Free People – Grace Paid the Bill

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, let's get to work together today, everybody.

We are in part three of an eight-part message series this summer.

The series is called Free People.

And every summer we take a whole book of the Bible and we spend a couple months digging through it.

And this year we're doing a study of the book of Galatians.

It's a letter that Paul wrote to a series of churches all around modern-day Turkey.

They were called the churches of Galatia.

And in a lot of his books, Paul writes these really beautiful, flowery, I love you, how are you?

Kiss your mom for me, kind of letters.

This one he comes out kind of kicking buttons, taking names, to be honest.

He comes out like strong and he deals with some stuff.

And here's the funny thing: the stuff that those people were dealing with, we we tend to deal with it too.

But like to get us started today, a couple years ago, I woke up in the morning and I rolled over, and my wife was in bed next to me.

Now that's normal, but normally she's laying next to me.

But when I rolled over, she was sitting up in the bed with her arms folded like this.

And so I did that thing I do.

I said, Hey girl.

And she said, How dare you?

And I said, This is weird.

Is this something new we're trying?

Like, what are we doing?

She goes, Who do you think you are?

I said, I'm your man and I'm all here for you.

I'm trying to hit on her, you know.

And and she's like, Oh, I can't believe you would do that.

I said, Did I snore?

Like, what is the problem here?

And she goes, I had a dream that you cheated on me last night.

And she was furious at me.

And I said, It happened last night.

She goes, Yep.

I said, Guess where I was all night?

Right here.

I didn't go anywhere.

I was here all night.

She goes, Yeah, but it could have been prophetic.

I said, it's not prophetic, it's pathetic.

I was right here the whole night.

And she was angry at me, and then like, it was funny because pretty quickly it went from anger to tears.

Anger to sadness.

And I realized something.

I actually got sad too.

Not because I had done anything wrong.

I got sad because for a few hours she sat up fuming and hurting, and she was carrying something that she didn't need to carry.

We do that, don't we?

Like we carry stuff from season to season in our life that we don't need to carry, hurts and betrayals and unforgiveness and bitterness.

Like we carry stuff, and often it's stuff that we weren't intended to carry, and that stuff gets it gets really, really heavy for us.

And then what happens is when we carry some things, we we start to go into a different kind of mode.

It's what I would call performance mode.

Performance mode is when I feel like I have to carry this.

Like I feel like I have to put on a show for everyone, and I have to muscle my way through this life carrying stuff that I wasn't intending on carrying.

It's the reason that PhDs that have earned PhDs feel stupid.

It's the reason that supermodels feel fat.

It's the reason professional athletes feel unaccomplished.

It's the reason that many of us like strive really hard to achieve something to please people that we never needed to please.

We live in performance mode.

And you understand how this works in our lives, but I'm convinced that some of us do the same thing with God.

What is performance mode?

It's buying into the lie that I have to do more to earn God's love, that I have to perform better to earn his forgiveness, that I have to strive and exhaust myself nose to the grind in order to get his grace.

And if that's you today, I just want to say this to you.

Performance can never produce peace.

And peace is the byproduct of a person who's living in freedom.

In fact, the series is called Free People, because I believe that you and I were created by God not to live under the oppressive rules of religion, but to walk in a different kind of freedom.

In fact, that's what this whole book is about.

And what I want to do is I want to go to this book because I want to show you specifically what God's word says.

And to understand what we're going to read today, let me kind of give you a couple things you need to know.

The first thing is this Paul is talking a lot about a word called the word gospel.

If you don't know what the word gospel means, it's just an old word that means good news.

This wasn't a religious word.

In fact, this was a military word.

The word for gospel in Greek is the word Euangeleon.

A Euangeleon was a person who would be in a battle, but their job was when your army was fighting against some other country's army, when your army won, the Euangeleon would run back ahead of all the people before they got home and say, Good news, we won the war.

This is what that word means.

As a follower of Jesus, the word gospel means that what Jesus did for us is good news.

