Declare It! with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Today's message is not in a normal series like we do from week to week.

Every once in a while, these collection of messages kind of pile up on my heart.

I really want to share them, but I don't have the know-how of how to put them together in a series.

And so sometimes we go through seasons of one-offs where it's just messages that God's really placed on our heart.

And today's message in particular, I hope, is really informative to this unique movement here.

This is a place, if you're new to MetaCurch, for all people, from all walks of life, no matter how many skeletons you have and how many closets, no matter what you believe or where you're at on your faith journey, we hold strong to our convictions, but this is a place where you can belong even before you believe.

And with that, what we are striving for is clarity in our faith, and especially on the fundamentals of our faith.

And over the last few years, I've observed that on one key part of what we believe about God and eternity, that there seems to be a lack of clarity even within Metachurch itself.

And so we've taught on this a lot of times, but today I'm gonna go to an even more granular level and hope that together we can grasp onto this.

I'm gonna go ahead and get to our key text.

It's in the Christian scriptures, it's a letter called Romans that the Apostle Paul wrote to a church, you'll never guess where it was.

It was in Rome, and this is what he said.

What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found?

If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, to brag about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness.

Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something owed.

But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.

Would you pray with me?

Father, I pray that you would bring this text alive to us today.

God, no matter where we are at on our faith journey, seasoned believers all the way to skeptics, God, that you would help us.

We're here, so we might as well just humble ourselves and seek after you and lay aside our distractions.

And you've promised if we seek you, we will find you.

And I pray that very thing would happen in our lives and in our hearts today.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

And if you're ready to get going, say amen.

Amen.

Some of you are here on July 4th weekend.

It was a holiday weekend, so a lot of people were traveling, but uh the Sunday was actually July 3rd, and the message that day was about this unique idea in the scope of human history that all people are created equal in the eyes of God.

And one of the documents you find that in is the Declaration of Independence.

And what we discovered that day is that all men being equal across all races, all class, and all gender, all people being equal, is not actually a self-evident idea.

If you study human history, that is not a self-evident idea.

What it is, is a sacred idea that can be traced back to Jesus, his life, and his teachings.

And if you were here, you remember that I got really, really tripped up on a part of uh America's founding process.

And just so you guys know how extreme my adult ADD is, I'm still stuck on it, all right?

All this time later, I can't get over the fact that these British colonies, right?

We look in retrospect and we think of them as like Virginia and Massachusetts, some of the United States.

They were not the United States, they were the British colonies in America.

They were owned by Britain, they were kind of somewhat supported by Britain, even though we weren't too happy with them.

We were ruled by the British crown, and we decided we had it, we decided we had enough, and so basically we just kind of tapped into our inner Karen, wrote a strongly worded letter to Britain, and just declared that we were now our own country.

That's crazy.

That's so crazy that we declared it, and it was so.

Can you imagine?

One of the just random one of the 50 of the United States right now, just deciding.

Can you imagine New Hampshire just getting fed up and writing a strongly worded letter to Washington, D.C.

Like it was fun, but we're out.

We're our own country now.

You can call us even newer Hampshire, right?

America would be like New Hampshire, you're drunk, go home.

What are you talking about?

That's not how it works, but that is how it worked.

And what's even crazier when you look at American history, that was 1776.

We didn't win the Revolutionary War until 1783.

We were seven years away at that moment from earning our independence.

We had not earned our independence and yet, when we celebrate the founding of America, we don't celebrate 1783, we celebrate 1776.

It's July 4th when we put on our American flag speedos and get the boat to the lake and rent a margarita machine.

That's when we do it.

We celebrate it when we declared it.

And one of the reasons that this was so hard for me to get my mind around is because I live in the same world that you guys do.

And in this world, when you want something, you have to earn it.

You can't simply declare it.

You gotta go work.

You gotta go through the process, through the application, you gotta go put in some sweat.

That's how things work.

