Finding Hope When You've Messed Up

Oh, crossing family, it is so good to be with you.

I want to welcome you joining from all of our different

locations and we are in the middle of a very special season

as a church. We've been setting all time

attendance records at specific locations and as a church as a

whole, and we are seeing more new people than ever before in

the history of our church. In fact, already this year we

have celebrated 338 baptisms. Isn't that incredible?

There is no doubt about it. God is drawing people to Him,

and by His grace, you and I are getting an opportunity to join

him in his saving work. And I want to just kind of give

you some tools and tips for each of us to be able to make the

most of this season that we're in as a church.

I want to encourage you one if you would.

Would you continue to park far away and that way when people

show up for our church late or show up for our church for the

first time, they get the very best spots?

Second thing I want to encourage you to do is prioritize your

kids. When you make a decision to show

up for church, you are making that decision for them.

And when you decide not to make church a priority, they can't

drive. At least they shouldn't be, and

so they rely on you. And if you're not making regular

spiritual investments in your kids, you are actually making

them go 2 weeks without a spiritual investment when they

are at the key areas developmentally for them to grow

in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

You can also prioritize your kids by making sure that you

sign them up for camp because it's a great for them to be able

to eliminate the distractions of the world and focus on God.

The other thing you can do is take advantage of our kids

service. And the reason I want to talk to

you about that is on my best day as a communicator, I can't

navigate, you know, from three all the way to 88.

And if you're older than 88, I'm so glad you're here.

But I was just trying to draw a random number.

So I don't want you to think that like you know when you're

89, we're like we're done with you.

But I do want to say this is when you are bringing your kids

in here, it is going to be very difficult for them to be able to

connect in a way that will help them grow the most.

So you're actually hurting your kid by having your kid in here.

Now I know you might be going, but Clayton, I love sitting with

my kid and having that. Listen, I I get all that.

But I want you to know that when your kids with you, it's really,

really hard for you to be able to learn and grow.

And it's also really, really hard for the people around you

to learn and grow when your kid is next to you.

And so if you want to love God, love yourself, and love others,

one of the best things you can do and love your kid is actually

take them to an age appropriate environment where they will

learn about God in a way that will matter to them the most and

be the most meaningful for them. And we have safe, secure places

where people have background checks and are trained in all of

our locations. For your kid to be able to get

the very best out of service and you might be going, Clayton,

forget you. I'm bringing my kid to church

and I'm going to get the least amount out of it as humanly

possible. I get it.

OK, then what I'm going to encourage you to do is sit in

the very back of all of our auditoriums so that way your kid

is only a distraction to you. When you bring your kid into

service and you sit all the way towards the front, you are

actually hurting the people that Jesus is trying to help.

And I want you to do build a better job of that.

Now I'm saying all this in the camera.

I'm not looking at anybody. So if you're here in this

auditorium or at one of the locations, nobody knew that this

was happening and nobody's looking at you, judging you.

We're all rooting for you. And we're saying this because we

love you, love your kid, and want you to get the best out of

church. 3rd is you can find a place to serve because God wants

to do a work through you. 4. Continue to invite people,

invite them to our services. Invite them to our golf outings

where you can meet other people and make a difference.

Because all the money from the golf outings are going to help

kids be able to go to camp scholarships because we want

every kid that wants to go to be able to go. 5.

Continue to pray for people and pray for opportunities.

Cover this church. Cover the staff.

Cover the services. Cover the new people that are

showing up in prayer. We want to be a praying church,

and then six leverage your generosity for Kingdom

advancement, whether that's through camp scholarships or

whether that's through regular giving.

Our desire as a church is for people to find an intimate,

personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and we want to be so

good at helping people find an intimate, personal relationship

with Jesus Christ that we make this region the hardest region

to get to hell from. And every single one of us have

a part to play. And if you're here today for the

first time or the first time in a long time, we are so glad that

you are here. And we believe that you being

here is not an accident. We believe that God loves you

and wants to have an intimate personal relationship with each

and every single one of you. And you might be going, yeah,

that sounds great for everybody else.

