Sermon

Breaking Free from the Chains of Lies

Crossing Church with Clayton Hentzel

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  1. Well, good morning Crossing church.

  2. How are you doing? OK, so we gotta do something

  3. right now and everybody stand back up.

  4. I know you just got comfortable. Everybody stand back up.

  5. You need to at least high 5-5 other people because you are

  6. here today. Every other location do the same

  7. thing. You can sit back down when you

  8. get done with that. You are awesome.

  9. You're awesome. I mean I was looking at first

  10. service. I'm like, you know what was it

  11. going to look like A small group?

  12. They did a, they did, they did account we had 547 at the the

  13. 48th St. location just for first service.

  14. And so it's like, you know, I mean, that's pretty awesome.

  15. You know, that people won't want to be together.

  16. They want to hear the word of the Lord.

  17. They want to be with the people of the Lord.

  18. They want to be changed by the Lord.

  19. And just So what? It's 15 below 0.

  20. Who cares? I want to welcome everyone

  21. that's joining from all of our locations.

  22. Thankful for you. If you're insider online, we're

  23. thankful for you as well. And I'm excited about this

  24. series because it comes from a book called Creatures of Habit

  25. and it was written by Steve Poe and Steve and Sandy Poe are

  26. friends of Allison and mine and I I got to know him.

  27. Oh, I think it's probably been 10 years ago and he is just one

  28. of these guys, OK. He went to a a church that was

  29. struggling through the death of their senior minister in on the

  30. north side of Indianapolis. And that's a really hard thing

  31. to to step into that role a man who was loved and passed away

  32. cancer and Steve did that. And that church now is I believe

  33. the largest Church of any kind in the state of Indiana and has

  34. just done an incredible job at Northview Church.

  35. But it's not because of the growth.

  36. When I first started hanging around with Steve, he's, you

  37. know, Jesus called one of his disciples, behold a man in whom

  38. there is no guile. He is that guy.

  39. Have you ever been around people and it's just like you know that

  40. your spiritual IQ goes up when you're around them not because

  41. of what they know, but just because of who they are and how

  42. they live their out their life for Jesus Christ.

  43. And he's going to be here in the 5th week, the final week of this

  44. series. And I really hope you don't miss

  45. that. Just an incredible, incredible

  46. man of God. So we're in that book and we're

  47. talking about habits. And one of the things he says in

  48. the book is 4040%. And that's at a minimum 40% of

  49. everything we do comes directly from habits.

  50. Now we have good habits and we have bad habits, right?

  51. But when we allow a bad behavior to become a habit, it actually

  52. it becomes a stronghold. It's a biblical word, a

  53. stronghold in our lives like it. It's something that has high

  54. walls that are very thick and they're very hard to get rid of.

  55. We get a bad habit that becomes a spiritual stronghold.

  56. It it can really become a besetting sin.

  57. And I would imagine there's many of you that have those that that

  58. you recognize them and and you'll come to church and maybe

  59. you'll even come forward, get down on your knees, you'll pray

  60. and you'll say God, you know what you and you know and it

  61. just keeps. It's like this nagging thing

  62. that just keeps working on you because that's what it is.

  63. It's a spiritual stronghold that comes out of a habit.

  64. Pamela Meyer in her book Lie Spotting, which by the way is a

  65. very unnerving book because what she teaches you in that book is

  66. how to spot it when people are lying to you.

  67. And I I don't know if I I'd rather probably not know that

  68. you know, because that's just a little unsettling.

  69. But in her book she says that you are lied to somewhere

  70. between 10 and 200 times a day. I I was, I heard, I read that

  71. and I went I I don't even know if I know that many people to to

  72. be lied to that much. And then, you know, I took out

  73. my phone and if I get on Instagram or Facebook and I just

  74. do this a few times, Oh yeah, I'm racking up the lies, right.

  75. Because people are lying on on social media constantly.

  76. Look at the person next to you. No.

  77. So don't do that. Forget that.

  78. And, you know, they can be kind of little innocuous ways where

  79. they can be very serious. Like, do you like my new

  80. haircut? How do I look in these jeans?

  81. What did you do when you went out on the date?

  82. How did that scratch get on the car?

  83. What happened to the cookies? It's really an unfortunate part

  84. of our human reality. You know, even a child will cry.

