Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Who's excited to be at church tonight?
[00:00:03] All right, so some of you guys that did not raise your hand. One thing that I know for sure is you did not read Ephesians 2 before you came here tonight. Because if you read Ephesians 2 before you came here tonight or knew we were going to be talking about it, you would be very excited because Ephesians 2 is amazing. It's great, you know, to hit some of those old cliches up. It says, if this doesn't get your fire burning, your wood is wet. You heard that one before.
[00:00:29] Or it says if it doesn't get your motor running, you're out of gas. That's. This passage right here, man. There's. This passage is absolutely great. And it should make your heart overflow with joy as a believer.
[00:00:42] Overflow with joy as a believer. And so let's dive into it. Ephesians, chapter two, picking up in verse one.
[00:00:49] And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked from following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
[00:01:15] But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he has, which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
[00:01:28] By grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works with which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Let's pray, Father.
[00:02:13] Show us your word tonight.
[00:02:16] Help us to see things more clearly than we've ever seen them before.
[00:02:20] Help us to receive your Word and live in response to it.
[00:02:25] Father, thank you for your many blessings. Thank you for your word. Amen.
[00:02:31] All right, so first slide. I'm gonna go ahead and pop that one up. We'll stop right there as a little test I'm assembling. Y' all been paying attention the last few weeks. Who knows the answer that fill in the blank Let me hear guess out loud.
[00:02:45] No, not we, not you, not all.
[00:02:51] Any other guesses?
[00:02:53] Casey says sinners. You're getting close, Casey.
[00:02:57] Not saints. Kelly. Got it. Ain't. Go to the next one, Robert. Ain't. There we go. Our ain't.
[00:03:04] So Casey, I guess got it right. Technically, it would be the better word probably, but we've been saying for the last few weeks you're a what, your saints or you ain't. Right.
[00:03:15] So those who are, ain't those who are still in their sin.
[00:03:20] Now let's clarify that a little bit as we move forward, because even as believers, we still sin. But we're not defined by our sin anymore, are we? So as believers, we're freed from the power of sin. So when we say sinners are dead in their trespasses and sin, it's those who have not yet surrendered to Christ, those who have not received salvation.
[00:03:40] So sinners or ain't are dead in their trespasses and sins in which they walk. Right here. So these are the ones who do not know Christ.
[00:03:51] Let's look at the condition. What is that? Dead.
[00:03:55] Dead in their sin.
[00:03:57] It's important for us to know the reality of sin and what sin really is.
[00:04:02] One of my favorite lines, Jason Engel always says that the most dangerous form, assumption of knowledge, is assumption, assuming people know. So a lot of times we use this word sin, and we assume people know what we're talking about, what is sin? And so if I ask some of our young people or some of our young leaders who teach young people, they will quote Tammy Riley and say, sin is anything that you think, say or do that goes against God or goes against God's law. There's a few variations of that. And if you ask my kids, that's the version they'll quote back to you.
[00:04:34] A lot of times people give us the definition of sin and they'll basically say it's the bad stuff that we do.
[00:04:39] And I hate that answer because it's not the bad stuff that we do. It's the bad stuff that we do or the things that we do that go against God. That's really what more of it is.
[00:04:51] But what we do know is that we don't think rightly about sin in our society, the culture, outside the church, definitely not. But I would say and argue that even inside the church, we don't think as rightly as we should about sin. Sin is often a laughing matter, and sin should never be laughed at.
[00:05:12] Sometimes that's hard.
[00:05:14] Several years ago, Micah was quite young and Micah was, I think probably about three years old. And my nephew was over. They were sitting on the step playing. And Micah had set his mind on stacking up these blocks on some kind of little train thing. And it was a difficult task for his little three year old hands. And man, he was dedicated to it. He probably spent five, ten minutes working on this. He'd stack one or two up, they fall over. He'd stack one or two up and fall over. He was just in his own little world. Everybody was around talking, but I just sit there watching him going. He's really, he's really locked in right here. And he keeps trying to stack him. He keeps trying to stack him and eventually stacks him up. And he gets it. He got so excited, he turns around, he smiles, he turns back and looks at him. And his cousin Jackson reaches over and smacks them down, knocks them right over.
[00:06:03] And without missing a beat, Micah's hand comes back, smacks Jackson in the back of the head. And I was watching it all go down. We were all in the living room. My mother in law was beside me, Kelly was over there beside her, and several people were around.