Just because you declare your love for somebody does not mean that they love you back.

It doesn't mean you're magically married.

When I was nine years old, I was in love with Stephanie Tanner from Full House.

Cut it out.

You guys know?

It did it for me.

And and I look, it would have never worked because Stephanie Tanner Tyner is a disaster of a name combination.

That doesn't mean I didn't write it in my notebooks.

I declared it, and yet, just because I declared it, didn't make it so.

We showed the clip uh on July 3rd of Michael Scott from the office walking to the middle of the bullpen and yelling out, I declare bankruptcy.

And we know that that doesn't actually work with the IRS.

You can't just declare it, you gotta do the work.

You gotta go through the application, you gotta work through the process.

If you want something in life, you have to earn it.

Here's where that gets really difficult.

It gets difficult when it comes to our faith and our spirituality.

You see, religion is all structured the same way, and you need to know this.

If you're kind of new to the idea of Jesus and his movement, Jesus didn't come and start another religion.

All religions operate the same.

Jesus came and started a movement that is incredibly unique amongst all the other things the world has to offer.

He came and he offered something brand new, like brand, brand new.

And it is such an exceptional offer, unlike anything else you will experience in life, that our mind frame and our lived experience can make it difficult for us to understand it, and it can make it difficult for us to actually apply it to our life.

What Jesus offered was so unique because what he offered was free.

You see, we have a problem as humans, and the problem is that we are all separated from God, and we are separated because of our sin.

And every single one of us, we are sinners in our own right.

And God is holy, perfectly holy, which means he is set apart.

He cannot be in the presence of sin.

That is a big problem because it separates us from God here, and it separates us from God in eternity, and God is the source of everything that is good.

We have a real problem.

And so every religion tries to get you in your broken state back to God.

But every religion has a process or pillars or expectations or laws that you have to keep.

You have to take the steps, you have to climb the ladder.

And Jesus came and he offered something brand brand new.

Look at how the apostle Paul talks about it to the church in Ephesus.

He says, For you are saved by grace through faith.

And this is not from yourselves, it is God's gift.

And grace, by definition, is a gift that you cannot earn and that you do not deserve.

And just to make sure no one was confused, he says in the next verse, not from works.

No one can boast, no one can brag, no one can rightly have any level of spiritual arrogance because it's not about you, it's not from you, it's not earned by you.

It was bought with the blood of Jesus and the perfect life that he lived.

Period.

You can say amen in this church.

Amen.

John 3 16 says, For God loved the world in this way.

No, everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life, everlasting life.

This is so new, and this is so unique.

And if you read the Christian scriptures, what we usually call the New Testament, if you read it, as soon as the movement of Jesus starts spreading around the world, everywhere it goes, it faces the same opposition.

And that opposition is we have to be able to work for it.

You want something in life, you have to earn it.

You cannot just declare it to be so.

We all have like a religious impulse inside of us.

It's really deep and it's really hard to exercise out of us.

And not only do we have a religious impulse, but we have a work ethic that we have been taught.

And that work ethic, here's where it's really confusing, it's not actually wrong, you know, because we live now in the generations that are coming up who want a six-figure job and a corner office, and they want to be well paid, and and they want their life to be successful, and they want to have a perfect marriage without doing anything, right?

They just feel entitled to it.

That's not how it works.

Like, it's not wrong that you got to work, right?

What does Britney say?

You want to drive a Maserati, you gotta work, you know?

That's how it goes.

Except with Jesus, it's so unique.

And so we have a spiritual impulse and we have a social impulse, and everything inside of us and everything outside of us says that we have to be able to play some part in it.

And not only that, but we have pride.

We like to feel like we've earned something.

You see, religions are all structured the same way.

They have special rules, and you have to follow these rules, and they will outline them sometimes very clearly and sometimes very vaguely.

And those rules are used to control you and manipulate you, and to make sure that you're following the rules.

