No One Like You (transcript)

Alright. Good morning. So glad that you guys are here. Whether you made your trek all the way through the canyon, have come from some other foreign locale, or you just kinda walked down the street and came over this morning with your coffee still hot, that is that is awesome. So welcome to our living room.

This is Tribe. We have gone to a different summer service schedule. Lissa sent out text blast last week letting you guys know and we’re doing 08:30 and ten and she’s vetoed my text blast offering my submission, but when I’m up here I just get to go ahead and show it. And so maybe someday, maybe someday, Lissa will feel brave enough to send out my version of the okay. But they’re here.

Yes. Oh, special request. Yeah. I would I would like Brian’s AI special for the service times. Well, power of AI, who knows what could happen in the future.

Now I’m getting AI requests, so I mean that that’s pretty cool. Okay. Enough of that silliness. If you I don’t remember if I said it at the 08:30 a. M.

Service or the ten a. M. Service, but last week during worship, I was feeling a little nudge from the Holy Spirit and inspired, and I went off on this rabbit trail. And today, next week, I get to share that rabbit trail with you. And if you have a Bible with you this morning, let’s turn to two different passages.

The first one is in Exodus. Exodus chapter 15 verse 11. And then the second one is Psalms 89 verses six through eight. And in Exodus chapter 15 verse 11, it’s just one verse. And one of the things that we like to do here when we gather to dig into God’s Word is we love to have a conversation, and sometimes we prime the pump by inviting you to read.

And so whoever has, Exodus chapter 15 verse 11, if you would go ahead and read that out loud. And we have a mic in the room. Obviously, we don’t need it for this size venue, but for all of our families that are traveling, we’ve got a lot of folks that are traveling and camping and running hither and thither across the country. So they get to tune into the livestream. And with the mic in the room, we can hear you, but then all of the people that tune into the livestream, they get to hear you as well.

So whoever would like to read Exodus chapter 15 verse 11, let us know. Ella, I think Ella’s gonna be the first. Gotcha. Gotta be quicker than that. Anyways, who is like you, oh Lord, among the little g gods?

Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Does your bible say little g gods? Well, it says gods, but there’s a little g. So I just needed to clarify what I was saying, you know. That’s okay.

Well, this is this is kinda where we’re going today. Woah. Yes. Okay. Who has the next one?

Psalms 89 verse six through eight. Here comes the mic. He’s like, I’ll be quick. Me, me, me, me. No.

For who in the skies above can compare with the lord? Who is like the lord among the heavenly beings? In the council of the holy ones, god is greatly feared. He is more awesome than all who surround him. Who is like you, lord, god almighty?

You, lord, are mighty and your faithfulness surrounds you. Woah. What version is that? Second one eighty nine. Correct.

That was great. If you’re taking notes this morning, at the top of your notes, you can write the title of the conversation that we’re gonna have this morning. You have no equal, no rival. Huxley was like, oh, that’s why she was singing that over and over and over. Yes.

Yes. We’re trying to inculcate you with this truth. So, you have no equal, no rival. We know this about God because we sing about it. We know this about God because we we reference it.

We talk about it. We read about it in the Bible, but I feel like many times we know this truth like a fish knows how to describe being wet in water. And what I mean by that is a fish is born in water, lives his whole life surrounded by water. Every now and then, he gets his ripped lipped by Terminator Matt and then a little kiss and then he’s put back. Right?

I’m making up the little kiss part, but I wouldn’t put it past you. Big, beautiful rainbow trout. There’s care. There’s care and tenderness and then back into the water. So, a fish would have a difficult time describing what water is like because it is the entire universe of that fish.

It really knows nothing else. And I feel like as Christians and really as Americans with a pretty good baseline knowledge of God that to describe the Lord using verses like we just used seems like, well, yeah, of course. Like, yes, that, yes, that is God. But when we look at the God of the Bible compared to when we look at the God of the Bible compared to other gods, other entities, other things, other forces that would try to step in place of the God of the Bible. Only then does the contrast become more stark and more vivid.

