20260207-jake-ellis-sat-pm

How to avoid walls, let's go. Hey, let's stand to our feet. Grab your body, you love it, you love it. Grab your Bibles, Romans chapter 12.

Sometimes it feels maybe like, like the body of Christ is maybe this mysterious thing to you. Maybe there is, for you right now, or there has been in your past, maybe moments where you feel like it's this thing, that's out of reach, like it's distant, like it's this kind of exclusive club of some people who maybe just have it together in a way that you don't, and you struggle to understand that you could be a part of it, the way that wall struggles to maybe understand, you could be part of the home team, and that's normal that you might feel that. And the invitation tonight is gonna be very simply to join that team alongside walls. So Romans chapter 12, we're gonna have you versus, and we're just gonna read, it's maybe gonna be a minute long, okay, so bear with me.

We're gonna read one through eight from Romans chapter 12. If you're there, say, I am there. If you need more time, say hold. Just give me the little time.

He doesn't need more time, he just wanted to say the fun thing. Romans chapter 12. That's one right there, that's one right there, okay, here you are. Verse one, who is that, like Jeff Fox?

That's before your time, okay. Verse one, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, remember, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members, one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them, if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

Let me pray for you. Father, we thank you once again for this moment. Lord, thank you for the day that we've had. And we come now and we just lay it all at your feet tonight.

For some of us, the day has been pure joy and fun and bliss and chaos and hanging with friends. And for others, it's been a mixture of things. For some, it's been painful, maybe as they've tried to distract themselves from reality and life at home. And they can't really escape from that, it's just life.

And so they carry that into the room tonight as well. So we just lay it down. We put it in the capable hands of Jesus tonight. We come, all of us, not pretending to be anything other than what we are before a holy, wonderful, merciful, loving God.

And Holy Spirit, we invite you again. Would you come and would you speak? Move each of us closer to you. Or did you speak to our hearts?

Show us the step that is ours to take tonight. Give us the courage and the faith to take it. In Jesus' name, amen? Amen.

Go and grab a seat. We're going to zero in on verse five out of all those verses. Verse five has this peculiar little phrase in it that consists of four words. And it's these four words, one body in Christ.

And I'm going to break that into two parts. Can you say one body? One body. Say it one more time with puts, but.

And now in Christ. Amen. In Christ. I love it.

OK. If there's one thing I think many of us can relate to, it is our desire to belong. When I say one body, I mean this one group that is unified through which anybody can belong. Like you're allowed to join that.

And you can belong. And you can know that you're loved and you're accepted. And I wonder has anyone ever felt like you didn't belong somewhere? It felt like you just didn't belong.

And maybe, have you ever even felt, you know, after it has your hands. Have you ever even felt like maybe it was at a church or at a Christian thing or at a youth group or something where it's like they were kind of doing something spiritual. And you wondered, why don't I feel like I belong even there? When I was in high school, I was really involved at my home church.

And I would also go sometimes to this other church in town because we had some friends there. And they would be doing worship stuff. And me and my buddies would go over there and do worship stuff with them on some of their Wednesday nights. When I would go to that church, though, I have to admit, I had a tendency of calling it fashion show church, which I know sounds random.

But here's why. Because everybody there, just high school kids, they were just gorgeous. OK? I don't know how else to say it.

Just everything about them. And they were shopping at stores. I didn't know where to find. They were wearing clothes.

It looked like you took like downtown Hollywood and just put it right in the middle of Potunk, like high desert of California. And that's where they were. I was like, who are these kids? Where are they shopping?

I don't know how to fit in with these kids. And so then I would show up and my friends would show up from our other kids. And we were just like normal peasant kids who don't shop at those stores that they shop at. And so I'd be like, mom, we got to go find the cool stores.

And I don't know if you guys have malls around here, or if malls are still hopping or happening. I feel like it's kind of a dying industry altogether. But if you're not familiar with the geography of a mall, you've got your anchor stores at the ends of the malls, the big anchor stores. That's where you enter into.