That because of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, because he gave his life in our place, because he paid the price for your sins, you can walk in and live in a different kind of forgiveness.

You can walk in salvation.

This is good news.

So a quick little rabbit trail for just a moment.

If your church or religious experience has been anything other than good news, I've got some words for you.

That's not the gospel message of Jesus, because Jesus is good news.

So week one, we said this that there was this group of people that Paul was addressing.

What they were doing is they were trying to add stuff to Jesus.

They were trying to add laws and rules and requirements for people in order to receive and walk in forgiveness and salvation.

And I said, here's what you need to understand.

This is a there's a mathematical formula to this.

It's Jesus plus nothing is everything.

When you add anything to Jesus, it pollutes and dilutes the message of Jesus.

It makes it worthless.

You get nothing.

But when you add Jesus plus nothing, you don't need to add anything to him, you get everything.

Forgiveness and grace and salvation.

Last week, Pastor Derek from our Bartow location preached an amazing message where he said this that the message of the gospel and who Jesus is, it doesn't just improve us and make us better.

It transforms us, it makes us an entirely new person.

Today, we're turning over to chapter two.

Hopefully you've been reading along with this.

Chapter two is a really interesting text, but to understand the text, I need to give you a history lesson so you understand the context.

So you get the context first.

It's gonna feel like history for just a moment, but but here's what's happening in Galatians chapter two.

There are these three different groups of people, okay?

First of all, there is Paul, Paul the Apostle.

If you're new to the Bible, Paul is one of my favorite people in the Bible because when we first meet him, he goes by the name Saul.

And if Saul was alive in the year 2026, we would call him a terrorist.

He was terrorizing these new followers of Jesus, beating them, imprisoning them, murdering them, stoning them, all kinds of things.

And then Paul one day has this dramatic encounter with God that completely changes his life, and God renames him from Saul to Paul.

Paul's life is so transformed that he goes on to write half of our New Testament, okay?

That's him.

And then there's a guy named Peter.

And I love Peter because Peter is literally all over the place.

Peter has these incredible moments where Jesus marches his disciples, Matthew chapter 18, to Caesarea Philippi, and he says, You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Peter's one of two people in the whole history of the world to walk on water.

It was Peter and Jesus.

It was pretty cool.

Peter had some other amazing moments, but then Peter also had some terrible moments.

Like there was a moment when Jesus is on the cross, and a little girl comes to him and says, Hey, didn't you used to hang out with him?

And Peter denied even knowing Jesus.

So he's kind of all over the map.

And when we read the story in just a moment, Paul, who writes it, is going to address Peter by his Aramaic name, Cephas, so that'll help you make sense of it.

Then there's this third group, okay?

The third group we talked about in the first week of the series, they were called the Judaizers.

Now, what they were was they were this group of people who were trying to help make sense of this awkward transition, okay?

Now, when you read your Bible, you'll often read two different words.

There was Jews and there was Gentiles.

Jews were people of Jewish descent, and then Gentiles is just a fancy word that means everybody else who wasn't Jewish.

And there was this problem that this first church was facing, and here's what it was Jesus came and died, rose again, and the new church has started.

And there's all these Jewish people who feel like they're in because of their lineage, because of their history, but there's all these Gentiles that want to follow Jesus too.

And so there was this meeting.

We'll talk about it later, but it's in Acts chapter 15, where there's what's called the Council of Jerusalem, where all these leaders get together and they they make this decision that we shouldn't make it difficult for people to follow Jesus.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

Acts 15, verse 9 or 19.

Acts 15:9

It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

James literally says, it is my decision that we should not make it difficult for people to find and follow Jesus.

That's a big deal to me.

In fact, that really informs the way we do church.

Like we shouldn't make it hard for people who are far from God to come to faith in Jesus.

We should make it easy as we possibly can.

We should make it simple and understandable.

It's the reason we do ministry to your family the way we do.

It's the reason we worship the way we do.

It's the reason I preach the way I do.

We want to make it easy for people to come find and follow Jesus.

But then there were these Judaizers, right?

