God's Alien Task | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

We're in a series of messages we're calling perfect anger.

We're looking at this concept in the Bible about God's anger and wanting to understand that a little bit better.

And it's an important thing for us to know, first of all, what do we need to understand about God's anger and then how that affects our own anger.

We want to be able to deal with our anger in the right way.

And of course you're going to feel anger.

You should feel anger.

There's things in your life that are going to make you angry, and digging into why do I feel this and using God's anger as the ultimate standard is really the goal of this series.

We've been week three now, so we've been talking about this for a little bit.

And the first part we talked about the difference between human anger and divine anger.

And one of the differences is that our anger is driven by emotion and passion and usually is triggered by things that are very human.

So things like losing control often causes anger or insecurity being disrupted causes us anger, or fear can cause us to be angry.

When our egos get bruised, we we become angry.

And God doesn't suffer from any of these factors.

God doesn't get angry because of ego.

He doesn't get angry because of fear and on and on.

So really what we do is we try to look at our own anger in the purest sense to go, there are some things about our anger that do resemble the character of God, but then it's clouded by a lot of these other things.

And that's why, again, the language in the Bible uses what we call anthropomorphism, anthropopathism, giving God anatomy and emotion.

And that's helpful because as humans, that's that's how we understand, but it also has a liability attached to it, which is we can then start to take human limitations and impose them on a perfect God and misunderstand.

So we're doing our best to kind of power wash this thing down to its essence and uh learn what we need to learn.

Today we're gonna talk about God's punishment, and we're gonna sort of put the question in front of ourselves what do we need to understand about God's punishment?

Uh I'm going to start in Isaiah chapter 28.

Isaiah 28 · chapter mention

By the way, if you have your Bible, I'm going to be all over the Bible today.

So I'm going to be in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

So you're more than welcome to try to keep up and flip around, but I'm going to put the scriptures on the screen as well.

It might just be as easy to do that, but your call.

Isaiah 28, starting in verse 21, it says, The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perizim.

He will rouse himself in the valley of Gibeon to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task.

His alien task.

Now, this is in the book of Isaiah.

We've been in Isaiah before, but just as a refresher, the book of Isaiah has three sections.

And the first section in the book of Isaiah is a prophetic warning that the nation needs to repent, that the leaders need to repent, the kings need to repent, the priests need to repent, everybody needs to repent and turn back to God.

And if you don't do that, then this will happen.

And so here in Isaiah 28 is in section one, and essentially what he says is if you don't make the changes you need to make, then God will perform, the language here is his foreign or his alien task, referring to his punishment.

Now, what these uh original hearers would have heard when he mentions Mount Perizm and the Valley of Gibeon, these are two places we're not familiar with, but they were.

And the irony here is that these were two famous locations where God had protected the nation from uh somebody else's oppression.

In other words, somebody was hurting you and I protected you at these two locations.

But he says, now you're the one who I've protected.

You've become the perpetrator.

And so now I will ultimately punish you like I did them when they were hurting you.

I will punish you when you are hurting others if you don't make the change you're supposed to make.

But it refers to God's punishment as his alien task.

In other words, it's not what he wakes up wanting to do.

It doesn't come naturally to him.

It's something that he does because it's connected to his justice and his character, not because he woke up in a bad mood.

This is so important because when you think about God and you have a something in your mind's eye as it relates to God, do you think of God as really uh it takes a lot to get him to love you, or do you think of him as it's very easy for him to get angry?

Like it's very easy, like he's as a hair trigger that, man, if you look at him the wrong way, he's gonna drop the hammer.

Um, this says that when God gets to the place where he punishes, it's his alien task.

It's not what he prefers to do.

We mentioned in week one, sometimes to some there can be a discrepancy, it feels like a discrepancy, between the Old Testament Yahweh, God, and the New Testament Jesus, that Yahweh was in a bad mood and he was eager to drop the hammer, and Jesus is gracious in all of this.

But this concept of God being slow to anger is all throughout the Old Testament.

Exodus 34, 6 and 7, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate, gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

So it's saying, God will punish, but his primary task, his native task is love, and his alien task is to punish, but he will do it.

Numbers 14, 18 says, The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love, forgiving sin and rebellion, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

Again, it's similar to Exodus 34.

Look at uh Psalm 30, verse 5.

Psalms 30:5

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.

Weeping may stay for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Today, what I want to do is I'm gonna use uh the concept of parenting and raising children.