Religions have to have special people, okay?

Not just not just different positions, like some people preach and some teach and some hold babies.

Actual special people, right?

They're closer to God than you, and they'll do all of the heavy lifting, and their job is to view your life and judge your life and make sure that your life shows enough evidence of your faith and they will decide whether you're really in or out.

And in order to corral all of these people for the special people to make sure you're following the special rules, they need special places, you know?

And if you're new here, this building is not a special place.

We don't call this the sanctuary because God doesn't need to live in brick and mortar anymore.

He actually lives right inside of your hearts, okay?

This is just a building, it can burn down.

We're still the church, okay?

Special people, special rules, special places.

And all of that breeds this environment where we can measure ourselves against each other, live in judgment of one another.

We can be fruit inspectors, making sure that your life is producing enough, judging you and controlling you the whole way.

And Jesus came for something different.

This problem was from the very beginning, in the first century.

Paul is starting these churches all around the known world.

And everywhere he goes, he's running into these problems.

We're gonna go back to our key text in Romans chapter four, and what he's just got done, really saying very clearly in Romans chapter three, is you are not saved by works.

Period.

You are saved through faith.

He says it again and again as many ways as he knows how.

And many of the people that he's talking to are Jewish believers who are still trying to follow the Jewish law, thinking that following that law is a part of what puts you in right relationship with God.

And so to really drive this point home, Paul is going to bring up the patriarch, the founder, the forefather of all of Israel.

He's gonna bring up Abraham.

In Romans chapter 4, verse 1, he says, What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found.

Romans 4:1

Now, if you're not familiar with biblical history, there is a point in time, early, early, in the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, back in the Jewish scriptures, where God's plan and revelation is going to all people in all places.

And the world continues to be evil and wicked, and evil and wicked.

And so finally, God decides to pull one nation out for a specific time, for a specific per purpose.

And that purpose would be to bring forth the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, who would then bring salvation back to all people, all nations, and all places.

And to start this nation, he calls one man, he calls Abraham.

Abraham is the seminal figure in the entire history of Israel.

In verse 2, he asks, if Abraham was justified by works, if Abraham was justified by his works, then he has something to boast about.

If Abraham earned his way by his works and his actions into God's good graces, then he's got something to be a little bit arrogant about, but not before God.

Now here's where we have to slow down.

Because to really get to the core of our message today, we have to be able to answer this question.

If Abraham was justified by works, and to answer that, we have to know what justified actually means.

In the Bible, in its original language that Paul was writing in, which is ancient Greek, the word justified means to be declared righteous.

To be declared righteous.

It wasn't actually a spiritual term, the word justified was a judicial term.

It was like when you get to the end of the trial and the judge drops the gavel and declares not guilty.

You may know this, there is no double jeopardy.

Once you are declared not guilty, you will never be guilty of that crime ever again.

To be declared as righteous or to be declared in right standing.

Spiritually, this means that we are declared in right standing before God Himself.

How are we justified?

How are we declared not guilty?

Declared righteous by God.

Verse 3, Paul says, For what does the scripture say?

This is really key.

And this should be very instructive for us.

Because I've been in these arguments about faith versus work for 15 plus years now.

And everyone has all these big ideas about their experience and their culture and how it informs them and what they think and the latest psychological trend and the latest philosophical trend.

There's places and times for those.

But the core of what we believe comes out of this question: what does the scripture say?

And then Paul quotes scripture.

Abraham believed and was justified, declared righteous, credited to his account.

This is actually a quote out of the Jewish scriptures.

In Genesis chapter 15, it says, But Abram said, Lord God, what can you give me?

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

Since I'm childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.

And remember, God's promise to Abraham was to turn him into an entire nation, a nation that would one day bless all other nations.

And Abram's like, it's not that I don't believe you, man, but I'm getting kind of old, and to have a lineage, you gotta start with like one kid at least.

