Man, really excited to honor the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. tomorrow. And as I was thinking about him as a leader, I was actually reminded of a story in the Gospels. And I want to spend just a short amount of time talking about it, and then I want to pray for anyone that is of African descent, or you're an African-American or black, whatever your heritage is, and you're in the room, we're going to take just a quick moment and pray for you if you want to receive prayer and you're willing.
But I was reminded of a story of a family in the Gospels that were from Africa, Northern Africa, and the dad's name was Simon. And Simon and his wife and his kids were traveling to Jerusalem during Passover. And so they were making a pilgrimage to Passover, and this is in the first century. And as they entered into Jerusalem, they actually hit a cross-section of the streets in Jerusalem, and there was a lot of noise in the streets.
And there's a lot of people in the streets and it was packed. And all of a sudden Simon, he had two young boys. I don't know if there's any other kids that they had, but there's two young boys. And the boys' names were Rufus and Alexander.
And I just picture these boys like five, seven years old, just similar in age. They wrestle all the time. They're just kind of rough housing. And I just picture Rufus and Alexander with their dad, Simon, and then their mama there.
And all of a sudden, two Roman guards grab Simon, grab their dad, and say, hey, come over here. And the Roman guards said, put this on your back. And so Simon took a cross beam onto his back. He was from a city called Cyrene, which is in Libya, modern day Libya.
And he put on a cross beam on his back covered with the blood of Jesus back. And he started walking down the Via de la Rosa to the hill that was just outside of Jerusalem called Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. And there Simon was with his wife and his sons following him as they followed Jesus to the crucifixion. And as he set down that cross beam, there they were as a family.
And it wasn't just the Mary's, you know, it wasn't just the Mary's and John at the foot of the cross. And it wasn't just the Roman soldiers, but it was actually a family from Cyrene that was an African family that was setting at the foot of the cross, seeing Jesus crucified. In Romans 16, we see that in Romans 1613, the Apostle Paul, he's kind of like going through the list. I don't know if you've ever read the letters that some of the apostles write to the churches.
But sometimes at the end of the letter, they'll have like greetings, like say hi to this person, say hi to that person. And I don't know if you're like me, you just kind of like, great, they have friends. Like, why are they, why is this in the Bible? You know?
And, but there's something so special about Romans 16 verse 13, because the Apostle Paul, he says, Hey, I want you to greet Rufus for me. He's chosen by God. And then the Apostle Paul, remember Simon's son, that little boy was named Rufus. And then he says, Hey, say hi to Rufus, his mom.
She's a spiritual mama to me. So we literally have many years later, Simon's wife is a spiritual mother to the Apostle Paul. And the Apostle Paul is saying about Rufus. This is a young man chosen by God, anointed by God.
It says in acts, man, what passage is that? I don't have it written down. I think it's Acts 11. It says that there was a group of men from Cyrene, the same town.
I actually believe it was Simon, part of that crew. And it says that there was a group of men from Cyrene that ended up reaching the Hellenas. And there was revival that was breaking out in Antioch, among the Hellenas, because of these guys anointed. And it says that the hand of God was on them.
And because the hand of God was on them as messengers of the gospel, salvation was springing up from the ground. And so I wanted to spend some time praying for my black brothers and sisters in the room. And I want to believe for God to mark you as messengers for this day in this hour that you would be like Simon and his family, that God would raise up papas that actually demonstrate great courage that make their way up to the crucifixion. I want to pray for ladies in the room that you would be like spiritual mamas to apostles and prophets and evangelists and teachers.
I want to pray for young men and young women that you would be like Rufus, chosen by God, anointed for what God has called you to. Would you stand with me if you are of African descent? You consider yourself an African American black. We want to pray for you.
You can just put a hand on anybody that's standing up, put a hand on their shoulder. If they're willing, you can ask them, hey, can I put a hand on your shoulder? I'll just pray for you. Thank you, Lord.
Lord, we thank you for our brothers and sisters. And we're reminded of the greats of the faith, even like Martin Luther King Jr. as a messenger that brought freedom. And Lord, I ask that you would put your hand on these men and women.