But there's no way that that could be true for me because I

am too much of a mess up. I failed way too many times.

And if you're thinking that, you're going to feel like you're

in the middle of a miracle today, because we are actually

talking about that very thing today, we are going to talk

about what do you do when you've failed.

We are in a series called Jesus Is Better Than You Thought With

the tagline, When life Happens, God's Way is the best way.

And the challenge of this series is to find out what happens when

you let God write the rest of your story, that when you turn

the pin of your life over to him to see what happens when he gets

to write the rest of your story. Some of you, you've been writing

your own story for a really long time.

You're multiple chapters and and if you were to be honest, it's

not going great. I want us to find out what

happens when we take the pin of our life, turn it over to him.

I wrote this sermon for those of you who've messed up.

This sermon is for those of you who are in a marriage, and your

marriage never ended up looking like what you had hoped it would

look like. This sermon is for the husband

who's cheated for the wife who's had an affair.

This sermon is for the mother who's constantly criticizing her

kids and cries at night because she can see that the her hurtful

words are stealing the joy as she sees it wiped off her kids

face. This sermon is for the father

who struggles to control his anger and he can feel distance

growing between him and his kids at At night the mother cries.

If they only knew how much I loved them.

If only I can figure out a better way to say the things I'm

saying. It's the father who had Knights

Grind. If only my kids understood how

many good things I want for them, if only I could get

control of my anger and my temper.

This sermon is for the person who prioritized success in the

in the workplace but didn't realize that it would create a

failure in the home. This sermon is for the person

watching on the crossing from the crossing inside, and you're

doing time for a crime that you committed.

I know there are extenuating circumstances.

There might have been a drug addiction or dire circumstances,

or you're under the influence of extreme pressure, but you did

something you never thought you would do or you did something

you plan to do. But either way, now you're doing

time for what you did, and you never thought your life would

end up with you here. This sermon is for the person

who's burned through every important relationship.

Your attitude, your gossip, your toxic behavior, your

unwillingness to apologize, to get help, get coaching has left

you in devastating isolation. This sermon is for the person

who's failed spiritually. Not only are you angry and hurt

over the outcome of your decisions, you thought it was

going to get easier. You thought it was going to get

better when you started your faith journey.

This sermon is for the person who recently got baptized and

then found yourself struggling with the same sins all week

long. This sermon is for the person

who's had a prayer like this or thoughts like this.

If I had real faith, I wouldn't be so hateful.

If I had a real faith, I wouldn't be so angry.

If I had real faith, I would trust God more and I wouldn't be

so anxious. If I had real faith, my

depression wouldn't be getting the best of me every single day.

If I had real faith, I wouldn't still struggle with pornography

or having sex outside of marriage.

If I had real faith, I wouldn't be such a failure.

If I had real faith, I wouldn't have failed in the 1st place.

What do you do when, even with the best of intentions, you

still make a mess of it? What do you do when you failed

personally and relationally and spiritually?

I remind our Church of this verse about every three months,

and I'm going to keep doing it because I want you to know that

you are in the middle of a spiritual war all the time.

God gives us wisdom and insight into this through Jesus.

These words are recorded in John chapter 10, verse 10.

John 10:10

Jesus is speaking here and this is what he says.

The thief that Satan comes to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Life to the full is God's best way.

He has a better way for you and I to live.

But Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy that life.

In fact, Satan goes into OverDrive every time you move in

the direction of Jesus. He he gets alerted every time

you try to move in the direction and become more like Jesus.

The week after your baptism might be the hardest week of

your life. The temptation might be the

strongest, the battle might be the fiercest.

In fact, our invitation time, in my opinion, is the most

spiritually contested moment of each week.

Every single week, at all of our locations, we get to a point in

the sermon where I say we're moving to a time of decision,

and then the campus pastors are myself.

