Pastor Bryan Grant | What it Cost to Know Him | April 12th, 2026

Enough of that.

Come on now.

Thanks, Shigun.

Do you know what I want to do first?

I just want to say thank you to all the team that helped us last week make Easter such an amazing time.

Let's just give all the volunteers coffee, kids' ministry, parking team, everyone.

We had an amazing Sunday.

You know, like anytime you get to share the gospel of that with a full house like that, it's amazing.

And so we had people give their life to Christ, and so we're excited to see what God's doing over the next little while.

Uh can you do just turn with me to Romans chapter 5?

Romans 5 · chapter mention

To verse 6 to 11.

I don't want to read that.

And then I just want to get rolling.

This is what it says in Romans 5, 6 to 11 You see at the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though a good person, someone might dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him?

For if while we were God's enemies, we are reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?

Not only is this so, but we also boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Powerful passage of Scripture, and I want to lead us through some layers today.

Last week, Pastor Brody's message was so good about being fully known and loved, and just about the redemption arc of who Christ is and what he's done in our life.

And because it was such a great message, it's an easy launching pad for me just to lean into something that I believe we've talked about it as a team, just as we move forward.

This is another layer in our relationship with God.

Knowing who we were before Christ sets us up to who we are after.

And so today I just want to lead us through this passage verse by verse and just see where God wants to bring us.

I feel like God wants to speak to you.

There's some breakthrough that wants to happen in your hearts today.

So I'm just gonna pray and let's just get to work.

Lord, you're so good.

You're so good.

Lord, and we're so excited to be in your house to worship, to be able to hear your word, to connect with your presence this morning.

So we just ask that you give us what we need this morning is your presence.

Lord, and that we're ready for all that you have.

Our hearts are ready, our minds are ready, Lord.

We're ready to step into all that you have for us in Jesus' name.

Everyone said, Amen.

So I this is an interesting passage of scripture because as we go through it, um it tells us really about who we were before Christ.

And so so often when we hear fully known, that immediately I pictured like my mom or my my mom looking at me and like she notices all the things that no one else notices because she's my mom.

Right?

That's what moms do.

They see the things that no one else sees because that's your parent or your mom.

And sometimes we maybe picture God looking at us like this.

When he says fully known, we're like, oh, he knows all the all those things that maybe other people don't know.

He knows all the good things, all the bad things.

But that is a great thing, but it's also kind of incomplete.

It's not the full picture of who God sees us to be.

But it's but the Bible just doesn't show God seeing the best in us, it shows us that he sees us at our absolute worst.

So Romans, interestingly enough, in five, uh shows us exactly, Paul is talking about exactly what it means to be fully known and what it actually meant for Christ on the cross.

And if we don't understand how God fully knew us and what he knows about us, we'll never fully understand what it cost him to love us.

So when we said last week we're fully known, we're fully loved, fully known means God just didn't see your potential.

He just didn't see your position.

He didn't see you as, well, this person's not a Christian, and next week they're gonna be a Christian.

He didn't see that.

He saw that the fact that you were a present enemy of God.

That before you knew him, being fully loved means he didn't wait for you to switch sides, that he died for you while you're still taking shots at him.

That's what God Jesus did on that cross.

So Jesus, Christ, didn't die for the version of you that you were hoping you were gonna become, he died for the version of you that was still taking swings at God.

So one thing I've noticed over the last you know ten years of being in ministry is that some of the greatest threat that we have to church and walking with God isn't just gonna be culture, isn't just gonna be things, decisions with the government, isn't gonna be like identity things that we have.

So often it's drift from within.

Sometimes if we forget who Jesus is, forget what it cost him to actually reach us, then we forget we start treating the cross like it's a background thing and not the main rescue mission of Jesus.

We all right?

And when we forget, we forget what Jesus did on that cross, we forget, and it becomes easy for us to just push the Bible to the side, push prayer to the side, push the gathering together to the side, and that starts to feel like an obligation rather than something that we're so excited to be able to do.