That it would be said of them, the hand of God was on them. Lord, we thank you for the messages that you've given to them. And we ask that you would fill them with such a great anointing, not of this world, but from heaven. That heaven's anointed who would be so strong on them that they would actually mother and father apostles.
Lord, raise up, not just teachers, but raise up mamas and papas in the spirit. Black mamas, black papas that carry your heart. And we ask that the fruit would be many sons of God coming to Jesus. We pray this in your name.
Amen. Amen, amen. You can open up your Bibles to Romans 6. Romans 6.
And I'm so grateful for the people of God being the hands and feet of Jesus this week in our community with all of the ice raids that are happening in our city. And I'm so grateful that as the church, we get to carry God's heart for not just the immigrant, but for our government officials, that we get to pray for our government officials, we get to pray for ICE agents, we get to, I was hearing even stories this week and it kind of breaks the brain for some of us. And then others of us were like not surprised. I was just hearing ICE agents over a hundred of them wanting to go and worship at a church this morning and having tension of, I don't even know where I can go.
I want you to know, I was thinking about that and I was going, man, the church, many in the church would just be like the judgment for them. And I was just reflecting on like, who do I want part of ICE? Would I love sons and daughters of God that carry love? Or do I want a lot of people that don't know Jesus to be in those uniforms?
I would actually prefer all of ICE to actually have be born again believers because things would be feeling a little different in our city. Is that right? And so I want to encourage you to continue to pray for people in our city. I want you to pray for the rioters.
I want you to pray for our leaders in our city, the leaders in our country. I want you to pray for President Trump and his cabinet. I want us to pray for the immigrants in our community. I want to pray for those that are citizens that are getting wrongfully detained.
I want you to pray for the people that are afraid. I want you to pray for the people that have callous hearts. God's going to impart his heart to you. I want his heart, not just for a specific people group.
I want his heart for everyone, right? Amen? Okay, so this message isn't on that today. It's not, I don't have a message prepared for social justice, but my goodness, it is a message of justice.
Yeah? The greatest message of justice is the message of Jesus. And I want to read from Romans 6. Are you there with me?
Okay. The Apostle Paul, he's laying out all of this really, really good news. Okay? And the news is almost so mind-blowing and so good that people are starting to get confused because his news that he's giving is so crazy good.
Because he's talking about mercy and grace and forgiveness. And people, as they're reading the Apostle Paul's letter, he's anticipating that they're going to start taking advantage of the mercy and grace of God because he is hitting mercy and grace so hard. So what I mean by that is the Apostle Paul is going, you've forgiven of all of your sins. God's grace is on you.
And if you sin, God's blood actually forgives you for all of your wrongdoings. And they're like, oh my gosh, this is such amazing news. And Paul is preaching really good. And what's happening is what's surfacing in the listeners is, well, then I could just keep on sinning because if it's going to be forgiven, then I'll just kind of keep on doing it because I can just trust, well, God's going to forgive me anyways.
And that's when you know you're getting really good at preaching the gospel that people start going into that ditch. You're getting really good at preaching the good news of Jesus if people are tempted to go, well, then I can just do anything. That's how good his grace is. And then Paul pauses and he goes, no, stop.
No, that's not what I mean. The grace of God is not your permission and license to just do whatever you want in sin. He says, pause. Let me say a couple things.
Okay. So that's where we're picking up in Romans. Yeah? Romans 6 says, what shall we say then?
Are we to continue in sin that grace would abound? What does he say? He says, by no means. In other words, stop.
Come on. How can we who died to sin still live in it? And now he's going to unpack what like pictures and metaphors of how when we say yes to Jesus, we die to sin. And he's going to give us three different metaphors to paint the picture of what that means.
Okay? He says, and maybe I'll just pause. And you're like, okay, you're going into Romans 6. Why should I listen to you?
Listen to the Bible. I'm just a guy. Okay? But listen to what Jesus is saying in the word.
And I just want you to know, I feel conviction from the Lord today that God, you made it through the snow and the icy roads, you guys are the brave ones. You're the courageous, hungry ones, right? And I feel conviction from the Lord that the unadulterated gospel of Jesus is to be preached today. That the gospel that sets us free to live into what we are destined to live into is meant to be preached today.