He has no kids in verse 5.

God took Abram outside and said, Look at the sky and count the stars.

If you're able to count them, then he said to them to him, Your offspring will be that numerous.

And Abram believed the Lord.

Here's the quote: He believed the Lord, and God credited it to him as righteousness.

You see, here's the problem.

This religious impulse, we want it so bad.

And in our broken human nature, we want some credit.

We want to be able to say, you know, Jesus paid most of it, but surely the way I lived gave a little bit of the down payment, you know?

I'm not saying I'm Jesus, I'm just saying, surely all my good works and my charity and the way that I love my neighbor, and all the times that I want to smack my kid and I pray for him anyway.

Like, surely all of that counts for something, right?

Like the way I'm going to end up in God's presence.

Like I climbed a little bit of the ladder, right?

God gave me a little bit of a boost, and you know, Jesus did his part and I did my part, and then we all get there.

We want it so bad.

It's infiltrated our churches, and it's infiltrated our experience as Christians.

Give you a very short history lesson.

In the fifth century, there's a really unique church father named Augustine.

And the reason he's unique is because he's claimed both by the Catholics and by many of the Protestants.

Augustine came out of a Gnostic cult, one of the craziest cults that was around at that time.

And he carried a lot of his baggage with him, and he spent a lot of his time interpreting scripture in its original language.

The problem is that Augustine never learned Greek.

And please hear this.

You don't have to know Greek to open up your Bible in an English translation and God to speak to you.

But if you're trying to set doctrine and you're going into a language you don't understand, you might be asking for some problems.

And here is one of the problems that Augustine came up against.

Because he wasn't actually familiar or learned in the Greek, he came up with a novel translation of the word justified.

We already learned this.

Justified means to be declared righteous.

It happens at a point in time and it has consequence forever.

Augustine, everywhere he saw justified or justification, he translated it to be made righteous.

To be declared, to be made.

To be declared is a point in time that lasts forever.

To be made righteous is a process over time, which means the security that you're looking for as a child of God will never come.

It is something you have to chase until the day that you die, hoping you've done enough, hoping you've read enough, hoping you sang loud enough, hoping you did enough charity, hoping you checked all the boxes, jumped through all the hoops, climbed all of the ladders, hoping that you made your way into God's good graces by your own process of earning it through your works and this little misinterpretation.

It took this justification, the uniqueness and beauty of what Jesus offered us, and it diluted it, and over time it distorted it until we have a world now where both in Catholicism and in many strains of Protestant Christianity.

You have people finding unique ways to add works to the front side or the back side or all throughout the middle, making sure that each of us have done our part to earn our own righteousness.

The very thing that scripture says, not by works.

Because if you can work for it, you can brag about it.

This is what Paul was addressing to the church in Rome.

Let's review.

We've read these twice now.

What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found?

If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness?

Verse 4 now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something that is owed.

Now, as someone who has debated this quite a bit in quite a few different forums, let me tell you, people have exhaustive arguments for why you should add works to your faith.

They will take you proof texting from the beginning of the Bible all the way to the end.

They will use big theological and philosophical words that none of us even can define.

And Paul's like, for me, it's kind of simple.

If you're working for it, it can't be a gift.

It's a salary.

If grace is a gift, you cannot earn it.

And God has told us that grace is a gift.

If someone shows up on your next birthday with a brand new Corvette and says, Happy birthday, and you're like, My gosh, a Corvette, they say it's gonna be great.

All you gotta do, clean my house every Sunday for the next 20 years, and it's yours.

It's like, bro, that's not a gift, that's an exchange.

I've got to earn it.

Let me prod just a little bit and then I'll jump back.

Husbands, if you can't buy a gift without Expecting a little something later.

It's not actually a gift.

If you can't buy a gift for someone, and you're disappointed if they don't react the way you want them to react, you're looking for payment in the form of affirmation.

It's not actually a gift.

