God's Covenant and the Last Plague

Oh, crossing family, I want to welcome those of you joining at

all of our physical locations. So whether or not you're here at

our 48th St. location, joining us from Macomb or Kirksville,

929 Pike County, Hannibal, Lima, Mount Sterling, Keokuk,

Monmouth, Jacksonville, as well as those of you who are joining

us online. And a special shout out to those

of you who are part of the crossing inside, as we just

celebrated the baptisms that have been happening there.

I love it. Just because you're locked up

doesn't mean that your heart is, because Jesus will find a way.

And we are so excited to be able to minister and partner with

you. I also want to welcome those of

you who are joining for the first time or the first time in

a long time. God is always working, always

moving, and the fact that you are here today is a sign that

God is trying to draw you closer to Him.

You're going to hear this later in the service, but I want to

encourage you. Take advantage of the QR code on

the seat in front of you and swing by the New Here booth in

the lobby. Why?

Connected? Things grow when you stay

unconnected. You don't.

A battle is going on for your peace, your life, your eternity.

The good news is you don't have to do it alone.

This church across three states serving 22 counties and 10,000

square miles wide is in your corner.

Our hope is simple to make this region the hardest place on

planet earth to get the hell from.

And if you are listening to my voice right now, you are either

the focus of this mission or you are part of this mission.

And there is no middle ground. Now, if you're new to the church

or you've gone for a bit because you've been enjoying this

summer, we are in a brand new sermon series called Decisions

in the Desert. Following God through trials and

triumphs, Every single one of us, we are going to find

ourselves in the desert at some point in time.

You are either coming out of the desert, you are either in the

desert or, and I hate to break this to you because you're like

those two, first two aren't me. Well, that means you're probably

going into a desert. It might be in your

relationships, it might be spiritually, but we will go

through dry, discouraging times. And the decisions that you make

in the desert will define you. They will determine your

destiny. And if you have missed this

series at any point in time as we've been kind of going through

and you're wanting to catch up, there's all kinds of ways for

you to check that out. You can see us on the website,

YouTube, podcast, Spotify, and sometimes you might be going,

you know what, my friend? I really know that they're going

through something and they could really be a benefit to it.

Knowing where those things are will gives you the opportunity

to be able to share it. So that way you can minister to

them passively. Now, as we've been going through

this series, there have no doubt been some, what would you say,

some moments that are confusing, maybe a little bit challenging.

And I want you to know that today is no different.

There are going to be some tough things in this section of

Scripture, so we're going to need a little bit of background.

So I'm going to teach for about 10 minutes and then I'll preach

and I'll get you guys out of here in under an hour and 45

minutes. Promise.

All right, if you were to open up your Bible first page, you

find yourself in Genesis and what we hear read in Genesis,

not just the creation of the world, but God's interaction

with Adam and Eve. After Adam and Eve, God has an

interaction with a guy named Noah, Noah and his ark.

After that, God enters into a conversation with a man by the

name of Abram, and God makes a promise to Abram that his future

generations will be a special people and he will give them a

land of their own, a promised land.

The land that was belonged to them was called Canaan.

This is modern day Israel, modern day West Bank, modern day

Gaza, Jordan, and parts of Syria and Lebanon.

God changed Abraham's name to Abraham.

So if you're reading through the Bible and he's talking to

Abraham and then all of a sudden he's talking about the Abraham.

Same guy. Abraham had a son named Isaac.

Isaac had a son named Jacob. Check this out.

Surprise, surprise, God changed Jacob's name to Israel.

Why does all of this matter? So when you are reading the Old

Testament and you hear things like children of Abraham,

Hebrews, Jews, or Israelites, they are talking about the exact

same group of people. They're talking about the people

who come out of the family tree of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and

they are called children of Abraham.

They're called Israelites, Hebrews and Jews.

Now, Jacob has a bunch of sons and as is common in large

families, some of the kids don't like some of the other kids.

Raise your hand if you've heard stories right.

And but they took it to a whole new level.

Like if you think your family is jacked up, this family is the

most jacked up. And the all the older brothers

got together and they sold the youngest brother at the time by

the name of Joseph into slavery. And Joseph is sold into slavery

and he ends up in a country called Egypt.