We get an opportunity to talk to people in a passionate way about

choosing Jesus, turning an area of their life over to Jesus,

starting a life and an intimate, personal relationship with

Jesus. And I believe that that is the

most spiritually contested moment every single week for

every single one of us, because the moment we start having that

conversation, many of you, there's a voice that goes off in

your head that's telling you to do the exact opposite.

This is probably what it sounds like.

You hear us talking about starting an intimate, personal

relationship with Jesus Christ. And Satan goes, oh, that's good

for everybody else, but that's not for you.

And he starts to run you through the highlight reel of everything

that's wrong in your life and everything that you've done.

And he tries to convince you that you could never have the

love of God. But overtime, eventually you go,

you know what? That's not true.

That's a lie from Satan. You can't steal what God's

trying to do in my life. And you say you know what, I'm

going to start a relationship with Jesus and Satan goes, OK,

if you want to start a relationship with Jesus, that's

great. Let's just put it off for a

little while. Let's wait till next week, next

month, next year. Let's wait till you get done

with your divorce. Let's wait till you get done

with your financial problems. Let's wait till you get done

with your job, done with your move until you get a couple of

your sins ironed out. And when you're not as stressed

out, he goes, yeah, you know, start your relationship with

Jesus. But but get yourself together

1st. And finally you realize that

he's just trying to steal you, starting your relationship with

Jesus. And you go, You know what?

I don't have to wait till I have my whole life together.

I'm going to the one who can put my life back together.

And so, you know, I'm starting my relationship with Jesus.

And he goes, OK, that's great. And as soon as you start your

relationship with Jesus Christ, he throws temptations after you.

Then he puts you in the midst of hardship, and then all of a

sudden he gets you to doubt the decision that you made.

He never stops trying to steal and kill and destroy.

And so you're walking your relationship with Jesus Christ,

and the moment you fail, Satan capitalizes on it.

Were you even serious about your faith?

Do you even have real faith? Can God really be trusted if

this is how your life is turning out and he tries to steal and

kill and destroy? That's why over and over again

in Scripture, the Bible calls us to persevere in our faith.

You're going to get knocked down.

You're going to find yourself flat on your back from time to

time. And so Satan tries to steal it.

And then Satan goes one step further.

How could you possibly do what you did and say that you love

God at the same time you find yourself in a wrestling match

with Satan and Satan's going? How could God ever love you

again? Because after you said you loved

him, you did what you did. What do you do when you find

yourself at the bottom of a hole that you never intended to dig?

I want to walk you through 2 examples of two people's lives

that were or two people that lives that were in ministry with

Jesus. You're going to know who both of

them are. They were both hand picked by

Jesus. When Jesus came and he set out

to do his earthly ministry, he called 12 people to be his

disciples, people he was going to spend the most amount of time

with people who are going to get the absolute most access.

One of them was Peter. Peter was hand picked by Jesus.

He got to go and spend three years and watch Jesus do

ministry and perform miracles. He got to listen to all of

Jesus's sermons. He sat under the best teaching

of anybody ever, of all time, and he was even sent by Jesus to

go out and perform miracles and cast out demons.

And the night before Jesus was crucified, they were having a

meal together. And this strange exchange took

place between Peter and Jesus. It starts in Matthew, chapter

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

26. Then Jesus told them, this very

night you will all fall away on account of me.

For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of

the flock will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will

go ahead of you into Galilee, Peter replied.

Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.

Truly I tell you, Jesus answered this very night before the

rooster crows, you will disown me three times.

But Peter declared, even if I have to die with you, I will

never disown you. And all the other disciples said

the same. Surely enough, later that night

Jesus is arrested. The disciples have deserted him

and Peter goes to the courtyard not far from where Jesus was

being tried by the religious elites.

And Peter was recognized by a girl and the girl said, hey,

aren't you one of the followers of Jesus?

And he said, I don't know what you're talking about.

That's one. He goes a little further into

the courtyard and another girl comes up and goes, Hey, aren't

you one of the guys that used to run with Jesus?