  85. A little child, like a baby, will cry and then stop crying

  86. long enough to hear and listen if anyone is paying attention to

  87. them, and then start crying again, like maybe they're really

  88. not in distress. They just want to lie and make

  89. you think they are. Or even a grandchild.

  90. I won't say it's my grandchild standing next to red crayon

  91. marks on the wall and holding a red crayon saying I didn't do

  92. that. We lie about everything.

  93. We lie about big things and little things, and some of our

  94. lies can have monumental effects.

  95. Think of all the people who trusted Lehman Brothers for

  96. their retirement. Think about the people that

  97. thought that they were really in a get rich quick scheme with

  98. Bernie Madoff or more recently Sam Bankman Freed.

  99. And all you have to do is watch even media.

  100. You see all of the diversity of narratives about the Hamas,

  101. Israel war and how people are lining up.

  102. Who's telling the truth, who's reflecting the truth.

  103. Former president of Harvard University Claudine Gay tried to

  104. clean up a response that she made to anti-Semitism, an

  105. accusation of anti-Semitism on campus.

  106. And the the what she was trying to clean up was when she said to

  107. the congressional committee, it all depends on the context.

  108. Later on when she tried to clean it up, she said, well, that did

  109. not reflect, quote UN quote her truth.

  110. Have you heard people say that her truth, my truth, your truth?

  111. Did we forget that there's just truth?

  112. It isn't your version of it or my version of it.

  113. It's just truth. Our culture is full of

  114. conspiracy theories, right? The funny thing is, a lot of

  115. them end up being proven to be true.

  116. The Babylon B, which is a parody.

  117. A parody site, A parody outlet. They like to make up fake news

  118. stories, you know, that are supposed to be funny, to poke

  119. fun at. People like The Onion.

  120. They do that. And Seth Dillon, who's the CEO

  121. of that satire site, said in March of 2023 that over 100 of

  122. their jokes turned out to actually be true.

  123. As I've already pointed out, social media has very little

  124. relationship with the truth. And that would probably include

  125. some of the posts that we post as well, you know, You know some

  126. of those people you're actually are friends with some of those

  127. people not just like fake friends but like real friends.

  128. And you'll see them post something about themselves.

  129. Like you have this really nice family shot.

  130. You know, you got the husband and the wife, get the kids, you

  131. know they're on the beach. They're really nice restaurant.

  132. They're doing something like that, you know, everything's

  133. just great and except and they have some caption that about how

  134. great everything is except for, you know, them, you know, what's

  135. actually going on in their life. Does that ever happened?

  136. When you're like, how could they post that?

  137. It's ridiculous. And think about all the ones

  138. that you're looking at that you really don't know and how much

  139. of that embellishment and ridiculousness is on there.

  140. But it actually does have an effect on you because you start

  141. wondering like, why isn't my life as happy as theirs?

  142. This, or at least it looks that way.

  143. Maybe it's because you're not actually experiencing the truth.

  144. In that same book, Life Spotting, Pamela Meyer says

  145. we're all against lying, but covertly we're for it.

  146. So what are we left with? We're left with a culture that's

  147. virtually without trust anymore. And it doesn't matter if we're

  148. talking about politicians or pastors or the police or the

  149. price of gas or higher education or health care or the news media

  150. or mass marketing or marriage or civil rights or the Bill of

  151. Rights or equal justice under the law.

  152. We just don't have trust anymore.

  153. And it's because we have real difficulty seeing through the

  154. lens of truth. And why is that?

  155. Isn't it because of all the lying that has saturated us in

  156. both big ways and small ways? And where did that come from?

  157. Well, you're not going to like the answer.

  158. Steve Post says in his book that lying needs to be at the very

  159. top of the list of bad habits, and biblically, he's absolutely

  160. right. Do you know how far you have to

  161. go in your Bible to to reach an epic lie?

  162. Page 3, Page 3 right after God says everything is very good.

  163. Page three we read about it. Genesis chapter 3 verses one to

    Genesis 3 chapter mention

  164. five. Now the serpent.

  165. And we all know if you don't know, this is the devil is more

  166. crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had

  167. made. And said to the woman.

  168. Eve, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the

  169. garden? The woman said to the serpent.

  170. We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say,

  171. you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of

  172. the garden and you must not touch it or you'll die.