While he is in Egypt, he is obedient to what God tells him

to do, and he rises to power and ends up being put second in

command in all of Egypt. He does so because he protected

Egypt and all the surrounding countries from extinction

because of a famine. Well, many years later, Pharaoh,

which is what the Egyptians would call their king Pharaoh,

comes to power and he has no memory, no recollection of what

God had done through Joseph and how Joseph and Joseph's God had

saved his people. And so instead of honoring the

Israelites, he enslaved the Israelites, and the Israelites

lived in captivity. So God raises up two people,

Moses and Aaron, and they go to Pharaoh to tell him to let the

people of God go, Let the Hebrews go, let the Jews go, let

the children of Abraham go, let the Israelites go and Pharaoh

refuses. So God does some plagues, signs

and wonders to not only reveal to the Egyptians that God is

real, he should be trusted, he should be followed, and he

should be worshipped, but also to show the Israelites, because

the Israelites have been living in slavery where they really

don't see the hand of God moving and working in their life.

And when God is doing the plagues and the signs and

wonders, it's also not just to show the Egyptians that God is a

is God, but it's also to show the Israelites that God is God

and should be worshipped, obeyed and followed.

Some of the plagues that happened affected everybody,

both the Egyptians, who are the slaveholders, and the Israelites

who were the slaves. But some of the plagues happened

in Egypt. And inside of Egypt there was

this piece of property, they called it the land of Goshen.

This is where the Israelites had their homes.

It's where they raised their families.

It's where they cooked their meals in slavery.

And in during some of the plagues, there'd be a plague in

Egypt. But all the way around Egypt

there'd be plagues, except for in this little spot called the

land of Goshen where the people of God were, there was no

plague. Plague, no plague.

Today we are going to talk about the last plague.

Last week we talked about the 1st 9:00.

Today we're going to talk about the 10th plague.

It's called the death of the first born.

Exodus Chapter 11 verses first one, and then we'll do four and

Exodus 11 · chapter mention

seven. Now the Lord had said to Moses,

I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt.

After that he will let you go from here, and when he does he

will drive you out completely. So Moses said this is what the

Lord says, about midnight I will go throughout Egypt.

Every first born son in Egypt will die, from the first born

son of Pharaoh who sits on the throne, to the first born son of

the female slave who is at her hand, mill and all.

The first born of the cattle as well.

There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt, worse than

there has ever been or ever will be again.

But among the Israelites, not a dog will bark at any person or

animal. Then you will know that the Lord

makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

And I just go ahead and tell you there is no way for you to hear

what we just read and not be a little confused and a little

conflicted because this is kind of a head scratcher.

And if you're here for the first time, you're like, this is

definitely not what I was thinking about when I was

thinking about God. Like, hey, I want to come to

church and start getting my life right with God.

And the first thing you're going to tell me is about God goes out

and kills the first born. So let's unpack that for a

little bit. All right, First thing I would

tell you is remember at the very beginning of of the story,

Pharaoh had issued a decree that all of the Hebrew boys that were

born should be killed. God is punishing them for their

cruel act #2 God has giving given the Israelites and he has

given the Egyptians. 9 Signs and wonders 9 plagues and giving

them a chance to acknowledge God, worship God, obey God,

follow God. And the Bible tells us that to

whom much is given, much will be expected.

They have had nine opportunities to not just witness the hand of

God, the mighty acts of God, and yet still they have a heart that

refuses to acknowledge God and there are consequences.

Jesus and his teaching says blessed are those who believe

even though they don't see. Why does this matter?

Because the the centerpiece of the Christian life or the way

you access the Christian life is through faith.

Faith is not the absence of evidence, but faith is the

absence of sight. And the only way to please God

is through faith. Faith.

And so the more you have seen of God, the higher he will raise

the accountability or the standard for how you and I are

to behave. So when you see the hand of God

in an indisputable way in your life, you will be held

accountable for how you lived. As a result of that, all of

these people have seen 9 plagues in six months and they're still

gone. Yeah, I'm not going to follow

you. Third thing we need to know.