[00:06:17] And I said, micah, what'd you just do?
[00:06:21] He turns, looks at me. Nothing, daddy.
[00:06:24] Micah, what did you just do?
[00:06:28] Nothing, daddy.
[00:06:31] Micah James, throw that middle name in there, you know it means something, right? Micah James, what did you just do?
[00:06:39] Nothing, daddy. I just gave him a high five.
[00:06:45] You just smacked the man in the back of the head. That's, that's, that's not quite what a high five is. He got all five of them fingers through the back of the head. But that's not what a high five is.
[00:06:54] As a father, we don't laugh at our children's sin, right?
[00:06:58] It's hard not to. I was doing good, not laughing to my mother in law.
[00:07:02] She starts trying to laugh and pulls that shirt up over her mouth and tries not to do it. You know, it's funny sometimes, but ultimately we can't laugh at our children's sin, can we not?
[00:07:12] Why?
[00:07:14] It's the thing that is separating them from the eternal God.
[00:07:18] And while we want to at times look at it like it's something harmless, that sin is separating the sinner and the eternal, perfect, holy God.
[00:07:31] At any age, sin is never a laughing matter.
[00:07:38] We will rank things as sins that are bad or worse or whatever, and we are okay with certain ones and justify certain ones. But any sin, sin is something that separates us from God.
[00:07:49] We have to view sin as what it is.
[00:07:54] Now, I admit, with Micah smacking Jackson. There's a cuteness to it at times, and a thing of him figuring out life. But it's not a joke.
[00:08:04] We have to view it as such.
[00:08:06] So I was looking at other ways of defining sin. I came across something that John Piper spoke, and I think it's on the next slide. Oh, that got small. Sorry, but you can hear me say it, and I can post it later if you want it.
[00:08:17] So my definition of sinning is Sinning is any feeling or thought or speech or action that comes from a heart that does not treasure God over all other things.
[00:08:29] And the bottom of sin, the root of all sinning, is such a heart, a heart that prefers anything above God.
[00:08:38] A heart that does not treasure God over all other persons and all other things.
[00:08:44] Or, as I once tried to express in a message years ago, what is sin?
[00:08:49] Sin is the glory of God not honored, the holiness of God not reverenced the greatness of God not admired the power of God not praised the truth of God not sought the wisdom of God not esteemed the beauty of God not treasured the goodness of God not savored the faithfulness of God not trusted, the promises of God not believed, the commandments of God not obeyed, the justice of God not respected, the wrath of God not feared, the grace of God not cherished, the presence of God not prized, the person of God not loved.
[00:09:37] We have to recognize and be honest about what sin really is and what it cost us. When we view them with worldly eyes, we put rankings on them and it becomes a situation where we can easily justify certain ones. Because on a worldly standard, I would say it's easy to justify certain things to give you an advantage or to make somebody feel better, or to take your pick in what you want. You can say things and do things and justify them because the consequences aren't eternal.
[00:10:06] But the reality of sin is that its consequences are eternal. It separates us from God. It's not just, oh, I did something bad, I won't do it anymore, I can walk away from it. There's a division that is happening when we walk in sin.
[00:10:21] So we have to be honest about it.
[00:10:26] In sin we are as Ephesians 2 says, we are dead in our sin.
[00:10:32] In sin, it also means that we are slaves to sin.
[00:10:36] As a sinner before Christ, we have no choice but to sin. We have a sin nature that came to man through Adam, and we are slaves to it before Christ.
[00:10:52] Isaiah tells us that our sin separates us from God.
[00:10:55] Romans tells us that our sin makes us enemies of God and Hebrews tells us that we are unable to please God while we are in our sin.
[00:11:06] Without faith, it's impossible to please God.
[00:11:10] The reality is we often look at people pre Christ as something that simply needs to be, oh, he's kind of rough around the edges. He needs a little bit of polishing up. He'll grow up one day soon and stop doing those silly things of his youth and will put sin in some of those things. And we will watch people grow up and mature in the world's way, stop doing things that were of their youth and we kind of forgive them and now take them as an adult who's now more mature. But the reality is, is because of their sin, they're not any better off just because they stop doing certain things.
[00:11:45] Now, in the worldly sense, you might be better off when you stop doing certain things. But the reality is, as a sinner, we don't just need a little bit of polishing.
