Our boy finally joined the home team. Oh, yeah. Hey, shout out for some teams. Who was that youth pastor that, I mean, we were so close on the buzzer.
Where is he? What church you guys from? We got to have one spokesperson maybe. Chapel, Grace.
Y'all clap it up for Chapel, Grace. We'll have, what is it? Box sled blitz. Is that what's happening tonight, too?
Did everybody bring a box sled? Are y'all ready to throw down on it? It is. Y'all are wild.
Y'all have some fun energy. Some of the things that y'all say while we're walking around, so much fun. You may make me miss our high school ministry. Y'all made it just a ton of fun.
I know our high school ministry. When I get back home, they're going to be going. You didn't like the kids at Hume too much, did you? I don't want them to get jealous on that.
I want to talk about it too much. We're talking about the home team. What does it mean to be on God's team? I was just telling, I was in Harrison.
When I was in high school, I would see these videos when I was at Hume. And then the speaker would come out. And I didn't put two and two together at all. I was like, okay, we watch a movie for a few minutes.
And then we listen. I didn't put it together at all. But if you haven't put it together, I want to help you. It's an image giving you an illustration of what God invites us to be is on his team.
If you're figuring that out for the first time right now, say, wow. Okay, we got a lot more people figuring this out with me. What'd you say? Come on, say it with me.
Wow, God. Have y'all been saying that around camp? Oh man, it's so much fun. When something sweet happens, something good happens and you just look up and say, y'all are catching on, you know?
When you wake up before you're alarm in the morning and you're feeling good, you know you got the breath of God in your lungs, you just say, you know, it's so great. When you go to buy a piece of merch, you think it's 80 bucks in, it's up in 50 bucks, you go, oh my gosh, I clearly did that. I was so excited to get a little bit of humor. Anybody else repping the exact same thing right now?
Any other different color? That counts, what's the pink? It was there a pink one? White.
I love it. We're going to call them down. And being in the winter makes me think of one winner. I was in South Carolina in college.
I told y'all I played football in college. I was a free safety and I really enjoyed it. Believe it or not, one of the things I love the most about playing football in college was the workouts. I know a lot of times people like demonize it or hate it.
I loved it. We had a second story weight room that we would meet in in college in South Carolina. They just had it just hot when we showed up early in the morning. Show of time was 450.
We had to be there promptly at 450. The first 450, yes, AM, the first one. I remember when we first got there and we were doing these winter workouts and they are laying out for us and they said hey, you've already made the team. Obviously, I've been on the team for two years at this point.
He said this is what it looks like to be on this team and grow on this team. And 450 AM, not wake up calls, but in the gym was just one of the responsibilities. Any of my football players in here just make a football sound. Yeah.
Where are my dogs at? Yeah, I love it, man. So great. That was it.
The way the coach explained it, he said guys we're going to have a whole lot of fun if we're here on time. It's going to be miserable if anybody's a second late. He gives heads up. If you're not early, you are.
He said it least be here five minutes early. It's zero dark 30, so early in the morning. It's cold and we show up ready. I'm excited.
I'm a little bit nervous. I don't know what coach got for us day one. He said the first single one of the guys on the football team was there. Except one.
And you've been on a football team. You might know. We don't punish individuals. We get punished as a team.
And so the way that he did it was he did it in burpees. We didn't count them. It was just 30 minutes. 30 minute burpees on the whistle.
And so coach would just start off and say get them going. You know, you just chop your feet and then he blow the whistle and you hit the ground. It's like a fast push up and you jump back up. And we did that for 30 minutes.
Sometimes you go whistle, whistle, whistle, whistle. Whistle, whistle, whistle. We did 30 minutes. He said just so you know if this happens again we double it.
And then again we double it. I'm like well good news because it won't happen again. Day two. Four forty five.
The whole team's there. Except the same guy. You're such an active listener. Except the same guy.
And at this point we're like we had texted him. Some of the guys who called him. The same guy didn't make it. And the coach doesn't give us some big talk.
He just says get them chopping. For an hour straight. We did burpees. And then we got to work out him.
Day three. Winner workouts. It's four thirty in the morning. Four thirty in the morning.
I'm not making this up. We're all calling. Texting. Nothing.