  173. You will certainly not die, the serpent told said to the woman.

  174. For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be

  175. opened and you'll become like God, knowing good and evil.

  176. This was the first lie recorded that was ever told and Satan

  177. told it to Eve. Now this is how that lie was

  178. formed. First thing he did was he

  179. planted a question in her mind. Did God really say right?

  180. And then he told her the lie was you won't, you won't die.

  181. But death, the word death in the original language is thanatos,

  182. which means separation. And the moment she ate of that

  183. fruit, she was separated from God, right?

  184. Death entered the world as a result, but she was separated

  185. from God in that moment, and then he wrapped that lie in a

  186. deception of truth or a perversion of truth.

  187. What God really knows is that if you eat of this tree, you'll

  188. become just like him. You'll know the difference

  189. between good and evil. The the the problem with that is

  190. they already were just like him. They were made in the image of

  191. God, right? They were the children of God.

  192. And when they broke that law, they didn't become more like

  193. God, they became less like him. And what was the response?

  194. Most of us have heard the story. If she ate of the fruit, she

  195. gave it to her husband, Adam. He ate of the fruit, right?

  196. And immediately the Bible says they knew they were naked.

  197. And what did they do? Bible says that they gathered

  198. fig leaves and they wove them together in such a way to make a

  199. covering for themselves because they were ashamed of their

  200. nakedness and they wanted to hide their nakedness.

  201. And then they found a place in the garden where they thought

  202. they could hide from God. And isn't that our immediate

  203. response? When we lie?

  204. We want to hide. As a matter of fact, our lying

  205. is a form of hiding. Why?

  206. Because the truth is just too dangerous.

  207. It's just too damaging. A singer and songwriter named

  208. Mike Guglio Muchi wrote and performed a song for Hillsong

  209. Records called You're My Healer, and it is an incredibly

  210. beautiful song. We've sung it at the crossing

  211. many times. It became a hit among churches

  212. and believers, and part of that came from the writer's testimony

  213. that went along with the song when he performed it.

  214. You see, he had terminal cancer and he wrote the song out of his

  215. cancer experience. As a matter of fact, often times

  216. when he would perform, he would be wearing a cannula so that he

  217. could have oxygen while he performed the song.

  218. Only problem was that his cancer was completely fabricated.

  219. He didn't have cancer at all. He wasn't even sick and he knew

  220. it and he developed that lie to try and make the song popular.

  221. He even deceived his own wife and family with his diagnosis

  222. and they would drop him off at the hospital for non existent

  223. cancer treatments. Now that's just one story, but

  224. there are countless stories of the infamy of liars.

  225. Now, my father, he taught me a lot of priceless things when I

  226. was growing up, and he would put them in little phrases or axioms

  227. so I would remember them. But one of his all time greats

  228. was this. A man is only as good as his

  229. word. If his word isn't any good, he

  230. isn't any good. And I've kept that my whole

  231. life. And I just lied to you.

  232. Although that's a great thing to believe and to strive for, I

  233. can't say that I have kept what my father taught me or I'd be

  234. lying. Lying has a lot of forms,

  235. doesn't it? It might be deception, where we

  236. really emphasize the things that we want people to believe.

  237. We really de emphasize the things we want people to not

  238. believe or to not think about. And so we distort the truth.

  239. That's still a lie. Or it might be gossip, right?

  240. You might have a story that you want to tell about somebody, but

  241. it's a game of telephone, and by the time it gets to the 20th

  242. person, it's nothing like what was originally and originally.

  243. It may have been wrong. So that lie compounds itself as

  244. it goes through those generations.

  245. You've experienced that I'm sure as well.

  246. It might be cheating. It might be whatever you do,

  247. like on a test, or what you might plagiarize.

  248. It might be to your employer where you're lying about, like

  249. the hours that you worked. It might be to the government.

  250. When you talk about how many tax, how much tax you owe might

  251. be flattery or exaggeration, or sometimes even silence might be

  252. a promise that you made that you just failed to keep.

  253. You see, we can lie in a number of ways and there are plenty of

  254. different motives for it. But as we all know, lies

  255. imprison us, and usually the result is telling more lies to

  256. cover the initial lies. And that just increases our

  257. sentence before God. You know, Jesus taught about

  258. lying and he actually connected it to a form of slavery because

  259. it does imprison us. Look what it says in John 832.