[00:11:54] We can't put ourselves through a rock tumbler, knock the edges off and come out shiny and be okay.
[00:12:01] Scripture gives us some pretty awesome pictures of the nature of man and sin.
[00:12:07] The valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, death not dying, not almost dead.
[00:12:18] Steve, if you get that joke reference right there, Nearly dead, almost dead, not quite. Okay. No. Okay. Thank you for like nobody was tattooing right there. Not almost dead, but bones, dry bones.
[00:12:34] Not recently dead.
[00:12:36] Dead, dead.
[00:12:39] That's what the unbeliever is.
[00:12:41] Ezekiel also says that God will come in and take out our heart of stone and replace it with the heart of flesh.
[00:12:51] We are dead in our sins before Christ, hopeless before Christ.
[00:12:59] Nothing redeemable about us, but we often chalk up sin is just. Oh, it's kind of a laugh and matter and it'll be okay later on. But that's not the reality that we face.
[00:13:11] Man, what a beautiful verse. Comes in verse four, right? But God.
[00:13:15] But God. Point number two tells us that saints by grace were made alive together in Christ, man. Saints by grace.
[00:13:28] If you are with God, if you know God through Christ, it is by grace that you know him. You did nothing to earn that. So what is this word grace? Grace is unmerited favor.
[00:13:40] As we talk to the kids, I love to say that grace is getting something that you don't deserve.
[00:13:46] You didn't deserve that.
[00:13:49] So we talk about what grace is. In a time they received grace. I love to say, did you earn your birthday presents? Yes.
[00:13:56] What you mean you did something for them? If anybody should be getting presents this day, it's your mama.
[00:14:01] You did nothing on your birthday. You didn't work through that.
[00:14:05] There's nothing special that you did every year. You don't work for those presents. People give them to you.
[00:14:11] That's grace. You didn't deserve it.
[00:14:14] Kids struggle through that one. They think they deserve those birthday presents. Then we get Christmas presents and it blows their mind. They don't deserve those.
[00:14:22] Grace is this idea of getting something we don't deserve.
[00:14:28] And if we really, really, really understand our sin nature and how terrible we actually are, it makes what grace is so much more beautiful.
[00:14:39] The love of God, as it explains right here being poured out.
[00:14:45] Not only did he give that to us, we didn't deserve it. But when we were still his enemies, his death came.
[00:14:53] That's what grace looks like.
[00:14:57] And how beautiful of a picture we have right here. This butter excites you. I'm going to read it again. Verse 4. But God being rich in mercy, what's Mercy then? If grace is not getting what you deserve? Mercy is what, Marcy?
[00:15:15] When you deserve something you don't like, it's when you deserve something, but you don't get it. I'm gonna give you a gold star.
[00:15:24] She was paying attention at some point.
[00:15:28] Mercy. I was trying to describe mercy several years ago to a group of kids. It was part of our group in my Life Matters. And I had a group of boys, man, they were.
[00:15:37] They were something special. We'll call it that. You know how they bless your heart, little thing. It's one of those scenarios. They were special.
[00:15:43] And so I was sitting there with one kid, trying to get him to do his homework, and he wouldn't do his homework. And if you weren't doing your homework, you're supposed to be doing your little journal, Bible study. So it's like, do your homework. Please do your homework. And then one of his, one kid beside me on my right, his name was Areek. And we loved a Reek. But Reek was what I call a space cadet. This is reek. 9% of the time.
[00:16:04] Never stopped. I'm like, are your journal?
[00:16:10] And then a kid beside me, man, he wanted to understand the journal so bad. He's like, what's mercy? And I explained it to Mercy, and I went through every little saying I could find to come up with what Mercy is. And every illustration, I gave him, like 19 of them, and he still wasn't getting it. In the midst of doing this, I'm like, hey, do your homework. Sit down. Stop moving around. Because not only was he not on his homework, he was Walking around, bugging everybody else, keeping different on their assignment. So I'm sitting there going, sit down, do your homework. Mercy is this. I smack Rick in the head and say, pay attention.
[00:16:39] I've been going back and forth, back and forth and I'm like, dude, if you don't stop getting up and walking around, okay, I don't care if you do your own work anymore. Just sit down and don't move. Don't talk to nobody else. Stop them from doing what they're supposed to be doing. Mercy is a reek. Pay attention. Mercy is this right? Sit down. We go back and forth. So look, if you get up one more time, I'm going to sit you out. You're going to miss all of game time.
