Grace, Unity, and the Power of the Gospel | Brian Talty

Crossing Family I am so glad that you are here this weekend

as we start our First Corinthians series, and to help

us do that, I've invited Brian Tallte to come and be our

preacher for the weekend. Brian Tallte has been part of

the team at First Christian Church in Decatur, IL since

2004, where he served in a variety of roles from youth

pastor to family ministries pastor, discipleship pastor,

associate pastor, and now as their lead pastor.

He has a bachelor's degree in youth ministry from Billigan

University and a master's degree in Christian education from

Lincoln Christian Seminary. Brian and his wife, Jessica,

love their Decatur community, love their church, love Mexican

food, and they definitely love their four kids.

Crossing family, would you please give a warm welcome to my

friend and colleague and our preacher for the weekend, Brian

Tallte. Oh man, thank you.

It is so good to get to be with you all this weekend.

And you know, you all are your own fish living in your own

fishbowl. So when a fish comes and visits,

I get to have a different perspective.

And you guys, I, I sure hope you don't take for granted what God

is doing in your midst, in this region, through you and in you

and all of that. And I'm just honoured to get to

be a little part of it here today as we kick off First

Corinthians chapter one in this journey that we are on.

So I'm going to invite you to turn in a Bible, if you have it

to 1st Corinthians chapter 1 or and you can turn in your study

guide there to page 5 where you can take some notes.

And as you do that, just a little bit about me.

So personally, I did not grow up doing this.

I did not grow up doing this whole church in God thing, but

through a pretty difficult time as a 16 year old kid, a friend

of mine invited me to a place not too different from this,

where I experienced something completely different and

discovered that the common denominator in the difference

you all had was none other than Jesus Christ.

And so when I received Jesus Christ, I actually didn't only

receive Jesus, but I also received this idea that I wanted

to be to others what I had experienced in people like you.

And so my journey into ministry wasn't all too separate from my

journey with Jesus, which in some ways that's maybe how it

should be for all of us. And so I stepped into youth

ministry because of the way that youth ministry had had such an

impact on my life. And then really my story over

the last 20 years, not all too different from Clayton.

I've been at the same church the last 20 years.

I started off in youth ministry just like Clayton.

In fact, our church over in Decatur, which is like a like a

network brother Church of yours. And I'm going to share a little

bit how those stories come together.

We are this year 191 years old. How crazy is that?

I didn't start the church, so, you know, I don't get much

credit. But one of the fun things about

that church is or this church is that indicator, the original

building met in the County Courthouse there in Decatur

where Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln practice law at the exact same

time. And so we don't have an official

record of Abraham Lincoln attending our church.

We're pretty confident he did. Pretty sure that probably

happened. So with this idea in mind with

starting off in youth ministry 20 years ago as part of that

church, one of the things, and I know you've learned this being

under Clayton's leadership, you can put it this way that you can

take the youth minister out of the youth ministry, but you

can't take the youth ministry out of the youth minister.

It's kind of always with us. So you're kind of like a giant

youth group I know here under Clayton, and one of the things I

want to do to kind of kick off our time is go a little youth

group in here today. Is that OK?

Can we play a little game to kind of get our party started?

All right, we're going to play a little game called Extreme close

Up where I'm going to give you an image that's like a super

tight version of it and you got to see if you can visually zoom

out to decide and discern what it is.

Sound good? OK, let's play.

First image. What do you think you're looking

at there? Some grass.

OK, See anything else going on? Golf ball?

Yes. And more specifically, if you

said Clayton's golf ball in the thick rough, you would be

correct. All right, next one.

Any ideas on what that might be? It's a tricky one.

Well, if anyone guessed all the emails that Brian got when

Clayton guest spoke at his church that Clayton promised

Brian would not receive but went completely out the window when

he invited to the altar everyone wearing underwear.

And in case anyone felt left out, anyone not wearing

underwear. True story.

OK, one more. Yeah, yeah.

Anyone who said RIP from Yellowstone, you would be 100%

wrong. Clearly, this is none other than

your beloved lead pastor, Clayton Hensel.

No, I mean, I know Clayton loves to play the big goofy guy, but I

just got to tell you personally what a gift he has been to me

and our friendship over the last couple of years of wisdom and

encouragement. And I just got to tell you, we

are better in Decatur because of the crossing in Quincy in this

region. So thank you all.