And I think that there's actually been mixture, which is funny that that was some of the song that we were singing, that there's been mixture around the good news of Jesus. And I just want us to be reminded again, maybe you've heard the gospel of the good news and you're going to get hit right in the face again with the good news of Jesus. Or maybe you haven't been in the church for a while and you're like, I don't even know what I think. And God's just going to hit your heart with the good news.
Okay? And so we always approach the word and we're going, Lord, I don't want to act like I know. I want to come low. I got a hungry heart.
All right? Can you just say it even for your ears to hear it? Just be like, man, I'm hungry. You can just say that.
Man, I'm hungry. All right? So, I'm going to say that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism.
See, he's talking about baptism. That's one of the metaphors. By baptism into what? His death.
Okay. I'm going to have you say louder next time. Okay? So we're going to start over.
We're going to do this together. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his. We were buried, therefore, with him, by baptism into an order that just as Christ was raised from the by the glory of God the Father, we might walk in newness of, like that one. If we have been united with him in a like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a like him, like his.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved. That's another picture enslaved to sin. For one who has has been set free from sin. If we have with Christ, we believe that we will also with him.
We know that Christ being raised from the will never again. No longer has dominion over Jesus for I'm just going to read the rest. This is just as a lot for the death. He died.
Well, this would have been a hard verse. Should we do it? All right. You got to be all in.
All right. He, he, to sin. Oh, so good. Once for all, but the life he, he to God.
So you also must consider yourselves to sin and to God in Christ Jesus. Come on, give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. That's so what?
Oh, man. Wow. So the apostle Paul, he's laying out these three pictures, right? He's laying out this picture of baptism where you baptism is when you go under the water and then you stay underwater and something drowns and then you're raised to newness of life.
You come up out of the water, you walk out of the water, right? And then he's painting this picture of getting crucified, of being hung on a tree. And then you get buried into the ground and then you resurrect in the same way that Jesus. And then he gives a picture of you're enslaved, you're a slave to sin, you're a slave to death.
And then Jesus comes and sets you free from enslavement to sin and death, right? He gives all these pictures. And he is really, really, I think we would all agree. He's very clear, something needs to die, right?
And the one that's on the chopping block is us. We're the ones that die, right? And we die with him. Now the question is, when he's talking about us dying with him, what does he mean?
Because we're still here. Those that have said yes to Jesus. So is he talking about a physical death? No.
Is he talking about an emotional soul death where it's like our mind, will, and emotions? That's our soul. Is he talking about a soul death? No.
He's trying to find capacity once we've said yes to Jesus, right? He's talking about a spiritual death because you are body, soul, and spirit. It's just like when Adam and Eve, they sin, right? And they chose to actually be the God of their own lives where they ate the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is basically like saying, we're the ones that are going to define what is good and what is evil.
That's what God's job is, defining what is good and evil. But Adam and Eve decide, no, we're going to take this into our own hands. We think we know better than God. And we are going to sit on the throne of our own lives and we are going to define what is good and what is evil ourselves.
That's what humanity has done. Do you want to know that it's still happening today? Can I tell you how? You know when you talk to your friend and you said something about God or whatever and they go, oh, I love that.
I love that. So good. Well, that's good that that's your truth. But this is my truth.
Your truth, you can have your truth, but this is my truth. Do you know what that is? Adam and Eve in the garden going, I will eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and define what good or evil is myself. And what happens is instead of Adam and Eve having God on the throne of their lives, defining for them what is good and evil, they decided to take that throne themselves.
And that's where brokenness entered into the picture for humanity. That's when violence started happening because violence was good for me because I got what I wanted. See how it works? That's when adultery starts happening because I think that this is good for me because it's how I feel.
And it's good for me. But it might be evil to you, but it's not evil to me because it's my truth. Yeah? Things go south.
And man is in charge of defining what is good and what is evil. Jesus is the ultimate truth and lays that out in the Bible. It's clear. Okay?
Side tangent but super important. So what dies are spirit. That's what died with Adam and Eve. God said, you're surely going to die if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right?
