The Way Towards Death | Ayren Nelson

Hello. Hope

I uh, I gotta be honest, something kind of snuck up on me earlier this week. Uh,

something I wasn't anticipating. Um, back at Christmas,

my wife bought me a smoker because she's awesome. So I really appreciate that.

Uh, on top of the smoker, we also have a grill.

And so you take those two things and combine the beautiful weather that we've

had this week.

And I have been looking for any excuse that I could possibly find to cook

outdoors. I wanna spend as much time out there as possible,

want to get around the grill, get around the smoker. Um,

that's not what caught me off guard.

What caught me off guard was the other day we were driving in the car, uh,

she was driving.

I was in the passenger seat and I was scrolling through my phone.

I got this app that helps me find, uh,

deals and discounts on meat at local grocery stores.

And that caught me off guard. 'cause I'm 30.

I had thought I had like another 10 years before that became a normal staple in

my life. That feels like, it feels like 40 plus behavior, right? But here I was,

I'm looking for, uh,

food and and meat that's on sale so I could throw it on the smoker,

throw it on the grill. And uh, I verbally said out loud 'cause I was shocked.

I go, Aldi has Wagyu beef on sale.

And Morgan goes, what's Wagyu beef? Like, what's so special about it?

And the reason why I said something was because I'm like,

I don't really trust Aldi to have Wagyu beef.

And I can tell by the way that some of you are looking at me that you had the

same question that my wife had. What makes this stuff so special?

And so it kind of sent me down a rabbit trail. Um,

good news for you is I only have 30 minutes tonight and we at some point

have to open the Bible, right?

So I'm gonna give you the abbreviated version of it. But Wagyu beef, uh,

the reality is,

is most of us have probably never had a real Wagyu beef in our life.

That's because, uh, of all of the beef that's labeled that way in America,

only around five to 10% of it is authentic in order for it to be authentic.

Uh, the word Wagyu literally translates to Japanese cattle.

These are four different breeds of Japanese cows. Uh, and they are, um,

the meat is considered a delicacy. It's it's tender.

It's got this naturally buttery flavor to it. Uh,

and the way that it gets to that point has a lot to do with the way that this

cattle is raised. Uh,

these cows are raised in a stress-free

environment.

Their goal is they want these cows to be as relaxed as possible. So, um,

some of the things that happens to 'em is,

one is they're allowed to age longer than most other cows that are used for beef

are allowed to, they have a better diet. Uh,

so they eat like rice straw and corn and barley instead of just grass out in

some random field. Uh, they are given a clean, calm, spacious,

and warm environment. Some of them have a,

a barn just for one cow that's temperature controlled.

'cause they don't want the cow to be stressed out. Uh, in extreme cases,

this doesn't happen all the time, but in certain farms in Japan,

they will literally, they'll give the cows massages,

they'll play classical music for the cows.

Some of them will drink milk out of a bottle like this is,

they're very specific in the way that they're treated.

They aren't given any growth hormones. Uh, the farmers, uh,

closely track their weight, their diet and their wellbeing.

And I remember I'm explaining all this to Morgan and at one point I just kind of

stop and I go, how do you think those cows feel? Like,

what do you think they think is going on , right? They'd be like, I,

if we're honest,

some of us in this room would pay serious money to get treated on vacation the

way these cows get treated in their everyday life.

But then it takes a dark turn because you realize that the

whole reason why these cows are being raised in this life of comfort

is ultimately for their consumption.

The reason they're being taken care of so well is so that eventually they can

end up on somebody's, uh, uh, plate. Here's the truth about beef.

If you don't know this, um, beef, the, uh, the,

all the work that they do like in the massaging and all that stuff to try to,

uh, keep them low stressed,

that's because it causes the fat to distribute in a different way.

And that's what gives beef that marbling that we like,

that kind of distributes the flavor all the way throughout.

Their comfort is designed for their consumption.

If you ever go to the store and you go to buy a piece of meat and it seems a

little bit darker, you ever see that,

that means the cow was probably distressed when it got slaughtered.

And they don't want that for these cows because then they lose money on how, uh,

how well they can sell for their entire life

is established the way that it is to comfort them to get them ready for

slaughter. And if that's not dark enough for you, . Um,

as I was thinking about this message today, I started to recognize,

man, I really feel like that is the same trap that sin tries to set for us.