Um I'm gonna use this today.

So if you're a parent, some of the probably most of this will resonate in some way.

Uh, but you don't have to be a parent to get this.

In fact, if you have anybody in your life you have responsibility for who's doing the wrong thing and you're trying to handle them in the right way, okay, this will resonate.

But I am gonna carry that uh concept throughout.

I want you to think of two different, two different scenarios, two different people that are doing the wrong thing, and how you would respond.

So the first is someone who is struggling.

And we'll call this the willing, doing gap.

In other words, I'm willing.

I'm trying.

It's not that I'm trying to be a rebel, I'm just struggling to get it right.

Somebody who is really giving it their best effort, they're doing the best they can, but they just keep falling short.

Keep falling short.

They're slow to learn, they're they're coming up against their weaknesses.

Uh the apostle Paul in Romans 7, verse 15, he said, I don't really understand myself.

Romans 7:15

For what I want to do, I want to do what's right, but I don't do it.

Instead, I hate, I do what I hate.

But if I I know that what I'm doing is wrong, it shows that I agree that the law is good.

So he's saying essentially, he's describing the willing-doing gap.

I I've calibrated my conscience to God's word.

So it's not that I'm trying to be bad.

I'm actually trying, whether it looks like it or not, I am trying my absolute gut level best to do good, and I keep falling short.

And if you're mad at me, get in line because I'm mad at me.

If you're frustrated with me, get in line because I'm frustrated with me first.

So he says, it's not that I don't think the law is good.

I'm willing.

It's the doing part I'm struggling with.

Verse 17, he says, so so I'm not uh I'm not the one doing wrong, but it's sin that is living in me that does it.

Now, just to be clear, he's not deferring accountability.

He's not saying, well, it's not my fault the devil made me do it.

What he's saying is that this sinful behavior is taking root in my heart, and the worst version of me is becoming the biggest version of me.

And when that worst version of me, like I know what the best version of me is, but the worst version of me, because sin now has a foothold in my life, that's becoming who I am.

And he says it's driving me nuts, like I'm struggling with it.

And in verse 18, he says, I know that nothing good lives in me.

That is, in my sinful nature.

And some of your Bibles it says, in my flesh.

I want to do what's right, but I can't.

I want to do what's good, but I don't.

I want to do, uh I don't want to do wrong, but I do it anyway.

If you keep reading down, you get to verse 24, and he goes, Oh, what a miserable person I am who will free me from this life that's dominated by sin and death.

Verse 25.

Thank God the answer is Jesus Christ our Lord.

What the Apostle Paul demonstrates here is God's attitude, especially as it relates to punishment and anger, with someone who's fighting for all they have but falling short.

Friend, when kids are little, everything's simple, you know, left or right, go or stop, black and white, okay, right and wrong.

Things are super simple.

The older you get, the more complexity there is.

And I'm gonna say, not all of us have the strengths, same strengths and weaknesses.

Something that comes easy to you is very difficult to someone else, and vice versa.

And so we we think about God as the ultimate good father who loves his children enough to understand their weaknesses, to understand where they're slow learners, and to be patient and to customize parenting in the process.

Some of you know a little bit about my family.

I have three kids.

My oldest daughter's 17.

I have uh two boys, 14 and 11.

Both of them are on the autism spectrum.

They're all extremely different.

I customize parenting per kid.

Okay, my middle son had a season, uh, he's actually he's be he's doing so good.

Better than ever.

I'm so proud of him.

And but he had a season of time.

He had a season of time.

He was off the chain.

And some of you are here and you serve in the kids' ministry, and you can bear witness.

All right, you're like, I'm just all right.

I mean, God bless you.

In fact, this church was a huge part, has been a huge part, and continues to be a huge part in his development.

But when he was about eight years old, he got on YouTube and watched grown men playing Call of Duty, and he picked up some new vocabulary words, okay?

And so he didn't know what all those vocabulary words meant.

He just knew they were bad because it created shock and awe whenever he said them.

And his favorite one just happened to start with the letter F, okay?

And so he would use that everywhere, the grocery store, wherever, one kid's.

Um, I I literally, I'm not kidding.

Uh, on a Monday morning I got a uh a video sent to me from our kids' pastor.

I was like, just so you know, and it was it was my son, he had he had got the he got the kids iPad that they checked your children in with, and he got in there and turned the camera on himself and just said the F word over and over and over again.