Two hours of our lives. We did on the whistle. These ridiculous burpees. And by that point I mean you get blisters on your knees just hitting the ground and popping back up.
I mean we are livid. So angry. You've been punished because I'm another football player. I see hurting your eyes.
You're like I've been there man. Some guys even like I don't even know if I want to be on this team. But also this guy is holding us back. Day four.
Four thirty in the morning. Every single. Every single one of our defensive backs and linebackers were in his dorm. Banging on the door.
Four thirty in the morning. We know we got some time. He doesn't respond. One of the guys goes.
Step back. Kicks the door in. And they all run in. Like they're shooting the gap.
Picks him up and drags him and throws him in the car. They don't even let him change. Throws him in the car. Gets him to the field house.
I love it. Four forty five in the morning. Everybody's there. Even that one dude.
Coach gets us started. He says all right let's huddle up. Big circle of guys. He goes I can't believe it took you four days to figure it out.
And then interesting. Day one we were complainers. Day two we complained about and said this guy's dragging us down. And truth be told they wanted to he needed help just as bad.
We called him our teammate. We just complained about our teammate. Day three. We had the audacity to do up downs until we had blisters on our knees complaining about him.
When we could have had a drag in that he's been the whole time. Just wonder sometimes why we have the ability to complain about something. Maybe God created us to fix. We're going to talk about what it looks like to be on God's team.
If you're with me say yeah. Luke chapter five that's where we're going to start off tonight. Luke five verse seventeen I'll give you the context by this point in Jesus' ministry word got out. Jesus big deal.
When he would go and preach places people would come from very very long ways away. Potentially even further than San Diego to Hume. People would come from all over. In droves.
Hoards. Crowds. So packed. You feel packed right now in some of your churches your shoulder elbow to elbow.
When somebody moves you're like I love that you're taking notes but you're elbow in me. They were slam packed. So slam packed that if Jesus as he was standing in the middle of the house teaching many times you couldn't even get to him. They didn't do aisles.
They didn't have fancy stuff like this. They didn't have fire exits. And so Jesus would be standing teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. His most common topic.
And we're got out that he would also heal people. And they would do whatever they could to get to the feet of Jesus. One day as Jesus was teaching like this like what we'll see in Luke chapter five verses seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and we're going to cruise through it. One day as he was teaching some men walk by and they recognized that Jesus is healing people.
When they see that Jesus is healing people they get a little bit creative. They start thinking they recognize they don't need healing but they remember a friend they have who's paralyzed who's at home. I want to say some of the things they get and do. They say God this guy could just get to Jesus.
If this guy could just be where he needs to be. If this guy would just crawl this guy would just ask for help. I don't want to be pushy because he's got to ask for help. You ever been there?
I don't want to be pushy with my faith. They had faith that Jesus had the ability to heal and they knew they had a friend that needed healing. And so they didn't spend time trying to figure a whole lot of things out. I love it.
We're going to pick up and loot five or seventeen. On one of those days, just one of those days Jesus was healing and teaching. I want you to know Jesus healing is just one of those days. Jesus helping is just another day.
There doesn't have to be a special day. There doesn't have to be marked on the calendar. It's just another one of those days as Jesus was teaching. Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there.
They just like being around and listening to him so they can find something they didn't agree with him. Maybe something to add to their teaching style. He was a really powerful teacher. They had really so much emphasis.
They said it's clear there's so much power in his words. But they missed who he was in the power of his words. They were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee in Judea. And from Jerusalem.
And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. Those note takers in the room say yeah. Pin clickers. Click them.
Don't click them twice. This is what God's people, what God's church. This is what they do. God's people see inability and look for opportunity.
God's people see inability and look for opportunity. They consider there's a healer. There's almighty, all powerful, good God healing. They know they have the faith within their hearts that he has the ability to heal.
And there's a problem. You ever found a problem? Are you all like me? Maybe sometimes you're really good at thinking about reasons not to do something.
About reasons not to share your faith. About reasons not to step out in what God has called you to do. Maybe some of you have already been here this weekend. You've still got burdens on your heart.
And you've had this sense that that is who God created me to do. What God has prompted me to do. And you thought of reasons. Problems.
Something that you don't want to do it for. God's people see inability. I want you to know Christians, the church, God's team. We're not just blind optimists.