See, for these cows,

they may think that this temperature controlled barn is a symbol of their

freedom and their luxury, but instead it's a way that leads to death.

And for us, sin is a, a,

a trap that lures us in with comfort and pleasure,

but it doesn't lead us to life. Instead,

sin is the way that leads us to death.

We are on our way over the next couple of weeks towards Easter Sunday where we

celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. But as we make our way there,

I want us to take a look at the way that Jesus, uh,

made his way to Easter Sunday as well.

So we're gonna be looking at Jesus in a couple of moments in his life leading up

to his eventual resurrection, which we're all gonna celebrate together.

But we're gonna start in a garden. If you have your Bible,

turn to Matthew chapter 26. Um,

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

we're gonna start in verse 36. This is taking place the night before,

uh, or the night that Jesus gets betrayed.

It's the night before he goes to the cross. This is after the last supper. Um,

so the communion that we've all shared in together, uh,

Jesus institutes that as a tradition.

And then he goes into the garden of Gethsemane.

And starting in verse 36 it says, it says,

then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane.

And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray.

And taking with him, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee.

He began to be sorrowful and troubled.

I want you to be mindful of those two words. Then he said to them,

my soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

Remain here and watch with me. And going a little further,

he fell on his face and prayed saying, my Father, if it be possible,

let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will,

but as you will. Now, this is a big deal.

If you've been reading through the gospels,

you know Jesus is the superhero of the story, right?

No matter what anybody throws at him, nothing seems to really throw him off.

Nothing really seems to get him disheveled. But in this moment,

we are told that Jesus is brought to a place of sorrow in

grief. And so the question that we have to ask is, is what brought him there?

What got him to that point? Now,

there are two obvious things that stand out to us. The first one is,

is it the cross? Well,

maybe I don't think Jesus was looking forward to going to the cross,

but let's be honest, this was a fairly common method of execution.

This is a really common way to kill people at the time. Let's not forget,

Jesus was surrounded by two common criminals who also endured the cross next

to him that day,

the apostle Peter would go on to be crucified upside down because he didn't

think he was worthy of being killed the same way that Jesus was killed.

So surely the cross was a lot.

But I don't think the man who invented trees was afraid of being hung on a tree.

Certainly wasn't death. I mean,

Jesus knew that he would rise again in three days.

He had already prophesied that this would happen.

He had raised his friend Lazarus from the dead just a few chapters earlier.

So it's not death.

So what is it that leads to Jesus feeling sorrowful and troubled?

What led to him falling on his face and begging his father to take this thing

away? It wasn't the cross, it was what would happen there.

And it was prophesied in Isaiah chapter 53 verses three through

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

five, hundreds of years before Jesus was ever born.

The prophet Isaiah wrote this says that Jesus was despised and rejected by men.

He was a man of sorrows and he was acquainted with grief.

And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised.

And we esteemed him. Not surely check this out,

he is born our griefs and carried our sorrows,

yet we esteemed him, stricken, smitten by God and afflicted,

but he was pierced for our transgressions.

A lot of us know this verse and we get really excited about this verse,

but this verse is identifying something to us.

He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds,

we are healed.

What was it that brought Jesus to sorrowful, uh,

to feeling sorrowful and troubled? It was our sin.

It was our iniquity.

It was the fact that for the first time Jesus would feel the sting of sin.

The sin of the entire world was about to be placed upon his shoulders.

And this leads us to two questions. The first is, well,

what is the weight of sin?

And why don't we feel it the same way that Jesus does?

What are the repercussions of our sin that would cause Jesus this much trouble?

The other question we have to ask is, listen,

if my sin was enough to bring the most powerful, uh,

least anxious man on the face of the planet down to his face on the ground and

overwhelming sorrow, then why do I still choose to hold onto it?

Let's address the second question first. Why do we hold onto and choose our sin?

Well, the simple reason is that we enjoy it. The truth is,

is that I am so broken and you are so broken and we collectively

are so broken that whether we care to admit it or not, we enjoy our sins.