Don't you? Don't you?

Are you one of his followers? Are you one of his disciples?

He said no. He denied following Jesus a

second time. Finally he was asked again and

accused of knowing Jesus, and this is his response.

Then he began to call down curses and he swore to them.

I don't know the man. And immediately a rooster

crowed. Then Peter remembered the word

Jesus had spoken before. The rooster crows.

You will disown me three times. And he went outside and he wept

bitterly. Let's look at a second person.

You know him too. His name?

Judas. Check this out.

Judas was hand picked by Jesus brought into his inner circle of

ministry. He got to hear the greatest

teaching that has ever been taught.

He got to see the miracles performed by Jesus.

In fact, Jesus sent Judas out to perform miracles and he did.

And Judas cast out demons. He did great things for God.

And then that very same night, right before Peter has his

conversation with Jesus, Jesus begins to talk to them, and he's

talking to them about one of you is going to betray me.

And they each go around the table and they're going, surely

not I, Lord, definitely not me. And Jesus says the one who dips

his hand into or puts his hand into the dip with me is the one

who will betray me. And Judas goes, surely not I,

Lord. And sure enough, Jesus looks at

him and goes. You've said it is so and so then

Judas went out and he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

He gathered an army and he took them, and he betrayed Jesus with

a kiss on the cheek to signify to the to the army that this is

the one that they were supposed to arrest.

And so they go, and they find Jesus in the Garden of

Gethsemane after he's been praying.

It's dark. He's alone and they take him.

The story picks up in Matthew 27.

Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of

the people made their plans on how to have Jesus executed.

So they bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate,

the governor. When Judas, who had betrayed

him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with

remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief

priests and the elders. I have sinned, he said.

For I have betrayed innocent blood.

There are three things to notice here.

The first one is Jesus knew their sin, which means he knows

my sin. Before Peter denied him, Jesus

said Peter, you're going to deny me.

Before Judas betrayed him, he said, Judas, you're going to

betray me. Jesus knew their sin, which

means he knows my sin. Hebrews tells us there's lots of

verses that do it, but Hebrews has a great way of saying it.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes.

Of whom to whom we must give an account.

In other words, you can keep your sin from your friend.

You can keep your sin from your spouse, but you can't keep your

sin from Jesus. Jesus knows every single sin.

He knows the sins that you're committing.

He knows the sins you're going to commit.

He knows the sins you've committed in your past.

He knows the sins that you're sorry for.

He knows the sins that you've forgotten.

Have you ever had a sin that you forgot, like a boomerang sin?

Like you forgot that you did that thing, and then you're

hanging out with somebody and they remind you of the thing

that you did a long time ago. And you're like, Oh my goodness,

I can't believe I did that. It's like a boomerang sin.

Do you know that there's never once been a sin that you

committed? And Jesus was, like, completely

caught off guard. God was surprised, like you're

just going through your life and you do your sin and God's up in

heaven and goes, wow, I did not see that coming.

Hey, Jesus, come here. Did you see it?

No, I didn't see it. Holy Spirit, did you know that?

No, I didn't. You've never caught them off

guard. So when he says that, he's

forgiven you of your sins. He's actually forgiving you for

all of your sins. Some of you are going, you know

what? I'm going to be great.

I'm going to do fantastic. I'm.

I'm going to have a really, really, really great week.

And Jesus, like actually got to be honest with you, next Tuesday

is going to be a rough one, right?

You are going to mess up, turn to your neighbor and say you are

going to screw up some of you. You cheated.

You said you are a screw up and that's a different thing.

We we have the best of intentions, don't we?

You, you come to church, you get done with the invitation time

and every single one of us is like, yeah, you know what?

This is going to be a great week, man.

I'm going to live for Jesus. You're walking out of the church

and you're going, oh, this can be a week.

I'm going to be praying for people.

I'm going to be reading my Bible.