And so let me give you a little bit of background on my understanding growing up of the universe. Well, first of all, my whole universe consisted of Indiana Jones and Star Wars. But when I thought of theological matters, because I grew up going to a little Baptist church out in the countryside, I thought there was god, and it was just that was his name, god, g o d, capital g o d. There was god, and then there was Satan. And they were like two equal but opposite forces.

And growing up in rural Texas, when I was in sixth grade, I moved to Boulder, Colorado. First thing I noticed about Boulder, Colorado is there were three images all over Boulder, Colorado. And many of these images were in sticker form, like bumper stickers on cars. And I was like, well, I want all three of them. The first image that I saw was it was like a square, like in the shape of a flag, but it had the rainbow colors.

And I was like, well, that that’s really cool. Like, I wanted one of those stickers. The next image that I saw was of these bears that were all different colors, holding hands, dancing. And I was like, well, that’s a cool sticker. I want one of those stickers.

And then the other sticker that I saw was this circle shape, and it was half black and half white, and it was kind of swirly, and it was the yin and yang sticker. And I was like, well, I had no idea what any of those stickers meant, the symbolism or the meaning attached behind them. I just saw them on every car in Boulder. I was like, well, I gotta have three of those. And so my idea of God was kind of like that yin and yang sticker or that image.

How many of you know what I’m talking about? Yeah. Yeah. We’ve all seen it around in all different kind of shapes and forms. And I thought, you know, God was the good guy, and he filled up half of this sphere.

And then there was Satan and he was the bad guy and he filled up the other half of this sphere. And they were these two colossal titans engaged in an eternal cosmic battle and sometimes God would win and then sometimes Satan would win and then sometimes Satan would would launch an offensive and it would seem as though he would get the upper hand, but then God would against all odds, fight back and they would balance each other out as these forces. And if that is the case, if that’s the reality of the cosmos, that there’s one good guy and one bad guy, and they’re constantly battling it out, if that is the case, if that is actually true about the universe and this realm and other realms beyond just this physical material universe, then in some ways, it may make sense of the world help us to make sense of the world around us when something unfortunate happens to us or when something unfortunate unfolds on planet Earth or when something terrible happens or when something great happens. Oh, the good guys won. Oh, the bad guy won.

And we tend to think of it in these terms of just one good guy and one bad guy. If that is the case, if God only has one enemy like Superman has Lex Luthor, how great is the hero if he only has one enemy? And it seems as though sometimes that enemy wins. How I mean, like, how great is the good guy if he only has one bad guy and he beats him more times than he loses to him? Every year in February, I I get a I I chuckle to myself, I’m gonna step on football fan toes here when the Super Bowl rolls around because it’s, you know, Super Bowl, whatever we’re in, Super Bowl what?

’63? I don’t know. It’s something. Super Bowl eighty two. And underneath it says Super Bowl, and then the the winners of the Super Bowl, what is it what’s the title given to them?

World Champions. Now, is that true? Yes. But so, yes, it is true. They are the world champions.

But what is also true about that team? They only competed States. Against the And so so I pray that the next time that the Super Bowl rolls around and they play the game, which it’s fun to watch the commercials in the halftime show, and then I nap during the game, and Corey knows because we always watch the Super Bowl together. At the end where it says world champion, like, just enjoy a little chuckle to yourself. Like, okay.

Now, for for just a moment to help frame this conversation of the God of the Bible, I want to to give you a very, very, very, very crude primitive analogy about the popularity of football compared with the popularity of football. Right? With what? With one football, soccer, as we know it. Okay.

All right. So, think about this. There is a guy who plays soccer. His name’s Lionel Messi. Most of you probably know who Lionel Messi is.

By chance, do you? Okay. Okay. So if we’re looking at popularity, on Instagram, Lionel Messi has 500,000,000 followers. 500,000,000 followers.

I’m not one of them. Right? Give your yeah. Yeah. If you if you follow Lionel Messi on social media, don’t worry.