Paul teaches us in the book of Romans that there is no one

righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands.

There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away.

They have together become worthless.

There is no one who does good, not even one.

Romans chapter 323 says this, for all have sinned and fall

short of the glory of God. Going further, Romans 623 says

for the wages of sin is death. Why does all this matter?

I'll tell you, nobody who died in the 10th plague was innocent.

Everybody who died deserved to die.

The question is why are they dying?

Is because they have fallen short of the perfect and holy

standard of God. You might be going, well, I

don't think that's right, and I hear you.

That's fine. And when you speak your own

world into existence with your words, you can make your own

rules. But since you don't have a

universe and you're not a God, maybe you should shut up #4 I

want you to know that God is perfect and holy, including

every decision that He makes. So even when God is punishing,

he is right in the punishing. Look what it says in Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 32 · chapter mention

chapter 32. I will proclaim the name of the

Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our

God. He is the rock.

His works are perfect and all His ways are just.

A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just.

Is He. To be clear, while there is.

While this story is hard to hear, there's not a single

person who deserved or who didn't deserve to die.

All of them deserved it. The tougher truth is that you

and I deserve to die as well. The real question we should be

asking is why did those people die?

The question we should be asking is why are we not dead yet?

Because we have fallen short of the standard of God.

The reason you and I are still alive and we have the

opportunity today to respond to His goodness is because God is

not just perfect and holy, He is also good and great and gracious

and compassionate. So how did God protect the

Israelites from this plague of death?

He gave them very specific commands that they were to take

a lamb without blemish and they were to kill it.

They were to be careful not to break a single bone when they

did so, and they were to take some of the blood and they were

to sprinkle it on the top and on the sides of the door frame of

their house. And then they were to take a

meal with bread that had no leaven in it, no yeast.

It was like the original flatbread for hippies.

God was to say, when you eat this meal, we're going to do

flatbreads. And inside of this we can find

it in Exodus chapter 12, verse 21.

Exodus 12:21

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to

them, Go at once and select the animals for your families and

slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it

into the blood in the basin, and put some of the blood on the top

and on both sides of the door frame.

None of you shall go out of the door of your house until

morning. When the Lord goes through the

land to strike down the Egyptians, He will see the blood

on the top and the sides of the door frame and will pass over

that doorway, and He will not permit the destroyer to enter

your house and strike you down. Now, for just a second, anytime

you're reading the Bible, it's really good for you to kind of

like roll around in the text until you get some letters stuck

to you. So imagine for just a second

that you are an Israelite getting ready to go through this

Passover meal. Some of you would be a little

freaked out. Some of you would be excited

because you're a second born and you're tired of sharing a room.

You're like, he deserves to die, Lord, take him.

Right. I know you guys.

I know you second borns and you got two guys.

You got Burton Kurt. And they're both a little

nervous about, you know, they're both talking about, hey, what

are we supposed to do? Yeah, We, you know, we, we got

the land. We go ahead, we went ahead and

we, we got ourselves our stuff taken care of and we went out

and we put stuff over the door. And.

But, you know, I got to be honest with you, Bert, I'm a

little nervous. Really.

Yeah. I mean, you know, my dad's a

first born and I'm a first born and my kids are first born and,

you know, it's just a little. So I'm a little nervous.

I'm a little scared. I'm a little worried.

And Kurt's like, I'm not. You're not.

No. Why not?

Well, I mean, I, I did what God told me to do.

And Bert's like, well, I did too.

I went, I put the, I put the blood where I was supposed to

put the blood and I did the stuff with the lamb that I was

supposed to do with the lamb. I did all the same things.

I'm just a little scared. And you could look at Burton

Curtin and be like, one has a ton of faith and the other one

just has a little What happened after the Passover?

They come out of their house the next morning.

Did Burt or Kurt lose anybody in their home?

No. Did the one who was confident

that they would be completely fine and protected lose any of

the first born in their family? No.

What about the one who was nervous?

Did he lose anybody? What about the one who was

scared? Did he lose anybody?

No, neither 1 lost any of the first born in their home.