Things are going to be great. I'm going to be one of the best

people for Jesus I've ever been. And it gets get in the car for

the love of God. You finally get them all in the

car and your wife goes, well, you go, hey, where do you want

to go for lunch? She goes wherever you want to

go. You're like, OK, we're going to

McDonald's. Ah, not there.

OK. Oh, we're going to Hardee's.

Nope, not there. OK, we're going to Culver's.

Nope, not there. Well, then why did you say where

I wanted to go, you psycho. It was a great sermon.

It was so good. You first, right?

Jesus is not surprised by your sins.

You need to know that. So when you read scripture and

he says come to me, when he says he loves you, he has a total

view of you. And there's some of you.

Your response to your sin is going to determine your reward

because you are going to sin. And your response to your sin

matters. Judas was filled with remorse.

Peter wept bitterly, Psalm, 38, says.

I confess my iniquity. I am troubled by my sin.

When you and I come to grips with our sinful behavior, there

should be a part of us that is deeply concerned about our sin.

Moved by our sin. More than just emotionally, but

definitely emotionally, we should hate the sin that's in

our life. We should be frustrated by it,

angered by it. I can't believe I did it again.

But all too often we try to downplay our sin.

We try to act like our sin isn't a big deal, just everybody

else's sin is the big deal. First, John chapter 18 says if

John 18 · chapter mention

we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth

is not in us. When you say my sin's not that

big of a deal, my sin's not that big of an issue or I don't

really sin that much in my life. What that is, is that's pride.

You have pride in your heart, and there's only one thing that

God can do with a prideful heart and that's break it.

Pride is the single most devastating sin.

It destroys everyone who has it, and he hurts everyone close to

the one who has it. If you compare yourself to

others, that's pride. If you can't say you're sorry,

that's pride. If you're unwilling to make

changes in how you operate, that's pride.

You are being deceived and the truth of God is not in you.

And the reason this matters is because the truth of Christ is

what sets us free. And so not only are you in

denial about your bondage, you remain in bondage because the

truth of Christ has not come into you.

I said this a little bit last week, but I want to keep driving

this home. When you have a limited view of

your sin, you will have a limited view of the cross.

And if you have a limited view of the cross, you'll have a

limited view of the holiness of God, the greatness of God, the

goodness of God, and the love of God.

But the deeper you come to realize the weight, the hurt

that your sin has caused, the greater you will understand the

sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross on your behalf, and the

better you'll have a picture of the holiness and the greatness

and the goodness and the holiness of our God.

And the better you'll have an understanding of His love for

you. If you're like Oh my sins are

just teeny weeny itty bitty super cute and furry, Oh my

goodness, it's just a widow bitty sin.

It's your itty bitty sins create an itty bitty cross and an itty

bitty sacrifice. You just need God a little.

You just need a little bit of blood.

You just need a little bit of salvation.

You're basically perfect. You just need a little Jesus.

You just need some salt and pepper Jesus.

And so then God is not really all that holy because the chasm

between you and God is just as itty bitty.

But when you see the full weight of your sin and how bad you've

been and how evil you've been, you start to realize what you've

been saved from and what it costs to be saved by it and what

Christ actually went through on our behalf.

And then you go, Oh my goodness, he's so holy.

There's no way I could ever get to him because of who I've been.

The chasm's too far. That means the cross is way

bigger than I thought it was. Oh my goodness, God is good

because I was so bad and yet he still moved on my behalf.

No wonder when the Bible says He loves me, He loves me.

Because how could he have ever gone through what he went

through on my behalf when I was this bad?

Your view of sin will change your view of your salvation.

Do you ever wish, like me that you're going to be, That you'd

be married for just a little bit in heaven?

I'll tell you why I want to be married in heaven.

Not that Jennifer wants to spend eternity with me.

I'm a lot to take in. You guys have already.

You like? Yeah, we get it.

We we've been sending her cards. We only pray for her.

I get it. I just want to be married to

Jennifer in heaven for a little bit.