And then they're still alive and they still live hundreds and hundreds of years. And their souls are still working, but they died in the spirit. And I want you to know that you're born with an old nature, a sin nature when you were born. And it's just like the nature of Adam and Eve after they sin.
It's a sin nature. And so what needs to die? The sin nature. The spirit that's inside of you when you're born, it's basically themed by self.
Selfishness, self righteousness, self promotion, self pity. The list goes on. And the Apostle Paul, you guys, listen, he's going, that thing's got to die because that thing is destroying you because that nature that you're born with in the spirit, that thing is enslaved to sin. You can't even help but be selfish.
You were just born that way. And the Apostle Paul is going, that thing's got to die. And now you have to, it's got to drown. It's got to be buried.
That thing's got to get crucified. It's an old nature and it's got to go. If you want God, it's got to go. He goes, maybe I'll just read some examples of what it's got to go, what's got to die.
You guys ready? This is going to be so fun. Here's some things that have to die if you want to follow Jesus. The old identity, we got to get rid of it.
You got to die to the old way. You got to die to the way of the world. You got to die to be in the God of your own life. You got to die to self promotion, self righteousness, self pity.
Are you saying some of those? You got to die to the love of money. You got to die to complaining. You got to die to revenge.
You have to die. If you want Jesus, you got to actually consider yourself dead to greed, dead to sexual immorality and impurity, dead to cravings and impulses, dead to pride, dead to the fear of man. If the Apostle Paul is like, if I was still trying to be a man pleaser, I wouldn't be a follower of Christ. You got to die to the praise of man, to man pleasing.
You got to die to jealousy and anger and rage. You got to die to thinking that you're justified in your bitterness. You got to die to the justification that you can live in unforgiveness and follow God. You got to die to offense and being offended.
You lost that right when you say yes to Jesus. You got to die to that. You got to consider yourself dead to slander. You got to consider yourself dead to gossip.
You got to consider yourself dead to divisiveness and drunkenness and the list goes on. So when you say yes to Jesus, it isn't just agreeing to some facts. When you say yes to Jesus, it's not like entering into a contract and just kind of going, well, I agree to this. I agree to this.
Yes, I believe that. All right, we're good to see you in heaven, buddy. Well, I said a prayer. So I'm a Christian.
Oh, no. Saying a prayer does not mean that you are a follower of Jesus. Christian was used like three times in the New Testament. Disciple was used over a hundred times in the New Testament.
Christian means little Christ. In other words, you look like him. Like people meet you and they're like, who's that? That guy, that gal lives like Jesus.
What was that? Who was that? That's what it's like to interact with a follower of Jesus, a Christian. All right, let me get back to Romans 6.
Okay. I want you to look at Romans 6 and I want you to look at verse 11. I was just quoting this a little bit. This is so important.
When you say yes to Jesus, that old sin nature, it dies. And it turns in, it's almost like a corpse. Yeah? And what happens once you surrender to Jesus and you die and you consider yourself dead to this old life, this old way of life where you're in charge, you surrender the throne of your life and you turn to Jesus.
And when you turn, what happens is you go, I'm going to die to my old life. I'm going to die to me being the king of my own life. And now Jesus, you take the throne, what you say goes. And then by the power of his spirit, he takes you and he actually gets you out of the water so you can walk in the newness of life.
He takes you out of the grave by the power of the Holy Spirit so that you're a new creation. The oldest gone, the new His come. Now you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You're not a sinner, you're a saint.
Right? For some of us, we grew up in the church and we're like, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, say, by grace. And all of a sudden our mindset is I am a dirty rotten sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner. And then we wonder why we are living constantly, sinning.
Because all of our lives, we just been agreeing with an identity that Jesus actually set us free from. Jesus is like that sinner identity actually got crucified. And then it got buried and then it's supposed to stay there. Now you've got a new identity that you're a son or daughter of God.
Now you're a priest, now you're a royal in the kingdom of heaven like Revelation 1 says. Right? This is such good news. This is amazing news.
Yeah? It's a whole identity shift. You were meant to have a new redeemed identity when you say yes to Jesus. So you die to those things, you get resurrected to a newness of life and it's this, it's a spiritual reality.