You've got your gotchocks and your Mervents and your Macy's. Those are old school. And your JC Penny, maybe Dick's Sporting Goods, or something like that. And then all through the halls of the mall, you've got your little stores, more like your boutiques.

Nobody wants to go to the big stores, OK? Those are your mom's stores. You want to go to the little stores. The little boutique cool ones on the high, you know, aisles of the mall.

And I'm like, mom, I got to go there. I got to get the clothes that the guys from Fashion Show Church wear. And my mom's like, but I've got cold cash, babe. We've got to go to the big ones.

And I'm like, mom, I'm never going to be popular like this. That's just how life went. I always felt weirdly intimidated when I was there. I can't measure.

I'm never going to look how you look or like see him, how you see him. I wonder if you've ever felt anything close to that. And that's so trivial. That's so surfy.

But maybe it's gone deeper for you. Maybe there's been moments where it felt like you weren't accepted in God's house. Like you didn't measure up among his people. Jenny Allen has this great line in her book, Find Your People, where she says, we all come into the world looking for someone looking for us.

We all come into the world looking for someone looking for us. And I wonder if you've ever felt like nobody was looking for you. There's a scene in Matthew chapter eight. It's this quick scene.

I'll throw the verses up on the screen. It says this. Jesus comes down from a mountain, OK? Great crowds fall with him.

And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately his leper see was cleansed. Have you ever heard that story before?

Maybe you have it. Maybe you've heard a similar story too. There's all kinds of stories like this in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John where Jesus has this quick encounter with someone.

And the wild thing is, it changed their life forever. And we get like two sentences on it. I mean, this is three verses. But can you just imagine everything Matthew didn't say here?

Maybe things that Matthew didn't even see. Put yourself in the guy's shoes. So he's a leper. Jesus comes down from the mountainside.

And so this is like maybe your opportunity to approach him discreetly. Because if you were leper at this point, you had to stay like well beyond six feet of the crowd at all times. If the wind was blowing, the mosaic wall said, if the wind was blowing, you had to say 150 feet away. So at some point, Jesus comes down from the mountain.

And you're like, OK, maybe this is my shot. Maybe I can keep enough distance from me and him. And I've heard the rumors. I've heard the stories.

I've heard that there's life change that can happen. When you encounter Jesus of Nazareth, I've heard that. So maybe this is my chance to encounter him. But more than likely, you were going to have to do the same thing that you had to do every time you went to town.

To try to go towards the temple or towards the market or towards the well, you'd have to get within earshot of the crowd. And as you approached them, you'd have to yell at the top of your lungs. Unclean, unclean, unclean. And you would just watch as the crowd in front of you just split like the Red Sea, once again, going about your business feeling like the most alone human being in the world.

To be a leper at this point was to be like the walking dead. And I'm not just being melodramatic. By law, the only thing more unclean than a person with leper see was a dead body. Physically, it was awful.

It was a skin disease with constant open sores and infection, exposed tissue, and even bone that you could see. But it was also a nerve thing. So you'd end up losing fingers and hands because your body didn't know how to tell your brain that fire is hot and that knives are sharp and that the ground is hard. People would even go blind from washing their face with scolding hot water day after day without realizing that they would just go increasingly blind and that dark vision would just go all the way dark.

It should go without saying that work wasn't really an option for somebody with leper see. Even if you could do it physically, which you probably couldn't, you still couldn't be around anybody. And there were like no jobs where you weren't around somebody. Not only were you diseased, but you were poor.

The only reason you would go to the temple in the first place was to beg from some holy Jewish people who might have been trying to impress God with their holiness. But still, all of that said, I would guess that the worst part was not even the poverty and it was not even the physical disease. I bet the worst part was that as you walked towards the market or towards the temple week after week yelling unclean unclean at the top of your lungs, you would just watch as half the crowd looked away and discussed and half the crowd pretended like you didn't even exist. And so you wouldn't know whether to feel like a monster or like a ghost.