And before we go too far,

I do wanna take a moment to define what the Bible means when we talk about sin.

Uh, as you read through scripture,

it becomes evident that sin is not just bad behavior,

which is what a lot of us understand it to be. Sin is a broken condition.

It's both. And scripturally speaking,

sin is both a verb and a noun. It is what we do and it's why we do it.

It is the, uh,

it's the actions that we take and the condition by which those actions, uh,

uh, uh, take root into our heart.

It is the inward nature that plays itself out in outward behaviors.

It is both the symptom and the cause. Over the past couple of weeks,

we've been walking through a series called Heart Check, where we've been, uh,

checking our hearts and allowing God to check our hearts, uh,

to see if there's anything selfish in us that would prevent us from living lives

of generosity. But now let's widen our parameters and ask ourselves,

why are our hearts so willing to harbor this disease of sin?

It's because at the end of the day,

sin scratches the itch of our damaged and corrupted hearts.

In order for us to enjoy sin,

there have to be conditions that allow it to fester. Uh,

Paul David Tripp is a theologian. He puts it this way. He says,

the DNA of sin is selfishness.

Sin really does make life all about me.

My sin causes me to shrink my world down to the size of my wants,

my needs and my feelings. The truth is, is sin is easy.

If I feel something, I do it. If I want something, I take it.

If I desire something, I pursue it. And I exhaust all means to get it.

Because the only thing that matters to sin is satisfying my desire.

It's the essence of sin.

Sin is following my own way as opposed to following the way of Jesus.

Proverbs chapter 14, verse 12 says this, it says,

Proverbs 14:12

there's a way that seems right to man,

but in the end it is the way to death.

The way that's referenced here is sin. Sin is the way that leads to death.

And so my prayer for today is that we paint, uh, a terrible, uh,

picture of what sin is.

My hope is that we would paint a disgusting picture of sin in a beautiful

portrait of God, which if I'm honest, my words will not be enough to do.

I will not be able to paint a picture of how grotesque sin is or how beautiful

God is. But my hope is,

is that through our time together that we will allow God to reorient our

priorities and reorient our hearts back to him.

And so I wanna break down six symptoms of sin.

And the first one is this is that sin is deceptive in nature.

Let's take a look at sins origin story, right? This is Genesis chapter three.

Uh,

Satan approaches eve in the garden and tries to convince her that what God said

was a lie. That's deception. Ultimately,

what Satan is trying to do is God has said one thing and he said, Hey,

how can I twist this to make it seem like God didn't really mean what he said?

But instead of just twisting God's words,

he starts telling her these half truths. So where God said, Hey,

if you eat of the fruit on this tree, you will die. Satan says, you won't die.

He tells her the, the half truth that you'll be like God,

knowing the difference between good and evil. And listen, both of these lies,

there's a little bit of truth in them, right?

Because they wouldn't physically die,

but they did experience spiritual death and separation from that day. Uh,

will they be like God knowing the difference between, uh, uh, good and evil? Uh,

yes, but not just on an intellectual level. For the first time,

humanity would experience and feel the weight of evil for themselves.

Sin always twists the truth to hide a and tries to hide the consequences.

And that's just the first time we do it right.

The first time we sin something alluring. And you, you do it, and then you,

you feel a certain way about it and you realize, okay,

maybe that thing was wrong. So that's just the first time. It,

it promises you something and then gives you consequences instead.

But as sin becomes more and more persistent over time, uh, it keeps,

we keep falling into the same traps over and over and over and over again.

And we start to believe the craftiness of sin that says, Hey,

this time will be different. Just do it one more time.

And so you start thinking things like, oh, well now like this isn't a big lie.

I'm just gonna tell this little lie because if I don't get myself out of this

situation, things are gonna get worse for me. Or we start saying, yeah,

I deserve the right to seek pleasure outside of my marriage because I'm not

finding it from my spouse and I deserve to be happy. We're scratching at that,

that, uh, selfishness itch inside of us.

Sins deception is to offer us short-term pleasure and deliver long-term regret.

And that deep, harmful regret is called shame.

And shame leads us to the second symptom of sin,

which is distance between us and God, Adam,

after Adam and Eve's sinned in the garden for the first time,

they experience distance from God prior to their sin.