It's like you get a new spirit and the Holy Spirit, God's spirit comes inside of you. It's crazy. That's why in John 3 it says that you got to get born again. Right?
It's like you got to get resurrected. And that's the beautiful picture of death to life. Right? So in verse 11 he says, I want you to consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God.
I want you to know that that corpse of your old nature, that corpse is like a zombie or something like that, right? It's going to come knocking. It's the old identity. The old nature is going to be like, hey, do you want to put me on?
Put me on your back. Kind of like let's have some mixture here. Like why don't you kind of dabble with me? You go with the old way, right?
And the Apostle Paul is going, don't do it. You got to consider yourself dead to sin. You got to consider yourself dead to everything associated with that old life. So then when the corpse starts coming back and knocking on your door, you're like, nobody's home.
Oh, she moved on and she doesn't live here anymore. That was my old, I got a name change. Jesus gave me a new name. Jesus gave me a new identity.
That's not even me anymore. Right? I'm dead to you. Jesus is at the front, see there at the back door.
Jesus at the front door knocking. It's like, Jesus, come in. Right? You're dead to sin, alive to God, alive to Him.
And as you're alive to Him, this is where it gets really good. This is where, because you kind of have to ask the question. I don't know if you're like me. I got to ask the question.
If I'm going to say no to all of those, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, okay, listen. The problem with many American Christians, I feel this, is that we live in gray all the time and we kind of live dancing, dancing with the corpse of sin and our sin nature, right? We're doing these little dances and then we wonder why we're miserable. Because we're not on fire for Jesus.
We're not like experiencing the pleasures of God forevermore at His right hand. We're not like delighting in God. We're not energized. We're not like, oh, I'm experiencing revelation and it's making my heart burn.
And so we're kind of like, and we're not fully in darkness, but we're kind of in the middle and we're so bored. Because we're not living the kingdom life where we got like a burning heart and we're not like being superworldly, but we're just kind of in the middle and we are just bored. So basically our life has become sin management, like trying behavior management. Like I just don't want to sin.
I don't want to be bad, but that is not what Christianity is about. I want you to know Christianity and following Jesus is not about not sinning. If Jesus wanted you to be mostly concerned with not sinning, he would have said be dead to sin and then alive to try not to sin. Is that right?
And said he says dead to sin and alive to God, right? And so I want you to know that there's actually this tension that I have though because I'm going, but I'm saying I'm being dead to a lot of things then. Like if I'm actually going to turn to follow God, what am I going to get in return? If I'm giving all this stuff up, I better get something back.
Don't you feel? Maybe that's just me. All right. That's all right.
Let's turn to Ephesians 2. This is just going to be for me then. Ephesians 2 is just for me. Don't even listen to this.
Oh, this is going to be so good. Okay. Ephesians 2 verse 3. This is such similar language to what we read in Romans 6.
Among whom all Ephesians 2, 3. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the bodies, see that the spiritual body here and the mind and we were by nature on the inside of us, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. He was explaining what we were born like, what we were living in before Jesus. But then look at that hinge in verse 4.
But God being rich and mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. It's just like what we were reading in Romans 6. You were dead and then he makes you alive with him. Okay.
Where did I leave off? By grace, you've been saved. You've been raised with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Why did he seat us with him in heavenly places with Christ Jesus?
I'll tell you this right now. Jesus doesn't allow corpse seated next to him. He doesn't prefer corpses. He's like, I want you.
I don't want your old nature. I don't want your sin nature up here that I set you free from that's been buried. I want you seated with me. And this is why I want you seated with me.
Look at this. I want you seated with me so that in the coming ages, I just, I don't know how long coming ages is, but I feel like it's a long time. Do you agree? The coming ages.
I mean, we're not even talking about like a year or a couple of years or like a couple of decades. We're talking about ages. This is what he's going to do for ages. He's going to show off his immeasurable.
You can't count it. You can't measure it. It goes on and on and on. And it's rich.
He's doubling down on it. He's like, it's immeasurable and it's riches of what his grace in kindness. Well, who's going to get immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness? Who's he going to pour that out on for coming ages?