Crossing Church. And so when it comes to our

Bible, one of the things we want to do interestingly, is kind of

play the same game that we want to zoom in and out.

That we want to first. You could say zoom out when it

comes to a book of the Bible, like First Corinthians that

we're looking at here. So that when we zoom back in,

say to a particular book or chapter or passage or verse or

even down to a singular word, we can understand better what is

happening in the zoomed in portion because of the context

of what we have zoomed out to look at.

And chapter one of First Corinthians gives us that zoomed

out picture, kind of like when you're watching a Netflix movie

and you push pause and you've got that little thumbnail, but

you can see where it fits in the bigger story.

That's what we're going to do here today.

We're going to zoom in and out, in and out of First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 to understand not only where we're at today, but where

we're headed through the rest of this incredible book for the

incredible work that I know God wants to do in and through you

personally and as a church. And so with that, let's get this

party started in first Corinthians chapter 1, starting

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

in verse one follow with me says this is from Paul.

Paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God

and our brother Sophones to the church, to the church at of God

in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be

his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on

the name of our Lord Jesus Christ their Lord and ours.

And so it's pretty clear from the opening words of this

chapter that this book is really not a book per SE, but actually

a letter written to a church from Paul to the church at

Corinth. And this is important for us

because as we want to understand what it means for us, it's wise

for us to 1st understand what it meant for them.

Because kind of a pro tip when it comes to reading your Bible

is particularly a letter written to a particular church is that

it cannot mean for us what it did not at least first mean for

them. And so to understand this

context of First Corinthians in the bigger context, I'm going to

need some volunteers to help me out here on stage 7 of you to be

exact. Now, I think 48th St's already

hand picked some of you to come and join me.

So the rest of you, your cortisol levels can just go down

a bit because you're not going to have to come up on stage.

So go ahead and come on stage if you are going to party with us

on stage here. So we're going to youth group.

Again, we're getting some volunteers on stage.

I promise I'm not like a magician.

I'm not going to saw you in half and put you back together,

anything like that. And So what you're going to find

are some pink stickers on the ground.

If you can everyone just find a pink sticker.

And just to make sure that the whole crossing family can see

you, we're all going to face this way to make sure we all get

a good glimpse of your beautiful faces.

And we're going to walk through essentially a living timeline of

really the beginning of time all the way up to current time and

where you crossing fit into this story.

It's a pretty cool reality. So we're going to start in the

beginning here at, you could say the creation of time, which you

read about in Genesis, which is the kickoff book to the Bible,

the 66 books of the Bible. So I'm going to turn you this

way, buddy. And here's what we're going to

do. You're going to be old.

I know you are not old, but for this purpose, you're going to

represent the Old Testament. And so I need you to kind of

just lean over like you have a cane here and just kind of act

old. Don't bend over too far.

Your back will go out and you'll fall down and it'll be a mess

and you'll be a funny stone video.

And we don't want this. So yeah, that's a perfect

posture. And so that's the first 39 books

of the Bible, which essentially, you could say, boiled down, the

purpose of those first 39 books of the Old Testament is to point

us to what happens in the New Testament, none other than the

coming of Jesus himself. And so we turn the page to the

New Testament. The first four books of that is

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, where we see the coming of

Christmas, Christmas in August. And so with that, I'm going to

have you, young lady, just kind of hold baby Jesus.

Not, not easy. I mean, this is Jesus we're

talking about. So maybe a little little more

support there on the. Yeah, perfect, perfect.

And what we know about Jesus is even though he came as a baby in

a Manger, he did not stay that way.

That he lived, he ministered, he died and he rose for the

forgiveness of our sins and the gift of a new life of which it's

that message that Paul sets the foundation for his book.

Check this out verse 3 Paul, he says grace and peace to you man

who doesn't want that. Where does it come from from God

our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ.

He goes on. He says I always thank my God

for you in this because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.

Simply put, the foundation for his letter to the Corinthian

church is the same foundation for us as the crossing church.

With this reality in mind that regardless of whatever topic we

are looking at on a particular Sunday, the topic is always

going to be the gospel of Jesus Christ underlying all of it.

And so that's the reality that comes in the coming of Jesus.

But as we said, doesn't stay a baby, but we know goes to the

cross for all this reality. So I'm going to actually have

you shift your baby Jesus to the cross of Christ to represent

this gospel message of which we are all about.