Like no other words, just that word, one after another.

And they said, just thought you should know.

And I'm like, Oh, I know.

Like I like, trust me, like I know.

And so I took the conventional approach, right?

I tried to talk to him about it, tried to explain it to him.

And the best I can tell you is my son has these delays, and he couldn't get it.

He knew it was wrong, but he didn't know it was wrong to the level that we would, and the social implications and all of that.

So I tried to explain it, he wasn't getting it.

So then I tried to drop the hammer, which is kind of how I was raised.

That didn't work.

In fact, it made it worse.

He would start fixating on it, and it was he was clearly out of control.

He was out of control, and it's just part of his journey in life.

So he would say it at school all the time.

We're getting these reports home, and I was like, you know what?

I said to my wife at the time, she was taking him to school.

I said, I'm taking him to school, I'm gonna drive him to school.

So I'm driving in the car with him, and I'm just giving him a pep talk the whole way.

I'm trying to help him think through scenarios before they happen, you know.

So I'm like, son, when you get there, if you think you want to say the F-word, what are you gonna do?

He's like, I'm gonna ask my teacher for help.

I said, Yes, yes, that's a great idea.

Now let's just say you do that, and then a few minutes later, more F-word is in your head.

What are you gonna do?

Then he said, I'm gonna ask for a timeout.

I'm like, my man, my man, you we got this.

This is gonna be a great day.

And I'm I'm telling him, like, you know, if you go through today and you don't say the F-word, man, when you get home, there's gonna be, we're gonna do some fun stuff, man.

There's gonna be some reward.

He's like, all right.

So I walk him up to the door to his teacher, and he walks right up, he's like, Miss So-and-so, uh, I'm not gonna say today.

He's like, if I think I'm gonna say, I'm gonna ask for some help, and then after that, then I'm gonna, and if and he said it like eight times while he's telling her he's not gonna say it.

Then I get the report back, and he said it 12 more times that day.

And she calls me up and she's like, uh, Mr.

Ford, uh, you know, maybe you don't give him that pep talk anymore.

And she's like, you know, you know, let's try this.

Uh why don't you just try ignoring it?

Okay, so I'm in my house and I can hear him in his room.

Blank, blankety, blanking, blank, blank, blanking, using it as an adjective and a noun and a verb, and it's kind of masterful, actually.

I'm sitting there and I'm like, 'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.

Like, what am I doing?

It just nothing felt right.

It felt weird.

I'm like, is this working?

Should I even be listening to this teacher?

Should I be?

I didn't know what to do.

But I'll tell you this.

In his situation, my whole, my wife and I, our whole attitude wasn't about, am I embarrassed at the kids' pastor?

Isn't what is everybody gonna think?

Is it what do they think in aisle five over at Kroger?

What are they saying about us at the school?

I had one thing I was thinking, how do I parent the heart of my son?

How do I help him?

And beyond just to get him to say this one word, because frankly, yeah, if I just doubled and tripled down on the fear, I could probably get him so scared.

But the point is, how do I help him develop a healthy heart and to understand to be a healthy human being and to develop his character?

And in that particular situation, I had to dip into a level of patience, play the long game, customize parenting.

You know, I used to kind of judge parents, you know what I'm saying, especially if they were like too patient.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm kind of like, you know what, somebody needs a baby's having babies out here, somebody needs to crack down on these, you know, whatever.

And and and you know what?

I've I've actually really chilled out on that because I I I'm sure people are getting it wrong.

You're getting, I'm probably getting it wrong.

You're getting it, we're we're all humans doing our best, sometimes getting it wrong.

But but the bottom line is when your attitude in your heart is, I'm really want to understand this child.

I want to understand what they need.

I want to understand where they need patience or where they need punishment or where they need me to be direct or where they need me for me to be quiet and to really go with the love of the child.

Um if I see a child, by the way, I'm a sucker for effort.

And when you see somebody who's falling short, missing the mark, they keep falling, but they keep trying, keep falling, keep trying, keep falling, keep trying.

I mean, come on, what kind of patience would you give for that?

Now, some of you, as I tell the story of my son, you're like, this poor child, he has this this special need and autism and all this.

And so you would at least cognitively go, well, of course you should give patience.

But I'm gonna tell you, he's not the only one in the room with the special need.

Yours may not show up in an IEP, but you have some areas of special need.

The person next to you has some areas of special need.

That may not put you in a special class in a special school, but you got some things, some areas of weakness.