And they were these people who were Jewish and they were cool with Gentiles coming into the faith, but they wanted them to kind of take on some of the Jewish traditions.

They wanted them to follow the laws of the Old Testament, the laws of the Torah.

They wanted them to change their diet to some of the Jewish traditional diet meals.

And then they this is weird.

They wanted them to have a surgery, a circumcision.

And I said this week one, and I'll just say it one more time, okay?

Imagine you came to our church for the very first time and you were blown away.

You you someone greeted you in the parking lot, you were like, how do they know how to be so friendly?

And you walk in and people talk to you, and it's just weird for you because you're not used to that.

And you check your kids in and they're so excited because they're gonna have the best time in access kids that day, and you come in and the worship is just so beautiful.

You feel like you're worshiping next to Jesus Himself because it's that good.

Then the message just melts your face off, and it's beautiful and passionate, and it's so funny, you can't help yourself, you just keep laughing all the time, it's just wonderful.

And after the service, you're like, babe, we are joining this church.

And then we we have a membership class that day.

And you go to the class, and the class is awesome, they tell you all about the church, and they're like, This, hey, one last thing if you want to join the church.

Actually, two things.

Number one, you gotta change your diet.

You think that's cool, I could stand to lose a few pounds.

And they're like, um, and for all the dudes in the room, just one little surgery, no big deal, little circumcision.

We'll just, it'll be quick.

It'll be fine.

I'd be like, babe, we are watching this church online.

That's what we are doing, right?

I'm not going to church up in this place, right?

And that was the tension point for these three different groups of people.

Now, I want you to see something happens between Paul and Peter.

He's going to address it.

We're going to read 10 straight verses, and then I'll come back and I'll explain and fill in all the gaps.

Here's what's happening.

Galatians chapter 2, verse 11 says this.

Galatians 2:11

When Cephas, remember, this is Peter, when he came to Antioch.

Antioch was a city that today still exists, it's kind of south of Turkey, just in the northern part of Syria.

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face.

We could just pause there for a moment.

And how many issues relationally would be different if we didn't talk behind people's backs and we didn't post about them on social media, but we just talked to them to their face?

That's a free lesson.

It says, I talked to him to his face because he stood condemned.

For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles.

So here's what's happening.

Peter has the same revelation that the Gentiles are welcome in, and because of what Jesus did, some of those old dietary restrictions, like Jewish people wouldn't eat pork, they wouldn't eat bacon, they wouldn't eat bacon wrapped billet, they wouldn't eat shrimp, they wouldn't eat bacon wrapped shrimp, they wouldn't eat bacon.

Okay, there was a problem.

And Peter realizes that all of that is done away with because of what Jesus has done, and so now he's doing things with the Gentiles to welcome them in.

And it goes on.

It says, but when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group.

That's a weird name.

Come on, ain't no party like a circumcision party, right?

You want a fun joke?

What do you call a cheap circumcision?

A ripoff.

We'll keep going.

It says, um shouldn't have said that.

I apologize.

Didn't say that in the first service, you're welcome.

I just got back from another country.

I'm tired.

Let's keep going.

So the other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy.

That's a key word.

We'll come back to that.

So that by their hypocrisy, even Barnabas was led astray.

He says, When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, remember that phrase.

I said to Peter, see if it's in front of all of them, you are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew.

How is it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

Who, uh, we who are Jews by birth and are not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified, there's another key word, by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works, and he's going to use this word three times, the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will become justified.

He goes, but if in seeking to be justified in Christ we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn't that mean that Christ promotes sin?

Absolutely.

He says, if I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

For though the but for through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.

And then he's gonna drop this theological juggernaut of a verse on us.

He says, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

He says, The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

He says, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.

So here is what's happening in this verse and in this story.

We've got Paul and Peter are at odds with each other, and the reason they're at odds with each other is because Peter, who really believes that Gentiles can join the church and join the faith and become followers of Jesus, he knows the right thing, but he's acting a different way.

When the Judaism has come to town to Antioch where he was, he stops like acting like he believes what he knows to be true and he believes he acts a different way.