And that forgetting so often shows up in our life, in other areas.

But I love this in Romans chapter 5 because Paul doesn't let us forget.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

In these six verses that we're gonna read today or that we're gonna go through, he brings us back to this fight that we have.

He shows us, he brings us back to this place.

It reminds us of who we were, reminds us of who he is, and shows us who he is and what it means to be a friend of God.

Are you ready for it?

Are we ready what God has for us?

So let's start with this.

I love this because Paul starts stacking words right from the beginning.

So I'm gonna be just bouncing around a little bit, just following me with this.

One after another, each word that I'm gonna point out shows us a little bit more of what he's trying to teach us through this passage.

First part of verse six, it says, You see at the right time while we were still powerless.

Powerless means you are helpless, means that you're a weak.

How many of you have been told in your lifetime to pull yourself up from your bootstraps?

That's actually impossible.

You physically can't do it.

You can't grab your boots and then pull yourself up.

It's just it's not a thing.

I tried earlier this morning.

Good thing you didn't see me.

It was awkward and weird.

But you don't have the power to clean yourself up.

You don't have the ability to climb yourself up towards God.

Not just because you're spiritually tired or you're having an off season or having a bad day, you're just not able to do it.

You can't pull yourself up to Jesus.

You may think you can hustle.

How many of you in the room are hustlers?

Just love to hustle.

Gonna work hard, I'm gonna put in more, I'm gonna work hard, we're gonna do this, and that's me.

I'm a grinder.

I will grind it out, even if it's going poorly, I'll grind it out.

That's my team.

They're grinding like, chill, like just we can probably say no to this one.

I'm a grinder, but we can hustle.

But the thing with being powerless, Paul wrote to another church and said this.

He said, You're dead in your trespasses and sin.

So not only can you not pull yourself up, you're dead in your trespasses and sin.

And I don't mean like you're you're dead, you're not sick, you're not just limping with a limp across the thing.

You're dead in your trespasses and sins.

Some people talk about salvation like uh Jesus came to help them finish what they started.

That they're halfway up the mountain, Jesus is gonna come alongside them, hand them a granola bar, give them a good encouragement, and then we're gonna go.

That's not what he's saying in this passage of scripture.

Jesus didn't come to coach the dead.

He came to raise us from the dead.

That's what he did.

Romans 5, 6 and 7.

Now we move on to this.

While we are still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Do you want this tells me?

We were bent the wrong way.

Scripture in Proverbs, I believe, where it says he lights our path because our path is crooked.

Every time I read that, I'm like, I know my path is crooked.

But this is what he's saying: we're bent the wrong way, we're powerless, we're ungodly.

That doesn't mean we're not helpless, but rebellious.

We're not unable, but we're misdirected, we're not righteous, we're unrighteous.

Romans 3 10 says, as it is written, there is no unrighteous, not even one.

And when I was reading this, I'm like, man, this is a bit humbling.

Because I have a pretty good picture of myself.

You know, like God gave me some skills.

I can do some stuff.

I got a little bit of charisma.

I can hustle, you know, like I can work hard.

And he's telling me that none of that matters.

Like, come on now.

Not even a little bit, God?

No, he's telling me that I am helpless, that I'm powerless, that I need him, that I'm ungodly, that my heart does not turn towards him.

Humbling because I realized in this moment when I was I was sitting this week and like my normal intention is I'm not gonna drift towards God.

I'm probably gonna drift away from him.

Because toward him means effort, it means consideration, it means submission, it means putting trust.

The other way is sometimes real easy.

Doing my own thing sometimes is really the end result of doing my own thing, tends to be real bad and doesn't go as well as we want, or the blessings didn't come and then we end up getting angry and walking away from the Lord.

All those things.

No one does that in here, just just me.

Cool.

Right?

But then, Paul, we see here in verse 8, this is where I love, is that while we're going to do this, we get to do, I just want to go back for a second.

We drift towards pride.

Oh, come on.

Is that something that we drift towards?

We drift towards pride.