And so that's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Then we turn the page to the 5th book of the New Testament, which

is the book of Acts or the Acts of the Apostles or really the

Acts of the Holy Spirit working through the apostles to start

this thing we called the church. And so in Acts chapter 2, this

Acts 2 · chapter mention

guy by the name of Peter who hung out with Jesus preaches the

very first Christian sermon other than someone from Christ,

you could say. And so in Acts chapter 2, all

Acts 2 · chapter mention

these people are moved by the gospel of Jesus.

And I'm like, what should we do? They're cut to the heart.

And he says repent, be baptized for the forgiveness of your

sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And 3000 people said yes to Jesus that day, and thus the

church was born. And So what you're going to do,

you're going to be Peter and you're going to proclaim the

message of Jesus into the future of our timeline.

So you just kind of cup your hands like that and then point

that direction into the future because this is what changes

everything. OK.

And so you guys have to hold this position for a while.

So don't get tired on me. All right?

And then, buddy, you get to represent the rest of the New

Testament, the rest of the the Bible, which is essentially

letters written to the church on how to follow Jesus, of which

first Corinthians finds its home.

And so you're going to write us some love letters from the Lord

there, and that's what you'll be doing the rest of our time here

together. So you keep writing and writing

good stuff. All right.

And so that's what's happening. So what does the apostle Paul

write to the church at Corinth about what it means to be the

church and to follow Jesus? Pick it up, verse 5.

It says for in him you have been enriched in every way with all

kinds of speech and with all knowledge.

So Paul saying you've got everything you need, you're

enriched, you're equipped for everything.

Verse 6, thus confirming our testimony about Christ among

you, because verse 7, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you

eagerly wait our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

Verse 8, we have this promise that he will keep us firm.

He will keep you firm to the end so that you will be blameless on

the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And how can we trust this this promise to be true?

Well, actually it's on the first opening page of your study

guide. Verse 3.

It should be. Verse 9 God is faithful God, He

is faithful who has called you into the fellowship with his

Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. I love the way that the

Scriptures paint this faithfulness of Jesus in other

settings, talks about how Jesus is like a groom to his bride,

faithful to his church as us, the bride, that we have this

understanding that he will never leave us or forsake us, you

could say, despite our every attempt as man to leave and

forsake him, which really takes us to the next chapter, if you

will, of this bigger church history story.

You see, ever since Acts chapter 2, there is a lot of church

Acts 2 · chapter mention

history about 2000 years. And so for the sake of time,

we're going to kind of speed things up and we're going to

have you represent about 1500 years of church history.

So I'm going to have you go like real wide, OK, Just don't hit me

or this guy in the eye here because you've got, that's a

great wingspan. You're on it, dude, right now.

Don't get tired on me. If he goes all Moses on us, you

got to hold up his arm, you know, just jump in there a

little bit. But for 1500 years of church

history, let's just say short version, some stuff happened,

OK? Some stuff happened, some stuff

went down. There was some problems, there's

some challenges and all of this different stuff where

essentially by the time we get to about 1500 in our church

story timeline, there's all kinds of problems, There's

corruption, there's compromise of truth.

Like the political enmeshment of the day was so much you couldn't

even separate it from the church.

In fact, it's been said this way that when maybe you've heard to

say that mixing religion and politics, it's kind of like

mixing ice cream with manure. Yeah, it doesn't do much to the

manure, but it sure does ruin the ice cream.

That about sums it up. And that's exactly what's going

on in the church. Things were a mess.

And so this guy by the name of Martin Luther in protest, you

might be familiar with the term the Protestant Reformation.

He protests what's going on in the church by nailing his 95

theses or his 95 ideas. This this kind of document to

the door of the church on the 95 things he thinks needs to change

to be better, which kind of like modern day complaint emails

didn't go super well. And So what you have is

essentially the biggest church split and separation that you

have ever seen. And so as we think about this

larger story of the church splitting and what happens as a

result of that, I want to zoom back in to 1st Corinthians to a

similar issue that Paul is trying to avoid.

In fact, Clayton, he set the table so well for us,

recognizing that this whole book is just going to be issue after

issue like a game of whack A mole that Paul's going to be

taking on. So I want you guys to get out

your mallets because we're going to take on the very first issue

right here, verse 10. Look what Paul says.