You look like you got it together on the outside, but the battle and the struggle and the thing I don't want to do, I do, and the thing I try to do, I can't do, and I keep falling short.

Listen, hear me today.

This is so important.

I've been doing this now for a while.

I've been doing this for 20 plus years, sitting down with people, listening to people.

I've had people confide in me and counsel with me, and I've I've seen it and I've battled it myself.

We're often the one who's struggling and falling short.

If you don't have your correct perspective of who God really actually is as a father, then you'll think that God is just annoyed with you because your weakness of your flesh, you keep falling short.

Listen, if you're falling short and you're struggling, you need to understand that your heavenly father is right there alongside you, giving you grace.

But listen, you need to keep fighting.

You need to keep pushing.

Because although we receive God's grace, we all still are a work in progress.

Growing up takes a lifetime.

The government tells you you're an adult when you hit 18, but nobody hits 18 fully formed.

You have a whole process of growth.

If you're struggling, keep struggling.

Don't do it under condemnation.

In fact, what I love about Romans chapter 7 is that after it says, you know, the thing I don't want to do, I do, and what a wretched man I am.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

Thank God for Jesus.

When you flip to chapter 8, verse 1, it says, There's therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

This doesn't mean that we quit fighting and take grace for granted, but it means that we have the right perspective in the struggle.

Understand that your heavenly Father is not annoyed with you, he's alongside you, giving you grace.

Ezekiel 33, 11.

Let's go Old Testament, let's go back to the Old Testament.

Ezekiel, when he's uh speaking judgment to the nation, he says, say to them, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

But rather that they turn from their ways and live.

And then he says, exclamation point, turn.

So it's a call to repent.

So God is patient with weakness, he's patient with slow learners, he's patient with repeated failure.

But when people harden themselves and they refuse correction and will not repent, then the judgment becomes more severe.

So you think about a rebellious child.

You've got the the child that goes, look, I'm doing my best, I keep falling short.

The struggle child, but the second that we see in the scripture is stubborn.

Or what shows up 18 times as a direct reference is the word stiff-necked.

Okay?

Stiff necked.

This is, yeah, I know, I don't care.

This is I'm I'm taken from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and other words, I'm gonna do it my way.

And what you see throughout the scripture is there is 18 times it says stiff necked, but it says, oh man, this is so many, like countless times in the Old Testament that there is an issue of rebellion or a hardened heart, and you see that the way that God responds even to the stubborn, look at this, 2 Chronicles 36, 13 and 14.

Um, there's a king who is rebellious king, uh leading uh cascading his rebellion down onto the people around him.

His name is Jed uh sorry, Jedekiah, and it says he became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the Lord, the God of Israel.

Furthermore, all the leaders and priests of the people became more and more unfaithful.

So, in other words, this wasn't just one guy, it was it was it was hitting everybody, it was getting caught up in it.

Look what it says in verse 15.

It said, The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people.

So, what does it say?

Even this stiff-necked leader that was infecting others, it said that God didn't just spring right to wrath, but that he it says again and again offered warnings.

Okay, and you're gonna see this all throughout.

In fact, I'll just give you a few other places, but I could we could literally take all day.

Jeremiah 7 13, it says, While you were doing these wicked things, says the Lord, I spoke to you about it repeatedly, but you would not listen.

I called out to you, but you refused to answer.

Jeremiah 44, 4 and 5.

Again and again I sent my servants, the prophets, to plead with them.

Don't do these horrible things that I hate so much.

But my people would not listen.

And turn back from their wicked ways.

If you go to the New Testament, Romans 2, 4 and 5 says, Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you?

Does this mean nothing to you?

Can't you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

In other words, God's not just delaying punishment because he's careless about the poor decision, but he's being patient, hoping that his kindness will lead us to repentance.

He said, But because you're stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you're storing up terrible punishment for yourself.

So what you're gonna see throughout both the old and the new testament is that when there is rebellion, when there is uh stiff-necked or hard-hearted, that God will send warnings and repeated warnings so that to get people's attention in hopes that if if I can get your attention, okay, instead of sin taking root within you and bringing the worst version of you out, that's what's happening right now.

But if I can shine a light on that in some way, and if you'll see it and you'll turn and repent, okay, then then then there will be a change, and and and I won't have to bring the punishment.

Okay, so so God is patient, but severity comes when repeated patience is met with refusal, resistance, and rejection.

