Well, this good Friday, a couple days ago, the Cribble family had an interesting Friday morning. All of that, one of our 10-year-olds, she came down the stairs and she ran right to the sink and got some cleaning supplies and ran back upstairs. I was like, oh, okay. About five minutes later, and by the way, I got permission from Ollie, so she knows I'm sharing this, okay.
About five minutes later, Ollie comes downstairs and she is just upset. She's crying, she's sobbing, and she has her hands full with a lot of cash. I'm talking about like $100 a bit, like 20s, 5s, 10s, I'm like, dang girl, you're loaded. And she's just sobbing, okay.
And she sat in the corner of the living room and she just said, just take all my money, just take it. And she's holding it in front of her, just take all my money. And she's got all this money because we hired her to do some work at the house, you know. So every single week, she's doing laundry, she's cleaning a bathroom.
And if she doesn't do it, we have to, you know, her boss has to have a conversation, right? But she is getting loaded. And she's saving up some money. And so she's in the corner, she's holding all this cash in her and she's like, just take it.
And I'm like, what happened Ollie? Why are you telling me to take all your money? And she said, nail polish. And I went, all right.
And so I gradually made my way upstairs. And I walked into her room. And there it was. Deep pink, rich, rich pink nail polish.
And it was almost as if someone took a nail polish, it was a full one. And they just kind of like tipped it and then just had a dance party, right? And it's just like, woo, woo, woo, just like, rounding around we go. Listen, nail polish all over the carpet, on the dresser.
It's a situation. And I go right to Google. You know, like nail polish. How do you get it out of carpet?
And I'm very confident all the people that are making those websites. You know, where it's like, hey, what's like a horrible thing that happens to people? And then they like figure it out. It's like, oh, yeah, nail polish on carpet.
Let's make a website for that. For the hundreds of thousands of people that this happens to. And then we're going to make money off of them with ad dollars. But we all know you can't get nail polish out of carpet, right?
You know, like, we all know that this is funny. But let's keep them on the website just long enough where we make money off of them. Like, I just felt that as I was looking at, because they've got all of these concoctions that you're supposed to use. And so I grab hairspray and rubbing alcohol.
And I go into the room. Ollie is still crying. And she's still upset. And she gives me a hug.
And she says, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, that's OK. I just wish you would have come to me rather than trying to just fix it yourself, right? But Ollie knew that she was being disobedient.
She knew that mom told her you cannot have nail polish anywhere other than the kitchen table. So she's feeling it, right? She's feeling the guilt. She's feeling the shame.
And the dresser has just got nail polish just smeared all over it. You know, it's like, OK, so you're trying to do that. And then I looked at the cleaning supplies that she had. And it was like a grease cleaner and surface, like tabletop cleaner, OK?
Just trying to clean it up, right? And so I get to work hairspray, rubbing alcohol. I'm like, I dab it up a little bit. And I work on it for about five minutes.
And this is not working, OK? We all know. We all know. Just an imbecile trying to get the nail polish out of the carpet.
And I look over at Ollie and she's like, can I help you? I was like, yeah, sure. And so she's sitting there. And I said, all of that, I'm so sorry.
I can't fix it. I can't clean off the nail polish. And I said, but I know someone that can. And we've got a great carpet cleaner.
His name is Tim. He's the man, OK? And I said, I know someone that can help us. And she goes, really?
Do you think he could come today? And I was like, I don't know. I don't think so. And she said, well, do you think that she pointed at a rug in her room?
Do you think that we could cover it until he gets here? And I said, yeah, I think we can do that. And I just sat there. And I reflected on how we all have a nail polish on the carpet problem.
Well, we're all born with this problem, this stain called sin. And you know, all of that, she was in her room. And she was kind of going, you know what? I know mom says, nail polish is only done at the table.
But I'm just going to keep it 100. I'm going to be me, right? That's what 10-year-old Ollie is thinking. She's thinking, I don't feel like going downstairs.
I want to do it right here. And I want to be me. I want to do my own thing, right? And we're all born with that.
We're born that way. It's in our nature. It's human nature to just be selfish. We had some amazing news this week.
We have a nephew that was born this week. His name's Maverick. Come on. He's already a stud.
I'm like, how do you look so handsome? And you're a new boy. How many of you know infants are usually not good looking? He's like us.