Maybe you have pastors in the room. Maybe you have your leaders in the room. That they are always so confident that God can fix your problem. It's not because they don't see the problem.
It's because they know how big God is. He's so much bigger than your problem. This is what we get to see happen. Verse 18, Luke chapter 5, behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed.
And they were seeking to bring him and lay him before Jesus. They had plans that they wanted to bring him to Jesus. They considered that they had a friend that needed help. And they recognized that Jesus was the only one that would be able to help.
We have no reference on how far away they had to travel. We have no reference on how hard it was for them. I don't think that's the point of the record because God's people don't measure that. We have a no matter what type of mentality.
We have a kick the door in, put them in the car, get them to where they need to be type of mentality. That's it. I even wonder if some of y'all have some friends that are like, man, they really need to hear this message that my pastor shares every so often. They really need to have their nose in the word of God.
And I really want to share it. But I feel like I'm not good enough. I have some inability that I feel like is a boundary between them and God. God works in those inabilities and always, always creates opportunity to soften hard hearts.
That's who he is. I just want you to know that when you see an inability in some situation that you have to know that in some situation that you might be thinking, this is going to make it more difficult. Don't forget the first page of the book we read a couple of days ago. Yesterday.
He's all powerful. And so this problem that seems huge, he looks at it and says, I've got this. It's easy for him. It's easy.
There's no issue in your life that Jesus is going to have to try extra hard to solve. I love that this man had friends who had faith. Do you have friends that have faith? Are you a part of a friend group?
Are you a part of a friend group that follows Jesus? Yeah, this is what it looks like. Let me give you a little Romans 12, 4. This is what the church, some of you might think about the church and you think about your youth pastor.
You might think about your senior pastor. You might think about professional Christians. That's not what the church is. That's parts of the church.
Those are some leaders in the church. Do you know that the function of any, let's call them professionals in the church, pastors, evangelists, anybody you know like that? Do you know their primary responsibility from God is to equip you to do the work of the ministry? Did you know that?
I think if we're not careful, we look at our youth leaders. We look at our pastors. They're the ones that are supposed to do the will of God. They're supposed to see inability and look for opportunity.
No, they're supposed to train you to see inability and look for opportunity. It's not like if there's a problem, you just go to the pastor. It's not like if you see some issues, you just make sure you tell them, now I want you to go to your pastor. I want you to tell them if you need training and be equipped on it.
But your responsibility is to do the work of the ministry. You think I'm making this up? Read Ephesians chapter 4. But in the notes, later tonight, not right now.
That's God's word. We so easily had this misunderstanding of who God is. He shows us, Romans 12, 4, 4. As in one body, we have many members.
God doesn't complicate his word. He doesn't want you to be confused by his word. You guys in here? Anybody in this room that maybe you're thinking, I just don't understand it.
Do you know there's a solution to that? You can pray to the God who wrote it, who invented it. You can say, God, would you help me understand it? His word says that if you lack wisdom, you can pray and ask for it.
And he gives it to you. He doesn't say limited amounts. He doesn't just say daily doses. He says he gives you wisdom liberally, freely, like saying without limit.
I remember when I first got into this thing called Christianity, I didn't know God. I just had a Bible and I would come to gatherings at times. I was not a Christian. If you just show up, that doesn't make you a Christian.
Or close and personally, real relationship with Jesus makes you a Christian. And I would show up and I remember reading this book. And I'm dyslexic. To this day, I'm dyslexic.
Very dyslexic. Any dyslexic people in here? Yeah. I got some dyslexia in the balcony.
All right. They're like, I'm actually supposed to be sitting downstairs. I got it in the stuff. I love it.
And I remember, I would crack open the Bible when I was in high school, first trying to get to know God. And I just felt so nervous. Like I was studying for a test that I would never pass. And I remember hearing somebody when I was in high school say, you know you can ask God for help when that and he'll help you.
I didn't understand it. And I just said, God, will you help me understand your word? Will you just help me? I remember specifically a day in chapel.
Recognizing God answering that prayer. I looked down and I read a verse and it made sense. And I thought, wow. Thank you so much, God, for answering a prayer.
I'm not smart enough to understand your word. Isaiah says that his ways are so much higher than our ways. And so we need help to understand it. But there's many members of the same body.