Why? Because death passed over them,

not on account of the strength of their conviction, but whether

or not through faith they had covered themselves and the door

frame of their house by the blood.

It is called the Passover because the judgment of God

passed over them on account of the blood, and by faith in

obedience they did what God had called them to do.

The faith was not in themselves. The faith, great or small, was

in the obedience that they had that God would do what He said

He was going to do. This became for the Israelites

what July 4th is for rednecks in the Midwest.

This became a day of massive celebration.

In fact, every single year the Jews would celebrate the

Passover. It was their Independence Day

out of slavery from the Egyptians, as well as the fact

that God's judgment had passed over them.

A unblemished lamb selected in advance, not a bone broken,

covered by the blood. And the judgment passes over.

Some of you are already getting ahead of.

With me. So let's go ahead and get there.

I'd like to introduce you to somebody, a friend of mine by

the name of Jesus. You might be asking yourself, is

this Jesus in fact an unblemished lamb?

Well, when he walks onto the scene in the book of John

written by the apostle John, he quotes John the Baptist saying

this. When John the Baptist interacts

with Jesus, John chapter one, the next day John saw Jesus

coming toward him and said, look, the Lamb of God who takes

away the sins of the world. If you have no sin in your life,

the judgment of God would pass over you.

Was this lamb Jesus selected in advance?

Well, first Peter seems to point to it.

Look what he has to say with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb

without blemish or defect. He, this is Jesus, was chosen,

oh, before the creation of the world.

I hope you see this about our God before you were ever born,

before He breathed his breath into you, before you could do

something wrong or you could do something right, before you said

your first cuss word, before you stole your first candy bar,

before you had your first affair.

God was already moving on your behalf to redeem and rescue you.

Because Jesus was chosen before the creation of the world to

redeem the world that was rebelling against its Creator.

Through Him you believed in God who raised him.

That's Jesus from the dead and glorified him.

So your faith and hope are in God.

Let me be clear. Your hope is not in me.

My hope is not in me. Your hope should not be in you.

My hope is not in you. Our hope is to be firmly placed

in the work of Jesus. And when our life is covered in

the work of Jesus, the judgment passes over not a bone broken.

Look what it says in John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

But when they came to Jesus, this is Jesus on the cross, and

found that he was already dead. They did not break his legs.

Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus's side with a

spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is

true. He knows that He tells the truth

and He testifies so that you also may believe.

These things happen so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

Not one of his bones will be broken, and as another scripture

says, they will look on the 1:00.

They have Pierce a lamb selected in advance, not a bone broken,

covered by the blood. Hebrews chapter 10 says this.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full

assurance that faith brings. We can draw close to God because

of what Jesus has done, and we access what Jesus has done

through faith, not in ourselves, but in Him.

Having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty

conscience, having our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us, that's you and me, hold unswervingly to the hope we

profess, for He who promised is faithful.

The Jews still celebrate the Passover every year.

They are waiting on a Messiah who has already arrived.

In fact, in Jesus's lifetime, Jesus celebrated the Passover.

In fact, they were. Jesus celebrated the Passover,

and the Passover in that Jesus celebrated was his Last Supper.

Did you know when Jesus died? It was past over the meal, the

last meal, the meal where he washed his disciples feet was

Jesus celebrating the Passover meal.

And in the middle of the Passover meal, Jesus takes a

little bit of bread and he says this, this is my body given for

you. And when you circle up and when

you gather as Christians in my name, do this and remembrance of

me. Then he took the cup and he says

this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.

Do this and remembrance of me. That's why when Christians

gather all across the world every single week, you know what

we do? We take communion.

We take communion in remembrance of Him.

But do you know where this meal that we take in communion comes

from? It comes from the Passover meal

where we celebrate the fact that the judgment of God that would

bring our death passes over us. The judgment of God that we

deserve passes over us. But it landed on somebody.

It landed on Jesus, the Passover lamb.

We are covered by the blood of Jesus and that when you come to

faith in him, you place the blood of his life over the top

and the sides of you. You might be here today and you

might be going. Yeah, that's great.