Why is he seated us up there with him and heavenly places spiritually? Oh my. You're saying that you want me with you up, you with him in heavenly places for ages to show off his grace in kindness. He literally wants to show off how gracious and kind he is to you forever.
Come on up here and we're going, well, what am I going to get if I died all of these things? Well, you get enthroned above the circle of the earth. You're seated with Christ in heavenly places. And then he wants you to sit there and get showers of grace and kindness for eternity into the future.
Do you know what you get when you surrender all of those things that have actually been destroying your life, destroying your relationships, ruining things, making you lose stuff that you actually value, damaging your soul? Do you know what you get in exchange for dying to that? You get God. This is what eternal life is, to know him.
Why am I alive? You're not alive to just be a good Christian and go to heaven. Heaven is all themed about knowing God, knowing his love being transformed by his love. This is what it means to follow Jesus, to actually sit under the shower of immeasurable riches of grace and kindness and the love of God and have that hit you.
You basically just make that home. It's called John 15, a different language for it is abiding in his love. If you abide in his love, you make a home. You like, you know what's great about home is you keep on coming back to it.
Home is where you're always, it's like, it's home. Home is home. And you abide in his love. I want you to know in John 17, this is what Jesus was thinking about before he went to the cross.
Before Jesus went to the cross, it was the night where he was going to get betrayed. You can turn there actually to John 17. It's this beautiful exchange that we have in Jesus where we consider ourselves dead to listen and alive to the God of love. In John 17, this is so profound to me.
John 13 through 17 is this, it's all happening in one night and it's the night of Passover. And Jesus is in this room, they're celebrating Passover, it's been a couple hours and it's kind of, it's time Judas has already betrayed him. Jesus watched his disciples feed at the start of the meal. There's all this, like Jesus is briefing all of them and what they need to be prepared for of what's coming.
It's just a crazy set of passages. But it's the day before Jesus goes to the cross, or the night before, and as his disciples are sitting there, he lifts up, and the start of John 17, he lifts up his eyes and God in the flesh starts talking to God the Father. And he lets his disciples hear what is on his heart. And they sit in on a little prayer meeting time between God the Son and God the Father.
They start hearing Jesus pour out his heart for them. In the first part of John 17, all of a sudden Jesus is just going to town believing for grace for his disciples. And then Jesus turns, and I love this in this moment in verse 20, he shifts and he stops praying for his disciples. And I want you to look in verse 20.
He says, I don't ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their Word. Can you imagine being like John the Beloved, having Jesus praying for you? And then he says, and God, I don't Father, I don't just pray for these guys. I pray for all of the people that these guys are going to share the good news with.
Can you imagine being the disciples and just having this like, it's almost like he's pulling them into the future. He's going, you don't even understand because of what you're going to do. Many are going to know me. And it's almost like this prophetic thing that he's starting to pray for all of the people that they're going to reach.
And there's this anticipation that's building, right? And then in verse 23, remember, we're talking about we're being dead to sin, alive to God, God, the God that showers us with love. I want you to picture now Jesus the night before he's hanging on the tree. And this is what is on his mind.
I want you to turn to John 1723. He's going, Hey, Lord, I in them, this is what we talked about. You get a new nature, a new spirit, the spirit of Jesus comes inside of you and you say yes to him that they may become perfectly one. Now he's talking about us and he's going, I want them to become one, not because of what they agree with politically, not because they agree on everything, not because they've really got all of their doctrine lined up together and they all believe the same exact thing, not because they look the same, not because they act the same.
How many of you know that perfect unity and oneness truly finds its reality when now there's differences conformity isn't what Jesus was talking about in John 1723. He wasn't going, would you make them one so that they agree on everything? And they look like each other and they act like each other. No, he's saying in their, you know what perfect unity is.
You know when you're touching it is when you're close enough to somebody in your community that now you're getting annoyed by them. When you're close enough in relationship to people that love Jesus and you love Jesus and now you're like man, there, that's when you're right on the brink of what Jesus was praying for when he's going make them one even when they just kind of are on a different page. And he says this, he says in John 1723, I want them to be perfectly one so that the world would know something. So if they are unified and they love each other well, it's like in John 13 Jesus says, I'm giving you a new command, love one another as I have loved you.