  260. Jesus said these words, beautiful words.

  261. You will know the truth. You notice he doesn't say his

  262. truth. The truth and the truth will set

  263. you free. He said that in the context of

  264. enslavement, and when you read the rest of the scripture around

  265. it and the people that were listening to Jesus at that time,

  266. they were believers. These weren't the scribes and

  267. the Pharisees trying to catch him in something.

  268. They were legitimately wanting him to teach them and look at

  269. their response when he says this verse 33, they answered him.

  270. We are Abraham's descendants and we have never been slaves of

  271. anyone. How can you say that we shall be

  272. set free? Boy, they have a bad memory.

  273. What about the 400 years that they were enslaved in bondage in

  274. Egypt, where Moses had to come right, and God used Moses to

  275. deliver the nation of Israel? Forget that.

  276. Did they? Forget the Roman occupation that

  277. they were under right then? And how many things they

  278. couldn't do because of that? And maybe this helps us to

  279. understand the worst of all. The lies, the most insidious of

  280. lies. And those are the lies we tell

  281. ourselves. Maybe it's because the truth is

  282. harder to hear. You remember the scene, Jack

  283. Nicholson. You want the truth.

  284. You can't handle the truth well. Jesus is about to give him a

  285. really strong dose of truth in verse 43 and 44.

  286. Why is my language not clear to you?

  287. Because you are unable to hear what I say.

  288. Here's a great way to grow a church.

  289. You belong to your father, the devil.

  290. That isn't going to win friends and influence people.

  291. Your father is the is Satan himself.

  292. These are people who believed in Jesus.

  293. You want to carry out your father's desires?

  294. Wow. Not only are you saying that my

  295. my father's the devil, but you're saying I'm doing his

  296. bidding. I'm doing what he wants me to

  297. do. He was a murderer from the

  298. beginning. Is that him calling us

  299. murderers, not holding to the truth?

  300. For there's no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his

  301. native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

  302. Wow. Well, now we know where lying

  303. comes from. We can trace it all the way back

  304. to that first lie in the garden. So maybe you're going.

  305. Hey, if you hadn't noticed, Jerry, it's 9° below 0 outside,

  306. and I came to church looking for a little hope.

  307. Man. Could you help me out here just

  308. a little bit? Give a guy a break.

  309. All I've heard at this point is that lying is a big problem.

  310. It's the root of why there's no trust in this world.

  311. I'm guilty of it. We're all guilty of it.

  312. We lie to each other. We lie to ourselves.

  313. And that means that our father is the devil.

  314. Well, happy New Year. Now go back to John 832, because

  315. this is the point of what Jesus is saying.

  316. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

  317. He sees us imprisoned, enslaved to all of these habits and

  318. strongholds in our lives of which lying is a part.

  319. And he wants us to be set free. And he's willing to pay the

  320. price so that we might be set free.

  321. You see, lies enslave us, but truth sets us free, not.

  322. Your truth has no power. My truth has no power, but the

  323. truth does. That's why Jesus came to set us

  324. free. Now he teaches us about this a

  325. little bit later in John 14, same book, a little bit later.

  326. And the setting is this. Jesus is celebrating Passover

  327. with his disciples. It's the last Passover that

  328. they're going to celebrate together, because within 24

  329. hours Jesus will have died on the cross.

  330. OK? And they're in the upper room in

  331. Jerusalem and they've, they've set up this Passover meal.

  332. And then Jesus begins to teach and he changes the meaning of

  333. the emblems that they're that they're eating and drinking.

  334. When he says, this bread is my body broken for you do this in

  335. remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in

  336. my blood. Drink.

  337. All of it. It's shed for many for the

  338. remission of sin, You know, he says this to them.

  339. And then you know he he has these beautiful words that go

  340. along with it. Let not your heart be troubled.

  341. You believe in God. Believe also in me, my father's

  342. house, or many mansions. If it weren't so, I would have

  343. told you I go to prepare a place for you.

  344. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I'll come again receive

  345. you to myself. That where I am, there you may

  346. be also where I go, where I go, you know, in the way you know.

  347. And Thomas said, hold on, Jesus, we don't know where you're

  348. going. And how can we know the way?