Let me show it to you like this.

I want you to write this down, okay?

Number one, the gospel changes how we behave.

And when Paul writes about Peter, he uses this word and it's this bomb of a word.

He calls Peter a hypocrite.

The word in Greek for hypocrites is a fun word.

It literally means a person who hides behind a mask, like an actor in a play, pretending to be someone they're not.

And this is what he calls Peter.

He says, Peter, you know the right things, but you're not living the right way.

It's like you're acting, you're pretending to be something that you're not.

And then he he uses this phrase, and I love this phrase, because this will help you unlock what he's trying to say.

In verse 14, he says, When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.

Like they were, they were acting, they were hypocrites, they were hiding and not acting in line.

He uses a fun Greek word, it's the word orthopode.

And literally, this word, like ortho, is the word that means to make straight, and podo is like kind of to walk.

This is like where you get the root word for like orthopedic, it's someone who works to make straight the bones and ligaments in your body.

Orthodontist is someone who makes your teeth straight.

Orthodox is like to think straight or correctly about your theology and what you believe to be true.

Okay?

And so he says this.

They're not walking in line, and that means to walk straight, to walk correctly, or to keep in step.

What he's saying about Peter is he's saying one thing, but his actions are saying something else.

And so he's not walking a straight line.

He's walking this back and forth kind of divided line.

And here's what you need to understand about the gospel.

The gospel is not only something we believe, it's something we walk in.

And we need to know what we believe and we need to walk in it because the world around us is watching us.

So I want to step all up in your business for just a moment.

Where in your life do your actions call you a hypocrite?

Another way to say it is where do I not walk in line with the gospel?

Where is my life believe one thing, but I act a different way?

I know it's one of these three things because all of us struggle with these things.

For some of us, we we don't walk in line with the gospel when it comes to what I call the lust of the flesh.

And what this is, is this is just doing whatever you want to gratify yourself.

This could be in what you eat, this could be in what you drink, this could be in what you smoke, this could be in all kinds of different things.

And the funny thing is all of us have some stuff we do that's just about gratifying my own selfish desires.

And if I could just kind of get really personal for just a moment, here's a funny thing.

A lot of people will hear this and they'll say, Well, I don't do drugs, I don't smoke anything illegal, I don't, I don't drink myself into oblivion, but it's like we can't control ourselves when it comes to food.

It's all sinful if it's taken in abundance.

Lust of the flesh, another one is lust of the eyes.

This is the sin of greed.

It's wanting everything that isn't yours.

This can be what you watch, this can be the things you lust after and desire after.

Lust after lust of the eyes will devastate you.

The third one is the one that it looked like Peter seemed to struggle with, which is the pride of life, which is living for the approval of everyone else instead of living based on your convictions or walking in line or in step with what God would have for you.

So think about Peter for just a moment.

He's literally doing whatever it takes to get the approval of some people that don't really matter, right?

He's living in fear, he's living in hypocrisy, he's living in this like Jesus plus something kind of mentality, and he's missing out on it, and so Paul calls him out on it.

Quick side note: who do you have in your life that's willing to call you out when you find yourself not walking in line with the gospel?

You need some friends who can tell you when you can't see it for yourself, because if you don't, you will find yourself drifting.

First thing is that.

Second thing I need you to know is this the gospel has the final word.

The good news of Jesus, because of what he did for you, he has the final word.

And this is a good principle, then I'll make it specific.

You need to make this decision in your life that God's word is the final word.

What does it mean?

It means if you go to the doctor and you get a diagnosis, that is a word.

But it's not the final word.

Why?

Because God is my healer.

If you look at your bank account and you've got a certain amount of money and you've got a lot of bills, you need to understand that that is a word, but it's not the final word because God is Jehovah Jirah.

He's my provider, right?

You might be walking through a relationship problem.

Maybe the word divorce has gotten thrown out, and that's a word, but it's not the final word because God is a God who heals and mends broken hearts.

Like they can have a word, but there needs to be a final word.