Sin, and I heard this this week, we get to be our own God.

We get to be our own authority, we get to set the standard for ourselves and not seeking out God.

So He's our standard, He's our authority, He's our God.

Paul keeps going in verse 8, and he says, While we were still sinners.

So not only are we powerless, not only are we ungodly, we're sinners.

I'm starting to take this personal from Paul.

Sinners, that doesn't mean someone who just makes a few mistakes.

We can be good people and we're still sinners.

Not just we have some rough edges.

It means as sinners means an active, present action.

I am actively sinning.

This is this is me.

I'm gonna point at me, not at you.

This is this is who I was.

You used to mess up.

I used to live it.

I breathed it, I moved in it.

This is who I was.

My life before Jesus was sin.

Before Jesus was sin, before Jesus, sin was not something we stumbled into, it's who we were.

It's our old life.

We were sinners.

Then we see that Paul drops an even heavier word in this moment.

For while we were still enemies.

So not only am I powerless, not only am I ungodly, not only am I a sinner, I'm also an enemy of God.

And while I was reading through this, it realizes that as an enemy, there's not a one foot in, one foot out mentality.

You know what the Bible says about those who were lukewarm?

So even God sees us this way before we commit our life to Jesus, and we decide to follow Him that we are enemies of God.

That's not neutral.

There's no neutrality there.

We weren't just a little bit spiritually curious.

All of these things led to one thing.

We were enemies of God.

And when I was studying the Greek, which happens because I use a special program because Greek.

The word itself, when we're talking about enemies, carries a hostility.

It carries, it would, it's actually considered war language.

It's hostile, it's opposition.

We are combatants against God.

We aren't lost lambs looking away for our own shepherd.

We were people doing our own thing, living our own lives, choosing our own things, doing what we want to do.

And we were enemy soldiers at war with God before we knew him.

This is who we were.

And if I had to pick one for my life, I'm all for, but if I'm gonna pick one, it was I was gonna be an enemy.

And what I was thinking about this is that I realized I wasn't directly in opposition to God or cursing his name.

It was so much quieter for me than that.

And maybe this is some of you in the room, some of you in the room.

I built a life where God was optional.

I made my own calls, I answered just to me.

The truth is, if God had any kind of problem, it was his problem and it wasn't mine.

And you want to know the truth?

I still struggle.

I still struggle with sometimes putting God in the right spot.

I still struggle.

And it's easy for me just to make my own decisions.

And I have to choose to follow Jesus in this way, I have to choose to lay down my will, I have to choose to surrender to him, I have to choose it.

But it's so easy for me just to be like, well, I didn't like it.

And I kind of put him to the side, kind of like that optional part of your car insurance.

Comprehensive check.

Collision, check, theft, check.

God's guidance?

Ooh.

Kind of like, well, how much is that gonna cost me?

Oh, oh, that much?

That's okay.

I don't need it right now.

Oh, but can I add it on later?

Sometimes we treat God as optional, and that's what I did in my own life.

I treated God as too optional.

So this is what Paul is talking about.

Jesus, while I was living this life, well, this is who I was.

I was powerless, I was a sinner, I was an enemy of God, I was ungodly.

Jesus died on the cross for me in that.

In my absolute worst, when I had nothing.

That's who I was.

Not the cleaned up version.

The cleaned up version is much nicer than the older version.

But he died for us, those who are hostile to God.

And if we were to think back to the times before we knew Jesus, friends that we know that right now that are hostile towards God, that we're praying for in our life.

And this is why God's grace, and Pastor Brody spoke about it a few weeks ago, God's grace is so offensive to the religious.

Because your religious pride and my religious pride wants to tell me, oh, it's not that bad.

That my sin isn't that bad.

That my the things that I'm starting, it wants us to meet a point to someone else and say, oh, look at that person, they're way worse than I am.

Right?

Almost saying, oh man, do I have it all together, but they don't.

But Paul in this moment shows us something different.

I'm gonna say this: you are not special.

I don't know who that was, but that was excellent timing.