It's the fact that Sabbath after Sabbath, Saturday after Saturday, you would sit just outside the temple walls where every faithful Jew that you knew from childhood would step closer to the presence of God than you were ever allowed to go. Leopards weren't dead, but to say that you were living would be generous. So think about this scene. Jesus comes down from the mountainside.

I think this is my shot. Unclean unclean. You do what you always did approaching the crowd. People did what they always did scattering in horror and disgust.

Unclean unclean unclean and you get closer. Here's what blows my mind. You get closer and closer to Jesus. Everybody scatters, everybody backs up.

And you get even closer. Unclean. And now the disciples behind Jesus are probably starting to back up. He's encroaching on six feet.

Jesus, what are you doing? We got to back up a little bit. And something happens that has never happened for you in your entire life. As you get closer to Jesus, Jesus doesn't move.

He just stands and waits for you to come. Wait for you to approach him. And now here's what I'm guessing. This is speculation.

This is like, I don't know. There's three verses. I don't know. This is imaginative speculation.

Go with me here. I'm guessing that this guy probably still left six feet between him and Jesus. Because he's being bold. He's being audacious.

I'm not going to try to lose my shot on a technicality. I'm not trying to lose my shot at a healing, because I've got five feet instead of saying six. I'm going to try to keep the mosaic law. He gets close like hand while still being like, right?

Just end then maybe he'll heal me, right? And I just imagine Jesus with the kindest eyes, just starting to close the gap from six feet to five feet. Five feet to four feet. Three, two, one.

And then he reaches out his hand. Here's one of my favorite details in all of scripture. Jesus reaches out his hand and he touches the guy. He just lays his hand on his shoulder.

Because the guy says, if you will, you can make me clean. Which that's an interesting way to say it or request, right? If you will, you can. He's saying, your capability is not a question.

I know what you can do. But are you good enough to do it for me? Will you? And Jesus puts his hand on him.

Of course I will. Be clean. Do you understand Jesus did not have to touch him? That's one of my favorite details in the whole Bible.

Jesus did not have to touch him. He could have healed him with a word. He could have healed him from three towns over. He could have healed him by brushing up against his robe.

And he felt power go out from him. That happened before. He did not have to touch him. But can you just imagine a lifetime of not knowing the touch of another human being, of being so ostracized, being so excommunicated, being so like on the outs, not belonging to anybody anywhere.

Can you imagine what this moment meant? The touch of a hand from the rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, not just healing his skin, but healing a lifetime of pain and a lifetime of trauma, lifetime of loneliness, healing him at a soul level, not just at the skin level. Can you just imagine this? And Jesus invites him in.

So you've been outcast for too long and he invites him in. Listen to this guy. This guy. He is just a shadow of what I want to talk about tonight.

He's just a shadow of what God now invites every believer to be a part of. It's called the church. It's his people. It's belonging.

It's acceptance. It's family. It's brothers and sisters and spirits and nanas and papas and moms and dads and uncles who will never leave you or forsake it. Like it is the family of God.

It is beautiful. It's called the church. Now a little bit of church history. There's not for long.

There's this moment not long after Jesus leaves. Remember he ascends into heaven toward the end of the gospels. And now the Holy Spirit comes. As Jesus is leaving, he's like, hey, it's better for you guys that I go and the helper comes.

He calls the spirit, the helper. And now on this Jewish holiday called Pentecost that comes not long after, the Holy Spirit comes down. And when that happened, God was like introducing this new way that he would relate to his people. This new way where now the average everyday believer is now empowered by the spirit of God himself.

The New Testament says that you and me, our bodies, our temples of the Holy Spirit. And together we are what the New Testament calls the echlesia. Can you say echlesia? Literally means called out ones, the sent ones, the gathering, which translates to what English word, you know?

Church. It's church. Guys, isn't that wild? It's more than coffee and donuts.

It's more than chasing girls on Wednesday nights. It's more than chasing guys on Wednesday nights. Guys, it's like being part of a unified family. I know some of you are like, what?

Dout it. Guys, for real, it's being part of a unified family that's empowered by the spirit of God himself, carrying his presence to the world, carrying on his mission to the world. I just wonder, do you want to be a part of that? Whether you already are, but you don't get how beautiful it is, or you're not part of that yet.