And the members do not all have the same function. Y'all look around your church. Not right now, but later. You see people that are good at some things.
Some people are good at sharing the gospel more naturally. That doesn't mean that they're the only ones called to do it. Some people are more naturally gifted at counseling others. Some people, you just look around and you see all the many gifts that God gave to do, his ministry accomplished, his mission.
And I love that the gift that God gave these guys was recognizing where somebody else needed to be and the ability to carry them. They're not trained men. They didn't beautifully articulate the gospel. They just picked up their body and took them to Jesus.
They saw inability and they look for what? Opportunity. What that looks like for you anytime you look around your world. And you go, in this issue and this problem is there anything I can do to help?
Is there anything that I can put in my faith in God to say, God, how do you want me to help her or him or whoever? God's people see inability and look for opportunity, but it gets exciting. God's people get creative when plans get canceled, pen clickers, write it down. Make sure you get it.
God's people get creative when plans get canceled. Their plan was to pick their body up. They went above and beyond. I'd say, I think this is pretty impressive.
When you're going to pick a friend up and physically carry them to the feet of Jesus, I think five stars, ten out of ten. Impressive. I mean, so faithful. And they get to the house and there's so many people in there, it's slam pack.
You can't even get to Jesus. Maybe they can oversee, maybe they can overhear the voice of Jesus, making it out to the outside of the house or to the windows or whatever, but they could not get to him. This is what the Scriptures say in verse 19. But finding no way to bring him in.
What way? No way. It was physically impossible to do what they felt like they needed to do. But they get creative.
Their faith is in Jesus. They think, I don't have to follow that route. I just have to get him to Jesus. Finding what way?
I wonder if you got any friends, maybe some of them were in this room. If you heard they became a Christian, you'd say, no way. I never saw that happening. You know, it sounds embarrassing, I think, but I'm so honored by it.
I was so lost in middle school, man. I was just lost. I told you all stories even when I was a freshman doing whatever I could to get attention or, you know, you just get lost in it. And what I mean when I say lost was, I did not personally know Jesus.
I knew of his word, I knew Christians, I knew pastors, I didn't know Jesus. I never surrendered my life to him. I knew there's some of y'all in this room. That resonate with that.
You've been around it. You never surrendered your life to him. And I just remember going, man, if I can just keep on making it seem like I've got everything figured out. But I'm just so grateful to God that he broke my hard heart.
But somebody called an old family friend called me, I don't know, maybe a year ago. I'm in a pastor for almost a decade now, an old family friend called me, and they were just giggling. And, you know, she was like one of my mom's friends. She's like, you know, you know, your mom's friends.
You know what I'm saying? Hey, call sometimes. I don't know. And she goes, I see Mrs.
Riggler to this day. I call her Mrs. Riggler. I don't care how old I get.
I'm a regular. And I see Mrs. Riggler on my phone and I say, hey, Mrs. Riggler.
And she's giggling. She's like, Grand, I was just talking to one of your old childhood friends. And they said, they saw a video of you online preaching. And I'm like, cool.
No, they were shocked. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm thinking, I've been a pastor for a while now. You know, I've been, this is not that crazy.
They said the last time they saw you was sophomore year high school. I mean, oh, that makes sense. She said, they were so shocked. They thought you were faking it to mock Jesus.
Because they were certain you would never come to know the Lord. And she goes, Grand, I was just so grateful to be able to tell them that God actually got a hold of your heart, your junior and senior year of high school, and that you did come to know Jesus. She's just giggling so happy. She goes, because I was praying for you the whole time, you know?
Isn't that cool? That's just so cool. And, but that's what God does. Some of you all are thinking, man, I don't know if I can really be a part of this church thing, this Christian thing, this Jesus thing.
You can't if God doesn't change your heart. You can't if you don't completely surrender your life to him. And they were just desperate. You've never ever been desperate?
Man, yeah, y'all don't have to raise your hands, but we've been desperate. Man, finding no way to bring him in. Those are the crowd. They weren't crazy.
They were like, it's just not possible. Some of you all know what they did. They went up on the roof. I love it.
They don't skip a beat. It's not like, oh, is this weird? Are people going to think we're crazy? No, we've got a problem.
We found a solution. He's paralyzed. He needs to be healed. And the only person that we've ever seen heal somebody is who.