The Bible tells us they walked hand in hand with God. They walked through the,

through the garden with him in peace with him, imperfect unity.

But after their sin, they hid from him.

And it was the first time that humanity felt like there was any distance between

us and God, Genesis three,

eight tells us that they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God.

But you know what's fascinating about the distance created between God and man,

God didn't leave them. The distance came from their attempt to hide.

God didn't push them away.

The sting of sin brought on shame to Adam and Eve.

And so they discovered that man, maybe if we hide,

we can get away with something. This is a picture of how shame works.

It starts with, Hey, you know what you should do? And it ends with,

I can't believe you did that.

You're a terrible person man, if,

if God could see you right now. And so we develop these habits,

right?

We develop these habits where we try to create some space between us and God,

but what happens is, is we don't only create space between us,

we begin to lose intimacy with God.

We start doing these little things and I'm, I'm,

I'm trusting that I'm not the only one that does this.

But in certain times when my sin is weighing heavy on me,

when my shame is weighing heavy on me and my brokenness, I don't think, man,

I should go and pray.

I think I should avoid prayer because God doesn't wanna talk to me right now.

I shouldn't go to church because if they knew what I had going on in my life,

man, they would all think I was a phony.

I don't wanna open my Bible because clearly I don't do what it says anyway.

And the more we drift away from those practices, man,

the more our intimacy with God erodes. And that brings us to the third symptom.

It distorts our perspective.

Sin twist our view of how we view God and ourselves and others.

And this is the result of the brokenness in our heart.

That it's that drift away from the waves of God.

When we hide ourselves and distance ourselves from God,

we are left to our own devices to try to figure life out on our own.

So when we say, I'm gonna stop praying,

I'm gonna stop seeking God for the answer. I'm gonna stop reading my Bible,

I'm gonna stop going to church,

I'm gonna stop showing up to small group because of my shame.

What ends up happening is we start looking at all these other places for

solutions and it ends up jacking up our vision and our understanding of the

world around us. Uh,

a few weeks ago I went to go and hang out with the high schoolers over at the

Apex campus and they were doing like a March madness night.

So they did a bunch of basketball games and stuff like that. But Justin,

the youth pastor, the high school pastor over at the, uh, at the Apex campus,

he bought these upside down glasses off of Amazon.

You put 'em on and it inverts your view.

He uses mirrors to make everything upside down. So he's like, Aaron,

put these on and try to make a basket. I made it not trying to brag, but

I had these glasses on for a while and then eventually when I took them off,

I realized it took me a moment to like, look at the world the right way again.

And sin does this same thing for us.

Romans 1 25 paints the picture of people who exchange the truth of God

for a lie. We take truth off the shelves and we replace it with a lie.

And we're like, yeah, it's always been there.

That's the way things have always operated. Isaiah five 20 says that, uh,

people will start to confuse light with darkness and darkness with light.

Do you see things in our world that 20 years ago were considered deplorable and

they're just normal now? That's what sin does. One Timothy four,

two teaches us that over exposure to this type of rebellious understanding,

actually sears our consciousness in a way, uh,

that it causes us to turn off the voice of God completely.

And it makes us unreceptive to any truth that he offers.

And while all that's going on,

sin is skewing the view of the things we were made to love.

We were made to view ourselves with love.

But sin causes us to stop viewing ourselves as image bearers of God and instead

start believing we're impostors.

Instead of seeing ourselves in sons and daughters of God, we see ourselves as,

as shame covered failures. It distorts how we view other people, right?

It's the reason why pride leads to racism towards people who don't look like us.

Because we start thinking I'm better than they are.

It's the reason why pornography causes us to object objectify people and view

them as items for pleasure instead of children.

Made in the image of God's selfishness is the reason why we see others as an

inconvenience instead of people who Jesus Christ himself died to redeem.

It's the reason why insecurity makes us view the people we don't get along with

as a threat instead of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Every issue the world has ever known is a result of how sin distorts our

perspective. It distorts the way we view God.

Sin is the reason why we think that God is this evil sky monster who just hates

us.

It's the reason why we feel entitlement and we think we deserve more.