Uh look at this in Hebrews 12, 4 through 11.

It says, You've not yet given your lives and your struggle against sin.

In other words, we've all made mistakes and missed the mark and fallen short, but you're not dead.

You're still alive.

So take that breath seriously.

Verse 5, he says, And have you forgotten the encouraging words that God said to you as his children?

He said, and then here he quotes uh Proverbs 3, 11 and 12.

My child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you.

For the Lord disciplines though he loves those he loves and he punishes each one, he accepts as his child.

As you endure this divine discipline, don't uh remember that God is treating you as his own children.

Whoever heard of a child who's never disciplined by his father?

If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you're illegitimate and not really his children at all.

Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever?

For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how, but God's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in his holiness.

So when you think about God's anger, it is totally predictable.

We talked last week what makes God angry, and it is idolatry and injustice, the idea of a fracture of shalom and our relationship with God, and our and then that turning uh essentially our theology turning into sociology, our bad theology turning into bad treatment of others, that's gonna make God angry ten times out of ten.

When you see a vulnerable person being taken advantage of by someone in power, that's gonna make God angry ten times out of ten.

The question is, within his punishment, okay, when God's being gracious and when God is ultimately punishing, what do we need to understand about that?

Because that's not as predictable.

In other words, exactly how does that happen?

Well, it's really God's timing.

And again, we understand just like we do our best to know our children, to know, you know what, I'm gonna hang on here and be patient, or I'm going to you know be punitive, you the we do the best we can.

God, in his perfect understanding, okay, is handling that balance perfectly.

So when you go, what does that punishment look like?

Well, it can look like a lot of things.

One, it can look like God essentially stepping back and letting us live with our choices.

So if you think about the story of the prodigal, which we love around here, it's one of the best stories.

We took some time last year to look closely at it.

We have to pull it up about every two years, it's an important story.

But Jesus makes the story up.

And if you remember the story, the son, who is stiff-necked and rebellious and entitled, says, I want my inheritance now while I'm young.

And the father says, I'm gonna let you make choices and I'm gonna let you live with those choices.

So the son goes out, he wastes his whole inheritance, he's flat broke down to nothing, ends up down with the pigs, says, Maybe I can go home and be a slave, my my father's home because I've blown it so bad.

So he's wallowing in shame.

He comes home, and of course, we know the beautiful part of the story.

The father runs to the son, defers the shame of the community on himself instead of his son.

He puts a ring on his finger, robe on his back, reinstitutes him as a son.

And if you're if you don't really look closely, you think, well, then he just got away with it.

But the father says, Well, no, no, no, no, no.

Here's my character.

You are always my son.

There's nothing you can do that's gonna remove you as my son, but you don't get your inheritance back.

Remember, he says of the older son, all I have is yours.

So I gave you an opportunity and I gave you this money, and you went and blew it, so it's blown.

You're not coming back, and I'm like, well, we're gonna split this thing for you again because you went and did that.

So I'm gonna let you live with that.

You don't have anything now, but you have my love.

You're in this family.

So it in some senses, again, we look at how does God punish?

There are times that God will just remove and say, You want to take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then do your thing.

Do it your way.

You think your way is better than my way?

Do it your way.

And and but you're gonna live in it and you're gonna have to live with it.

It's not that he is doing it again because he's annoyed or doing it out of anger.

Some people have to learn the hard way.

My dad told me years ago, son, it's smart to learn from your mistakes, it's smarter to learn from somebody else's mistakes.

And if you go ahead and do that, you can save yourself a lot of heartache.

Doesn't mean everything will be perfect, but some people have to go learn it their own way.

And so, again, sometimes God just does by taking his hand off.

There are other times in the Bible that it shows that God, uh, especially in the Old Testament, he would send a nation to judge because they had turned to their idols.

You want their idols, you get the whole deal.

Go ahead.

So whether it's God allowing us to lose it or God taking it away, that's a little ambiguous.

We don't exactly know case by case, but here's what we do know.

If you're struggling, receive his grace and keep fighting.

If you're rebellious and he's warning you, if you're stubborn and he's warning you, heed the warning.

Heed the warning.

Don't take God's warning for granted.

If you go to uh Romans 3, and we're gonna read in verse 22 here in a second and beyond, I'm gonna kind of summarize the first part of Romans 3 for you, uh, because depending on your translation that you read, it can be a little confusing.