He looks good, OK? He's a stud already. But how many of you know that Maverick, this baby boy that was born, nobody has to teach him how to be selfish? Is that right?
That's just naturally what happens, because we are born in this line from Adam and Eve, where it's just natural for us to come out of the womb and we're selfish. We have self-pity, self-righteousness, self-protection. We're always promoting ourselves. We're thinking about number one.
We're taking care of our own, right? And we like doing it our own way. And that's how we're born. But Jesus has let us know that we all have a choice of how we deal with our nail polish on the carpet problem.
He's given us freedom to choose. How we deal with this black hole of the soul called our nature. It's a sin nature. It's most natural.
Listen, when you're born, what's most natural for you is to sin. It's just natural. Sometimes you know that the church has been hypocritical and so many people have gotten burned by the church and don't want anything to do with the church, because the church is taking their finger and pointing at the world and accusing the world for something that's natural for them to do. All of the world, what's natural for them is to sin.
And the church is going, look at what you're doing and accusing the world and saying, you're not enough. And look at all the evil that you're doing. And we have to wake up as the people of God and go, I'm not surprised by anything because they're doing what's natural. And we're in the seat of accuser and God's going, that's not the seat that you were supposed to take.
Jesus, in Luke 22, if you have your Bible, you can turn there. It's just it's a famous verse that we're going to look at in Luke 22. But we have this problem. And we have a choice of how are we going to handle the problem that we have.
And do you know what most of us want to handle the problem? When we come out of the room, we want to handle the problem the way that all of that handled the problem, right? The first thing that we do is we try to fix it. We try to fix our sin problem.
And we start smearing our sin problem everywhere as we try to fix it. And we try to do the self-help thing. We're going to do some exercise. I'm going to do some psychology.
I'm going to try to fix me and get right with God. I'm going to try to be a good person. I'm going to serve people. I'm going to work at the soup kitchen.
I'm going to do all the good things to earn it, right? And then we come down with money. We try to buy happiness. We try to buy a house, car, family, whatever.
We try to buy something that can make it go away that black hole in our lives. And then when that doesn't work, we're just going to resort to like, hey, I'm just going to put a rug on it. I'm just going to ignore it like it's not there. I'm just going to move on and try to figure, like I'm just going to wait on it and we'll just stuff it.
And we see Jesus. And in this eyewitness account of Jesus, this moment, he is a couple moments away from going to the cross. And he just had dinner with his disciples, the Last Supper. And he's going to his favorite place where he prays.
It's called the Garden of Gethymity. It's on the Mount of all this. And so this is his favorite spot. It's a garden.
He loves praying there. And he goes into this garden. And he starts having a conversation with God. And I want to we're going to like peek into the conversation that he's having with God.
What he says this, he says, Father, if you're willing, in verse 42, Luke 22, 42, he says, Father, he's talking to God. The Father, he says, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. Remove this cup from me. Jesus knows something that there's prophecies.
And the prophecies say that the Savior is actually going to become one with sin. So what that means is, let's say, let's use me as an example. All of my sin in the past, present, and future, if I could take all of my sin and it could be packed into a little ball, let's say. And just picture with me.
I know this weird. But all of my mistakes, all of my mess ups, all of the evil thoughts I don't want anybody to know about. All of the secrets, I put them into my hands. And then I take that.
And I actually push it into the chest of Jesus. And he becomes one with it. That's what happens for all of your sin, and all of your mom and dad's sin, and all of your brothers and sisters sin, and your neighbors, and your city, and your state, and your nation, and the world. And not just in 2021, but in 1500 and in 30 BC, and 400 BC before Jesus was, before he was a man, he always was.
But there's all of the sin of human history, past, present, and future, it gets pushed into him, and he becomes one with it. He becomes the essence of sin in all of its experience. And talking about all of the rapes of human history, he becomes one with them. All of the injustices, all of the slavery, all of the adultery, all of the hatred, all of the bitterness, he takes it into himself, and he becomes one with it.
And in that moment, he says, Father, I don't want to become one with sin. But then there's something else that he says. He says, could you pass this cup from me? Because Jesus knows that God the Father hates sin.
He has a fury, an anger of vengeance, when he thinks about sin. And the reason why he has so much vengeance is because he knows that sin destroys the ones that he loves. Sin brings death and destruction to the objects of his affection, which is us. So he loves us, and sin destroys us.