And God is holding something back from us in this skewed broken,

uh, perspective of God leads us to a broken relationship with God.

See, as long as God is just this thing in the sky,

sin can easily remove us from him. But the reality is,

is that God is much more close than that.

He desires to be much more close than that.

God is an intimate father who loves you.

The next symptom of sin that I want to talk about is that sin displeases the

heart of God. But I even want to help change your perspective on that.

I think when we think about the fact that sin displeases the heart of God,

we think God's upstairs waiting for us to mess up so he can strike us with a

lightning bolt, right? At some point,

everybody had that view of God in their mindset,

but that's not what I mean when I say sin. Displeases the heart of God.

The reason why sin displeases the heart of God is because he knows what he made

you for. He knows you're better than that.

He knows that he made you to bear his image.

Jesus tells a story in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

It's a very common parable called the Story of the Prodigal Son.

And in this story,

there's a young man who desires his inheritance and he asked his father, Hey,

can you gimme my inheritance? He runs off from home and he blows through it.

He messes up everything that he has. He he finds himself hungry,

doesn't have a job, doesn't have a money. And so what does he start doing?

He starts coming back to his father's house with the expectation of,

I know it's gonna be bad, but maybe I can make it less bad.

So let me put together an apology. Lemme try to write a story.

Lemme try to frame this in a way where I could at least come back in and just be

a servant in his house. But much to that prodigal son, surprise,

when he goes back home, while he's still a long way off,

his father sees him from a distance. He's been waiting for him at the doorstep,

watching the road that leads to the house waiting for his son to come back home.

And so what does he do? He runs to the father.

He wraps his arms around him and gives him a hug. He gives him a kiss,

he puts a robe on him and he says, Hey, I've been waiting for you to come back.

We have a party ready to go.

And the reason why Jesus tells that story is to paint to us a picture of what

the heart of God looks like.

A loving father whose son has run off is not just angry that the son

ran off. He's scared because he is like, man, what are you doing over there?

I got a room for you here in my house.

I have everything you could ever need right here.

Why are you settling for lesser things?

Ephesians four 30 tells us that our sin,

it grieves the Holy Spirit and we're commanded.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of

redemption. And that word grief, it means to cause sorrow,

pain, unhappiness, or distress. You know what's not there?

Disappointment.

God's concern for you is one of compassion,

not of contempt because he sees what sin does to you.

He sees the next symptom, which is that sin deforms us.

See, we were made in God's image. We were made to reflect God's love,

his truth and his beauty. But our sin reshapes us into something else.

So instead of reflecting love, we start perpetuating hate.

Instead of speaking truth, we start telling lies instead of reflecting beauty,

we destroy others. And all sat, uh,

all sorts of ugly disrespectful things come out of our mouth towards people that

God created and loves.

We were made to walk through this world with wisdom and confidence,

humility and selflessness.

But instead we find ourselves in a generation defiled by impulses and

insecurity and fear and selfishness,

we start becoming people that we don't even recognize.

Have you ever had that moment you snap at somebody,

your anger erupts and then you just stop and go, where did that come from?

You find yourself wanting things or desiring things and you're like, man,

where did that, where did that? How did that happen in me? Teenagers,

if you're here,

if you're sitting with your parents and you're listening to this,

this is the reason why every now and then your parents will see you act out of

character and they go, when did you start doing that?

How'd you start acting that way?

It's because they know how they've invested into your life and who they're

hoping you become. And so when you start acting out of character of that man,

again, it's the heart of a loving father that says,

where did you pick that up from? Where did you learn that?

I never designed for you to experience that.

This is the reason why Romans 12 two, Romans 12, two, excuse me,

says that we aren't people who are to be conformed,

but we're to be people who are transformed.

We don't just take on the natural shape of our surroundings in this culture and

the society that we find ourselves in. Instead,

God desires for us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind,

which is really him reforming us back into the way he wanted us to be in the

beginning.

And all of this leads us to sins. End game

sin will destroy your soul.

This is the goal the whole time.

So many times we try to eradicate sin because it's like a cosmetic ick.

I just don't like the way this looks on me. But the behavior is all cosmetic.

Really what the enemy is going for is your soul.

Romans 6 23 says that the wages of sin is death.