Thought I'd get the men and the women in there just for a second.

A gift has no strings attached.

It is undeserved.

Well, it's my birthday.

Dude, you don't deserve anything on your birthday.

Your mama deserves something.

You don't, you didn't do nothing.

You just showed up.

Oh, but it's Christmas.

It's Christmas.

When Jesus was born, what did you do?

A gift is not deserved.

And a gift, this is so important.

This is so important.

A gift cannot be earned.

And there are some of you who have sat under very similar teachings from this stage many, many, many times and have not been able to break free from the social construct and your religious upbringing, and you are still trying to earn something that Jesus has paid for with his blood.

The one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something owed.

And in verse 5, to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly.

That's me.

And that's you.

His faith is credited for righteousness.

If you've never really understood exactly how justification works, right standing with God, here's how it works.

One day we will all stand before God and be judged by God.

That's how it's gonna work.

It's coming.

And you, in your very best effort, on your very best day, with your very best faith, Scripture says your absolute best try is like dirty, filthy, used rags compared to the perfection of Jesus Christ.

You can't make it because the standard is not good.

The standard is not Mother Teresa, the standard is Jesus Himself, the standard is perfection, and anything less than perfection cannot dwell in the presence of God.

The reason that you can be declared righteous, declared not guilty, is not because of you at all.

It's because when you put your faith in Jesus, his righteousness, his goodness, his life, his perfection is credited to your account.

And so when you stand before the judge of eternity, you will be seen, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, wrapped in the perfection of your Savior.

You will be viewed through your Savior Jesus.

And God will see on you the garments of Christ, and He will declare that you are not guilty.

Back in right standing with God, adopted as a son or daughter of the king of all kings.

I have to make sure that you know this.

And so here's what we're gonna do.

You guys know this, I don't like to brag about it.

I'm a really good drawer.

Okay, you guys know this, you've been around for a while.

Impeccable handwriting.

Uh, we're gonna put it on the screen too, because I'm lying.

Uh we're gonna do like a theological crash course.

And here's one of the things that really changed my life is we have these terms salvation and saved.

And we use both of those as a catch-all to just mean go to heaven.

One of the things that really changed my life is about 10 years ago, when I was challenged to study every single use of both salvation and saved in Greek, soteria and so-zo, every single use of it in scripture.

And what I found really blew my mind because the majority of the time that salvation and saved is used, when you actually look at it in context, it doesn't just mean go to heaven when you die.

There are actually three biblical words that describe the whole operation of salvation.

The first we've been talking about all day, and that is justification.

And I know that we're not like a note-taking church, but this might be the one where you get out a phone and open a notes app, because we're gonna go kind of quick.

We have justification.

This happens at a point in time and has eternal consequence in your life.

You are declared not guilty, righteous before God, you are adopted into God's family.

Nothing can ever take that away from you because it's not about you.

You could not earn it, you cannot lose it.

It is only faith in Jesus.

Next, we have sanctification.

I know some of you, your grandma's like, when are you gonna start going to a real church?

Just use these words over dinner next time, okay?

Sanctification is progressive across time.

This is your whole life.

And the last is glorification.

Glorification is the reward that comes from putting your faith in Jesus.

And so let's say this a couple of other ways.

Justification is about faith.

This is a moment when you are convicted and convinced that Jesus is who he says he is and that he has done what he says that he's done.

When you put your trust in Jesus for this life and your life to come, sanctification is about growth.

This is becoming more like Jesus.

This is maturing.

This is dying to yourself daily, putting others before yourself.

This is living a life of purpose and intention.

Glorification is reward.

Let's say it another way.

Justification is about believing in Jesus.

Sanctification is about following Jesus.

Believing in Jesus, putting your trust in him.

Sanctification is actually following him, taking up your cross and trying to model your life after his own.

All of this is salvation.

All of it together.

You are saved when you are justified.

You are saved when you are sanctified.