It’s not the mark of the beast. But listen. Take American football players, NFL football players, combine the top 10 most famous American football players. Like who? Who is it?

Justin Jefferson. Justin Jefferson. Tom Brady. Who else? I’m so glad that Patrick Mahomes.

Okay. Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. Alright. I’m so glad that it’s a little bit slow.

There we go. Alright. Jordan Love. Jordan Love. Alright.

Now we’re talking. Take the top 10. Take the top 10 of them and combine all of their social media followers, and you wouldn’t even come close to Lionel Messi. If you wanted to come close to Lionel Messi in followers in terms of global influence and popularity, you would need to look outside of the world of professional sports and go into the music industry. I’m talking T Swift.

How many followers would you guess Taylor Swift has? Lionel Messi has 500,000,000. Taylor Swift? 2,000,000,000. 2,000,000,000?

Well, with only with only with only 280,000,000 followers from Taylor Swift, you’d need to combine some more star power like Beyonce with 312,000,000 followers. Both of them combined, like like like, surpasses Messi, but it takes both of them. So I share these social media stats with you, not to glorify Lionel Messi, but to illustrate the contrast between sports superstars in our world, football, and how they so greatly pale in comparison to a true global sports star of Lionel Messi. And in a similar way, I told you this was a crude primitive analogy, in a similar distant way. That is what it is like with the God of the Bible compared to all other gods in all of the known universe or any other.

And it’s hard for us, challenging for us at times to wrap our minds around the god of the Bible and what makes him different and unique and contrasts with all other, as as Ella said a little bit ago, little g gods, lowercase g, not capital g, god. Because of because we are surrounded by even the word god is used so casually, so informally, and it’s even used as a curse word. There’s literally a religion in Argentina around this guy, Messi, as a person. Yes. The shrines, they burn incense and they have candles to them.

Probably around the world, really. Yeah. So Got a good illustration. Okay. Here we go.

Who comes to a fight dressed in white? The one who knows he’s gonna win. And in case of Jesus, that’s how fast the fight would be and he would win. Okay. Against Messi?

Anybody. Alright. That’s a good answer. Okay. Alright.

So let me give you let me that’s really good, Clay. Let me give you another fun word, ontology. Ontology is the study of the classification of things. Ontology is the study of the classification of things. And I want to race through a couple of foundational things in your Bible that you may not have you’ve read them before, you’ve come across them, but you may not have thought twice.

This is part of the fish in water that I’m talking about. Alright? So, the Bible reveals a much larger cast of spiritual beings than we often recognize. One classification of things that exist in the spiritual realm according to the Bible, the Old Testament Hebrew word is called Elohim. Little e, Elohim.

Elohim are a if you think of remember all the way back in biology, kingdom Phylum class genus beat. Hey. Look at that brain so limber and young and fresh. One of the classification of spiritual beings is they’re known as Elohim, little e Elohim. And if you’ve heard of the God of the Bible as his name being Elohim, you are correct.

And it may pet the fur of your cat the wrong way to hear me say that there are other spiritual beings that go by the classification name of Elohim. Wait, there’s only one Elohim. That is not what your bible says. So, the invitation today is to turn your cat around. If this pets the fur of your cat the wrong way, turn your cat around.

Elohim is a classification of beings, so there in fact are lots of Elohims included in that category, and in fact of a bigger, broader, go knock them dead on the square today. There is the God of the Bible who goes by the title and the name Elohim from time to time, but he is not the only Elohim. If you look through your Bible, what other types of spiritual beings come to your mind that are mentioned in the Bible? Just tell me one. We don’t need the mic.

Angels. Angels. There’s one. Living creatures. Living creatures.

Oh, that didn’t make my list. Living creatures. It’s in the Bible. Rulers, authorities, prophets are in the realm of man and as a title or a function. We’re talking about a classification of beings that would fit under Elohim.