Do you want to be a part of that? Maybe you do. Maybe you're convinced when you think about the theology of it like that. Or maybe, kind of like me, you need to know that it's real.

You need to know that it works. And I just tell you, I have seen too much in my life to doubt the beauty and the design of God's body, the church. I've just seen too much at this point. I was at with a high school girl and her sister who came to youth group for the first time after their mom died.

And their dad was abusive. And God ministered to their hearts through his word being preached. And they were welcomed into this community that loved them and comforted them and mother to them. They were surrounded by spiritual moms and dads and brothers and sisters.

And they've spent the last five years growing and knowing who they are in Christ. And they will tell you, these sisters will tell you, there's nothing like being part of the body. There's nothing like it. I've sat with too many couples in the worst moments of their lives, brink of divorce, post divorce.

There's been some kind of tragic pain in the marriage or in the family. I've sat with them and seen how the people of God have surrounded them and literally held them up when it felt like they were crumbling apart. Statistically, let me be honest, statistically, I should probably be an alcoholic and I should probably be divorced just by the numbers. But that's not my story.

And the reason that's not my story is because the family of God in the local church that I grew up in. My story is that even though my biological dad left when I was really young, I was never without a father. In every single season, I had the presence of spiritual fathers and uncles and grandpas who loved me and raised me like a son. I just didn't call him dad.

I called them Tim and Billy and Dave and Tom. And as my own stepdad entered our family, he began to fall more in love with Jesus and he started to love us with the love of God. And I saw him become more patient and more gentle and more generous. And why does any of that happen?

Because my mom kept dragging us to a church my whole life. You guys, I've seen too much. And here's what blows my mind even more. You are not just wanted in the body of Christ, you're needed.

You are needed. And I don't know if there's people in your life, like older people, maybe there's some teachers, maybe there's some coaches, maybe there's some parents, uncles, grandparents. We talked down on you because you're young who lower their expectations of you because of your age and because of the culture around you. They say nobody had anxiety when we were kids because TikTok wasn't around or whatever they say.

And they might not be wrong, but like it's not that helpful. Can I just tell you in the body of Christ, in the family of God, you are wanted and you're needed because you have gifts that are only yours to bring. You have a testimony that's only yours to share. You have a calling in the body of Christ that's only yours to walk in.

You are wanted and welcome in this one body. Okay, there were four words that started at the beginning. One body. Do you remember the next two?

Let's go. You guys win. Okay, say in Christ really loud. In Christ.

Because here's the elephant in the room. I'm painting this really beautiful picture of the belonging we have in the one body of Christ. But the question is how you get into it because there is criteria. Anybody can, but like there is an entrance fee.

There's an entrance process. And you know what it is? You got to be in Christ. So what does it mean to be in Christ?

Okay, let's talk about this really quick. Let's look at Ephesians chapter two. If you're not in Christ, like where do you start? Where's the default?

Verse one of Ephesians two says, you are dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit. It's 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 flesh and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Okay. So if you weren't in Christ before, what were you in?

You were dead in sin. That's just the reality. You weren't bad because of your sin. You were dead because of your sin.

The relationship with God that you were made to enjoy was cut off in a way that you could never repair. And one of the first things to realize is we're talking about the process of getting into the body of Christ. And the thing to realize is as I talk about the Christian story of salvation, you could call it, everybody has a scheme of salvation. Like everybody has their own story.

Again, Comer is summarizing this guy named Leslie Newell again who says this, no matter what kind of like ideology you subscribe to or what story of like, what am I going to, what is being saved look like? Here's what he says. No matter the group, they have a gospel. They have a call to evangelism.

They have a priesthood, conversion stories, members who have been initiated or baptized in. They are those who do not yet know the truth and need to be educated in. They have dogma that you've got to believe and you can't doubt or question or deviate from. They are false teachers and heretics.

They have excommunication. There's an eschatology. That's kind of like an indivision or a grand vision of the future. They offer you theories or vision of a better society.