It's just, listen, everybody listen. How many of you know that you hate cancer? Do you like cancer? No, you hate cancer.
Why? Because it destroys the ones that you love. That's why you hate cancer. God hates sin because it destroys the ones that he loves.
And so God, he is going to pour out, Jesus knows this prophecy. He's going to pour out the fury of the infinite wrath of his vengeance on sin. Jesus is going to become one with it, and God is going to take the cup of his wrath and pour it out on Jesus. And what does Jesus say?
Look at this. Look at this. He says, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. In other words, I don't want to do it.
Jesus is the God man. It's like we peer into his humanness. And he goes, I don't feel like it, Lord. Right?
I don't feel like becoming one with sin. And I don't feel like suffering under the infinite wrath of my father. So I'd prefer not to, Lord. That's like an understatement, right?
I don't want to, exactly. He says, I don't want to. In the very beginning, Adam and Eve were in the garden. Is that right?
They were the only other sinless people to ever live in human history. And they had a choice in the garden. What were they going to do? And what they chose is they said, not my, not your will, but my will.
They said, I want my way. I want to choose my own way. I don't feel like doing your way. So I'm going to choose my way.
I'm going to do what I desire to do. I'm going to do what I want to do. And it's the hinge of history, all of your pain, all of your heartache, all of your isolation and loneliness, all of the pain of your life. Hinge is back.
It goes back to that decision that Adam and Eve made. I'm going, actually, I want to be the God of my own life. Actually, I want to be the Lord of my own life. I want to be the one in charge.
And the second hinge of history is in this moment. I believe this moment right here, Jesus in the garden, is the most significant moment in human history. I even think that this phrase that Jesus says is the most significant phrase in human history. I honestly believe that.
Look at what he says. He says, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. And then he says a word. He says, nevertheless.
He says, even though I don't feel like it, even though I don't desire it, even though I don't want to, not what I want, but I'm actually going to raise the white flag of surrender over what I feel like. And I'm going to say, you're going to be the Lord, and you're going to be the Father. And I'm going to put you as the one that's creator that's deserving of all adoration and obedience. And I'm going to say, instead of what I want, not what I want, but your way, your will, your desire.
And in that moment, it says, this was the opportune time. Do you remember that Jesus was going to be tempted? He got tempted after his 40 days. Do you remember that?
His 40 days of fasting. He gets tempted. He overcomes the temptation. And then it says that Satan was going to come back at an opportune time.
So Satan's in the garden with Jesus, just like Satan was in the garden with Adam and Eve. And this is his moment of temptation. And he stands before the Father, and he doesn't even acknowledge the serpent. And in the moment of greatest temptation, he just got betrayed by all of his friends.
He's just counting the cost. Do I become one with sin and experience the wrath of God? And he's all alone. His disciples are sleeping in the moment of temptation.
And there he is. And he says, nevertheless, not what I want, what you want. And his heart gets set on the cross. And every single moment, every single choice to stay on that cross, it was already done.
It was already decided. He already sent in his heart. I know what I'm going to do. I already know what I'm going to do.
I've set my heart and my forehead like Flint. I'm going to do this. I'm going to be obedient to the Father. It's not my way.
It's his way. Luke 14. I just want to read a really quick passage here. This passage is just so jam-packed.
Jesus, he's telling a couple of parables. And in verse 31, he says, what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he's able with 10,000 to meet him who comes towards him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
There's other portions of this passage where Jesus is trying to get a point across over and over again. He's saying it all in different ways. But basically, he tells this story of two armies. And one has 10,000, one has 20,000.
The guy knows I'm not going to win, so I'm going to raise the white flag of surrender. I'm going to admit, I can't do it. I can't win. And earlier in this passage, Jesus says this thing that I think is so violent.
He says, if you want to follow me, you have to take up your cross, and then you can follow me. And it's this picture of, hey, I want you to actually pick up an ancient tool of torture that is used for execution. And I want you to pick that up. And that's how you're going to follow me.
And do you know that they would lead those that were going to be executed through the streets just like Jesus. And they would lead them to the place of their execution. They would carry their cross to their own death. And Jesus is making a point.
And he's saying, this is a one-time thing. If you want to follow me, you're going to have to raise the white flag of surrender. And you're going to have to surrender one thing. Listen.
The good news of Jesus doesn't cost you any money. Jesus doesn't want your money. Jesus doesn't want your money. Man, I'm grateful.