You know I love a good Venn diagram. I see them in my mind all the time. I don’t always throw them up here. Cherubim. Cherubim.

Now those are mentioned in the bible. Joy Joy said seraphim all the way from the VIP section back there. You think of any others? Demons? Yes.

Those fit in there. I had angels, demons, seraphim, cherubim. Half Half and half, which oh, welcome to tribe. Okay. So listen.

So there is a if you’re looking at the ontology of spiritual beings mentioned in the Bible, It is more broad than just god and Satan. And the invitation is to allow god’s word, not my words, but allow god’s word to widen your aperture to be able to make room in your, even if just intellectually, to consider these things that there’s more than just God and Satan. And I’m not going to ask you to, but it would be interesting if we took just a quick survey. Who would hold the position that I held for a long, long time growing up that it was basically just God and Satan? Don’t raise your hand.

But but how many of you have held on to that view for a long time? Well, it’s just God and Satan. When in reality, there’s a larger cast of characters and more layers at play. We’re we’re gonna circle back at some point in the future and take time to really unpack this and to give you the the biblical foundation for these things. But on God’s, think of it like this, executive leadership team.

He is a triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. He’s a triune God. But the Bible alludes to what is known in theological terms as a divine council. And in fact, we read that in the second of our readings this morning, Psalms 89. This divine council, there is a there is a theological concept that is becoming more broadly accepted in the Christian community around the world that God has delegated in the past jurisdictional authority over the nations, he has distributed, given some of his authority to some of these little g gods that he handpicked and selected.

For example, in Daniel, remember when Daniel is praying and it takes a long time for his prayer to be answered, when the angel shows up, he says, from the moment you started praying, I was dispatched from heaven throne Room to come to you, but I was held up by who? Prince of Persia. The prince of Persia. Now, did the prince of Persia, the actual human with the robes and the scepter and the ring and the attendants, did that man stop him? No.

It is a spiritual being that was trying to thwart what was unfolding in the natural realm and so there was a lot going on in the spiritual realm. In the same way that there was a prince of Persia that opposed Daniel’s prayer, in history past, god had said among certain little g gods, Elohims, hey. You keep an eye on this area. You keep an eye on this area. You keep an eye on this area.

And they, those little g gods, failed miserably. Where and how they failed is they allowed the worship of man to be directed at themselves instead of big E Elohim. Big G, capital G, god. Do you know that God has a proper name? The God of the Bible has a proper name, don’t you?

What is it? I am. That’s it in English. His proper name in English is I am. Imagine he gets pulled over.

I need to see your license and registration, please. And, he pulls out his ID, and on his driver’s license, it just says I am. Okay. In Hebrew, it’s known as Yahweh. Yahweh.

So these little g gods that were under Yahweh allowed the worship of man not to be directed at Yahweh but to be directed at themselves and they became corrupt. Now, if you’re like, what in the world are you talking about? The invitation is for you to send me a text and let’s grab a beer. Let’s grab coffee. Let’s let’s sit outside on a nice sunny day and slow roll our way through these verses so that you can come up to speed with these concepts that have been in your Bible all along.

But we all remember from the history books, gods like Baal, Molech, those were in the Bible, but then in school, you learned about Apollo, Zeus, Vishnu, Ganesh, the Mormon god, the god of the Jehovah’s Witness. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, and to be accurate, these gods that we have read about through history are not just something created out of the imaginations of man to fill a history textbook, but are actually real, have influence, have shaped and formed culture, have polluted mankind, and what god has done is says, alright, look what you have done in leading, governing various nations. I’m going to step in and show you how to do it and I’m going to lead and govern a nation and I’m going to show you the contrast of how it should be done. This is what I wanted you to do. And he looked among all of the nations of the world, and he didn’t find a nation that was suitable because all of the nations, they had various accomplishments.

They had various attributes that made them significant in some way. And so he’s like, I want to start like, from absolutely nothing. So he surveyed all the nations and said, no. You’re too good. You’re too good.