[00:17:03] Mercy is blah, blah, blah, pay attention, blah blah blah. We're going over to this. And he's still not getting, still not getting. The kid eventually gets up and moves around again.
[00:17:11] I said, man, listen, I've told you, I'm trying to work with you. I don't want you to miss game time. I don't want, you have to do this. Please come right over here and sit down.
[00:17:22] I'm not gonna quite. I threatened to call his ride, kept threatening to call, make us send him home. I said, look, I don't want you to go home. I don't want you to do this. I've told you, I've given you all the warnings I can. Please come over here and sit down near, closer to me and we'll move on. So I say that he walks over, he sits down and I look over displaying mercy and are. My space cadet leans over and goes, that was mercy.
[00:17:44] I think that kid had paid attention all year.
[00:17:50] Mercy is not getting what we know we deserve.
[00:17:55] And we know we deserve it, right?
[00:17:58] We know we're guilty.
[00:18:03] But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even as we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places. In Christ Jesus.
[00:18:24] Not only we not get what we deserve, eternal punishment, we are rescued from that and seated with God.
[00:18:35] Believers, do we see, do we understand what our sin really cost us? How bad it really was? That we see the rescue received and the position that we're now put in.
[00:18:46] Do we understand that?
[00:18:49] Because if we understand that, we should never get over that.
[00:18:53] We should never get over that.
[00:18:58] There's times where I see different believers in their walk. They will learn the gospel. They'll try to move on to other things and grow deeper things. We never move on from the gospel.
[00:19:08] We never move on from the gospel.
[00:19:13] A book that I read a while back tells us that it's important for both the believer and the unbeliever to hear the gospel every day.
[00:19:21] Yeah, I agree with that. And he then goes and say, it's more important for the believer to hear it every day than it is the unbeliever. I stopped and closed the book, and I'm like, that's not right.
[00:19:32] Because the believer, unbeliever, has not yet surrendered to us. We need to hear the gospel more.
[00:19:37] He needs to hear more. He needs to hear more. And I went through that and I processed through that. It goes on to keep reading what he talks about. He says it's important for the believer to hear it every day, to know it, believe it, be reminded of it every day. Because the rest of your life is now changed because of that. And everything that you do from here on out is in response to the gospel.
[00:20:01] I'm going to use Tim's line and say, you're not listening as good as I'm preaching right now, whatever that line is. Do you really catch that reality that you were rescued from darkness and brought into light, you deserved hell and have been seated right beside God?
[00:20:16] Do we get God's goodness in that?
[00:20:20] We never get over that. We never move on from that. And we always respond to that.
[00:20:27] We always respond to that.
[00:20:34] When I was a young teenager, my brother was, you know, three and a half, four years older than me. He got his license ahead of time, and he borrowed money from me one time, 40, 50 bucks, whatever it was, I don't know who it was. It wasn't a lot. But to then, in the age that I was, it was a lot. So I borrowed. He borrows his money. He goes on. I don't know what he did with it, but he gets it. And then we're.
[00:20:58] Life's happened. He comes down to pay me back. And he comes to me one day and he's like, hey, I'm supposed to pay you back now, but I don't have any money.
[00:21:05] And I just got a speeding ticket.
[00:21:08] And mom and dad don't know.
[00:21:10] This is the first time I've told them that this is either.
[00:21:13] I just got a speeding ticket and I'm paying a lawyer to pay it off. I'm gonna try to do it where they can't find out.
[00:21:21] It's been a long time, so I guess y' all can forgive him by now.
[00:21:25] And I'm like. He's like, it basically says, I can't pay you back. All my money is going to this.
[00:21:30] And basically he had this hat that I loved and I will try to wear all the time. He's like, I'll give you my hat and trade for it and then maybe pay you back later. He never did.
[00:21:39] I don't think he ever planned on it.
[00:21:44] And so he gives me the hat and we move on and we start living life. And then he would start being mean older brothers. Anybody have a mean older brother? They're always messing with you. I have one of those. And so he would do stuff to me and I would live in response to him borrowing money and not telling mom and dad about it. And I'd be like, hey, remember that time you got a ticket and didn't tell mom and dad about it? You want them to find out about it? Because I'll tell him.