And so we've got to get them to Jesus. It's that simple. And what's funny is they don't have a plan after that. Just I think you know what to do.
I bet some of you all brought friends to church at times and you introduce them to your pastor, you leave them, and you just go, tell them, fix them. You know, I love them, but he's crazy. I had probably, I don't know, maybe 25 of you all come up to me and say, hey, that guy with the crazy weird energy you were talking about, I don't understand weird. I think that's crazy.
But whatever you said, I'll go for it. They're like, he's at my church. There's like 10 different churches that said that to me. I'm like, y'all got some crazy weird energy at so many different churches.
I love it, man. But yeah, it's this idea of like, hey, can you just help with this? So this is what they do. They have no way to get into them.
If you imagine Jesus being right here, it's just slam packed. Many more people than are in here right now, they get to the door. They go, nope, got to find another way. So they climb up to the roof.
Can you imagine being in here right now and you hear footsteps on the roof? I'd be trying to teach through it. I'd be thinking, god, leaking. I'll lock in, pen clickers, right?
You know what I'm trying to think? How can we not pay attention to the footsteps on the roof? And they get about to where Jesus was. I don't know how they calculated it.
And they start ripping a hole in the roof. That happened. This is history. It's gospel and it's history.
They rip a hole in the roof. And I'm guessing they tie ropes to the mat that the man was on. And they just lower him from the ceiling. I love that they weren't like, is this weird?
Is this weird to do? They're like, we just got to get him to Jesus. Jesus can fix it. We just have to get him to Jesus.
And they're still up on the roof. Can you imagine? Jesus is teaching. He starts getting pieces of the roof falling in his hair.
And then just this guy's at his feet. Obviously Jesus knew this was happening. He's God. He knows.
Can you imagine? And then Jesus, he looks down and he sees the guy. Paralyzed, can't move. The guy probably feels awkward.
He's like, here we go again. We tried everything. I'm at another doctor. Here we go.
And then I imagine Jesus looks up and you see the friends just, you know? He's like, he's a jot, he's a walk. You know? That's, this is the Bible.
I'm not adding this. It's so cool. God's people see inability and look for opportunity. God's people get creative when plans get canceled.
Wildly creative. You may have an idea sometime. You go, that's crazy. Ripping a hole in a roof and lowering a paralyzed person seems a little bit crazy.
But you're like, what's the worst that could happen? Jesus says, ah, you guys, get out of here. What's the best that could happen? This guy could walk home.
That'd be great. They're probably tired already. Number three, God's people do for others what they cannot, maybe would not, maybe could not do for themselves. God's people do for others what they cannot do for themselves, especially somebody who's entered into a relationship with Jesus.
I mean, when I think of stories that I want to share with you all, times where I was tempted and I'm like, I'm trying to do whatever I can to get people's approval. You know, I was a camp speaker. That's kind of, that's embarrassing to share. You know, I don't want you all to think about me as this desperate person who when I was in high school wanted to do whatever I could to get people's attention.
But God saved me from that. And that's my testimony now. And he wants to use your life so much more than you could ever imagine. And so, verse 20, everyone say, yeah, y'all lock in.
And when he saw their faith, who's faith did Jesus see? Did he see the faith in the man on the mat? Their faith. The men who saw a problem and just try to get them to Jesus.
When he saw their faith, he said, he sees their faith, he looks down at the man and he said, your sins are forgiven. Not what they showed up for. Not what they showed up for. Some of you probably showed up to camp, excited to go sledding, excited about some of your friends.
And even listening to me talk about Jesus and dying for our sins. And Jesus, this Almighty, all powerful God who knew the end from the beginning and created all things. And you're like, not what I signed up for, not what I got on the bus. You know, God has permission and does it very often to wreck our expectations.
And any time your expectation of Jesus is wrecked, it's because he's got something better. And so he looks down at a man who expected to be able to walk home and gives him the ability to jump for joy for all eternity. He said, your sins are forgiven. It's a free gift.
That is an invitation for him to officially once and for all join God's team. He said, your sins are completely forgiven you. You think as this man's mind is going, I wonder what that would mean for you. Understanding that Jesus just as directly and clearly as he said to that man on a mat one day, he gives that invitation to you.
Your sins are completely forgiven. You want to know what that means? Sometimes we say, well, are they just as much down a little bit? Are they just slightly removed?