He says, I appeal to you. Other translations say, I urge

you, I beg you, I exhort you. One translation says, I beseech

you, I don't even know what that word means, but it sounds

serious. And so Paul, he's saying, I

appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord

Jesus Christ, that you do this, that you agree with one another

in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but

that you would be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Now, I don't know about you, but as I read that, I'm thinking

that is a laughable almost command, not only for their day,

but in our day that we would agree there'd be no divisions

and be perfectly united. Now, I don't want you to miss

what Paul is not saying here. What what Paul is not saying is

that we have to agree on everything or in the Corinthian

church in this case, he's saying, hey, you don't have to

agree on the color of the carpet in the new sanctuary.

You don't have to even agree on what the logo is going to look

like for the First Corinthians Christian Church or whatever

they're called. Or in this case, we're going to

see in verse 11 who gets to pick the guest preacher, which maybe

you'd like to have to say on that because like, man, you

know, this Brian guy's OK, but I really like Clayton.

He is funnier, which I would agree, Clayton is funnier, but

that's essentially what's happening in verse 11.

He says this. My brothers and sisters, some

from Chloe's household have informed me that there are

quarrels among you. And what I mean to say is this.

Paul says, one of you says I follow Paul, Another says I

follow Apollo's, Yet another says I follow Cephas or Peter

from Acts chapter 2, who preaches the very first

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Christian sermon, Christian sermon, but still another I

follow Christ. And essentially what we're

seeing here in this story played out to the negative in the

larger context, zoomed out story of the church is as soon as

Martin Luther kind of drew that first big line in the sand that

says, hey, you're not getting it right.

This is how we get it right. Along comes another guy and

says, well, actually you're not getting it right.

This is the right way to do it. And then there's another guy who

says, essentially none of y'all are getting it right and we're

getting it right. And on and on.

It goes into all kinds of different guys and different

denominations and sub denominations all interestingly

being named after all kinds of individuals other than the only

one it should be named after, Jesus Christ.

And so interestingly, it's a result of all this splintering

and and separation that we really see this spider web kind

of kind of branch out into the future of the church.

And so I'm going to have you be our spider man and I need to

give you the role of giving me your best kind of Spidey web.

So if you know how that move go, yeah, you know how it goes.

And we're going to go ahead and shoot that into the future of

the church, that direction. Keep our time.

Oh yeah, not your first rodeo. No, no, no.

And So what this spider web reveals is essentially that ever

since we have been in direct contradiction, even conflict

with the command of Paul and 1st Corinthians to be united around

Christ. In fact, this is kind of a crazy

stat that Did you know that according to the Center for the

Study of Global Christianity, that there are more than 45,000

registered Christian denominations worldwide, more

than 45,000. Like, that is mind boggling.

And so if you've ever wondered like, hey, where did all these

denominations come from, really? In the story of church history,

about 500 years ago is when all of that took off.

And so, zooming back in to the Church of Corinth, this is what

Paul is trying to avoid right out of the gate.

He's putting the kibosh on following names like himself,

Paul, or this guy Apollos, or again, Cephas or Peter, and only

following Jesus. And so with all this history in

mind, you can kind of get that zoomed out picture and kind of

hold on to it. It was in the year about 1800

where this storyline began to take a significant shift because

in that present day, about 200 years ago, there were all kinds

of denominations being named after guys like Luther or Wesley

or Calvin. And what I want to share with

you is so cool because this is where the crossing story comes

into play. But a couple 100 years ago, as a

result of all this denominationalism and spider

webbing, there were a group of guys, some pastors from some

various denominations who essentially said this is crazy.

This is crazy. Not only is this crazy, but this

is in direct contradiction to the scriptures like First

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

Corinthians chapter 1. Furthermore, it's in direct

contradiction to things that Jesus said.

In fact, Jesus final prayer that we have recorded in the

scriptures in John 17, listen to this.

This is exactly what Paul is saying to that church, to us as

a church is what Jesus said for us as a church.

Check this out. After Jesus in this big prayer

praying for his original disciples, he prays for us in

the future 2000 years later, saying, I pray also for those

who will believe in me through their message that all of them

may be 1. Jesus says I have given them the

glory, God the Father, that you have given me, so that they may

be 1, so that they may be one as we are one, I in them, you and

me, so that they may be brought to what?

Complete unity. Complete unity.