I'm a pretty good person, though.

Clayton, you need to hear me say this.

You might be a good person, but you are not good enough to get

into heaven. You might be here today and

you're going. I'm a pretty hard worker and

you've got where you've got because you're an incredibly

hard worker. That's wonderful.

I'm happy for you, but you can't work hard enough to get yourself

in to heaven. You might be here today and you

have a pretty wife because you're a smooth talker, but I

need you to know that you can't smooth talk your way into

heaven. The only way that you and I get

into heaven is if we are covered by the blood of Jesus.

We to deserve death and judgement and hell, but through

Jesus's sacrifice, the lamb that was slain, the blood that was

spilled, we can cover our lives in the blood of Jesus and the

judgement of God passes over us. Look what it says in Isaiah

Isaiah 53:6

chapter 53, verses 6 and seven. We all, like sheep, have gone

astray. You know that's true.

Each of us has turned to our own way.

You know that to be true, but the Lord has laid on him that's

Jesus, the iniquity of us all. He that's Jesus was oppressed

and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before it's

sheer is silent. So he did not open his mouth.

God laid on Jesus what we have done.

He took the sins that you and I have committed and He placed

them on Jesus. Look what it says in verses four

and five of the exact same chapter.

Surely he that's Jesus took up our pain and bore our suffering

what we deserved, yet we considered Him punished by God.

That's exactly right. God was punishing Jesus for the

sins that we deserved. He was pierced for our

transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, and the

punishment that brought us peace was put on him, and by his

wounds we are healed. You can go home and look this up

in Second Corinthians chapter 5. This is what it says.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

God took him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him,

that's Jesus, we become the righteousness of God.

Here's what God's doing. He is taking the sins of you and

me, and it's placing him on Jesus.

Jesus is being treated the way you and I deserve to be treated.

And because of that, the judgement of God passes over us,

and you and I get treated the way Jesus deserved.

Well, Jesus was perfect. Jesus was spotless.

Jesus had never sinned. And the way I'm able to get into

heaven, the way I'm able to have a right relationship with God is

because I'm getting treated like Jesus because Jesus got treated

by me. That means that when you and I

are struggling with the sins of our past, and some of you are

very realistic about the sins, you know what you've done.

You're sitting here in a church at one of our locations and you

can look across the auditorium and see some of the people that

you've done stupid stuff with. Not only do you know your past,

they know your past. But I want you to know you don't

have to worry about the sins of your past.

They have been laid on Jesus and through faith and baptism, when

you receive what He has done on your behalf, the judgment of God

passes over you and it landed on Jesus so that you could be

treated like Jesus. There might be some of you today

and you're just being completely real and you're going the stuff

that I am in the middle of right now has disqualified me from a

right relationship with the Father.

And you could not be more accurate.

You are disqualified, but you become qualified not on the work

that you have done, but on the fact that you can be covered in

the blood of Jesus and what you were once unqualified.

You become qualified when you are covered in the blood because

the judgement of God passes over you and it lands on Him who knew

no sin. So that way you could be treated

as if you had never sinned. That means that when I look into

my future and I know that there are things about me that are

going to bust and break and they'll be sins that I don't

want to do, that I end up doing, I have No Fear.

Because when those moments happen, I know that those

moments too were covered by the blood of Jesus, who was who

before the creation of the world was already in moving on my

behalf to redeem and restore me to the Heavenly Father.

The judgment that I will rightly deserve in my future.

I do not need to fear because I have through faith, covered

myself in the blood of Jesus. Then the punishment that I

deserve will be on Him and the relationship with the Father

that I don't deserve I will have access to because I will be

treated as a son because of the work of Jesus.

If you are listening to my voice right now and you are not

covered in the blood, you should be.

There might be some of you. We're going Clayton, man, that

sounds great. But I got to be honest with you.

If I, I feel like that's a little narrow minded when you

guys talk about Jesus being the only way to heaven, I mean,

there's a lot of people who believe in awful lot of things

and I think it's just a little narrow minded for you guys to

think that Jesus is the only way.

And what I would tell you is, I get it.