They offer you an identity and a sense of self-worth, even if it's a fragile one. They offer you a community of belonging, even if it's a tribal anti-community. They offer you a meaning and purpose, even if it's not right. They offer you an ethical vision of good and evil and a fine line of demarcation between the righteous and the wicked.

Who's in and who's out. They offer you hope for a better tomorrow. For a society we all crave. But all of it without God or even against God.

Oh, do you guys see this? Do you understand what I'm saying? You're going to be devoted to something. Some kind of view of the good life.

What's the life I want? Guys, I see it all the time. Working through my 30s and just seeing like, okay, I'm seeing who your real God is. I'm seeing what the idols of your life are.

Okay, I'm seeing what you think will save you from this pre-enlightened state of life to this save of life. I'm seeing what you think is going to do that. He has a salvation scheme, you could say. But no matter what scheme you pick, they are all basically the same mechanics.

Like the same fundamental strategy for all of this. And I've got this ladder on stage. Sometimes I'm a prop guy. I'm not always a prop guy.

Jake Tuttle brought me this ladder. And I know it wasn't easy for you to do, Jake. So thanks for being this for me. So they're all sharing the same fundamental strategy you are in every salvation scheme that the world has to offer.

You are trying to climb a ladder to God. You see that? And it's been with the strategy for humanity ever since Genesis. Do you want to sort of the tower of Babel?

Literally, let's make a tower, let's make a name for ourselves, ascend to the heavens, and then we'll see what we can accomplish ever since the beginning. It's the same deal. And so you may have felt this. And here's the thing.

Whether you've been following Jesus for a long time, or you're not following Jesus, there's still this like this moralistic path that you try to so often take. And in a lot of days, you do really good. And you're like, yep, one rung up the ladder. That feels good, dude.

I read my Bible. I did some praying. I was nice to my mom today. That feels really good.

And you're like, dude, couple of days in a row, shoot. I could get on this at number two. I'm feeling really good. And then it's a little about that old secret.

You're like, man, I'm not going to send that you have. Okay, fell into it again. That old destructive habit or sin pattern nobody knows about. I swear I never did anything.

Okay, that's fine. I can still try it. I did get an ice to mom again. Yes.

Oh, super nice to mom. I didn't hit my brother when I could have, but I didn't. I'm on step number three. Then let's go.

And you can't, let's just say, you can't miss highs. You can't. I'm not gonna go to the top. Don't worry.

This is as high as I feel comfortable. As high as you can possibly go. Guys, check this out. You're like, okay.

Here I am. I did it. of a six foot ladder and God is beyond the highest star in the universe and he's like okay bud, pretty cute ladder down there like that's cool. Like you get this gap that's between us.

What are you doing trying to climb a ladder? You're never gonna reach it. It's never gonna work. And in Christianity we have this like revolutionary story of salvation where the God who's above all the universe literally condescends, comes down.

Hebrew says that Jesus is the radiance of God's glory and the exact imprint of his nature. Goshins one says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Goshins two says that in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Revelation we see that he's the alpha and the omega the great I am.

Jesus says all these statements about himself. I am God and now I'm human. The God of the universe steps down bridging the gap that we can never bridge and comes into humanity with you and me. Here's what C.S.

Lewis is about him. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall out his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.

He has not let that open to us. The claims he made of himself. He is God in human form. So Jesus God with us closes this gap himself.

You can never do it. I'm going to do it for you. And I want to tell you the next few minutes just as clearly as I can. Jesus lived a perfect life full of signs and wonders and healings and miracles.

He faced all the temptations that we face. He said but he didn't sin. He lived the most beautiful, the most compelling and generous life in all of history. And sometimes we don't realize that.

We kind of spewed forward to the cross and we forget just how beautiful and revolutionary of a human he was. He would touch the eyes of blind people in the skin of lepers and they would be healed. He would command fevers to leave and storms to calm. He'd tell demons to flee and they would run.

He would love people that everybody else cast out and pretended didn't even exist. He freed people from shame at every turn. He broke bonds of oppression. He fed that hungry.