You don't have special circumstances.

Jesus died on the cross, didn't matter your status, your finances, where you were, what you did, what your history was, all of that.

We were all powerless, we were all sinners, we were all ungodly, we're all enemies, and this is what we have been redeemed from.

You okay?

So this is what I want to.

I'm gonna go to verse 10 right now.

And this is where we see Paul.

If we would have stopped right there, and I said you're powerless, you're sinners, you're ungodly enemies, and just walked off the stage, you'd be like, dude, what's going on?

It would just feel crushing and like heavy, and you're like, what's going on?

But what I love about this, Paul doesn't leave us stranded.

This is what he says.

We would be crushed under that weight, but we see him pivot, we see him turn, we see him change, and this is where the gospel just comes pounding in like a runaway train.

It says this, for if while we were God's enemies, I love this, while, say while you were resisting, he was moving towards you.

While you were running, he was pursuing you.

While you were, your fist was raised in anger at him, he was coming for you.

He was already, he already accomplished it on the cross.

Christ died while you were powerless, while you were ungodly, while you were a sinner, while you were an enemy of God.

He died at your absolute when you were at your absolute worst.

Christ died for us.

The word while is absolutely loaded with God's grace.

This is who we were.

We were all of those things before we knew Jesus.

And are you ready for the good news?

Because there's good news here.

The good news is the question shifts from this: not will God accept me.

And some of the questions that we answer is, will God keep me?

This is who he is.

Then Paul shifts in this argument and he moves to verse 9 and 10.

You ready for this?

How much more?

Church, this isn't accidental.

This is Paul doing gospel math.

I wish I could say that that was mine.

I made that up.

That was someone else.

This is Paul doing gospel math here.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him?

Then he says it again for while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son.

How much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?

Oh, here's the gospel, church.

This is the logic.

If God loved you enough to die for you when you're enemies of him, what is his love like now that you've accepted him?

And I'm gonna tell you, this is not a God rating system, like God loved you when you were at your worst, and then now that you gave your life to Jesus, he loves you more.

God's love is God's love.

That doesn't change.

So it's not, it's about the intensity of his love.

Now, because you are not enemies with him, you can receive his love a way that you couldn't before.

So the hardest part is done.

God already did this, he sent his son to die.

And this is what I love about this is when you give your life to Jesus and you recognize that you're all of those things and you're an enemy of God, it's not, he's not gonna start something in you that he's not gonna finish with you.

That's right.

So now you're committed to the kingdom, you're committed to relationship with God, you're committed, he's committed to you.

And the thing about it is that I love so much, he was committed to you before you were committed to him.

He wanted you before you wanted him.

We were enemies of God.

He came for me at my absolute worst.

My sin, my rebellion.

He wanted me at my worst.

If the cross was enough then, it's more than enough now.

Amen.

And here's another layer of Paul.

I keep saying this today.

But Paul doesn't stop there.

This is what I love about it.

Since therefore we have been justified, justified, justified by his blood.

How much more shall we be saved from him by the wrath of God?

It says we've been saved from the wrath of God.

We have to talk about this.

We like mercy, we like grace, we like forgiveness, we like love, we like to talk about those ones, but the moment you get into wrath, it feels a little different.

It feels a little pokey, it feels a little sharp, or maybe it makes you uncomfortable when we talk about wrath.

But the moment, church, the moment that we remove wrath from the cross, we weaken the cross.

We cannot separate wrath from the cross.

And you think about what we've been learning the last six weeks.

We've been talking about the fear of God, the holiness of God, honoring God, leading all the way up into this place in Easter, being fully known and fully loved.

We're redeemed because of Jesus.

This is not God losing his temper, it's not being cranky, it's not a divine overcorrection.

He's like, haha, I'm gonna do extra on this one.

This is what wrath is.

Wrath is God's settled, holy, righteousness, righteous opposition to sin.

It's his perfect justice.

Pastor Malachi spoke about being justice.

God is justice, but he's also grace.