And death is the only thing that sin has to offer.

It kills joy and relationships and purpose. And eventually,

if left unchecked, sin will destroy your soul.

Without Jesus, sin will destroy your soul. This Easter season,

we're all about celebrating eternal life as we should.

But if eternal life is a thing, then eternal death is as well.

And eternal life is defined in the Bible as the way of which we get to walk

with God. Not just someday after we die, but like starting right now.

We get to experience the life and the fullness that he offers to us through

Jesus. However,

there's an eternal death and an eternal separation from God as well.

For those of us who deny the way of Jesus. And listen,

if you think this world we live in is hard now,

if you think the effect of sin on all of us is hard now man,

there's two outcomes. It either gets better or it gets a whole lot worse.

There's a quote from Randy Alcorn that I wanna share. He puts it this way.

He says, for the Christian,

the present life is the closest that they will ever come to hell for the

unbeliever. It's the closest they will ever get to heaven.

If I can put this bluntly, half of this is great news for some of us.

And the other half of this is terrible news for the rest of us.

The bad news is that there are people under the sound of my voice who will

experience an eternity and held,

separated from God for those who willingly persist their

own way, who consistently choose the disordered uh, passions,

that heart that that sin gives to us instead of allowing God to give us a new

heart. This is a reality. It is the way that we were all headed.

And for some of you, it's the way you're still headed.

But there's good news. Maybe you've made it to this point. You're like, man,

Aaron, I came to church this week 'cause I really needed some encouragement.

And you were feeling like one of those cows getting slaughtered right now.

Like it's not feeling too good, man.

And I do think encouragement is important,

but I think at sometimes encouragement can be a little bit shallow.

And instead we need truth. And so I hope you find encouragement in this,

but I want to help us all see the truth as well,

that if we're going to celebrate the resurrection in a few weeks,

we can't get there without being in the garden with our savior as he

experiences the overwhelming grief and sorrow of sin. 'cause here's the truth,

we can't appreciate God's grace until we've tasted our guilt.

The thing that makes good Friday so good,

the thing that makes Easter Sunday worth celebrating,

let's not water down the gospel. People, we were dead.

We had nothing to offer ourselves.

Sin was the way that led us to death.

And God sent Jesus to be a detour for all of that. And so because of Jesus,

because of his life and death and burial and eventual resurrection, guess what?

We can talk about sin in all of its effects in the past tense. Yeah,

we still deal with these things. Yes, we still see these things,

but now there is a way that leads to healing. So how do we receive that?

The first thing is this, acknowledge that you are a sinner

and that applies for each and every one of us.

Recognize the reality that all of us have sinned against God.

Who are you hiding it from? God. He knows

all of us at one time or another have been the prodigal son and he is waiting

for you to return back home.

And not only is he waiting for you to find your way back home,

he made the way back home by giving us Jesus.

And so once you acknowledge your sin,

the second thing for you to do is to believe in Jesus.

And I know we've had a lot of really bad news so far,

but I wanna let you know this. Okay, here's the harsh reality. Sin is powerful,

but here's the greater reality. Jesus is greater

where sin deceives Jesus guides us to truth.

Where sin displeases the heart of God.

Jesus honors and makes the heart of God happy.

Where sin distorts Jesus brings clarity. Where sin defiles Jesus,

purifies where sin destroys Jesus, heals Where sin. Check this part out,

where sin once distanced us from God. Now because of Jesus,

God distances us from our sin. Listen to this. This is uh,

Psalm 1 0 3. He says,

let all that I am praise the Lord with my whole heart.

I will praise his holy name. Let all that I am praise the Lord.

May I never forget the good things he does for me.

He forgives all of my sins and heals all of my diseases.

He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.

He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagles.

The Lord gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly.

He reveals his character to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel.

The Lord is compassionate and merciful.

He is slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.

He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry with us forever.

Check this part out. He does not punish all of our sins.

He does not deal harshly with us as we deserve.

For his unfailing love towards those who feel fear,

him is as great as the heavens is above the earth.

He has removed our sin as far from us as the east is from the west.

The Lord is like a father to his children,

tender and compassionate to those who fear him, for he knows how weak we are.