So if they do that, the world is going to have a revelation. What is the greatest revelation in human history? I want you to like read the end of this verse. This is, I believe this is the most profound.
I know I'm, I'm, I don't think I'm over selling it. I think this is the most scandalous phrase in the Bible. This is on this breaks my brain. Look at what he says.
I want the world to know that you sent me. Here's the phrase. Oh my goodness. And you loved them.
God the Father loves us, you in the same way as you love me. So this is God in the flesh saying God the Father, we have so much history and eternity past. I just picture, can you picture Jesus, the Holy Spirit and God the Father before they even said, let there be light. They had no need.
They didn't need us. They were fully satisfied within themselves as being God and they were happy. They don't need you, but they want you. And just picture the joy that they had, the glory that they had before anything that we see was seen.
And I just, it breaks my brain, but I just picture there like having a good time. They're just having, I just pictured God the Father like creating the whole universes and like planets, you know, and just like, oh man, those are look all the colors and they're just like having a good time. Can you just imagine, I was just starting to get into a weird zone and I just, I'm going to use self control. We're going to bring this home.
We're going to bring it home right now. All right. Don't worry. I know you got to drive.
It's going to take a long time to get home. I want you to know that God the Father infinitely loves Jesus and the most scandalous thing on the planet. When I say scandalous, it's like that breaks the brain. I can't even, is it, is it even okay to think of this?
That God the Father loves Jesus perfectly. And we're like, of course he loves him because Jesus is perfect. And Jesus right in that sentence goes, God the Father loves you to the same measure in the same way that he loves the Son. That is the type of love where the Apostle Paul says, I pray that you would have strength to comprehend this type of love.
In other words, see, some of us are just so bored right now because you don't have God's strength giving you revelation right now. Because you actually need the strength of God to even be able to handle the revelation of this type of love. You actually, it will literally break you in half if you don't have the strength of the Holy Spirit helping you to comprehend and understand how crazy this love is. It is so dangerous this type of love that you actually have to pray for God's help to even be okay to understand it.
God wants to reveal this type of love to us. The love that breaks the brain. Yeah? You get to die.
You get to consider yourself dead to sin, alive to God. And then as you're alive to God, he's just like showering you with kindness and love. And I want you to know this. I'm bringing this home.
Are you guys ready? He's going dead to sin, alive to God. You get to make home in the love of God, abide in the love of God. And this is what you're going to be known for.
You're going to be known for how you love each other. You're going to be known because you actually get transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so all the following Jesus is not about you just doing good stuff. It's about you being transformed by the love of God.
You are meant to become love on feet. You're not just supposed to agree to believe in God, believe in Jesus. I'm a good person. No, no, no, no.
You're literally supposed to be transformed. You're supposed to actually have your whole, how you carry yourself and who you are and what you're like. And then a couple of years after you've surrendered to Jesus, somebody sees you and they're like, what happened to you? You got messed up in the best way.
You got transformed into becoming more and more like him. If 30 years and following Jesus, you don't look anymore like Jesus, then maybe you're not following Jesus. Let's all stand. That got you, huh?
Yeah. You're like, really? He's going to end there. I want to give an opportunity.
I really believe that there's an opportunity for many of us in the room to respond to the good news of Jesus that he loves you and that he wants you to set free from slavery to sin. He wants you to set free from your old life and your old way and he wants to resurrect you into a new life. Life of freedom where he's on the throne of your life and you get to be off the throne of your life. He gets to be in the driver's seat, you get to be in the passenger's seat.
I want to read these truths over you. These are all scriptures they've got references. I've changed the wording a little bit, but they're all from the word and I just want to speak this over you. And so if it helps you, whatever helps you engage, you can just get a little elbow room.
If you want to spread out in the aisles or whatever helps you kind of lock in and receive these truths over you, I want to speak these truths over you. If it helps you to even almost receive these truths, you can put your hands out in front of you almost like you're going to receive a gift. These are truths that are for you. Thank you Lord.
God loves you. Jesus loves you. He likes you and wants to set you free. Jesus wants you to know him and he wants you to know true hope.