[00:22:07] I'm living in response to that little thing I have over his head. And I was responding to it all the time because he come to me and have this thing he wanted me to do or whatever. I'm like, no, you're doing it this time. I'm going to tell mom and Dad I milked that one as long as I could.
[00:22:18] We know what it looks like to live in response to something, right?
[00:22:22] To keep them in our mind and keep responding to it over and over again. This is so much more than that.
[00:22:28] Everything that we do as a person now is in response to this part of the Gospel right here.
[00:22:36] Christ died for us, rescued us, saved us.
[00:22:40] And it wasn't because we deserved, wasn't because we were good enough.
[00:22:49] Our entire existence hinges on this right here.
[00:22:52] Because now we have a new position.
[00:22:55] That new position is in Christ.
[00:22:59] Now, a lot of times we identify as Christian. You know how many times the word Christian is used in the Bible?
[00:23:06] 3. 3 times.
[00:23:08] Twice in Acts and once in First Peter as we identify as Christian as label that we wear. But Paul by himself uses the word or form of the word in Christ, in him, in the Lord. He used Paul. He uses it more than 164 times up to 185. There's or between 140 and 160 people disagree on it. In the New Testament, it's somewhere between 2 and 300 times that this term in Christ is used.
[00:23:35] So how should we identify?
[00:23:36] I would say we should identify more with in Christ than Christian because it's reminding us of the position that we are, we are in Christ. What does that look like?
[00:23:48] So I have a key in my pocket right here. And so if we look at where we are when we become believers, we are now in Christ.
[00:23:55] So God's still looking where we are.
[00:23:58] He now sees Jesus.
[00:24:01] And I'm still guilty of the things that I've done and should be punished for the things that I've done. But when God looks at me, what does he see?
[00:24:10] Jesus. And the death of Jesus. So I no longer have to pay those consequences that I would have to pay. So our positions now, believers, is that we are in Christ.
[00:24:22] We need to remind ourselves of that position or over and over again, this is the way we walk. This is the way that we live.
[00:24:32] We are in Christ.
[00:24:36] I'll quote a little bit of Sinclair Ferguson in a minute, but this is kind of adapted from something he said.
[00:24:42] We receive every spiritual blessing in him because we have been chosen in him, we have been predestined in him, we have been reconciled in him, we have been pardoned in him, we experienced illumination in him, we are given adoption in him, we are brought to sanctification in him, and all to the praise of his glorious grace.
[00:25:07] Sinclair Ferguson goes on to say this. I think it's on this next slide, the last one we'll summit up before we get to that one. As he finished saying those things within him, he says, this is who I am. If I am a Christian, it gives me a way of identifying myself, thinking about myself and who I am. And that's important because our lifestyle, how we live, is the result of who we are, who we believe ourselves to be.
[00:25:34] So this, the next slide, goes on to say the Sinclair first and quote, it's possible for a Christian to suffer from identity theft and then identity lost and it can be very difficult to regain. And the result is, to use an expression of our forefathers, that we end up living below the level of our privilege.
[00:25:55] We don't realize who we are, that is, we are in Christ. We don't realize that in Christ, everything that's in him is now ours.
[00:26:06] And if we are in Christ and He wants everything that is his to become ours too, that's how the grammar of the gospel.
[00:26:15] That's how the grammar of the gospel structures our thinking so that we can live the Christian life with our heads held high because we know who we are.
[00:26:25] Nobody in all the world is more privileged or has a more glorious identity than the man or woman or the young person who can say, I am in Christ. The that's who I am.
[00:26:37] It's clear in Ephesians 1:3, 14 that Paul has regarded this element in the grammar of the Gospel as one of the most thrilling aspects of being a Christian. In fact, these verses are so marvelous that American theologian B.B. warfield is said to have believed they should never actually be read, they should only be sung.
[00:26:59] To know that you are in Christ puts a melody in your soul and. And music to your life.
[00:27:08] Who are you?
[00:27:10] What's your position in Christ?
[00:27:14] In Christ.
[00:27:18] So he ends by saying that you know you were in Christ, puts melody in your soul and music to your life. It changes how you respond. Point three goes on to say this.
[00:27:28] So saints, we are created to walk in good works.
[00:27:35] Verse 10 says, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You go back to the verse I quoted in Peter. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. We were saved and given a purpose to walk in good works.
[00:28:04] How do we respond to it?
[00:28:06] By doing all things to his glory.