  349. Totally confused. And then we read John 14-6.

  350. Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

  351. No one comes to the Father except through me.

  352. Jesus doesn't come to show us the way.

  353. He is the way. Jesus doesn't come to teach us

  354. the truth. He is the truth.

  355. Jesus doesn't come to help us find a new life.

  356. He is life. He's identified Jesus.

  357. And when we are in Jesus, we are in these things.

  358. First of all, Jesus is the way. The way to where?

  359. The way to where? The way to heaven.

  360. The way to the Father. The way to eternity.

  361. The way to salvation. The way that leads me away from

  362. all that I am and all that I've done into all that He has

  363. prepared for me. The fact that He has adopted me

  364. away from the slavery of my sin and the other strongholds of my

  365. life and all the things that I have done to myself.

  366. He is the way. He's the truth.

  367. He gives me an unfiltered understanding of reality so that

  368. I know who I am, what this world is, what eternity holds.

  369. He answers my deepest questions. Who am I?

  370. Where did I come from? Where am I going?

  371. And by the way, everybody that's trying to tell you something

  372. else is just selling you something because he's the truth

  373. and Jesus is life. He shows me my place in this

  374. world. He fills me with meaning and

  375. purpose. He shows me that he designed an

  376. upper story for my life, that he wants me to walk in and he has

  377. overcome death to give me eternal life with him.

  378. So my answer is not running away from lying.

  379. It's running the truth. And by the way, running the

  380. truth is running to Jesus. It's embracing the freedom that

  381. only he can give me. And it's walking with him on the

  382. shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Now some of you are going, what?

  383. What does that mean, walking on the shoreline to see a Galilee?

  384. Well, why don't you, along with me, think of probably one of the

  385. most epic lies that was ever perpetrated, and it was by a man

  386. named Simon Peter. Because when Jesus was done with

  387. that Last Supper, that communion, they went down to the

  388. garden of Gethsemane and they prayed.

  389. And Jesus stood awful ways and he was praying by himself.

  390. And the others went to sleep and soldiers came to arrest Jesus in

  391. the middle of the night. You you may remember this.

  392. And and Jesus was arrested and a lot of the disciples scattered.

  393. But Simon Peter followed along. And when they took him to the

  394. House of the high priest Caiaphas, Simon Peter was in the

  395. courtyard. And somebody looked at Simon

  396. Peter in the fire light and recognized him.

  397. And he said, aren't you one of his disciples?

  398. And what did he do? He lied.

  399. I I don't know. I don't know him.

  400. Someone else noticed him and called him out for the same

  401. thing. He goes, I tell you, I don't.

  402. I don't know him lied again. And then someone else called him

  403. out, and the Bible says that this time he was so incensed

  404. that he cursed when he said it. I do not know him.

  405. And you know what he did after that?

  406. He hid. Sound familiar?

  407. Went out and wept. Bitterly lied.

  408. We call it denial, but it was just lying.

  409. But maybe you recall, after Jesus had paid his debt, and my

  410. debt and your debt on the cross, and then rose from the dead to

  411. prove that he had power over death, Simon Peter after a while

  412. decided to go back to the sea of Galley, back to his fishing

  413. business. And one morning after they

  414. hadn't caught anything, someone yells from the shore, as the

  415. dawn was breaking, they cast your Nets on the other side of

  416. the boat, which is something Jesus said at the very beginning

  417. of his relationship with Simon Peter.

  418. And they did. And there were so many fish that

  419. they could hardly take in the catch.

  420. And Simon Peter comes to the shore, and they had breakfast

  421. with all of them together. And then Jesus said, Simon, we

  422. need to take a walk. And they took a walk on the

  423. shore of the Sea of Galilee. And when they did, Jesus didn't

  424. call him Peter. That was what he renamed him to.

  425. He called him Simon. And matter of fact, he said,

  426. Simon, son of John, do you love me?

  427. Use the word Agapeo, which means the ultimate self sacrificial

  428. love. And Simon answers him, Lord, you

  429. know I love you. But he uses the word filet O in

  430. the Greek, which means brotherly love.