That makes sense. I will tell you that Jesus said

that he's the only way to the Father and that no one gets to

the Father except through him because the only way to get to

the Father is to be covered in the blood and the only way to be

covered in the blood is through Jesus.

But what I would tell you is you're, you're stopping the

sentence too short. It's not just that Jesus is the

only one, it's Jesus is the only one who.

Let me unpack that. Would you guys say who?

You see, Jesus is the only one left heaven and came to earth on

my behalf. Jesus is the only one lived a

perfect and spotless life. Jesus is the only one paid the

ultimate price. He's the only one who?

Oh, Dang it, I did The Who? I'll preach my own sermon.

Jesus is the only one who perfectly demonstrated the love

of God. He's the only one who destroyed

the works of the devil. Let me unpack that for a second.

If Satan wants to come after me and accuse me and point at me

for all the sin that I've done, he can't figure out where to

place his finger because everywhere he points in my life

is covered by the blood of Christ.

He can't find me. He can't accuse me.

He can't come after me. Jesus is the only one who picked

me up. He's the only one who turned me

around. He's he's the only one who

placed my feet on solid ground. If you ask me, Clayton, how did

you end up in heaven? I'll tell you, Jesus is the only

one who could have made that happen.

If you ask me how is my life the way it is, I'll tell you Jesus

is the only one who could pull me up out of the miry clay.

He's the only one who could bring me in the right

relationship. He's the only one who could make

me righteous. He's the only one who had the

sins of my life and your life placed on his shoulders.

He's the only one who saves because he's the only one.

Whoever has, he's the only one, whoever will, and he's the only

one who has already accomplished it past, present and future.

He's not just the only way, He's the only one.

And if you are in relationship with Him, you are covered in the

blood. And when you and I become

obedient in the area of baptism and place our faith in Him, we

get access to that blood. We're moving to a time of

decision. If you are here today and you've

never started an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

Christ, I need to spit some facts in your direction.

That means that right now your life is not covered in the

blood. And that means that the

judgement you will get is the judgement that you deserve.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

And I know some of you, you're going, Clayton, I got some

questions that I need to answer. And I would tell you it's time

for you to start asking those questions because your life and

your eternity are too important to put off getting the answers

that you, your family and your eternity desperately need

answered. But I would also tell you like,

if you'd allow me to like poke you in the chest for a little

bit, back into the corner for a little bit.

I think you know more than you realize.

You know, I think you know enough.

You may not know all of it, but I don't really know if I could

worship a God that I could completely understand, because

if I could figure everything there is out about a God, that

would kind of make me a God. I know you want to know more,

but I think you know enough. Fellas, help me out here.

Raise your hand if you know everything there is to know

about women. Yeah, a couple single people

almost lifted their hands. Those fellas, like they're easy.

Yeah, whatever with Jennifer and I this year, we're going to

celebrate 15 years of marriage. She's been happily married for

two. I've been happily married for.

Yeah, 14. You're, we're applauding her

because if you've been around me, you know I'm a lot.

Can you imagine? Like, we got to go home with

him? I mean, he's great for like 30

minutes a week, but Can you imagine living with me?

And you got to know something. Jennifer's.

She's not in here. And if you tell her, I'll pray

in purgatory. Prayers on your life.

Just as soon as I think I figured her out, she changes.

There's like 5 love languages. She's made-up six more and she

just rotates them. So I'm over here slaving on last

month's love language. Doesn't care about that one

anymore. I've changed it.

I didn't tell you no. Post it.

No, you're just failing. OK, Appreciate you.

I don't know everything there is to know about women.

I don't know everything there is to know about Jennifer.

I just knew I wanted her. I just knew I needed her.

I don't know how to make a pizza.

I don't know everything that goes in to making a delicious

pizza. But I know when I want one and I

know that I need one. I don't know everything there is

to know about a car. I don't know everything about

how to make them work. I don't know how to fix them

when they're busted. I don't know if I paid the right

price or the wrong price. There's an awful lot I don't

know about cars. I just know I didn't want to

walk here. I knew I needed one, and there

are some of you here today that you're going.

I just don't know everything I need to know about God.