His life was just beautiful you guys. And then Jesus accepted his call to be our substitute in death. There's this chilling scene in the Garden of Gethsemane on the first Good Friday where by the time the sun rose it had already been a grueling and torturous night. The dirt floor on Gethsemane was wet with blood and tears where Jesus begged for another way.

Do you remember Father? Is there any other way? Can this cut past for me? You almost hear his heart crying out.

God, can we do this? Can we do this? Remember Abraham and Isaac got with the ram and the thicket and then they walked down the mountain together after they dropped the knife? Can we do that?

Is there any other way? But Judas's kiss covered and the tears stains on Jesus's cheek and Judas collects his 30 shekels of silver and his soul is hollowed out in dark and Jesus has turned over. And after sleepless night he's arrested and this sinister sequence of trials begins. It starts with the elders, the chief priests, like the religious leaders who hated Jesus from the beginning and it ends with the crowd.

They keep on saying crucify him, crucify him, and the pylacos, not will find any fault in him. And they say crucify him. He says it's not my jurisdiction. He's in the back of the hair and then he comes back and they say crucify again and again and again.

Crucify him and there's this chilling line where it says their voices prevailed. And so Pilate released this other guy named Eravus and he hands Jesus over to their will. And of course Jesus ends on the cross but the crucifixion process really lasted all day. And I just I think in a room this size where it's church groups there's probably a lot of you who have placed your faith in Jesus and you followed him and you've done that for a variety of reasons and a lot of those reasons are probably really good.

And there's a lot of you who have not placed your faith in Jesus. And I don't know how else to say this other than just kind of a big brother in the Lord. What he did for you is the most significant thing to happen in all of history. And I don't have time to even go into how much you can trust it.

And the fact that this is not a fairy tale, this is not a legend. This really happened. They stripped his clothes off of him and they gave him a crown of thorns and they pressed it into his skull. They made a sign that read King of the Jews just to mock him.

They made him close his eyes and they beat him repeatedly laughing. Mocking him saying, who struck you? Prophecy! Who struck you?

Who hit you now as he's blindfolded? They took whips and cat of nine tails. It's like this weapon scholars kind of talk about maybe straps of leather with shards of bone and glass embedded in leather straps and they would lash his back as the shards would grip his flesh and tear it open. And then they would do that again and again and again.

They probably did it 39 times because the law said that if you did it any more than 40 that would likely kill somebody. And then with a back that's been literally torn to shreds, he's given this massive wooden cross, probably about 300 pounds. He has to carry it about half a mile to Golgotha where they threw it on the ground. They laid at Jesus on top of it and then they drove nails, probably seven, eight, nine inches long nails through his hands and his feet.

They probably did it through his wrists so that the fleshy part and the palm wouldn't rip and fall through the nails right there. And so they probably did it right through the wrist, letting the entire weight of his body hang from the severed nerves. And so now his bloody open back, stinging against the rough grain of wood. He hung there for about six hours, flexing every fiber of strength in his body just to breathe as lungs collapse and his diaphragm slowly gave way.

And eventually he bowed his head and he offered up his spirit with his one final phrase which in Greek is tetralese die, which we'll get back to. And he died. He really died. It's not just legend.

This was real and physical. And I had been following Jesus for a long time and every time I think about this, it moves me because he did that because he wanted me. And every time I think about it, I think about that deep lie that I tend to believe that I'm not wanted. And I wonder again, what are those lies that you're believing tonight?

And can I tell you like this happened? Jesus, he literally did this. This actually happened. It actually had like no historian worth their salt denies that Jesus of Nazareth was a real man who really died and really rose again.

He actually did that and he did that because he wanted you that bad because he loves you that much because he has such good plans for you. Whether you've been following him for some time guys, he has better for you. He wants to take you further. He wants to take you deeper.

He wants your obedience to be more in line with what he asked for your life. He has big good plans for you. And if you have not placed faith in him, guys tonight is the night. Do not wait.

