be able to add value to other people by letting your light shine before others. The gospel doesn't begin by getting you to work harder to convince yourself you're valuable. The gospel's opening lines begin by declaring to us we already are valuable. Our value doesn't become by participating with God in anything. Our participation with God flows from the value that God has already placed on us. And then he adds value to our life by getting by inviting us into his story. Like the invitation to be a part of him writing his story conveys incredible worth and dignity. And if the creator of the universe is going to dignify us with his invitation, then it demands a response from us. The whole epic of the Bible. In Genesis, it starts with an invitation. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but it ends with an invitation as well. But there is a beautiful difference between those two invitations. In the beginning, after the fall of man, God invites broken humanity into a renewed relationship with him. We failed miserably. That's the invitation at the beginning. But by the time you get to the end of the Bible, the people of God are now redeemed as the bride of Christ, and they are extending the same invitation back to the world. Revelation 22, 17. The Spirit and who say come. The Spirit and the bride say come. We, the church, are the bride of Christ. And by the time you get to the end of the story in Revelation 22, the church has become the people who are so deeply received God's invitation that we now spend our lives extending that invitation to others. That's the heartbeat of mattering. That's the heartbeat of finding meaning, of adding value. People who have been dignified by God's invitation become the people who dignify others by offering that same invitation. The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Now let me summarize what we've said so far like this. Mattering is the question. Below the surface of every heart, at some point or another in your life, more pronounced at some times than others, do I matter? That is the question. Saying yes to God's quest is how you find the answer to that question. That's the only way you can experience mattering. The way the world says to discover your worth, your value, your meaning and purpose, you gotta prove it. You gotta climb, you gotta achieve, you gotta chase. At the end, you may find out in the world's eyes you don't have it. But God doesn't hand you a ladder on the quest of meaning. He offers you an invitation. All you gotta do is say yes. Mattering is the question. Saying yes is how you answer that question. Third, the quest is the point. It's the goal. The journey is the reward. When you say yes to the quest, yes to the summons of Jesus, you are transformed into someone who realizes I'm valued by the creator of the universe. That establishes your identity, it establishes your worldview, it establishes your your your your your uh your peace, it centers your life, that God would so love the world, so love you, that he would give Jesus all of these things communicate worth to you, and when you know that you spend the rest of your life helping others know they matter too, and you are transformed in the process. Look, when Jesus says, Come follow me, he's saying that to every person listening to me right now. Every single one of us today needs to offer Jesus a yes. But there are different kinds of yeses that need to be offered today. For some of us, we need to give Jesus our first yes. You want meaning? You want to find purpose in your life, you want to feel that sense of security in a chaotic world, you want your life to matter? It all starts with surrender. It starts with offering Jesus your first yes. You need to step into a meaningful relationship with your creator, you need to step into a relationship with the designer of your life, the one who put breath in your lungs today. And right now, He, the Spirit of God, in this moment is calling out to you. Come, follow me. He's summoning you into a relationship. Here's what you have to understand: Jesus didn't come to make your life more interesting, he came to be the Lord of it. And I think this is the dividing line between cultural Christianity, American Christianity, adventure Christianity, and quest Christianity. It is an issue of lordship. Average American Christianity, adventure Christianity tries to summon Jesus into our life, saying, Jesus, come with me into the life I have chosen. Quest Christianity is God summoning you, saying, Come live the life I've designed for you to live. Lay down your life, die to yourself, take up your cross and follow me. It's an issue of lordship. You don't add Jesus to your current way of living like you add sugar to tea. He's not a value add in your life. He will be Lord of all or no Lord at all. American Christianity just kind of adds Jesus to the shelf of all our other idols, and it's nice and sweet, and we got Jesus in there with everything else we're doing. No, no, that's not what this is about. Saying yes to the quest is laying down your life, dying to yourself, taking up your cross and following me. And the scripture says every blessing that God has to offer you is on the other side of your yes to that quest. Listen, I am um, I'm not just talking about this today because this is a cute little topic we came up with. This is the story of my life. I've lived this. I'm not just a chosen spokesperson for this. This is my story. I was a 17, almost 17-year-old kid, an addict. I stumbled into church one Sunday morning after a party I was still having the effects of. I sat there trying to sober up, listened to an invitation a preacher gave. I desperately felt the Spirit of God calling me into a new life. I wanted free from the chains that shackled me. I didn't have a whole lot of faith that I was going to be able to change. I had tried before and couldn't. And I sat there and I responded that day. I gave Jesus my first yes. And I sit here today, that was almost 17. I'm 52 years old. That's 36 years ago, here in just a few months, and I'm looking back on how never imagined how that one simple yes would transform the rest of my life. Look, I have children today that are grown. I have grandchildren