[00:28:09] Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. This year in my C3 class, I've got Micah and Marcy and some of the acreies and JV and some other people I don't remember who, but I had end the year up. And I was like, how do I end the year up? What do I want to summarize the year with? And that's what I did.
[00:28:30] Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
[00:28:33] That is how we respond to the gospel. We take the truth of who we are and we do something with it.
[00:28:41] It's a classic movie, some of you might remember, called Cool Runnings. Any fans out there? Classic, right? There's just one scene that I love. And you got this big guy and you got this little, little small guy. And he's struggling to know what to do because he doesn't know who he is or what his identity is. So the big guy drags him in front of a mirror and he's like, tell me what you see. He's all, like, big and tough. As he says it, he starts, no, tell me what you see.
[00:29:09] Who are you? And he goes back and forth, basically saying, tell me what you see.
[00:29:14] And he basically puts in his mind who this guy is and says, now respond to this as he had to go confront his father, who was really controlling him. In the movie. But the idea is, know who you are and respond to it.
[00:29:28] That's our calling right now. Know who you are. You are in Christ.
[00:29:34] How do we respond to it? To the good works that God prepared for us beforehand?
[00:29:42] Walk in them.
[00:29:45] Walk in those good works.
[00:29:48] What are they?
[00:29:50] Some of them Scripture lays out to love the people around us, to take care of the orphans and widows.
[00:29:58] There's ministry all around you, all around you. There is so much ministry to be done that we can't do it all ourselves.
[00:30:09] If you don't see any ministry that needs to happen around you, you aren't looking.
[00:30:18] The Great Commission tells us to what?
[00:30:21] Go, therefore make disciples.
[00:30:25] But if you look at that word go, therefore, if you go back to the Greek, and it should better be translated as as you are going.
[00:30:33] It's not a command to go on a mission trip. It's a command to make disciples as you just live your life.
[00:30:39] It's not a command to be on the mission field for this one week as you sign up for the mission trip, or to be a missionary for two years overseas or to be on staff at somewhere local. Like my life matters for this amount of time. It's a command for us to live as disciples for the rest of our lives.
[00:30:55] As you are going, as a favorite moment of discipleship.
[00:31:01] I was living this parsonage over here, and I invited a teenager to come in and live with me. And he did, and he brought along somebody else a couple weeks later. And he just came to my house one day for the summer and stayed all summer. He went home twice. I was like, hey, Willie, man, go see your mama, man.
[00:31:20] Yeah, I probably should. He went. He went. You think I'm exaggerating? He went home for two days the entire summer for like an hour each, and came back there, and he was just at my house the whole time being Willie. And if you know Willie, you love Willie.
[00:31:35] He went 100 miles a minute. And if he ever stopped and slowed down, that boy fell asleep.
[00:31:40] His mama called me one time at 2am this is after he had gone back and during the school year. And she's like, I can't find Willie. Have you seen him? No.
[00:31:48] So I'm like, start looking around, start texting people, trying to find some stuff and find them. Can't find him. Finally call her back about an hour later. Have you found him? Oh, yeah. He was there in a bunch of us playing video games. And he laid down beside the couch and fell asleep where nobody could see him. And we just passed out In a room of 15 people screaming at a video game. That man fell asleep because that's what he did.
[00:32:08] Just living life together, doing life, hanging out all summer long. And we go to the grocery store, we're just. I'm walking around counting pennies because, you know, I was broke counting pennies. Looking around, he's like, why don't you just grab one of those and put them in? I was like, we gotta have the most bang for my buck right here. So we're doing that for like everything we go through, especially toilet paper. Because not only was it them two there, but like, 19 other guys would always come to my house. That stuff went through quick. So I'm pitching pennies, right? We're trying to find the most for the money. And if you've ever done any kind of math, toilet paper math is the hardest. It's like 96 rolls. There's 16 of them here. What does this mean?
[00:32:42] I've never figured out those calculations.
[00:32:46] And we were just walking around the grocery store talking, and one of his teachers comes up.
[00:32:50] What you been doing this summer, Willie?
[00:32:52] Nothing.
[00:32:54] Tell me what you've been doing.
[00:32:57] And we had done all kinds of crazy stuff. We went and saw Toby Mack in concert. We saw all kinds of different people. Saw Lecrae in concert that summer. We saw a bunch of things, did a bunch of stuff, did all kinds of camps. I said, will, tell me what you've been doing.