Now is this just like unity's for unity's sake?

No, there's very specific understanding of what we're

unifying ourselves around. This is the other side of the

coin. Jesus says that we need to be

sanctified by the truth. Your word is truth.

Because when we do this church, when we unify ourselves around

the truth of God's Word, which reveals Jesus Christ as Lord and

Savior over all, that says that, then the world will know.

It is then that the world will know.

Jesus says that you sent me and have loved them even as you have

loved me. And so again, around 1800,

there's this group of Jesus followers rallying around this

reality that said, hey, we are not going to be a denomination

named after some other guy other than the guy Jesus, the God man

himself. And So what we are part of is

that tradition. That's not a denomination.

We actually, we would say we are independent of a denomination

and known more by a mantra. This understanding of like a we

are a restoration movement or a restoration unity movement where

we are about constantly restoring ourselves and our

church around the unity of the truth of Scripture that reveals

Jesus Christ. And so in honor of that movement

of what your church and our church over in Decatur again,

are part of that same brotherhood, I'm going to have

you bud, take my Bible here and I want you to give it a big hug.

Just give it a big squeeze because that represents what it

looks like for us to be unified as a church around the word of

God. Because when we do this, that is

again, no surprise that we look at the whole story of Scripture

again. Let's go back to the beginning

that we talk about Jesus who created all things good or God

who created all things good. Jesus was a part of all of that.

And two chapters in, we kind of mess all that up and sin enters,

but that's OK because Jesus comes and he is making things

right. And then from there we are

proclaiming that message into the future and we're learning

what it looks like to live out that future as the church

despite 1500 years of trying to deny that.

And all the denominations. We want to say as a church, we

want to say as individuals that make up the church, we are going

to unify ourselves around Jesus Christ as revealed in the truth

of God's Word. Can you give our volunteers a

round of applause for jumping up here?

Guys are awesome, love it. And I think 48th St. they've got

some like free drink coupons to the cafe.

We figured that was the least we could do, and we always try to

do the least we can do. So that's how that works.

The apostle Paul, he goes really on just to keep reinforcing this

reality of which again, I'm so thankful crossing church, you

are already rallying around. So don't hear this as anything

other than an encouragement of what we are already about as we

continue to go into the days ahead as a church.

Verse 13, Paul just reminds us, is Christ divided?

Says, was Paul crucified for you?

Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Paul says, I thank God that I did not baptize any of you

except Crispus and Gaius so that no one can say that you were

baptized in my name. Yes, I also baptized the

household of Stephanus. But beyond that, I don't

remember who I baptized. If anyone else.

It's like, what is he talking about?

Like, have you ever read like this is one of the most

hilarious verses in all the Bible to me.

It's like this stream of consciousness where he's just

like, I don't remember who I baptized.

It's like, but that's kind of the point because the point is

not the point. Who did the baptizing?

He doesn't care if I did the dunking or you did the dunking.

The point is not who does the baptizing, but the one in whose

name we are baptized in none other than the name that saves

Jesus Christ. That's all that matters.

He goes on verse 17. He says, for Christ did not send

me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, of which baptism is our

first response. Our response to say yes to that

gospel, not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of

Christ be emptied of its power. Listen, there is nothing

eloquent about a message of a torture device called a cross

then any more than a message about an electric chair would be

today. It's foolishness to those who

don't know the saving power of it.

To those who are being saved, it is the power of God because it

is the power of Jesus Christ alone as revealed by his Word

alone. Amen.

Amen. There's an expression, you

probably heard it, that you can give a man a fish and feed him

for a day, or you can teach a man to fish and feed him for a

lifetime. And I'm just so thankful that

you crossing church understand that that is really the the

mindset of what the church really is.

That you all understand that this gathering for an hour on a

Sunday is really not the end of the game, but really the start

of the journey. That this one hour on a Sunday

is designed not to be the finish line, but the starting line into

the other 167 hours that you have each and every week.

And I am so thankful that they don't just say that around here,

but they give you the tools and the resources to make that a

reality. And so again, I just, I have no

stake in this, but I just can't tell you enough like how

incredible a gift it is that they are putting this resource

in your hands to be able to get into God's word starting

tomorrow on a daily regular basis.

Just knowing the power of God's Word, not just opinion or just

kind of philosophical, like if you weren't here last week,

Clayton, he shared like statistically empirical evidence

of the power of being in God's Word just four times per week.