I'm glad that you have a lot of cash, and you can be generous with it. But God doesn't want your money. This church doesn't need your money. You can't earn it.
You can't earn the gospel. This isn't something you can buy. And you can't fix your nail polish problem. You can't cover your nail polish problem.
The only way that it's dealt with is through Jesus. And he says, you've got to count the cost. But I don't understand why in this passage, he says, count the cost. Why does he say count the cost if it doesn't cost you anything?
Have you ever thought about that? Jesus, why do you say count the cost when it doesn't cost you anything? It's a free gift of righteousness. And he says, this is the cost that you have to count.
You actually have to dethrone yourself. And you have to take up the cross, which means you have to execute something. And you actually have to die to something. It's free, but you actually have to die to something.
And the thing that you have to die to is your old way of life, your old nature, your old way of doing things. You being on the throne of your life, you being the Lord of your life, you doing whatever you want to do because you want to do it and you have this plan and you're just going to follow through with what you want to do. God's saying, nope, you can't follow me. Don't follow me if you're going to do it your way.
If it's not going, if it's going to be your will, you're not my disciple and he's going, count the cost. Do you want to just do your own thing? Do you want to be the Lord of your own life? Then you can just be you.
And Jesus keeps it real. And he says, just be you. Don't follow me. Just go about your life.
Do your own thing. But if you want to know perfect love, if you want your stain that you've lived with since you were a kid to actually get cleaned and removed, if you actually want to have a relationship with a God that loves you unconditionally, even on your worst day and he's not thinking about all of your messaged and all of your screw ups and how messy your life and he's going, I'm not thinking about that. Oh, man, I love you. If you want to know someone that actually loves you unconditionally and said, I love you so much, I'm going to give all of myself.
It's just like marriage, right? Like godly marriage. Godly marriage that says, for better or for worse, in every valley, every mountaintop, every high and low point, I'm all yours. When a couple gets married, they have to count the cost.
They have to count the cost. They have to die to themselves and go, I'm going to die to every other lover. I'm going to die to every other person and it's only going to be you. And that's what she's saying.
You've got to count the cost if you want to follow me, because there's going to be no other lovers before me. Not your mom, your dad. And what I'm talking about figuratively, not anyone's opinion. Stands even close to me in this passage.
He goes, you've got to hate your father, mother, brother, sister, spouse. He says, and that means love less. In other words, my opinion stands alone. My will.
You're not a man pleaser anymore. You're a god pleaser. And in your moment of temptation, what do you do? You say, not my will.
Not what I feel like. Not what I desire, what you desire, what you want. That's the mark of a Christian. Someone that's counted the cost.
And in the moment of temptation, they go, oh, my goodness. I actually already died to that. And they remind themselves. And they stir themselves up again.
They go, oh, that's not me. Wait. You come into my garden, Satan. Don't you know?
I already got crucified. Don't you already know that sin nature went bye-bye. Don't you know that I already went there. I went to the cross.
Don't you know I already went to the grave? And this is this beautiful story, Sunday morning, Jesus, rises from the dead. Because whenever there's that death, there's a resurrection in Jesus. And it says that we resurrect into newness of life.
Just like maybe Maverick, he was born. You can actually be born again. You can be born with a new nature. It's not a sin nature.
It's actually God's nature. It was your original design. It was what you were always meant to have. You're always meant to be a god pleaser.
Not a man pleaser. Not being prodded by man. Prodded along by the opinions of what everybody else thinks about you. God's going, oh, that's dead.
You get to be a new man, a new woman. We are the choice. How are we going to deal with our nail polish on the carpet problem? The stain, we can't do it.
We can't fix the problem that we have. And we have a choice. Are we going to crucify the life of being a god over my own life and being the Lord over my own life? And every single person has a choice.
And I would encourage you, you are a powerful person to make your own choices. And God is not making you do anything. And no one else is going to make the choice for you. You and me, we all have freedom of choice of what we do with the sacrifice of Jesus, the crucifixion of God.
Do we receive it as a gift? I go, I'm so glad you're available today to deal with the stain that has haunted me for my entire life, the shame and the guilt, the uneasiness about how God feels about me. That can actually get dealt with, where you can actually have a relationship with God and be confident. You can literally come into God's presence and go, here I am.