You’re too good. You got too much going for you. Give me what does he do? And who does he end up picking as the nations To be his own special nation. And in fact, he called them a nation that was not a nation at all.

He’s revealed himself to them which is where we see at Mount Sinai, which is where we get our Bible from. Yahweh stands alone, unique, and completely as a completely different class of Elohim. He alone occupies the category of uncreated. Hard for our brains to wrap around. He has no end, but he also never had a beginning.

He stands outside of space and time. He created space and time. One more messy analogy. Imi s s I, not Imi s s y. One more messy analogy.

In the world of soccer players, there’s Messi, and he stands unique and alone. And I want to show you just a quick little video of some of his, like, incredible goals. And you don’t even have to be a soccer player to appreciate the wizardry and skill of this man. Would you play that first one, That’s it. So, yeah, so, if you play soccer, you’re like, how?

How? But, you don’t even have to play soccer to be able to appreciate just like like some of his brilliance. So, okay, that in alone of itself, like, wow, cool, cool, highlight reel of some of Messi’s goals. But, when you look at him compared to other epic, legendary soccer players, that’s when the contrast really begins to come forward. And I have one more I have one more video for you that I wanna show you that, is a bell curve diagram describing Messi’s skill compared to other soccer players.

Let’s look at the this next one, and it’s short also. This is the growth of every attacking player in Europe’s top leagues. This dot is the average and this one way out here is Lionel Messi. The number is goals plus assists per ninety minutes. Plot 2,000 players and you get a near perfect belt curve.

Almost everyone clusters in the middle. Out on the right tail sit the superstars. Haaland, Mbappe, Ronaldo. The best on the planet land, three maybe four standard deviations above average, genetic freaks all of them. And then there is Messi, not three, not four, almost six standard deviations out.

Far So to the right that he is off the chart completely alone with nobody close to him. Watch what happens when we zoom in. The gap between Messi and the second best player is bigger than the gap between that player and the entire average. A player this good should show up about once in 500,000,000 and that is only his prime average. His best season was even further out off this screen entirely.

The math could not be clearer. Messi is not just elite. Statistically he should not exist. And this is just running around on the grass kicking a ball. The god of the Bible I don’t know where each of you are in terms of your thoughts about and or your relationship with the god of the Bible.

But the god of the Bible has no equal. He has no rival. Look at the creation story, I’ll say arrival stories of other gods throughout history around the world. One came out of one god came out of the severed testicles of of a man. One god arose from the sea foam lapping on the ocean shore.

One god sprang out of the forehead of of another. God’s come from all these weird places of the stories of man. Only the God of the Bible is uncreated, and he is unmatched in his brilliance, in his power, in his creativity, in his patience, in his love in his authority, in his strength, in his might, in his wrath, in his mercy, in his miracles spiritually speaking. If you wear a messy jersey and you support him. If you wear the jersey of Yahweh, the god of the Bible and his son, Jesus.

You’ve picked quite a team and this morning, with the last few moments that we have left, what I’d like us to do is to just allow ourselves to consider and most importantly, to encounter the god of the Bible, Yahweh, in his vast superiority to draw close to your heart, to whisper to your heart, and for you to receive just one small touch from him. The Bible says that he calls forth all of the stars by name and yet, he knows how many hairs are left on your head, and he knows all of the days of your life before you ever even lived one, and he longs for relationship with you. So, Holy Spirit, will you draw close to our hearts right now? Holy Spirit, will you draw near to us? Would you reveal a facet of your nature and character that we are most in need of?

We’re that we have the most nutritional need of. Is there some anemia in spiritual anemia in our heart that needs to be met and touched by you? Will you draw close to that area right now? Just come, Holy Spirit. Will you make some room in your heart for him?

Listen for him. You. Protect him from the rabble around him. And any one of us couldn’t get within a half mile of that dude. Spend any amount of money you want.