Because I wanted to know what it would have been like to be with

me when sin wasn't in my life. I just want to be a parent to my

kids for a little bit so they could see what it would be like

to have a dad who didn't sin, who didn't screw it up.

I have hurt my wife, I have hurt my kids.

My sin has had an impact on them, and I desperately wish

that they could have experienced a fully transformed, a fully

sinless version of myself. That's because I hate my sin.

Your response to your sin will determine your reward.

It's more than just emotional, it's more than just seeing it as

a big deal. The Bible's actually very clear

about what you and I are supposed to do when we sin.

Acts Chapter 3, verse 19 says repent then and turn to God so

Acts 3:19

that your sins may be wiped out and that times of refreshing may

come from the Lord. Repentance is a turning away

from and a turning towards something.

So repentance means I'm turning away from my sin and I am moving

now in the direction of Jesus. If I was having an affair, I'm

turning away from the person that I'm having an affair with,

and I'm turning back in the direction of my commitment to

God and my wife. I'm repenting.

I'm saying more than just I'm going in a different direction

now. I no longer want to be even

remotely associated with this because I'm wanting to be who

God called me to be. Maybe it's pride and you're

going, you know what? I'm no longer going to try to?

I create a world that is bent on serving me.

I'm repenting of being that kind of person, that hurtful,

hateful, prideful person. I don't want to be this person

anymore and I want to turn towards in the direction

repenting of it to be who God created me to be and leverage

myself in the service of God and his Kingdom and others.

I'm moving away from my sin, which I don't want, and I'm

moving in the direction of Jesus, who I do want.

And he says that times of refreshing will come from the

Lord. Forgiveness will come from the

Lord. Your response determines your

reward. Proverbs 28 says this.

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who

confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

Raise your hands if you want to prosper.

If you didn't, raise your hand. Weird.

If you conceal your sin, you won't.

If you confess it, you're on the path to it.

How many of you want mercy? Yeah, If you conceal it, you're

not. If you confess it, you're on the

path to it. First.

John 19 says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to

forgive us our sins and purify us from unrighteousness.

James 516 says therefore confess your sins to each other and pray

for each other so that you may be healed.

Your response determines your reward, your sins wiped out.

Refreshing from the Lord finds mercy, finds forgiveness, gets

purity gains healing. These are if you respond by

confessing and repenting. These are your rewards.

How could you not want it? You might be going Clayton.

I love it. I love it.

I'm going to repent. Sounds great.

I'm going to tell God about it, which is kind of weird because

he already knows about it. But I think God's saying I need

you to know that I know about it.

I need you to know what I'm forgiving you for.

But then I want you to do something.

That's going to be a little bit of a stretch.

I want you to tell other people about it.

You're like God. I love the vertical part.

I'm not so sure I like the horizontal part, but I want you

to know that the Bible says that when we confess it vertically,

we get forgiveness. When we confess it horizontally,

we get healing. You get accountability, you get

help. You get people praying for you.

There's a guy recently who's saying, listen, I don't want to

look at porn anymore. Would you be praying for me?

He confessed it and I started praying and he's getting victory

not because of my prayers, but because he's doing what God

called him to do. Somebody else was going, man,

I've been gambling way too much at way too high a stakes, and

it's got a serious stranglehold on me.

I don't want to be this guy. I haven't gone a day without

serious gambling in a long, long time and I'm trying to change

the course of my family on that. And he's like, would you be

praying for it? And reached out to about four or

five guys and we all started praying for it.

That when you confess your sins to other people, that is the

opposite of pride. You're saying, hey, I'm a screw

up and just so you know, your friends and family already know

you're a screw up. All you're doing is telling them

that what they thought about you is 100% true instead of living

in denial. And then you're giving them an

opportunity to pray for you instead of judge you.

You're inviting them in to Createspace for healing.

On a recap, when we confess our sins and we repent our sins.

When I say confess God and others, the rewards are your

sins are wiped out. Sounds good to me.