I'm just saying, I think you should know at this point.

You should know enough that you need Him.

I don't understand everything there is about God's love, but I

know enough about the fact that I need it in my life.

I don't understand everything that happened on the cross.

I just need the forgiveness that came from it.

I know enough to know that I need it.

And some of you are waiting till all of the pieces of the puzzle

come together. Other than the fact that

recognizing that the pieces, the puzzle that need put back

together are not God, it's you. And today, maybe today you're

going. You know what?

I know enough. I know enough to know that God

is real, that Jesus is alive, that the cross was real, that

the tomb is empty and I want to be covered in the blood.

And if that's you, in just a few moments, the people around you

are going to stand and worship, and some of them are going to

come to the steps and pray. And I'm going to encourage you

to take a walk of faith right over there underneath that

screen next to that baptistry, and start asking some of the

questions that you know you need to ask.

To the rest of you in the room, those of you who are Christians,

I'm going to be quick. I've talked about this before.

When I take communion at our church, I take a double dose.

And it's not because I'm, you know, bigger than all of you and

we're a bigger center than all of you, although both of those

things are true. It's because there are four

prayers that I've been praying for, I think ever since college.

When I take communion, when I take the first piece of bread,

I'm reminded the fact that he paid a price that I could never

pay, that he did something that I could never do.

If I could fix me, he wouldn't have sent Jesus.

If I was the solution to the problem, Jesus wouldn't have

been on the cross. He did something that I could

never do on my own, and I thank Him for doing so.

The second prayer that I pray is thank you for never giving up on

me. Because, man, I've given him

plenty of opportunities. There is nobody on planet Earth

that I have let down more than him.

There's nobody. There is nobody that I have

failed more times than him. There is nobody that I have

given more excuses to walk in or me to walk away and out of my

life. There is nobody I have failed

like I have failed him. And yet I cling to the fact that

his mercies are new every morning.

Other people have walked out on me, but not him.

I've run from him. And when I got done running and

I turned around, he was already there waiting on me.

And when you pray a prayer, being honest about the fact that

this God who has done something that you could never do on your

behalf and has never given up on you after he already did it, it

changes you. When I take the first piece of

juice, I said God help me to live a life.

In response to this, one of the biggest, dumbest things you

could ever think is that you can call yourself a Christian, have

been covered in the blood based on the sacrifice of Jesus, be

exposed to the love of God in a radical way, and live however

you want. That you can just pick and

choose where you're going to be obedient.

That you can go, oh I love him and oh he's good and oh he's

great and oh he's God and oh he's wonderful, but I'm just

going to do whatever I want to do.

Those two statements are not compatible.

Either he is the God of your life or he's not.

Either he is your Lord or he is not.

There's no middle ground and it's because I've been exposed

to what he's done. My life must reflect it. 4th

prayer. You're not going to like this

one. This is where it gets worse.

This is where you wish the grape juice was actually wine.

My 4th prayer is helped me to remember that you died for

everybody I will ever meet. How many of you know somebody

you don't like? Yeah.

How many of you have somebody that's hurt you?

Yeah. How many of you know somebody

that you'd classify as an enemy You.

One of the hallmarks of the Christian faith is enemy love.

You want to know why? Because I was an enemy of God

and he sent his Son to die on my behalf to redeem his enemy and

turn an enemy into a son or daughter of the King.

And so when you and I take communion, we are recognizing

that the very blood that covers us, that passes, that allows the

judgement to Passover us, has not just been shed on our

behalf, but on our enemies behalf.

That the same blood that covers me could cover them.

And the same God that sent Jesus to die on my behalf sent Jesus

to die on their behalf. And when you pray prayers like

that, it'll mess with you. Would you stand, God, I'm asking

you to move in a very specific way, God, that those who are far

from you right now would be drawn close to you, that they

would overcome every obstacle that they need to overcome so

they could be covered in the blood today.

And God, for those of us who are followers of you, that our lives

would begin to be shaped and conformed by you, that we would

turn over the reins so we would get out of the driver's seat.

That we would turn our life over to you and live a life in

response to you. Your name, I pray.

Amen.