God knows what is going on underneath the surface of your life and he has a destiny for your life that you would be transformed. And all of the darkness and the most difficult moments of your life, God has been with you even when you were unaware. In all of the pain that you've experienced, Jesus has been filled with love and compassion for you. He's God and he's in the business of taking pain and brokenness and discouragement in your life and writing a restorative story.
He created you with a desire for greatness that you would become a servant rather than self-focus. God has been pursuing you. He's been on your heels and Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart tonight. You aren't an accident.
God wants you to experience freedom from everything that has created disconnection between him and you. God wants you to know that you have so much value, so much worth. Your life is priceless. Your life is worth God blood.
Your life is like a treasure in a field that he'd buy the whole field just to have you. You're like a lost sheep that he'd go, I'm leaving the 99. I'm going after the one. He's filled with so much passion for you and he wants you to find healthy friendships that are good for you.
He wants you to know that you're never too far gone. There's no sin that's ever going to scare him away. It was never too much. You've never been too dark.
Jesus was and he's never afraid of the messes of your life. And he doesn't come for all people who have it all together. Jesus has always loved you. And how you run at one respond to him is your choice.
He's inviting you in a new chapter of connection with him. I just felt like the Lord said, it's your choice tonight. It's your choice. You get to choose.
Every single person has the freedom to choose. How do I respond to God on the cross? How do I respond to him making a proposal, all of me, for all of you? You can give all of yourself to Jesus, all of yourself to the Lord.
But we all have to make a choice. The decision that every human heart has to make is what do I do with God hanging on a cross? Is it all of me for all of him or am I going to live in the gray? And the Lord is going, it's all in.
It's all death. It's crucifixion. It's baptism. It's getting set free from slavery and it's getting buried.
You're going to be dead to sin and you're going to be alive to my love. You're alive to my kindness, alive to be transformed into looking like me and becoming love. This is your destiny. And I just want to encourage you, wherever you're at with Jesus, today gets to be the day of your salvation.
Today gets to be the new day. To get to be dead from life. Sinner to say. Old to new.
God's calling you and he's going, I'm going to take you from slave to sin and I'm going to make you the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I want to invite you. If you want to respond to Jesus, I just want to encourage you that if you're going, man, it's been a long time. I've been far from God.
I used to have relationship with God, but I've been far from God and you're going, I want to actually turn from this life. I want to surrender to Jesus again. I'm coming back home. I want you to just come out of your seat and come right to the altar and fill this altar.
There's plenty of room and you can just come all the way to the front. If you're going, man, I want to give my life to just come right now. If that's you, if you're going, I want to give my life to Jesus and maybe you've never heard the good news of Jesus and you're going, I want to come up to the front and I want to surrender my life. I want you to come right up.
If somebody came with you, you can grab them and you can bring them up. I just want you to come ministry team, altar team, you guys can come to the front. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray and I'm just going to send us all out, but there's going to be people that are responding at the front and I just want you, wherever you're at with God, if you're a follower of Jesus, I want you to receive this prayer as a truth for you and I'm going to commission you out. And I want you to, if you're giving your life to Jesus, I want you to just come all the way to the front and you can just give your heart to the Lord.
Thank you, Jesus. Yes, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Lord, we thank you that you are the God that takes us and brings us from death to life.
I feel like there's more. I feel like there's more in the room. Thank you, Jesus. I feel like there's more.
There's a couple more. So Lord, I just send out these sons and daughters of God with your love. Lord, I thank you that you're the God who saves us. You're the God of redemption.
Lord, I activate all of these brothers and sisters that know you to be messengers of the gospel in Jesus' name. I send you out as lovers of God. I want you to, if you're going to respond at the front, you can receive prayer at the front people would love to pray with you, even if you're going, yeah, I love Jesus or I don't know what I think about God. These people are front that would love to pray with you.
And I want you to not waste any time after the service. You can just come right away. And I want you to know that the people that you came with, it's not an inconvenience for you to come to the Lord. You're not an inconvenience to actually surrender to Jesus.
And this gets to be your moment. And they're going to celebrate that. Okay? All right.
We love you guys. We'll see you in the prayer room. And please respond at the front if you want to receive prayer after the service.