Okay.

Now, this is true in every part of your life, but it's so specifically true when it comes to what saves you.

How God forgives you.

Galatians chapter 2, verse 16, he says it like this.

Galatians 2:16

He says, A person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

Over and over and over again, he says, What saves us is not our works, because if it was our works, we could do something to earn it.

It has nothing to do with your best efforts.

It's because of the grace of God.

And he uses this word, the word is justified.

Now, this week we were in Honduras with our team, and it was an amazing trip.

What was so cool is we had 39 people from our three different locations that all came together, and it was like instantly we were this big family.

People that I had never met before, all of a sudden we're like brothers and sisters.

It was just so fun.

And so we're sitting around at night and we're just asking questions, getting to know our new family that we're just meeting, and it's so fun, and we're asking questions, and someone said to me, Okay, if you weren't a pastor, what would you be?

And without missing a beat, I said, I'd be a lawyer.

All of a sudden, like I just knew the answer because recently I've gotten into lawyer TV shows because I want to I want to fight for what's right.

Like I there's this justice side of me, I want to fight for it, right?

This word justified, I want you to think like a lawyer, because this is like a legal lawyer kind of term.

Justified means declared righteous, accepted, acquitted, made right before God.

Okay, so I'm not a lawyer, but I've watched a lot of law shows.

And um, one of the things I've learned is often in court what will happen is the lawyers on both sides will be arguing, but there's a judge.

And the judge has a gavel, and the gavel When he slams it, declares this is the final decision.

Stop talking because the decision has been made.

Wonder how many of us we go to God with our objections like a lawyer on the attack.

We'll say things or we'll live our lives in a way where we're like, it's not possible for anyone to love me, and God says, I love you with the perfect love.

Final word, it's over.

We'll say things like, Well, I'm unworthy of God's love.

And God would say, You are worth the price someone is willing to pay for you.

I gave my son for you.

Boom.

Final word.

You need to understand that there are some things that you in your life that you will believe unintentionally.

You'll just drift towards thinking or believing that you have to do something to earn God's love.

And God would respond to you, you can't earn what I've given you.

Final word.

This is the gospel.

So here it is, right?

Religion will tell you things like this: like, okay, if you'll just obey first, then maybe you'll be accepted by God.

But the gospel says you're already accepted, so now choose to obey.

That God welcomes you into his family.

You don't have to earn your way into God's family.

He welcomes you in.

And now the result should be, of course, I want to obey because I know God wants the best for me.

Religion, it works from the outside in, but you need to understand that the gospel transforms you and it works from the inside out.

Outside in is behavior modification and trying as hard as you can.

Inside out is how real change actually seems to happen and take hold.

I need you to understand this.

This is how God works, and He and He alone has the final word in your story.

So then Paul's talking about everything happening with Peter, and then there's this weird question, right?

Like if Peter, who believes all the right things, is doing the wrong stuff, here's the question Does obedience even matter?

Like, does it matter if you, as long as you believe the right stuff, can you do whatever you want?

And what's funny is Paul says, absolutely behavior matters.

Like this is a big deal.

In fact, another way to say it is obedience is the fruit of salvation, but it's not the cause of salvation.

You don't obey your way into relationship with God.

You obey because of what He's already done for you.

You obey.

It's Father's Day.

I love my kids so much.

I want them to obey, but the reason they obey is they know that because I'm their father, I want the best for my kids.

So here's another way to say this Christianity is not about behavior modification, it's about death to life.

It's about being completely changed from death to life.

So here's how Paul says it, and this is one of the strongest verses in the whole Bible.

He says this.

He says, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live.

But Christ lives in me.

So here's what this verse means.

It doesn't mean that I'm physically crucified with Jesus, but it means my sinful past.

Who I once was before Jesus, when Jesus died and paid the price for my sins, my sinful past is dead, buried, and gone.

To try to imagine this again for just a moment.

Let's go back to court for just a moment.

Someone you know and love gets accused of a crime and they are found guilty and they are sentenced to life in prison.