It came out of this huge study, the Center for Biblical

Engagement that once you hit that four times a week mark, the

decrease of the evidence and loneliness and anger and lying

and sexual immorality in the life of a person who takes us in

just four times a week. And then the increase of the

ability to do what Jesus did for us, forgive others, to live in

and to live out and share our faith with others.

They have actually coined this understanding because such a

powerful result of the study, the power of four.

That's how pivotal this study has been in like quantitative

statistics. And so today we have taken some

time in our hour to zoom out to see where First Corinthians fits

in the Bible, where the Bible fits in the church, where the

church fits in the story of history.

But now is the invitation. Now is the invitation to find

how the story of Scripture fits back into you or really better

said, gets back into you. Kind of like those old Gatorade

ads where they have like the athlete that's sweating like

blue and orange and yellow Gatorade, which is kind of gross

but kind of cool at the same time.

But what's the tagline? Is it in you?

Is it in you? That's what Clayton and the

leadership of this church wants for you to be able to get God's

word into you. And so four times a day, I think

this organization should come back and study the crossing

church to find out what happens when 7 * a week, excuse me, 4

times a week to seven times a week that would do for you and

in you and through you. Just this idea that all of you

would be pointed in the same direction, rallying around God's

word in the same way. It is just going to be a

continuation of what I already see happening and what you are

experiencing this, the living out of this mantra that I love,

that you are committed to be the kind of place that makes this

region the hardest place to get to hell from such a cool

reality. And when you all point in the

same direction, I can't wait to see what this keystone habit,

it's what habit formation experts, just one little domino

push forward that just unfolds everything that God wants to do

in and through you through his word by the power of his Holy

Spirit. OK.

And so with this idea, and I just want to challenge you to

take this in, to recognize that what it is you're going to do

this week and for weeks ahead is more than just information.

Because that's what we read. A lot of things for us, we open

up our phones or a book, whatever we read for either

entertainment or information. That's you know, that's why you

read. But did you know that God's Word

is not designed for either of those two things?

Now don't get me wrong, there's plenty of entertaining stories

and lots of information, but God's word was not designed

primarily for information, but by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Transformation. Transformation is the goal.

No one's ever been changed by information alone.

It's been said if all we needed was information, well then we'd

all be millionaires and have 6 pack abs.

Let's be honest now we need to move from informed to

transformed. That we would not just read the

word of God, but that we would actually become it.

This is crazy. I want to wrap up with this

verse out of Second Corinthians. The second letter from Paul to

the church accord. This is so good.

Check this out because when we do this church, this is what the

promise of God's word is for us. From this letter, says you

yourselves then, are our letter. When we do this, we become the

letter written on hearts known and read by everyone around us.

That you would show that you are a letter from Christ, the result

of our ministry, written not with ink, but the Spirit of the

living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human

hearts. And so may we be, by the power

of His Holy Spirit, intersecting with the Word and our lives, not

people filled up with information, but of

transformation, living letters, that we would further your

Kingdom, Lord Jesus, only by your power and always, all for

your glory. Amen, Amen.

Amen. Let's move to a time of

decision. What I love about this

opportunity that we have right now gathered in this room and

gathered with the people who are watching online is that

transformation can take place. That transformation can can take

place right now in the hearts and the lives of somebody in

this room, somebody who's never started an intimate personal

relationship with Jesus Christ. The the reality of the truth is,

is when some of you walked in or some of you stumbled upon the

feed you, you're feeling a whole bunch of different emotions or

you're feeling different things inside of you because of the

things that are going your life. Some of you just feel lost, like

you're just looking for something and you don't know

where to find it. Some of you are feeling a little

bit confused. Maybe you've been hurt by the

church in the past. Or maybe you're, you're just

feeling hurt because of what someone has done to you or, or

or said to you or about you. Maybe you're like, Hey, the

reason I have not felt this transformation, I've never

started that intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ

is because you just feel a lot of guilt.

You're just like, man, I've made too many mistakes, mistakes I

messed up way too many times. Some of you in this room, if

you're honest with me and if you're honest with yourself, you

feel beat up. The world is just like hammering

you down or you feel torn down and some of you and you're just

like on your your last leg and you you're actually have this

battle in your mind is do I do I give up?

