Brookside, I love it

when we get to do that opportunity because I know that there's so many different people here at Brookside on any given week that are just checking us out and like I don't know these people, they don't know me. And so I hope that you take that as an opportunity to just really make a great connection because let me remind you once again of our vision. We believe that we're here to build Jesus centered homes through healthy relationships. And we believe when those healthy relationships happen more and more, more of our communities will be saturated with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so let that continue to fuel your relationship here at Brookside. If you have your Bibles, open them if you wouldn't mind to Mark chapter 11. Mark chapter 11, if you don't have your Bible, that's fine. It's gonna be on the screen as well, but I'm gonna try to do my best to abbreviate what was originally a 45 minute message.

So we're gonna do what I can. Let me start by, saying you you might be surprised when I tell you that growing up I was a really quiet kid. I didn't really speak a whole lot and when I did I was fairly quiet when I did speak and so it it was fairly common for people to say, hey, Eric, you're gonna have to speak up, I can't hear you. In fact, if you ask my parents, they'll confirm that when I grew up I rarely put 2 words together to form a sentence, and so you can imagine their shock when in college I informed them that I planned on becoming a preacher. To which my dad responded by asking, Eric, do you realize what preachers have to do? They have to speak a lot really loud. And so it was a shock to my system. But now growing up being quiet like that was was generally fine, no no problems, until about 5th grade when I'd get my very first, presentation on a report in front of the entire class. It was a simple assignment, really it was.

It was simply pick a topic and then do some research on it, and then take 3 or 4 minutes to present your findings. So pretty simple job, don't you think? And so as I stand in front of the class and I'm presenting my report, shortly after I begin, the teacher stops me. He says, Eric, hang on. Stop. You're gonna have to start over again. We can't hear you. And so I started over again, but then again he stopped me and he said, Eric, you're gonna have to speak up because at the back of the class, we can't hear you. Finally, I spoke up loud enough so that the last people in the class could hear me and I finished my presentation.

But when I was done, the teacher took me aside, said I have another assignment for you. I want you to go home and practice projecting to the other side of your living room. Imagine we're all at the very back of your living room and every one of us desperately needs to hear what you have to say. So practice projecting. What he was trying to teach me is something I hadn't discovered yet, but it's a really important principle of life, and that is I realized my problem on that day in the classroom was not my confidence in the content. I did my study, I did the research, I knew

what I was talking about. In that moment, in that classroom, I was the one that I was talking about. I was the one that I was talking about. I was

the one that I was I knew what I was talking about in that moment in that classroom. I was the highest authority on that topic. My problem was not my confidence in the content. My problem was my confidence in my voice to project it loud enough. So if that's the reality, it doesn't really matter how confident you are in the content or even what the content is. Because if you can't project it loud enough for people to hear it, then the content can't do its work in the people's lives. The content couldn't teach the students what they needed to learn. So I discovered something important especially as I went into preaching as a career.

I discovered it's not only important that I'm confident in the content that I'm preaching to you, but it's as important that I project. I have authority in my voice when I speak it so that the content can do its work in the people who are listening. It's an interesting principle that I learned. When I read the life of Jesus, I recognized, surprised when I first discovered it, how good Jesus was at both. It's no surprise to you that Jesus was confident in the content of the gospel that he was presenting. The crucifixion, the resurrection, the salvation, all of that. Right? But it's as impressive when you hear how he communicated it. Oftentimes, when he spoke to a crowd, the crowd would respond by saying, oh, man, who is this guy who speaks with such authority? There it is.

That's what I'm after. I'm not just after the authority of the content. What I'm after is the authority of the presentation. Does that make sense? So I found a place that exemplifies this in Mark chapter 11. I wanna take you there. Go to Mark 11 verse 12. This is what's happening. Jesus and his disciples are headed to Jerusalem to spend some time in the temple.