The essence of the beginning of Romans 3 is Paul is encouraging us to not get a warded, uh warped, confused view of God's grace.

So he's essentially saying, don't take this attitude.

He starts in chapter 2 and continues in chapter 3 when he says, don't think that like you sin so that grace will abound.

In fact, he says at the beginning of chapter 3, he's like, if you get sort of caught in this train of thought, you'll be so screwed up, you'll think that God's glory is highlighted the more you screw up, and so I might as well screw up so that his glory will abound.

That that would be like being married and saying, you know, it's crazy.

I cheat on my wife, and whenever I do, she forgives me.

And it's just who does that?

Like I just keep cheating on her, she just keeps forgiving me.

And so, really, I that's why I keep cheating, because it just shows how amazing she is, because I cheat over and over, and then she keeps taking me back.

It's like, you know what, if I stop cheating now, like you won't be able to see the best of her.

So I'm gonna just keep this up, right?

I know it's uncomfortable to think about, right?

And some of you have lived that unfortunately, but the reality is that's a warped view.

The other view he says is warped is essentially going, Well, God hasn't dropped the hammer on me yet, therefore, you know, he's not really just.

Like, you know, I've done something wrong, he hasn't done anything about it.

So you're taking his patience for granted, which would be like saying, I'm gonna go cheat on my wife and I come home, and I just know if I grovel and beg and come, and I'm just like, I'm so sorry, I'm just so terrible.

And she's like, Oh, she's gonna take me back.

So I'll just keep sinning and then I'll come, and I know that eventually she'll just she'll just relent.

Okay, so he's taking all of these that we know are really unhealthy ways to think, dysfunctional.

And he says, if you aim that at God, you're totally misunderstanding grace.

But then he says, with that being said, let's get to verse 22, which is probably the most, maybe, in my opinion, and some the one of the most significant paragraphs in the entire New Testament.

He says in verse 22, we are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.

He said, and this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who you are.

For everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard, we all miss the mark, yet God in his grace freely makes us right in his sight, and he did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins.

Verse 25, for God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.

Some of you in your, if you have the NIV, it says, as our atonement.

If you have the uh King James or the new King James, it says, our propitiation, right?

Which you don't want to say five times fast.

But the propitiation essentially means the satisfaction of divine wrath.

In other words, my sin, in order for it to be just, the wages of sin is death.

And so it says that in order for God to give us grace and to satisfy without compromising his own justice, Christ Jesus became the satisfaction of our divine wrath, the sacrifice.

People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.

So today, what I want us to do is take a moment and to receive God's word.

And I want to put two questions up before you that I've asked our team to just take a moment to let the thoughts breathe.

But the first question that I want to give you today is this where are you willing to do what's right, but struggling to actually do it?

So the willing doing gap.

Is there an area in your life that you're currently, you're like, I it may not look impressive, but if you could see inside of here, I'm fighting for my life.

I feel weak, maybe I am weak.

I I feel like a slow learner, maybe I am a slow learner, but I'm just telling you, I'm fighting.

And today, maybe the whole reason you're here is to understand that you have a heavenly father that's not up there annoyed with you.

That's not like, why are you so slow?

Why are you so weak?

He knows you better than you know yourself.

He's right alongside you, giving you grace.

He's not waiting to lower the boom, he doesn't have an itchy trigger finger, he's not quick to punish.

It's actually to punish is the alien task.

The whole thing is about getting you free.

He's not disappointed with you, he's fighting right alongside of you.

So your prayer today is to receive his grace and get back in the fight.

Receive his grace, get back in the fight, keep fighting.

The second, or maybe for some today, there is a stiff-necked, stubborn thing in you that you've gotten to the place where you start to you you've gone through some stop signs.

I can't tell you, I've talked to more people who have blown up their lives, and they look back and they go, I had this warning and I had this warning, and this person talked to me and I blew this off and I saw this, and I should have seen this coming, and I did see this coming, but I just didn't do anything about it.

And and sometimes it's once the thing or the person or whatever is gone, it's too late.

And so listen, if you're here and you're receiving a warning from God, maybe today that was, okay, I didn't come to pile on anybody or whatever.

I'm not and I'm a mean spirit today, but the Holy Spirit, maybe out of absolute mercy and warning to you, is going, it's not too late, turn, change, repent.

So if that's you today, don't take God's patience for granted and repent and turn and make the change, or humble yourself before the Lord.

Let's take a moment and turn to God.