But a year into their life sentence in prison, something happens and they die prematurely.

They wouldn't keep the body in prison because at the death, the sentence ends.

Are you with me on this?

The same thing is true when it comes to your sin.

When Jesus saves you and changed you, you become justified, which means you're in right standing with God, and your former self, like Paul says, is dead, buried, and gone, which means all of the judgment, all the penalty, all of it died with your former sinful past.

You get to walk into a new life.

It's kind of like this.

This week we were in Honduras and we saw people living in what I would call abject poverty.

We met some people who, honestly, like they didn't have jobs.

I don't know how they made it financially.

It was just too bad.

Because of you and your generosity, we certainly bless them, but you just wonder, like, how are they gonna make it moving forward?

Now, imagine for just a moment that this was you.

You live in this difficult situation.

And you find out one day via a letter that you had a rich relative that you never knew and they died, but they left you some huge amount of money.

Millions of dollars.

Money gets transferred to you, and you look in your bank account, and now your bank account has two commas in the number, right?

Oh, it's huge.

But you still live like you're broke.

You never let it change you.

This is where a lot of Christians live.

All the riches of heaven poured out for you.

But we don't we don't live like it.

When I was in college, I got a major job upgrade.

I was waiting tables at one restaurant, and I met a manager of another super nice restaurant, and he gave me a job, and this was really cool.

Like, what an opportunity to go work at this restaurant.

And this restaurant at that time was probably the nicest restaurant in the city, but it was tiny.

We only had 19 tables, and it was a fun place to work.

Really wealthy people would come.

I would sneak out into the front and look at all the cars, and it was all the super high-end name brands.

It was it was fun to work there.

And there was this guy who would come in, and none of the waiters enjoyed waiting on him because he was just really, really difficult.

He was a challenge.

He was the guy who would always send his meals back, and he was the guy who would yell at the waiters.

But for whatever reason, he had taken a liking to me.

And um, one of the things I found out about him is he was kind of a famous surgeon, and I just think he had this air of superiority about him.

Like if he had a reservation for six o'clock, but there was still people waiting, he would walk around the people who were waiting.

He would look to find where I was serving tables, and if a table got up, before the table even got clean, he would walk and sit himself down.

Like that's who this guy was, okay?

And uh there was this night that I was waiting on him like I always did, and he was being difficult like he always was.

And while I was waiting tables, a man from across the restaurant flagged me down and called me over, and he said, Hey, that guy back in that corner, he did some sort of surgery on the family member and saved their life.

I'd like to bless him and pay for his meal.

And I thought, this is the best moment ever.

Has that ever happened to you?

Like it's just such a wonderful feeling.

And as the waiter in that moment, I felt like Ryan Seacrest.

I'm like, I'm gonna make this guy's whole life right now.

So after his meal was over, I went up to him and I was like, sir, it is your lucky day.

A table that was here a few minutes ago.

They they already left, but they they paid for your meal.

Now, if someone does this for me, two thoughts flashed through my mind.

Number one is I should have gotten dessert.

Come on, you know what I'm saying, right?

Number two, I am so excited that I am high stepping out of the restaurant.

That's how excited I am.

But this man had the opposite reaction.

He goes, No, no, no, no, no.

Like he made a commotion so loud that the whole restaurant stopped and looked, and he pulled his wallet out and he pulled out two$100 bills and he slammed it on the table.

He said, No one pays for me, and he took off walking out the restaurant.

Then I had two more thoughts flash through my mind.

Number one, megatip.

That's what I thought.

Like, that's what I'm talking about.

And number two, I thought, who does that?

Who does that?

Who would pay for something that's already been paid for?

But that's what we do.

We we want to pay and work to earn our salvation, pay and work to somehow pay for what only Jesus could pay for.

And what Paul is trying to say to us in Galatians chapter 2 is this stop doing that.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

Why?

Because grace paid the bill.

It's because of what Jesus did for you, and it's because of what he did for me that we don't have to pay for something that's been paid for.