It's his justice against all that is evil, all that is crooked, all that is rebellious, all that is destructive, all that is wrong.

If God brushed off evil, he wouldn't be a good God.

And that is not the God of the Bible that I read and that I know.

Paul says that we are under wrath not because he's cruel, but because God is holy.

And the incredible truth here, church, and the power and the weight of this.

I don't think I even have enough words for this.

Is what we were redeemed from in this moment is the wrath that we deserve but was on Jesus instead.

Jesus took your wrath.

When you commit your life to Jesus, he takes that wrath.

And this should be steady hand for someone in this room right now, just wondering.

Because maybe you're living this relationship with God like He's tolerating you.

Like you don't know what to do.

You're not pressing in because you're like, he just let me in the doors.

He doesn't actually care.

He doesn't care about me.

He doesn't care about my feelings.

Doesn't care about what I'm going through.

Maybe that's where you're at this morning.

And I'm telling you, there's so much more that God has for you than just you believing He's tolerating you.

Jesus stood in the gap for me.

He stood where I stood, took what I should have taken, absorbed what should have fallen on me.

And for those who are in Jesus, those who have committed their life to being Christ's followers and have said, I repent of my sins, Lord.

I want you to be Lord of my life.

There is no wrath left for you.

Not because God lowered his standards, but because Jesus met that standard.

Amen.

Now we're getting to write parts.

Your hands are closed, your eyes are closed, you have your head down, your heart is shut off.

All because your view of God is that he is a hammer, or that he is an angry God, not a loving God.

I just want to encourage you, if that's you and you for the Holy Spirit, we're gonna have a time to respond to this, but just know God is doing more than tolerating.

He's loving you, and he wants to know you, and he wants to close that gap in your life between you and him.

And this is what was given back to us as believers when we become friends of Jesus.

So, what do we see?

We see all the way through this that we're sinners, we're ungodly, we're powerless, we're enemies of God.

Then He already died on the cross for me at my very worst, and the gospel just takes over my life.

But it's so much more than just that, isn't it?

It's so much more.

It's not just the good news that we get to escape judgment and spend eternity in heaven with God, it's so much bigger than the yes, we're saved from wrath.

That's amazing.

Yes, we're saved from going to hell.

That's amazing.

Yes, we're justified because of what he did on that cross, and he wants us, he chose us, he wants you healed, he wants you restored, he wants you reconciled.

He doesn't just want, he's not just tolerating you.

So, this is what this means.

It means that the war is over.

I like war language, if you may not have noticed.

Hostility is over, distance has been closed between you and him.

Some of us have been walking in our walk with God with our hands tight, like I said, our eyes down, everything closed, and we're just not engaging with him.

You know who you are, and you're missing out on this relationship that he wants to have with you because he's reconciled you close.

And this is the thing the relationship when you give your life to Jesus changes.

This is what it says in John 15 15 I no longer call you servants.

This is what it says, because a servant does know and does not know his master's business.

Instead, instead, I have called you friends.

For everything that I've learned from my father, I have made known to you.

Think about it this way: the God that we rebelled against is the God that wants us near.

He wants to speak with us, he wants to walk with us, he wants to move in our lives with us, he wants to call us his own.

And here's the final layer as we've gone through layer after layer.

Romans 5 11.

Now, not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

You have received reconciliation.

Here's the thing we have reconciliation hint in Him.

We boast only in Him.

It's not a system, it's not a theology, it's not a church, it's not a person, it's Jesus that we boast in.

Jesus didn't die on the cross to give you that better future, he just died to restore relationship with you.

And in that, because of who Jesus is, we experience freedom.

We experience healing, we experience restoration, we experience so much more than just I don't have to go to hell.

We experience a relationship with the God of the universe that wants you to be healthy and whole, that is not just tolerating you because you gave your life to Jesus and now you're not sure what's next.

I'll tell you what's next: a deep relationship with God.

One that speaks to you, one that brings you life, one that actually says those parts of your heart that are actually separated come together.

That's what God does, that's what knowing Jesus does.