You get refreshing from the Lord.

Sounds really good for me. You receive mercy, forgiveness,

purity, and healing. But if you don't, you don't get

these. So choose wisely.

The final thing I'll tell you is even when you've messed up, God

can still write the rest of your story.

Peter stayed in community, saw the resurrected Jesus, was

transformed by the event eventually restored by Jesus.

He went on to preach the very first sermon, the first gospel

message on Pentecost, and thousands were saved that day.

Peter went from being an absolute failure who completely

denied knowing Jesus to making it 1500 miles to Rome where they

said, Peter, you better stop talking about Jesus, he said.

I can't. If you don't stop talking about

Jesus, we're going to kill you then get to kill him because I

refuse to stop talking about Jesus.

He went from denying that he ever knew him to refusing to

stop proclaiming his name and his power and his resurrection.

They said we're going to crucify you, then you better get to

crucifying me. I just have one request.

If you're going to kill me by crucifixion, at least crucify me

upside down, because I'm not worthy of dying the same way my

Lord and Savior died. That's how he went.

He went from being an absolute failure in the middle of a mess

to being a guy who died for his message.

But Judas? Judas committed suicide.

Judas never let God write the rest of his story.

He kept the pen, Peter, in the midst of his failure, in the

midst of his mess, turn it over to Jesus, and God used him to

proclaim the gospel message until the day he died.

But Judas kept the pen and it LED straight to death.

If Judas had, after he had thrown the 30 pieces in the

temple, had walked 500 yards to the cross, he would have heard

Jesus say, Father, forgive him, for they don't know what they're

doing. He would have found the grace

and mercy of Jesus. Wouldn't that have been the best

story ever told? When your friends gone, there's

no way God could ever love me. You would go, oh, you should

hear the story of Judas. He was the one who denied Jesus.

He was the one who who betrayed Jesus.

He was the one who sold Jesus out.

He was the one who put the plans for the crucifixion in motion.

Nobody's been as bad as Judas. And then they go on to tell you

that Judas went to the cross and heard Jesus and received

forgiveness, and God went on to use him to do mighty and amazing

things. That story was never told

because Judas never let God write it.

If Satan takes the pen in your life, it is over.

But when you turn the pen of your life over to Jesus, even in

the middle of a mess, your story is just getting good.

I don't want you to think about that as we're moving to a time

of decision. If you're here today and you've

never started an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus

Christ, I just want to spend a little bit of time just talking

to you for a second. I need you to know you're

surrounded by some messed up people.

They've all made messes. They're not better than you.

They're, but they are different than you.

And the difference between them and you is that they know where

to take their messes. I grew up in school and we had

to wear pants at the school. I went to pants all the time.

So when it was time for the presidential fitness thing and

we had to do the eraser run, we were wearing pants.

You know how hard it is to run fast in jeans to start a fire?

It's not safe, especially if you're wearing corduroys.

Someone could get killed. And so you're out there trying

to run a mile in your in your pants.

And you when it was time to play basketball, you're doing it in

pants. When it was time for you to run

around and have fun playing football, you're doing it in

pants. And you know what happened to my

pants all the time? My pants got absolutely

destroyed, Grass stains everywhere.

And you know what I would do when I came home?

I'd come home and I'd take my pants off and I put them in the

little basket and then a couple days later that basket would

just disappear like this. I don't know what we have, like,

I don't know what it was. And then like a couple days

after that, they would reappear in my room and they would, my

jeans would be perfectly folded. It's magic, and all the stains

would be gone. Now I want to talk to moms for a

second. Moms, help me out with this

message. And I'm not talking to you,

young Pinterest moms. I'm not talking to you.

You're not. You're not.

You're not, you're not amazing. And I'll tell you why you're not

amazing because you can go to the store and you can buy four O

9. I'm talking to, like, the moms

who used to have shoulder pads. I'm talking to you right now.

OK, you you've been around for a bit.