today, and and those lives, all of their life, generations of my family are going to be impacted. My kids are living a different life. My grandson is living a different life because of one simple yes that changed everything. He invited me into something that changed me and everything else subsequently in my life. And I've seen it, I lived it, and I've spent my life inviting other people to offer Jesus that first yes. I don't want you to live with less than what he died for. What I lived, what I know, it's available to you. It's what he promises in his word. For the rest of us, we need to renew our yes. Maybe, maybe you've um, you know, you prayed a prayer at some point in your life and you gave Jesus your heart. Here's the problem for too many people. We come about it the wrong way. We respond, we accept Christ as Lord of our life, and we're like, okay, I checked that box. I got that done as if that was the end. No. Your first yes to Jesus is supposed to be the beginning, the launching pad of everything important in your life that launches you into something transformational. So waking up every day, you say yes to the come follow me fresh and new every single day. If you're a believer today living a stale, mundane existence, you are not living the life he invited you into. That was never the plan. That was not what this is about. And if you're still feeling that deep under the surface ache of wondering if your life matters, if you have meaning, you're looking for purpose, renew your yes today. Because he wants to bring you into a life. Can I tell you how life would be different if every tomorrow we woke up instead of trying to live the life we wanted to live, we responded with the yes to the come follow me of Jesus. A whole day would be different. I can't tell you how my life is interrupted. I I wind up just going about my business and um, you know, and I'll have a just this prompting, pulling this gas station when I sit and wait. Why am I here? And I wind up in a conversation with somebody, and then you wind up leading them to a prayer, and they wind up giving their life to Jesus, and you realize when you pull away, that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't said yes to the come follow me of Jesus. There is a life to be lived besides the routine. He's trying to write our story. We got to give him the pen. Yes to the quest. There's so much more to this. When the fight gets canceled, and I'm mad because I'm in the airport, I realize the fight just didn't cancel. God, what am I doing here? What kind of story are you writing for my life today? Who have you put in my path today? It reframes everything. We need to get up every morning with a fresh yes to the come follow me of Jesus. It would change our every day. Yes to the quest more than an adventure. It's all about his lordship over every moment of our life. Would you stand with me across the room today? I want to do something. I'm just gonna ask you to make the room, keep the room sacred just for a minute. I'll let you go. I promise I won't belabor this, but I feel like I need to do this today. There's been a been a special grace on this moment today, and I want to provide it for this service. I feel like there are there are people here, like right now. You've been to church, you maybe you went to mass, got religious family, but you maybe you'd even consider yourself somewhat religious, but you have never personally given Jesus your first yes. It's a cultural thing, it's a family thing, it's an ethnic thing, whatever. Okay, church, all that. But you have never personally offered Jesus your first yes. Yes, Jesus, I want you to be Lord. I'm not inviting you to help me live my life, I'm surrendering my way because I want to live your life, the life you called me to live. Today is my first yes. I want you to bow your head with me all over this room. I promise you, I will not embarrass you. I promise you, but I want to pray for you. I believe the Spirit of God is saying, Come follow me. Jesus is asking that right now. And if you feel God summoning your heart and you want to offer Him your first yes, I promise you, I will not embarrass you. I want to pray for you. If that's you, would you slip your hand high enough for me to see it? Your first yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There are hands going up or all over this room today. Thank you so much. Yes, yes, my first yes. All right, here's what I want the rest of us to do. Every single one of us needs to offer a yes to Jesus today. So we're gonna pray this prayer together. Let's help our friends that are giving him their first yes today, and let's let's let the room pray this together, okay? Renew your yes. Let's pray this together. Dear Jesus, I give you my life. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and I give it all to you. I invite you in, cleanse my heart, wash me of sin. I have fallen short of your glory. I need your grace. I bow my knee. I confess, you are Lord, you are King. Empower me with your spirit to live a life that honors you. I say yes. I give you my life in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Come on, would you give God praise today? Come on, bless his name. Our prayer team, if you would gather here in the front, we're gonna help carry each other's load today. I'm very aware as a pastor, was there's some heavy stuff going on in the church right now? And my heart is heavy for you. And if you need us to pray with you today, we want to get under that burden and pray with you. If you gave God a first yes today, Jesus said in the book of Matthew, you got to confess me publicly, like what I'm doing in your heart privately. Don't be ashamed to confess before men what you've confessed to God. Declare it. Like somebody in your life that's a believer, come up to one of these people praying in the front of this room, tell them, I gave Jesus my first yes today. Will you pray with me? You need to confess it to somebody. Lord, will you bless them and keep them? Will you make your face shine down upon them? Will you be gracious to them? Will you turn your countenance their direction today? And would you give them peace in Jesus' name? Amen and amen. These altars are open today. God bless you.