What do you mean when he said this to this man? The Psalmist said it this way. As far as the East is from the West. It's like, as far as, you know, you're thinking the lake is this way, the pond is this way.
There are opposites. He says he completely, forever, eternally separates this from you. Why? Why does Jesus have the authority to do that?
It's not only because he's creator, it's not only because he's all powerful, but it's because he hung on a cross and took your place. Every time you ever send, the Scriptures tell us this, that the result of sin is death. Sin is rebellion against God. God created us.
We talk about this in Genesis 1. He created us to live in perfect relationship with him. In Genesis 3, we rebelled against that. Eve did it.
Adam did it. No one slapped him in the face to get him to stop. Every single person for all of history has sinned against God. I have, you have.
There is only one way to fix that paralytic problem is for Jesus to take the punishment for the sin. When he looks at him and he says, your sins are forgiven. It's because when Jesus would get on that cross sometime soon, he paid the punishment and the price for all past, present and future sins. He paid it completely and separated it.
I'm so grateful that no matter what your opinion could ever be of me, when God looks at my life because I placed my faith in what Jesus did on the cross, he doesn't see any of my sin. I heard it say this way when I was in college, is that if the enemy was to come to one of you all, what's your name? Man, love by God, sure. Benji, if the enemy was to come to God and point at Benji, if Benji, have you surrendered your life to Jesus?
You're a Christian. And if the enemy goes, you see Benji sin? God would respond. I don't see any of it.
I completely separated it from Benji. The moment Benji surrendered his life to me, completely. Is that awesome? That's what he did.
That's what he did. He completely separated. And before we get too high, we need to answer some questions. Have we done that?
I'm going to stick back to my passages here. Some of you might want to ask God for some help and you go, that's too big. Some of you all are thinking about some sins in your life and you're like, these sins might be worse than that paralyzed man. This is what Ephesians said.
Just in case you're afraid, you're going to pray a prayer that's too big for God. Ephesians 3.20 says this. Now to him who is able to do, y'all stick with me. This is a big one.
Far more abundantly. Far more abundantly than anything we could ever ask if you can verbalize it. God's able to do far more abundantly than anything you can ever say. He says, or anything you could ever think.
He's able to do more abundantly far more than anything you could ever even imagine according to the power that's at work within us. That's God. That's the power that Jesus used to heal that paralyzed man's sin. He looks at him and he says, your sins are forgiven you.
You remember who Jesus was teaching to in this house, these religious people. But they were just listening to Jesus to find some reason to disagree. So we all might be in here just listening to a preacher talk and you're just trying to find some reason not to listen or some reason to disagree. There's somebody in every room.
And so one of them did disagree. A few of them did. They said, blasphemy, blasphemy. Only one can forgive sins and that is God.
And Jesus is God. And what's funny is Jesus doesn't entertain this too much. You have somebody in the room trying to act like they know everything. There is one person in the room who knew everything.
This is what happens here. Jesus said, Jesus perceived his thoughts. He answered them. I love it.
Jesus responds to his thoughts. Can you imagine if you were thinking something right now? I wish Grant would shut up. I responded to it.
You're like, oh my goodness. That'd be so scary. Jesus responds to his thoughts. Even if you can think that Jesus can respond to it.
When Jesus received their thoughts, he answered them. Why do you question in your hearts? Why do you question in your hearts? He says, which is easier?
Talking about his power. Which is easier to say, quote, your sins are forgiven you? Or to say, rise and walk. Jesus said in verse 24, but that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
He said to the paralyzed man, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed. And go home. And immediately the paralyzed man rose up before them, picked up his bed, that he had been laying on. And he went home glorifying God.
Verse 26, a very natural response to seeing that happen. Amazing sees them all. And they glorify God and fill them with awe. As the band comes out, I want you guys to consider this question.
Knowing about Jesus, hearing about God, being aware of his power, learning about your sin. Has there ever been a time where you've responded to the invitation that Jesus has given you? I want you to know, I'm going to be very direct given every single person who has not done that in their life, an opportunity to stand up just as powerfully in proclamation that your sins are forgiven as that paralyzed man did that day. And the thing is, Jesus had him stand up as an outward expression of what already happened in his heart.