  431. It's a lower kind of love. And Jesus said feed my sheep.

  432. Simon's son of John do you love me, says it again.

  433. Agapeo. Simon Peter says, Lord, I do

  434. love you. Phileo lower kind of love feed

  435. my lambs. Jesus says third time Jesus says

  436. Simon son of John do you love me this time?

  437. Jesus says Phileo, brotherly love.

  438. The Bible says that Simon Peter was hurt, cut to his heart

  439. because Jesus asked him the third time because he knew what

  440. was going on, right? He knew that he denied him.

  441. He knew that he lied three times.

  442. And this was the third time Jesus asked.

  443. But he also knew that Jesus used the different term, the lower

  444. term. Phileo, do you love me?

  445. And he said, Lord, you know all things.

  446. You know that I love you feed my sheep.

  447. You know what I love about that is that comes from an old

  448. quartet song I used to sing. He came down to my level when I

  449. couldn't get up to his. With a strong arm, he lifted me

  450. up to know what living is. You see, I'm just like Simon

  451. Peter. So are you.

  452. And what we need is a walk on the shoreline of the Sea of

  453. Galilee. What we need is a little quality

  454. time with Jesus. And let me tell you what that

  455. looks like. It starts with owning it.

  456. Own it. Don't let that lie that you've

  457. let saturate in your own that you tell yourself have dominance

  458. inside of you. Acknowledge it.

  459. It means an intellectual understanding without

  460. rationalizing. It's the first beatitude of the

  461. beatitudes that Jesus talked about in Matthew chapter 5.

    Matthew 5 chapter mention

  462. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of

  463. heaven. What does it mean to be poor in

  464. spirit? To be spiritually poor?

  465. To realize that you don't measure up spiritually.

  466. Own it. But it's not enough to just know

  467. that in your head, and that's why the 2nd Beatitude is blessed

  468. are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

  469. Because you're not just an intellectual person, you're an

  470. emotional person too. You don't just think things, you

  471. feel things right. And so we need to have an

  472. emotional response to an intellectual understanding.

  473. We need to repent of our sin, which means to have a godly

  474. sorrow over that. That's what it means to own it.

  475. And when you do that, you begin to experience your spiritual

  476. freedom, and then it moves to practical reinforcement that

  477. needs to be reinforced in your life.

  478. When the stronghold comes down, you need to replace the bad

  479. habits with the good habits, right?

  480. Be honest with each other. Speak the truth, but speak it

  481. with love and with grace. Make yourself accountable to

  482. people. People that you trust that you

  483. can show your dirty laundry to and they won't reject you for

  484. it. Avoid situations that push you

  485. back to the bad habit and embrace situations that

  486. reinforce the good habits. If you're a drunk and your way

  487. home from work goes by three bars, find another way home.

  488. Because I guarantee you Satan will have people out in the

  489. parking lot going, hey, dude, come on right, Reinforce the

  490. good ones. Avoid the bad ones.

  491. And finally I want to close with this.

  492. Celebrate the winds. How do I do that?

  493. How do you celebrate the winds? Do you remember?

  494. Some of you may? I preached A sermon quite a

  495. while ago and I ended it by saying I, I, I take this

  496. medicine. I call it my my 290 twos.

  497. Do you remember my 290 twos? Maybe not.

  498. If you don't, this will be great, because it'd be the first

  499. time you heard it in Psalm 92, the first verse and the second

  500. verse. It says it is good to praise the

  501. Lord, to make music to your name almost high.

  502. And then it says this to proclaim your love in the

  503. morning and your faithfulness at night.

  504. Those are my 290 twos, to proclaim your love in the

  505. morning and your faithfulness at night.

  506. What does it mean to proclaim his love in the morning before

  507. you ever get out of bed? And I'd love to.

  508. I'd love to tell you I do this every day, but if I did, I would

  509. be lying. But to proclaim his love in the

  510. morning means before you do anything else, before you goof

  511. yourself up and anybody else up and make a mess of life and face

  512. the challenges and all that you need to tell yourself.

  513. God, no matter what, I know that you love me.

  514. I absolutely know that you love me.

  515. I don't hope that you love me. I don't want you to.

  516. I just know it's a fact. You love me.

  517. And if I ever wondered about that, all I have to do is look

  518. back at what your son Jesus did on the cross.

  519. Because that's a perfect picture of the fact that you love me

  520. even while I'm still a Sinner. Romans 5/8.