I want to also share another scripture with you, the second

letter as well. And 2nd Corinthians chapter 5,

verse 17. It says this incredible truth

where this transformation takes place.

It says that anyone who belongs to Christ Jesus, anyone who

declares Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and their personal

Savior says becomes a new person.

The old life is gone and the, the new life has begun.

It's, it's what you see in the baptistry every single week,

whether it's at this location or one of our other locations.

You even see the shirt, it says made new because a

transformation takes place because of the saving grace of

Jesus Christ. And I just got to be honest with

you, for some of you, you've been trying to get this

transformation. You've been trying to do it

yourself. You've been trying to say, I'm

just going to be a better person or a I'm just going to go to

church more. I'm just going to make sure

religion saves me or my family. He has saved me or my, my, my

network of friends can save me. But I'm just letting you know,

none of those things save you. The only way that you can be

personally transformed is when you say yes to Jesus and you

respond to him in faith. And you say, I believe that

Jesus is my, is the Christ, the, the son of the living God.

And I want him as my personal Lord and Savior and my prayers

that today there's somebody in this room and somebody watching

online who will make that decision.

For the very first time a transformation will take place

the old is is gone and the new has come and if you have

questions about what that looks like there's going to be someone

in this room right by the baptistry when the music starts

and we start to sing and respond.

You can make your way right over by the baptistry.

You can ask whatever question God has put on your heart and

put on your mind and it could be answered today is that's my

prayer is that transformation will take place as you start

this relationship with God through Jesus and for the rest

of us in this room. If for those of us who are

following after Jesus, chasing after Jesus.

I I just need to take a moment real quick and I need you to

stretch yourself in a couple ways.

First stretch. Here it is you ready.

Look at those around you. It'll be weird for a little bit.

Look behind you, look in front of you.

Look down your row. Don't just look at me.

There are brothers and sisters in this room from all sorts of

backgrounds, all sorts of experiences.

But here we are chasing after Jesus, asking his Holy Spirit to

do a work inside of us, trusting that his Word is alive and

active and God breathes and it's useful to teach us and to

correct us and to rebuke us and to train us.

Let this be a church that finds unity and what we're chasing

after, not division in the things that can divide us just a

little bit. When the music starts, you know,

the invitation is always open for these steps.

If you're carrying a burden, if you many, if you're like in

this, this moment of the sermon invitation, you're wrestling

with me. Am I part of some division

that's happened in the church? Maybe you just need to lay that

down or you just need to say, God, I, I need you to help me in

this situation. These steps are always open.

A great place for you to humble yourself before the Lord and

just give him whatever is on your heart.

And he's wants to just help carry some of that burden.

But I also want to conclude this time stretching you in a second

way. Rather than just saying, hey, we

want to be a church about unity and not division, and we want to

be a church that cares for our brothers and sisters around us.

We're going to kind of live it out in this moment.

So what I want to invite you to do is for the person to your

right. If you don't have a person to

your right, maybe you just pick a different person.

Or if you're online and you're in the car or you're at home and

someone's next to you, you're just simply going to pray for

that person specifically. You don't need to pray out loud.

OK, could be a silent prayer, but I want you to pray for them.

You don't know what they're going through.

You don't know the questions they're wrestling with.

You don't know the hurts that they're holding on to.

But I want to be a church committed praying for one

another as well. So I'm going to give you just a

few moments to do that. And I'm going to conclude with a

prayer myself. So why don't you pray?

Pray for the person next to you. Pray for the person by you.

Jesus made this time be a time that you look down at your

church, you look down and you see people who are carrying the

burdens of other people carrying the burdens of brothers and

sisters, followers who are chasing after you and, and I

pray that Lord, you may be glorified through this time.

Lord, I pray that as we continue in our worship and as we

continue to just respond in whatever way that you're calling

us to respond. For some, it's to make you Lord

and Savior to have that transformation take place.

For others, it's to lay a burden down or to continue praying for

a brother and sister. Lord, I pray that there's unity

found inside this room that Lord, when we sing this song

that you truly are the center of our hearts.

You're the center of our lives that everything that's on our

minds and in our it just it speaks your name.

I pray that our actions reflect you that our our minds are

completely transformed by the renewing of your word as well.

So God, as we we respond in this moment, I pray you receive all

the glory. We love you.

We pray all this your name, Amen.

You guys can stand, you can sing, you can respond.