Listen to that church. Be encouraged by that.

He knows how weak we are.

Your failure is not a surprise to him.

He remembers that we are only dust. Our days are earth. And I'm sorry,

our days on earth are like grass, like wild flowers. We bloom and we die.

The wind blows and we are gone as though we have never been here.

But the love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him.

His salvation extends to the children's children of those who are faithful to

his covenant, of those who obey his commands.

That's what Jesus offers, man.

So you accept Jesus. And then man,

we've got to learn how to be people who receive and walk by the power of the

Holy Spirit who allow the Holy Spirit to shape our lives. Listen to me.

When you accept Jesus into your life,

Ephesians tells us that the first inheritance that we receive as believers is

the Holy Spirit.

That means that the power and the presence of God is placed deep inside of us.

And this is what gives us the power to start saying no to sin and start saying

yes to God's voice

by being led by the Holy Spirit and allowing the Holy Spirit to shape our lives.

The next thing that you should do if you start walking in this man church,

we have got to get serious about repentance.

We have got to get serious about allowing God to reorient our hearts. Listen,

the the uh, the the essence of sin is disoriented desires.

When there's something inside of us that tries to take its place over God,

that's what sin is.

And God wants to rearrange that and he's willing to change your heart,

but you have to be willing to change your mind. The reality is,

is God will give you new desires, he will renew your heart.

But at the end of the day, man,

we have to be a people who learn to say no to the things that are appealing to

our flesh. And instead say yes to the life that Jesus wants for us.

And then the change in behavior comes. It's not just about,

man, I suck at life. Lemme get better at it. It's about God,

I need you to change my heart. I'm willing to change my mind.

And that leads to a change of behavior and church,

here's the last thing that I have for you.

Maybe you've been following Jesus for a while and you're like, has it worked?

Because sin is still crouching at my door. Listen, church,

I want to give you this. Don't give up.

Do not quit.

Wake up every single day with the humility and the determination to

eradicate your sin. And I promise you it's not gonna be easy.

It is going to be a lifelong struggle.

But here is a reminder that we get from Paul in Philippians chapter one,

verse six. He says this, he says, the God who began the good work.

So the salvation that you've received,

the God who began that good work will see that work through until the day when

Jesus Christ returns in church. That is something that is worth celebrating.

That is a reason why we come back and while we celebrate Easter,

because it is proof to us that God started something in our lives and he's not

gonna quit until he is done.

There is a glory that is waiting for each and every one of us. Yeah,

sin is terrible. Satan is the worst,

but God gave us another way through Jesus

church, do not give up.

Keep fighting the good fight, man. It's a lifelong battle.

But our God is so much greater, our God is so much greater. Listen,

if you're here,

if you're at any of our campuses and God is speaking to your heart,

I wanna let you know something. We have been praying for you.

We have been praying for the prodigals to come home.

We have been praying for those transformations for God to, to raise, uh,

dead men and women back to life the same way that the power of God raised Jesus

back to life. If that's you men, we want you to talk to somebody.

We want to celebrate with you. If, if God was here in these spaces,

he'd wrap his arms around you and give you a big hug.

We want to be the arms and feet of Jesus and we want to be able to do that for

you as well. Church, let's keep fighting.

Let's allow God to keep transforming our hearts.

And let's be the type of people who hate sin with everything

within us. Father, we love you.

Thank you for the work of Jesus. Thank you for the worst work of the cross.

Praise your holy name. Amen.

Come on church, let's stand to our feet. Let's respond to this gospel. Call

your cross my freedom, your stripes,

my healing, my praise, king Jesus,

glory to God in heaven.

Your blood is still speaking.

Your love is still reaching all praise. Come on.

Glory, glory to God. Come on your cross,

your cross. My freedom, your stripes,

my healing. Praise King Jesus.

Your.

Blood is still speaking today. Your blood still speaking,

your love is still. Praise.

Come

my freedom, your

king Jesus.

Glory.

Glory come.

Let's give him praise for Jesus. Let's give him

glory forever. Come.

We're gonna give glory

Hall

hallelu.

Come on church. Let's give God some praise. Come on, let the Lord hear it.

I think we just need to take a moment. Um, let's just pray.