You are saved when you are glorified.

And here's how it works: at justification, when you put your faith in Jesus, you are saved from the penalty of sin.

Separation forever from God and all that is good.

When you pursue sanctification and actually model your life after Jesus, when you grow and mature, over time you are saved from the power of sin in your life.

As you die daily to the things of this world, as you let Jesus take over more and more of your life, every fiber of your being, then the power of sin in your life, those things that trap us and ensnare us and get us caught in these habit loops, those begin to diminish as Jesus multiplies inside of you.

In justification, you're saved from the penalty of sin, sanctification from the power of sin, glorification.

Praise God, you are saved from the presence of sin itself once and for all.

That's good news.

You could say amen.

You could do this with your hands.

That's good news.

Here's where we get in trouble.

We get in trouble because we desperately want to link justification, sanctification.

We desperately want to link our faith to our works.

We want to boast.

It's okay.

Look, if if this if you're like come from normal church, we don't do that here.

All the Christian masks and pretending like none of this pertains to you.

Like it's a waste of your time if we're not gonna be brutally honest.

We want to boast.

We want just Jesus, you can get most of the glory.

Can I get like a little bit?

I've really tried here, man.

I've made a lot of changes.

Can I get some of the love?

We want so badly to link justification and sanctification.

We want to prove our faith through our works.

And the problem is when you do that, you begin to tear away at the very fabric of what Jesus started and the unique impact that it has had in the world around us.

Justification is a declaration, it is a moment and time that lasts throughout all eternity.

You cannot earn justification.

You cannot earn a relationship with God.

You cannot earn your righteousness.

Likewise, you cannot lose something that you were not responsible for gaining in the first place.

It matters so much to understand this.

In the very next section, we call it Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

There weren't originally chapters.

After he goes in depth explaining this, this is what Paul says.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

In that moment, that point in time, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The day that you put your faith in Jesus is the day that God declared some things about you.

He declared that you are not guilty.

He declared that you are back in relationship.

He declared that you are his son or his daughter.

And here's why I'm preaching this today.

Number one, because there are some of you who are still on your faith journey, and I want to make sure you understand the gospel offer clearly.

The gospel offer is for you to put your faith in Jesus.

He has done all of the heavy lifting, he has done all of the work, he has earned the right through his death, burial, and resurrection to make this free grace offer to you.

There's a second reason that I want to preach this today.

It's because I know many of you have had your moment of faith.

You have been declared righteous.

Many of you have gone through the baptismal waters with us.

And yet, in your life, you do not yet experience peace with God.

It's very difficult.

We are a Catholic city.

I love our Catholic brothers and sisters, but they are trying to work for something you cannot earn, a free gift.

And for many of us, that is instilled so deeply inside of us.

For some of us, it's social.

That work ethic, you gotta earn what you eat, that's instilled so deeply inside of us that this offer doesn't make sense.

And for it to make sense, you have to see accurately exactly who you are.

Just how helpless and hopeless you are to work your way to God.

Jesus said, unless your righteousness surpasses the scribes and Pharisees, the elite of the spiritual elite, Jesus said, You want to be with me?

Be perfect like your father in heaven is perfect.

Jesus raised the bar to a level that you can't reach.

Because it's not actually about you, or me.

It's about us submitting to our idea of the way things are supposed to work and putting our trust in the one who has done all of the work for us.

You see, peace with God is what we would call assurance.

Knowing that you know, that you know, that you know that God is your father, that Jesus has paid the price of your sins.

Knowing that you know that you know where you will end up when your life is over.

Assurance is the starting place for pursuing what's next.

The purpose inside of you, the life that God has given you to live.

So many of us don't have peace with God because if we do what we came here to do today and get brutally honest, we're still trying to earn it.

And we're reminding God about the good things we've done for him, not out of love for him, but out of fear that he might still reject us.

And for so many of us, we're not at peace with God, we are projecting onto God.