You you could never you you just can’t meet him. But the god of the Bible, a quadrillion, billion, zillion times more epic and amazing and incredible. Not only does he not keep you at arm’s distance, but he longs to draw close to you. And really, it’s the human heart and our rebellious nature that pushes him away. Imagine Messi coming up to you and being like, can we hang?

And you’re like, Will you soften your heart and allow Yahweh, the god of the Bible, to draw close to you. We could sit here in this moment and soak and soak and Here’s the really cool thing about Yahweh. When you leave here this morning and you shift gears and you think about the rest of your day, are you going to put the paddle boards on the water? Are you going to go for a walk? Get your flowers watered before it gets too hot.

Whatever else it is that you’re going to do today. There is always an open invitation to encounter the god of the Bible. You don’t need to pay $5,000 to get a ticket in a stadium in Kansas City to see Messi in Argentina play. 12. And now they’re 12,000.

You just find a quiet place even in your heart in the midst of busyness and just say, Yahweh, Jesus, are you there? And watch him draw close to you. Here at Tribe, we worship the lord every Sunday in three different ways and formats. The first way that we worship the lord is through song and we sang about him. You have no equal, no rival, and you guys were, whoo, awesome singer outers this morning.

We worship the lord by considering and reading and allowing his word and the person of the holy spirit to transform our hearts. That’s how we worship them and we worship the lord one other way each and every week by giving you an opportunity to bring your tithes and offerings to the lord and so, I know that you know how to do this. There’s a little wooden box in the corner there. There’s a black box on the outside of the TMC. You can give through our website, tribegh.com.

You can also send a text. Many people are generous with their tithes and offerings with a text and so that text number is up on the screen and you can give your tithes and offerings that way. Why don’t I pray over the offering, share one important announcement with you, and then we’ll get out of here, okay? So, lord Jesus, thank you for being good to us. Thank you that you are the best.

You literally are the goat, greatest of all time. You have no equal and no rival. And yet you want to spend time with me? Thank you. You are so amazing as a way of telling you that we love you and that we trust you.

We bring a portion of our finances and surrender them to you. You don’t need money but you partner with us and you use those finances to accomplish your work here on Earth, here at Tribe, in Jackson Hole, the surrounding region, and to the uttermost bounds of the earth. So, lord, thank you for all of our families that give so generously. I ask that you would receive these tithes and offerings to make your name famous. We pray these things in Jesus name and everybody said, amen.

Here’s the main announcement that you need to know about. Tomorrow is the last revival at the rodeo. It’s at 7PM. It’s at the fairgrounds. These have been going great.

The weather is held out. We had one little hiccup, but, like, hey. It’s working out great. So with the last one being tomorrow, please use this invite. Lissa has sent this out as a digital version on the tribe text blast.

If you don’t get the tribe text blast, fill out that connect card, and you can put it in that little wooden box. We’ll keep you updated on things, what’s going on. If your work schedule allows it, please join us 7PM tomorrow at the Rodeo Grounds. And here’s the most important thing. Say it with me.

Bring a friend or 12. Alright? So it would be a great gospel message. That’s all I got for you. Would you stand up and I’ll pray for you?

Thank you guys so much for being here. I really appreciate the the investment of time that you spent in the arduous journey getting here this morning. I’m giving a shout out to our neighbors down the way. Lord Jesus, can I bless you this morning? Lord Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for being good to us. Lord, help us to encounter how you are unlike anything and everything that we would ever come up against or cross because you are so superlative in every way, that means that there’s nothing that we would bump up against or find ourselves in the midst of that you aren’t bigger than, that you don’t have a solution for, that you don’t have hope for us for, that your love, that your grace, your mercy, and your forgiveness can’t cover. And so, Lord, we just ask for all of it. We want all of you. I command a blessing over each and every person here this morning.

Lord, give us a great week. Help us to stay out of the heat and out of the way of all the tourists in our town. And we tell you one more time that we love you, Jesus. We pray these things. In Jesus name, the strong son of God.

And everybody said, amen. I love you guys so much. Have a great week. And remember, Matt, you got this.