He brings you closer and healing happens because of it.

So going back to 15, it says I John 15 says, I've called you friends.

And here's what it means.

Can you stand with me?

I want you to do something.

I want you to close your eyes.

Now I'm gonna read some things.

And if one of these does get to your heart, this is what it means to be a friend of God.

We say this in Foundations class all the time when we do our prayers at the end, is that if something speaks to you in that moment or that word gets you and it kind of rises up, or it just is like I'm missing this.

As I read these words through, this is what you receive because you're a friend with God.

And maybe as we go through this, you're like, man, I want that.

Or maybe you're like, I don't have that at all, or maybe you're like, I'm gonna shift my life because I want more of this.

So I'm gonna read these.

And these are just some of the benefits, some of the words that describe what it means to be a friend of God.

This is what it means: it means to be beloved, it means to be known, you're chosen, you're invited, you're invited to relationship with him, you're welcomed.

With open arms, he welcomes you into his kingdom.

You're bound to him, you're trusted, you're held in his hands, you're an insider, not an outsider.

You're his confident, you're a co-heir with Christ, you're righteous, you're an overcomer, you're victorious, you are a friend of God.

Church, this is not a tiny little bit of grace, this is not a surface level thing, this is reconciliation between the God of the universe and you.

How much does he love you now?

The question is whether we're gonna live like a friend of God or a stranger who happens to attend our church.

So I want to do two things.

The first one is this just keep your eyes closed.

This morning, this is your first, maybe one of your first times at church, or first time hearing the gospel, or first time that the Holy Spirit is just wanting you to respond.

If you don't know Jesus and you have felt powerless, you have felt like you're a sinner, like just something is out of place or wrong, you're an enemy, and you want to belong, this is the time.

If you've never surrendered your life to Christ, this is the door today to have a seat at the table.

And if you want to give your life to Christ, I want you to raise your hand so I can see it.

I see those.

That's amazing.

Church, I want you to say this with me.

Those who put your hands up, just say this with me and the church.

Jesus, I know what I was.

I was powerless, going the wrong way, enemy of God.

And I'm not coming to you because I have it all together.

I'm coming because you came to me when I didn't.

I believe you died for my sin.

I believe you died and rose from the dead.

Forgive me, reconcile me, make me yours.

Amen.

For those that gave your life to Jesus this morning, just kind of look up this way.

That was you.

There's a number on the screen.

There's multiple opportunities for you.

I want to be able to chat with you.

One of our team can.

You can go to the connect corner, fill out through the number on the screen.

We just want to help you move forward in your journey with Jesus.

For the rest of us, almost a similar type of prayer.

How many of you have felt powerless in your walk with God sometimes?

Maybe you feel like you're being tolerated or you're living like you're an enemy.

So, this is what I want us to do.

I want the team just to lead us into that last song that we were doing.

And I want you to position your heart.

This is a heart posture, church.

It's a heart position.

Whether your hands are out, you're on your knees, your hands are up, whatever you want to do.

But the Lord this morning is speaking to many of you in this room.

And he's saying, I want more.

He wants more of you.

He wants more of who you are.

He wants you to give him access.

Because I believe that there's some people in the room whose hearts are just shut down.

And he's saying to open them up this morning.

This is one of those times where the Holy Spirit wants to do something and we're going to respond to it.

Amen.

If that's you, I'm going to call the prayer team forward up front as well.

Just make your way up.

But if that's you, we're just going to close with a song and then I'm going to close the service.

We're going to have people here to pray.

But if you want to receive and you feel like you're that one that's hands, eyes are down, hands are closed, heart is shut off, and you can't see, and you want to experience more than what the Lord has for you.

Right now is the time for you.

Amen.

So let's just worship just for a couple minutes.

Put your hands up, open up your heart to receive.

And if you want prayer, you can move your way forward, and then we'll just close here in a couple minutes.

And if that's not you, I just want you to just put your hands forward and just pray for those people in the room that just need more of Jesus this morning.

Amen.

Let's just worship.