And you can have a smile on your face and you don't have to have a grimace, because you don't have to be thinking about your sin that he removed from you as far as the east is from the west and you can actually have connection with him. You can have relationship with the God that's seen you from little to older to even then. You can maybe you got wrinkles, whatever it is. God's going, I've been with you the whole time and I've loved you in all of your mess.
We all have a choice. Let's all stand. I just wanna have a moment of response. I believe that today, for some of you, it can be a secondary birthday for you, where you can get a new life and get born again, with a new nature, with a new life, and you can say bye-bye to your old life, bye-bye to doing it my way.
And you can actually surrender your life and raise the white flag over the throne of your life and you can go, instead of my way, I want your way, Lord. I want the way that maybe doesn't seem right to the world, but as I look at it and I see how much you love me and how you have my best in mind, more than I have my best in mind, I'm actually gonna surrender and submit to your way. And I wanna encourage you, if you wanna do that, you can do that in your own words, and you can believe that Jesus died, that he rose again, that he ascended into heaven, that he's coming back, you can believe all those things, but here's the truth. If you believe the gospel of Jesus, that he died for you, and that he rose from the dead, that's amazing.
But belief turns into action. And that belief turns into, I'm gonna follow the way of Jesus. And the way of Jesus is that you go to the cross first, and then you get to enter into life forever more, okay? And so there's an action that we do, when we give our life to Jesus, we count the cost and go, do I wanna say goodbye to my way?
And that's what we count the cost. I wanna just close our eyes, and I just wanna pause for a moment. And I want you to count the cost. Am I gonna say goodbye to my way, to what I think, to what I feel like?
And am I gonna submit and surrender the throne of my life to Jesus? And I just, just like Jesus in the garden, we have a choice. I wanna encourage you that you can make the choice right now. I'm gonna die to that way of life.
I'm gonna crucify that part of my life. You just make a decision, whatever you wanna do, you're free to just choose right now in your own heart. Am I gonna choose to do this right now? I wanna choose.
And for some of us that know Jesus, I've given your life to Jesus already. I just wanna encourage you in this moment, you get to make a choice again. You get to make a choice again, and remind yourself that you're not the one that's in charge over your life. And that you are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and say, not my will, but yours be done.
I've been making it all about me, how I feel, what I want. We just make a choice again. Lord, in the garden of our lives, we choose to follow your way. If that's you, and for the first time you're going, I want to give my life to Jesus today.
I want you to take all of your sin and all of your mistakes. I want you to imagine holding it in your hand. All of the things that you have the most shame about, all of the memories of pain, sins done against you, sins that you've done, and you have a choice. Take that stain, that ball of stains in your hand.
And I want you to take it, and I want you to actually push it into the chest of Jesus. And as you do that, I want you to say the phrase, thank you. Just in your own words, just tell them, thank you so much. Thank you for taking what I couldn't, and removing it from me forever.
Just in your own words, you can say thank you too, for doing all of the work. This is your moment that you get to join Jesus and you get to die to your old way of life. And I just, even in your imagination, you can picture yourself right on the cross next to Jesus. And you can just say to him, in your own words, Lord, thank you that I get to die to this life that has destroyed me on the inside.
I get to die to doing it my own way that's brought destruction in my life. You can just thank him that this thing gets get killed. And in your own words, you can just, in your own time, you can continue the conversation with Jesus, but I'm just gonna pray for us. I'm gonna commission us out.
And if you wanna talk after the service, we'd love to connect with you. If you wanna pray with me, you want me to introduce you to Jesus, whatever that looks like, or if you wanna turn to a friend or a family member and say, hey, I wanna give my life to Jesus today, you can totally do that. But I'm gonna pray. Lord, we thank you that you rose from the dead, and that I get to rise from the dead to newness of life.
Lord, I thank you that you have set us free from sin. You've set us free from our old nature. You've set us free from fear. You've set us free from the slavery to sin.
You've set us free into a life of hope, into a life of compassion, into a life of patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control. You've given us the ability for the very first time to actually live with your spirit on the inside of us so that we can be your representatives. And so Lord, I just thank you for being the God that didn't stay in the grave. Thank you that you rose, thank you that you put on display your power.
We love you and we worship you as the God that brings new birth in Jesus' name. Everybody said amen. Amen, amen. We love you guys.
We will see you next week. Next week is gonna be a big week at Grove. So we'll see you next week.