[00:33:11] I've been at the warehouse, I've been at church.
[00:33:15] I've been counting the cost.
[00:33:20] Shocked, he'd been counting the cost of what it means to die to himself and take up his cross.
[00:33:29] Lived in a house with a lot of drugs. His brother's a gang member.
[00:33:37] You can't just raise your hand and say a prayer. Everything that you are is going to change when you count the cost.
[00:33:43] When you walk with Christ.
[00:33:47] Neat moment in a grocery store.
[00:33:52] Love watching Kelly and the kids. When they were a little bit younger, they had the deepest theological conversations with two naked babies and a bathtub.
[00:34:06] Asking deep questions at a young age.
[00:34:10] And Kelly just sitting there sharing with them.
[00:34:15] It was at least two of our kids. Kelly led to the lord in the 15 passenger van. Driving around. If you ever drive around with young kids and a bunch of them, it is torture.
[00:34:25] And they whine and cry, complain about everything. And redeeming. Those conversations are de difficult.
[00:34:32] But it's the ministry parents are called to, right?
[00:34:35] And I want to choke them and tell them to be quiet and hit them with something.
[00:34:41] And my wife is riding along having deep spiritual conversations with them.
[00:34:48] There's ministry all around us to be done all the time. There's good works prepared for us before we even were here that God's prepared for us to walk in them.
[00:35:02] So let's walk in those things.
[00:35:05] Let's walk in obedience and do those good works.
[00:35:08] Our sermon title, if you didn't look at it before, says this Power through grace for new life and new purpose in Christ.
[00:35:19] We're called to hard things.
[00:35:24] Over the next month, we're doing four elementary camps in My Life Matters and three neighborhood Bible clubs. That was a dumb idea to have two camps at one time. I'm going to talk to somebody and tell him he's stupid.
[00:35:37] That was me. How stupid?
[00:35:41] No, I had a vision from the Lord because we had a great team around us and young people that needed to be trained and given a chance to exercise or given a chance to share the gospel with people. And we didn't have enough spots at camp to do it. And I saw we can do another camp at the same time and have more opportunities for teenagers to do this.
[00:35:58] And it's hard.
[00:36:00] I'm not sure how it's all going to get done, but I believe these are the good works that were prepared for us ahead of time. And I'm walking in faith to get them done and trusting in my team and trusting in God to get them done.
[00:36:10] It's bigger than what I can do on my own.
[00:36:15] There's so much ministry around us, we would never run out.
[00:36:19] If you can't see ministry that needs to happen, you're not looking.
[00:36:29] Let's respond to God's grace by recognizing that he has the power. That command in the Great Commission to go, therefore make disciples is sandwiched between two facts that I think are often overlooked. All authority has been given to me and I am with you.
[00:36:51] We catch that.
[00:36:54] We're scared to go because we don't have the power. You don't need the power. God is the power.
[00:36:59] He will be with us.
[00:37:02] And if we are in him, we have what we need to go and walk in those good works.
[00:37:10] So in response, a couple points of application.
[00:37:13] If you are not in Christ, if you were one of those ain'ts, if you are still dead in your sins and trespasses, maybe tonight's the night you surrender to Christ.
[00:37:27] If you are a saint, there's no such thing as a radical Christian, a saint or an ain't.
[00:37:36] You walk in these ways as a saint, you cherish these things and hold on tight to that position of being in Christ.
[00:37:48] And if that's not the thing that you most cherish, and that's not a thing that your life hinges on, repent and respond to the gospel.
[00:38:03] If you can't easily see the good works in your life, that's in response to gospel.
[00:38:13] If you can't see the fruit of your salvation, if you're not walking in those things, repent, Walk in them.
[00:38:27] Let's pray.
[00:38:34] Father, we thank you for your many blessings.
[00:38:40] We thank you for the death of Christ on the cross for our sake.
[00:38:49] We thank you for your abundant grace, your abundant mercy, your abundant love.
[00:38:59] Father, help us to lean into them, help us to cherish them. Help us to see you for who you are, the love that you have for us, and live in response to that, giving us the mercy from the death we deserve and giving us the grace to being placed beside Christ.
[00:39:18] Father, may we never get over this.
[00:39:26] May we never stop responding to your goodness.
[00:39:30] May we work the rest of our days for your glory, to make your name known.
[00:39:36] Thank you for your many blessings. Amen.