I don't know what you're waiting for. He wants you that bad. He loves you that much that he did that for you. And it didn't stop there.

He laid dead in a tomb for two nights and then look at 1st Corinthians 15th. It says it more clear than I could say it for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins and according to the scriptures, he was buried. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and then he appeared to people. He appeared to see this.

Then to the 12th, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom were still alive. Those some had fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and then to the apostles. You guys, the biggest plot twist in all of history.

He was dead. Like dead dead. Not like the body was stolen or he was swooned or they paid off the witnesses. He was dead and he came back to life.

Conquering sin, conquering shame, conquering death, crucifying our sin on the cross with him and then raising and bringing new life and a new beginning for all of us. He purchased with his blood on the cross the opportunity for you to know hope and life and love. He purchased for you the opportunity to live forever with him. Enrollment's 10 9th says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be safe.

And so I will say this as clearly as I can. This is not like good brandy. This is not good PR. This is not political or smooth or like winsome.

This is just what I actually believe to be true. Number one, here's the two options. Number one, without Jesus, you remain dead in sin. You miss the abundant life of joy and purpose that he died to give you.

And then when you actually die, you spend eternity separated from God in a literal physical place called hell. That's option number one. Option number two, you say right now, Jesus is Lord who was crucified to pay for all of your sin. That he was raised from the dead.

That you trust him for salvation and you can to follow him with your life. Because listen, he left the grave. And on the cross, when he's a Tetilesti, you know what that means? It is finished.

It's done. It's done. It's finished. And that means now for the rest of your life, your sin cannot put him back in the grave.

The pain and the trauma in your family cannot put him back in the grave. Your parents divorce cannot put him back in the grave. Your addiction can't do it. Your lust can't do it.

Your pride, your hatred, your pain, your anxiety and your depression cannot put Jesus back in the grave. Your shame cannot put Jesus back in the grave. And when you trust Jesus for salvation, here's what happens to you. He says you're adopted.

You're redeemed. You're chosen. You're forgiven. You're new creation.

You're reborn. You're beloved. You're moving from the Kingdom of Darkness from being in sin to being in Christ. When you were in Christ, welcome to the body.

Welcome to being part of this one body that is so beautiful. Now, I'm gonna pray for us. I'm gonna invite the band back out. They're gonna come out, lead us, induce and worship in just a moment.

But stay where you're at. I'm gonna pray for us. And as I do, I really want to pray for a couple groups of us in the room. Group number one is this, and I hope it's obvious.

If you have never placed your faith in Jesus for salvation, please do it. Please do that tonight. I cannot urge you more strongly. Don't wait.

There's no reason to wait. There's nothing to wait for. You have a perfect heavenly Father who wants to love you and just do life with you. And don't forgive all your sin.

100% of your sin. Don't forgive it. I want to pray with you that you receive that gift. And then group number two is this group.

There's a lot of believers in the room, I'm sure. People who have been following Jesus for something. I've talked to a lot of you guys the last day and a half. You guys are trying your best.

You're following him. You want to be faithful. You want to be obedient. But there's a lot of you.

And I've been here many times in my life where the last couple seasons, maybe the last year for whatever reason, you just kind of like falling off a little bit. I lost some conviction, I would say. Like the way you've been living at school or like on the team doesn't actually look like the way that a follower of Jesus would live. Maybe the way you've been talking to your parents and your brother and your sister is not how someone who follows Jesus would talk to them.

Like there's just been enough in your life that's like, bro, do you need a reset? Like just a recommitment. Just to stand and say, okay, man, I've been following him for some time, but I've like, I've been half-hearted in my approach these last couple seasons. I want to be all in.

I need to resurrender to him tonight. That's another group I'm going to pray for. So I'm going to pray after we pray. I'm going to ask those groups to stand up in front of everybody.

I just want to get in front of that. Be clear, because this is the safest place you could possibly stand up for your faith. After we do that, we're going to celebrate and we're going to worship. Right now, let's pray.

Father, even calling you by that name is sobering and humbling and means the world to me. I thank you. You gave us that as a gift that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters to the most high King, to the perfect Father over all creation. So I say, Father, I approach you boldly because I've been forgiven.