Is that all right? All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for, uh,

this evening. Thank you for your power.

Thank you for your spirit, uh, that has moved, uh,

through Aaron tonight. In that message, uh,

we are confronted face to face through your word with our own sin,

but we're also confronted with the truth of the gospel.

That you are a God who has overcome sin and death.

And while it would be easy to change, um, behavior,

what you want to change is our hearts.

And so Father, uh,

we pray that you would move in a mighty way to do exactly that where there is

sin, help us to lay it down at your feet

and help us to embrace the hope of the gospel that comes through a relationship

of surrender to you. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Come on, let's give God some praise one more time.

Yeah.

Listen, as we, um, get to gather every single week,

we are so thankful to God and we just believe that he is on the move and he's

preparing us, uh,

and that he is moving in our church in a way that is special and unique and

we're thankful for it. And we're hoping to see much, much more of it.

Like we have expectancy in our heart to see people's lives changed with the hope

of the gospel. And every week we gather to that end, we gather, uh,

to be encouraged in the work that God is already doing,

but also in the work that is to come.

And so we want to have you come back every single week to be a part of these

gatherings,

but we also want you to live this out as you move through the weeks of your

lives. And we want to help you with that. And so listen, if you're new to hope,

make sure you stop at our next steps area.

If you are at one of our physical campuses, and if you're watching online,

let us know in the chat that we are,

that you are new and any way that we can serve you or help you to grow in your

relationship with Jesus Christ. And we want you to keep showing up.

So next week, keep showing up. Uh,

we're getting close to Easter season and uh,

we want you to show up for that as well.

But we also want you to invite neighbors, friends, coworkers,

anybody who you know, because here's what I know,

there's not a person on earth that doesn't need to hear the hope of Jesus

Christ.

And so you can reserve a ticket to be at one of our physical campuses during

Easter time. Grab a ticket for you, grab one for a friend and family member,

whoever it is that you want to invite.

And you can do that by simply going to get hope.net/easter. Uh,

all the information on locations and times that we're gonna gather are there.

Please make sure you go in there and grab a ticket.

It's gonna be a great opportunity to worship the Lord. And man,

we wanna see you. We wanna see you at Easter time. Now,

as we move through Easter,

what we know is that we don't just gather in the body of Christ,

but often we gather as families, uh, in and around the areas, uh,

where God has placed us. Uh, you might gather with your friends,

with your coworkers, with your neighbors.

And what we know is that when we get to those gatherings,

they are typically celebrations where we have food present

typically,

because there are a lot of families when we get to the holidays who are reminded

of what they don't have. And food is one of those things.

And then we recognize a long time ago as a church that one of the ways we can

minister to people is through a tool of food. And I wanna be clear,

it is not about the food. Uh, it's about the opportunity to meet a need that,

that God has so graciously put right in front of our church.

And so when we get to this time, uh, we typically will, uh,

have an opportunity to pack our food pantry here at Hope Community Church with

food because we expect people to show up at our doors with this simple need.

Now, you may not know this,

but where our church is positioned is in the triangle. And in Wake County alone,

one out of every five children has the potential of going to bed

at night without having food,

Without that basic need being met. And as a church,

we realize that we could do something about that.

And so we ask that you bring food back to our physical campuses,

drop them off each week as we move through the spring,

and we want to pack the pantry to be able to support the needs.

You might not know this,

but over 450 families are reached and depend on our

food pantry here at Hope Community Church.

And so we wanna make a huge effort to make sure we have those needs met.

And so to do that,

if you want to find out information about our pantry or about how you can do

that, you can simply text the word food to the number 7 2 9 8 9.

And there will be a list there where, uh,

you'll find items that you can gather and bring back. In addition to that,

if you or somebody who has a need for food,

we also want you to text that same word food to 7 2 9 8 9,

and we will reach out to you and see how we can support you through the tool of

food. Now, we know that not everybody has usage of a phone.

And so if you're at one of our physical campuses, we'd love it.

If you stop at the next steps area, let us know. And, and man,

we want to meet that need. By God's grace, y'all, we love you.

This has been a wonderful time of worship and we do hope to see you back here

next week. So God bless you guys, we'll see you soon.