You can't earn your salvation, you can't work your way into it.

It is a gift freely given by God, and so you have two choices.

I accept it or I spend my life trying to earn something that I can't earn.

It's a big deal.

Galatians 2 verse 21, Paul says it like this: he says, if righteousness, which means right standing with God, if it could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Galatians 2:21

If if righteousness, if being right with God, if it could be earned, if I could work hard at it, then what was the point of Jesus even dying?

And here's how I want to end today.

There's this verse we read just a moment ago.

It's it's verse 19, it's that theological juggernaut, where Paul says, Christ lives in me.

I want to challenge you today to adopt those four words Christ lives in me.

I want it to be the thing that you run to anytime you find yourself tempted by the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eyes or the pride of this life.

When you find yourself being tempted to be drawn back into sin and justifying it somehow in your mind, I want you to remember that your former sinful life is dead, buried, and gone.

But look at me, church, but Christ lives in me.

It's no longer you living, your sinful past is dead, buried, and gone.

Christ lives in me.

Quick side note, we've got baptism Sunday happening next week.

And I want you to know that's what it represents.

Your former sinful life is dead, buried, and gone, and Christ lives in me.

If you're here and you haven't been baptized, I challenge you, sign up today, get baptized.

We're gonna throw a party up in here.

Why?

Because Christ lives in me.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes all across this place at all of our little churches?

I'm gonna ask you to take five seconds right now.

And would you do a spiritual audit?

I want you to ask the question: where am I living in performance mode?

Where am I living feeling like I've had to work hard to earn something that God freely gave me?

And what if instead of living in performance mode, you lived in grace mode, where you just received the gift that God has for you?

So, God, all across our churches today, we just make this decision.

We say thank you.

Thank you, it feels inadequate, it feels short of what you're due.

But thank you, you gave us a gift we could never earn or achieve ourselves.

God, forgive us if we live in performance mode where we're carrying something we shouldn't have to carry.

Forgive us for all the times in our lives that we've tried to do things to earn your blessing and to earn your approval.

God, may we learn to live under the grace you so freely give.

God, I pray that someone today will just let go of all the rules, all the legalism, all the stuff they carried for so long.

That maybe today will be a day of rest for them.

God, may we walk in freedom because that's your desire.

We thank you in advance for it, God.

Your head still bowed and eyes still closed.

Maybe you came today and you don't know if you're right with God.

Maybe that means you when you were a kid, you prayed a prayer at a church or with your grandmother, but you you don't know if Jesus has fully changed your life, and today you want to make that decision, or maybe you're like a lot of people.

And you've never started that relationship by choosing to follow Jesus.

The grace of God is available for you.

Listen to me.

You can't earn it, you can't achieve it, you can't work harder to get it.

He wants to give it, it's a gift.

All you have to do is choose to receive it.

If you're here at any of our locations, you say, Jason, I don't know if I'm right with God, but today's the day I start following Jesus.

Would you raise your hand with me?

I'm gonna pray for you.

Come on, that's you.

Thank you, thank you.

So cool, thank you, thank you.

Thanks in the back, thank you.

If this is you, just have a moment of courage.

Raise your hand.

Here's what I want you to do: I want you to take one more step right now.

And I'm gonna pray a prayer out loud, and I want you to pray it out loud as you repeat after me.

I want you to say aloud, say it proud.

And praying a prayer only changes your heart if you mean it with your heart.

So mean it with everything you've got.

I want you to know that you won't be doing it alone.

Our church family loves you so much that we don't let anyone stand in these decisions alone.

We're gonna pray it out loud with you.

Come on, church family, everywhere would you pray this out loud today?

Say Jesus.

Come on, say it like you mean it.

Say, Jesus, I give you my life.

Be my Lord, be my savior.

Jesus, I need you to change me, forgive me, and to make my life new.

So from this day forward, I make this decision.

I choose to follow you.

I receive your gift of salvation.

I'm yours.

Jesus, you gave your life for me.

Now I give my life to you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, church fam.

Let's celebrate like we need it, everybody.