  521. You love me and you love me today.

  522. And I know no matter what I face today.

  523. I know that you love me. That's going to make your day a

  524. better day. I guarantee it.

  525. But you don't know what that day is going to hold, right?

  526. So what do you do when it's the end of the day before you close

  527. your eyes and go to sleep, to proclaim his love in the morning

  528. and his faithfulness at night? You get to the end of that day.

  529. You want to look back on that day.

  530. All the challenges, all the failures, all the misses, all

  531. the wins, all the glory, all the good stuff and all of it.

  532. And you say, you know what, God, here we are.

  533. We're still together. You've been faithful to me.

  534. You didn't leave me. You didn't forsake me.

  535. You're still here. You are still here.

  536. And it'll celebrate those winds, the things that happened, that

  537. that gave God glory that day. Because God is a faithful God.

  538. And even when we're faithless, the Bible says he's faithful

  539. because he cannot disown himself.

  540. And I guarantee you it's going to make tomorrow a better day if

  541. you ended this day with that 92. The question is what are you

  542. going to do right now? We're moving to a time of

  543. decision. You know, I don't think that you

  544. get up on a day where it's 15 or 16 below 0 and make the effort.

  545. Hopefully your car started. But for whatever reason, you're

  546. here. And I know some of you are

  547. online right now and you said probably not a good idea for me

  548. to get out. It's all right.

  549. That's OK, because I'm glad you're hearing this.

  550. That no matter what, our God loves us and is faithful to us.

  551. And Jesus is the perfect picture of that.

  552. And I want you to hear me. You need Jesus, and I need

  553. Jesus. I mean really bad.

  554. Some of you have been trying to manage your life, control the

  555. things that are strongholds in your life.

  556. And if you were honest with yourself and not lying to

  557. yourself, you'd have to honestly realize that you don't do a very

  558. consistent job of that You really struggle with it.

  559. And that's why we need a Savior. There's a scripture that says

  560. come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will

  561. give you a rest. And I think that Jesus looks at

  562. us and pities us because we're working so hard and we're trying

  563. so hard and we fail over and over again.

  564. And he wants you to understand that he did all the heavy

  565. lifting when he died on that cross, that you don't need to

  566. trust in yourself anymore. You need to just trust in him.

  567. He's the way. And if you want life, real life,

  568. he's life. So you need to respond to the

  569. truth which has come to Jesus. And if you're here today and

  570. you've never entered into an intimate, personal relationship

  571. with Jesus, I'm not talking about going to church, Although

  572. I'm really glad you're here. Here's an opportunity for you to

  573. come to Jesus. There's going to be somebody

  574. right over there by that baptistry loved nothing more.

  575. And to talk to you about what your next steps could be, Pray

  576. with you and we sing in a moment.

  577. Just go up there. Be vulnerable for a moment.

  578. God won't disappoint you. Many of us here today have a

  579. relationship with Jesus that we're thankful for and we rely

  580. on. But that doesn't mean that you

  581. don't try so often to sit in his seat.

  582. You know what I mean? Like the throne of your life and

  583. things get goofed up and you start trying to hold it all up

  584. on your own and trying to manage all of the difficulty and you

  585. just get exhausted. I remember one time somebody

  586. said, why do you have people come up and get down on their

  587. knees? Doesn't that humiliate them?

  588. And I'm like, no, they're just kids going to their dad and

  589. they're saying I need help and he gives it to them.

  590. Why wouldn't we want that? Maybe you.

  591. It may be somebody that you love and care for.

  592. But whatever burden you might be carrying today, why don't you

  593. bring it up to the Lord and let him have it?

  594. Just let him have it. He'll hear that prayer.

  595. Would you stand with me? Let's pray together.

  596. Heavenly Father, in Jesus name, please, please.

  597. I pray that you would that you would remove any stronghold

  598. around our heart right now. Just so that we cannot.

  599. Not vulnerable to me, not vulnerable to anybody in this

  600. room, but vulnerable to just you, your presence, your Son,

  601. Jesus, your Holy Spirit. Father, I pray that we'll just

  602. be vulnerable enough to you right now to hear what it is

  603. that we need to hear that still small voice and then respond so

  604. that we can have rest. We can lay our burdens down.

  605. Trust in you, I pray, in Jesus name.

  606. Amen.