I've been loved. So Father, I come to you and we just want to thank you. Lord, I thank you for the work you've done on the cross. All of that actually happened.

The stripes on your back, the thorns in your skull, or the nails in your wrists and your feet, the blood shed on the ground. You did that because you want us. You did that because you don't want to lose us. You want us to have relationship with you.

You want us to be with you for all of eternity. You want us to know what it's like to have our sin forgiven. You want us to know what it feels like to be loved. It's a really, really be loved by our maker.

So you did all of that for us. God, we just acknowledge that. And so God right now, I just want, and I invite you in the room, if you have not placed your faith in Jesus before, just in the silence of your heart, you can just repeat this prayer after me. Say, God, I am here, and I acknowledge that I have sin in my life, that I have brokenness in my life, and I don't know how to fix it, and I can't.

I give up, God. I come and I surrender that to you. I know what it's like to try on my own, and I give up. I can't make up for all the sin that I've done, all of the sin that's been done against me, the pain that I've experienced, the brokenness, and the trauma I've experienced.

God, I just, I want to surrender all of it to you. I want to give up. I want to come to you. God, I believe it.

You died on the cross to pay for my sin, and I believe that you rose from the grave to claim victory over that sin. And Jesus, I choose to follow you. Lord, I abandon myself to you. I choose to follow you.

I want to walk in the way of Jesus now and forever. That's my prayer. That's your prayer. If you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, just pray that to Him now.

Lord, now even in the same thing, there's so many of us in the room who have followed you for some time, but what we need is a spiritual milestone this weekend, and that's a good and beautiful thing. We need a marking moment in our spiritual memory where we can look back three months down the road when we're questioning if this was real. We can look back and say, yeah, yeah, there was a room full of brothers and sisters. Yeah, Jesus, you're good.

You're real. You can just pray to Him now and silence your heart, Lord. I've gone wandering in some way. I've fallen off the path in some way or another.

My passion and my conviction for you has waned in these last few seasons, but God, I want a marking moment tonight where I just say, I'm done with that, Lord. 100% in with you. I resurrender my life to you. I recommit myself.

Read dedicate my whole life to you 100%. I believe tonight in a fresh way that 100% of my sin is forgiven, and I want to follow you all the way, God. I've been trying to act like you're moderately important for some time. God, you are the most important thing.

You are my whole life. So God, would you establish this work that you're doing in your children? Would they know they are so loved by their Heavenly Father? They are so wanted, and they're loved in this room by their brothers and their sisters.

Jesus, we love you so much. We thank you and you, and Jesus name. Amen. In just a few seconds, I'm just gonna count to three.

This is just how I do it. If you have prayed that prayer for the first time tonight to receive Jesus as your Savior, to lay down your life before Him, I want you to stand up. And again, here's why. It's not to make you feel awkward or whatever.

It's because this is the safest place you could possibly stand for your faith. And when you stand up, we're just gonna go crazy for you. And I want to ask you to stay standing for a while after you stand up. Okay?

I'm gonna count to three. One, two, three. Stand up. Stay standing.

Stay standing. Stay standing. And I want you to just hear loud and clear. Welcome to the family.

Welcome to the body of Christ. Welcome to being loved by your Heavenly Father. You are chosen. You are adopted.

You are wanted. You are fully redeemed. You are 100% forgiven of all of your sin. I want you to know that.

Now, group number two, if you just need to rededicate, it's a fully surrender. Once again, I'm gonna count to three. One, two, three. Stand up if that's you.

Just rededicating your life to the Lord. Stand up. And just remember this moment, guys. Remember this moment.

Six months down the road. When you wonder, okay, God, is this real? Like I'm really struggling. Just remember, guys, you were here.

You knew England Saturday night and you look around this room. Yeah, it's real. He's real. He's good.

You are 100% loved and forgiven and wanted by your Heavenly Father. Everybody in the room, would you stand with us and the band's gonna lead us into worship. Let's go.