OK, you you, you had a phone with a with a 15 foot cord next

to your refrigerator. That's who I'm talking to.

OK, Yeah, you you put a kid on your lap and drove down the

freeway with no airbags. I'm talking to those moms.

Is there a special like which book that you get when you get

married? Like where?

Like how you do sorcery stuff. Because I could take my jeans

that were completely covered in grass stains and my mom would

make it like it had never happened.

Is she a wizard? I don't know.

We didn't have. We didn't have four O 9 where

you just spray your shout and oh, not four O 9.

You could tell I don't do the laundry some Some of you young

moms are like, this guy's an idiot.

He's an idiot. You don't use four O 9 on that

watch. It's going to be like a new You

also don't eat Tide pods. OK, so I win.

All right, Your generation doesn't know you're not supposed

to eat laundry soap, so I'm still smarter than you.

OK, talk. My mom would just make it

disappear. You know what I didn't do?

I didn't come home in 6th grade and try and start scrubbing out

the stain. I'd have only made it worse.

I knew enough to know that when I had messed up, when I had a

stain in my life, I knew to take it to the one who could fix it.

If I could fix it, it wouldn't have happened in the 1st place.

If I could fix it, God wouldn't have saw fit to give me a mom.

When you try to fix your own sins, your own stains, you only

make it worse. You are in effect saying I don't

need Jesus in my life. I got it.

Which is the highest form of pride.

What you're doing is you are in the middle of a hole that you've

dug and you're saying I'm going to dig my way out.

But the Bible says that though our sins be like scarlet, he

will make them white as snow. What Jesus in effect saying

bring your sins to me. And if you're here today, this

is the spiritually contested moment where Satan is going to

try to steal, kill, and destroy the life that God has created

for you and destined you for. If you've never started an

intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you can come

to him today, you can start it today, and you can find

forgiveness today. And the Bible says that when we

step into a relationship with him, he will give us the power

of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and he will wash away our sins.

And if you're here today and you want that, you want to start

asking questions about it, you want to move in the direction of

it. There's going to be somebody

right over there, underneath that or underneath that screen,

next to the baptistery, who would love to talk to you about

it. If you don't want to talk to

them, talk to somebody who's sitting next to you.

But don't put off a decision that could change absolutely

everything for you. To the rest of you, to the

people who already have a relationship with Jesus Christ,

You are going to mess up. But as you grow in your

relationship with Jesus Christ, you're never going to become

sinless. But we should start sinning

less. We should be molded and shaped

into the character of Christ. But what do you do when you mess

up? Now you're on your faith here,

and you're trying to do the things that God calls you to do.

What do you do when you mess up? Proverbs 24 says this, for

though the righteous falls seven times, they rise again.

But when the wicked stumble, calamity strikes.

Judas made a mistake, and he never got back up, and he let

his sin get the best of him. But Peter held out hope that God

could still restore him, that God could still redeem him, that

God could use him again. And so I came here today with

one simple message to those of you who are Jesus followers, and

you find yourself in the middle of a mess.

I want you to know when you fall down, get up, the righteous get

up. They might fall seven times.

They might fall seven times in a month.

They might fall seven times in a week.

They might fall seven times in an hour.

The righteous get back up. They believe, deep down in the

core of their being, that God's still good, that his mercies are

new every single morning, That you can't outrun his love, you

can't outrun His grace. So the righteous get up.

Oh yeah. Their sin may have laid them

flat on their back, but they're not staying on their back.

The righteous get back up. And today, if you are in an

intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Holy

Spirit has come into you. Your story is not over.

You have the power to get back up, and God can write a better

story. Would you stand with me while we

pray God, do a work in this church?

Do a work that only you can do in ways that only you can do it

in lives that desperately need it.

God, we want to see you move. We want to see you moving other

people, but we definitely want to see you moving us.

We don't want the change to happen in everybody else.

We want the change to start with us.

And so God would you grace us with that privilege.

In your name, I pray. Amen.