I imagine the paralyzed man knew he was going to be able to stand up based on the word of Jesus, but because based on the words of Jesus, he already had his guilt completely removed from him. And I know, I know, I know, there are students in this room, middle schoolers, left side, right side, top, wherever you are. I know that there are students in this room that are so ready for the guilt and the shame of your sin to be removed. And I want to promise you, there is nothing that can remove that guilt and that shame except for Jesus Christ.
There's nothing that can remove it. And so I'm not going to have you close your eyes. I'm not going to have you bow your heads here just yet. But if there's anybody in this room in just a moment who has never had any point in their life that you've completely surrendered your life to Jesus, and just a minute, I'm going to give you an opportunity to stand up before everybody here, just like the healed man did stand up before everybody there.
And I know what you're feeling. I felt it the same way when I was in your shoes. I really want to respond. But I know there's some people in here.
There are going to be shops seeing that I'm not already a Christian. I know there's going to be some people in here that are going to be shocked seeing that maybe I've been faking it. Maybe it's a pride thing. Maybe some of you guys are sitting by your voice and you're scared that they're going to judge you if you stand up in place your faith in Jesus.
Man, I love this. I would much rather be right in the eyes of God and wrong in the eyes of my friends than have it the other way around. And so what's amazing is you already know who you are. I'm going to give you a countdown like a rocket ship.
I'm talking to anybody in this room that for the first time ever in your life, you want to respond to the gospel. For the first time ever in your life, you want to stand up and say, I surrender to Jesus. I'm tired of just letting it be head knowledge. And I want it to go from these thoughts that I think in my head to a change of heart to a change of my life.
And once and for all I want to give Jesus control of my life. If that's you, I'm going to give you a countdown to stand up in three, two, one, stand. Stay up. Hey, y'all, look at me.
Will you stay up? Will you stay up if you stood and you mint it? Will you look at me? If you mean it and from this moment you're placing your faith in Jesus.
There is no turning back and the no turning back is not because it requires your strength. It's because it's already done by his. You're going to fail. You've already failed and you standing up is admitting I failed and I need Jesus.
Just those that are standing up right now. If you know that's true about your life, say yes. Just those that are standing up right now. If you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and that He died in the cross for your sins, I want you to say yes.
They need the rest of your help. Everybody that you see, some of you are right now are quiet and no, you're going to give us the Lord. I'm going to always thought that person was a Christian. They need your help.
They need your encouragement. They need your prayer. Not act like this is a secret. If you saw a friend get a touchdown or interception or a home run, you hype them up about it.
You wouldn't let it just die and be some momentary thing. Please don't let this die with a moment. They're going to need your help. You've passed through.
I know you're already so ready. Hey, I'm proud of y'all. Y'all that just stood up. You can go ahead and sit down.
I got one more group of people I want to talk to. Yeah, you can pop it up for the moment. Hey, on that day in that house, there was only one paralyzed man healed. On this day in this house, there were many miracles.
God does miracles. It's so cool. I got another group of people I want to talk to. Those people in this room that maybe you've been there, maybe you've stood up and you're like, I just keep falling back.
I keep sliding back. This is the first time I've been in church. I don't know. And you realize I need to recommit my life to Jesus.
So many of y'all are in this room going, I need to hit reset. I'm desperate for God's help and I want to restart today. Maybe this isn't the first time, but you want to hit reset on this and you want to rededicate your life to Jesus and you know you desperately need his help. I want to invite you to stand in.
Three, two, one, stand. Hey, take a look around. If y'all are willing to be an encouragement to be a challenger to continue to build up these people that all stood. If you know them and you're willing to help them as a part of their church, say, yeah.
Hey, can I say it all y'all? Welcome to the family. Welcome to the family. We all stand up.
Hey, one of the special things, if you just gave your life to Jesus, this will be the first time you ever got to worship as having a relationship with him. So the band's going to take it away. I'm going to pray, God, thank you. God, thank you.
God, thank you. God, thank you. Thank you that you have the ability to change hearts. God, thank you so much that we got to watch it.
God, thank you for the way that you work. You're so good. Thank you, God. Would you allow it to be such a joy as so many students worship you with a fresh perspective, with the joy of their newfound salvation?
We praise you. We pray in Jesus' name and all God's people said, Amen.