You're not understanding who God actually is and the love that he has for you displayed through sending his own son to pay the price of your penalties.

Instead, you're projecting the father that you grew up with who walked out of your house and didn't show up for you.

You're projecting the spouse that you tried and tried, and the marriage didn't work anyway.

You don't have a father God, you have a CEO God, and you're just living trying to not get fired.

You don't have a father God, you have a coach God, and you're just still trying to make the team, and that is how the world works, but that is not how our God works.

And today, my prayer is that for those who do not yet know Jesus, that you would have a clear picture as you continue your faith journey, and maybe today is the day that some of you put your faith in the only one who can give you hope, who can give you grace.

And my prayer is for many believers in the room today that you would realize you have been declared righteous.

It was never about you.

You put your faith in Jesus, and Jesus did the rest.

And so, what about our works?

Where do they fit in?

The very next section, what we call Romans 6, says this.

What should we say then?

Should we continue in sin so grace may multiply?

If grace is given to cover our sins, maybe we should sin more and we'll get more grace.

And Paul says, absolutely not.

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death.

In order that, here's why, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk out, walk out progressively over time, sanctification, walk out in a new life.

And here's the picture for many of us.

We've put our faith in Jesus, but we're not living yet like we're alive.

We're still living like we're dead.

And at the root of that, for many of us, is a lack of assurance.

You're still trying to earn something you already have.

Here's what you need to know: we do not work for assurance.

We're not trying to earn it.

We work from assurance.

Assurance isn't the end point that we are hoping to God we might be able to get to.

Assurance is the starting point for the life that you have been given to live: a new life, a radical life, a life that is audacious and bold.

You're not living trying to just not get fired.

You are living to take over the world.

You're living with the power of God inside of you.

You are living out of a new life.

1776, we declared our independence.

Seven more years to earn it, almost 200 more years until we worked through all our own sin and nonsense and started a path to where we actually put into place that all people are created equal.

The moment you are declared right doesn't mean you are now a perfect person.

There are battles to be fought.

But you know what kids need?

If you have little kids, you know the number one thing they need to start behaving?

The number one thing they need to obey you, the number one thing they need is security.

It's not clear guidelines, those are good.

It's not stricter discipline, that's good.

The number one thing they need is security.

They need to know that you are their father, you are their mother, and no matter what, that will not change.

And some of you have a heavenly father and you keep waiting for him to walk out the door.

And God is not a God of fear, God is love, and perfect love casts out fear, and you will not grab hold of the powerful, purposeful life you've been given to live until you allow your fear to be replaced by faith.

So let's do some work.

I'm gonna ask you to bow your head and close your eyes right where you are.

There's nothing magic about that.

It's just to create some space for you and for the people around you.

And I wonder if there are some of us here today, some of us streaming online, and some of this is new information.

That you are separated from God now and eternally, I wonder if that's new information.

That Jesus came not just to be a good teacher, a philosopher, a historical figure.

Jesus actually came with the intended mission to take all of your sin and all of your penalty upon himself, to take it to a cross, to pay the price of it, in order that by a simple act of faith, by believing in Jesus, you can be declared righteous before God.

That is what we believe here.

It's what we believe scripture teaches.

It is that simple.

That even right now, sitting in this room, right now, streaming with us online, right now, you can choose to be convicted and convinced that Jesus is who he says he is, that he actually did what he said that he did, that he is the God of the universe, that he came down to this earth, he lived an actual perfect life, he actually died on a cross, he actually rose again, he actually ascended back to heaven, and someday he will return for those who have put their faith in him.

If you believe that, later on in Paul's letter to the Romans, he says, For if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and we believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

With that belief, you will be saved from the penalty of sin.

With Jesus as your Lord that you are following and confessing, you will be saved over time from the power of sin.

And because of your faith on the other side of this life, you will be saved from the very presence of sin.

If that's you, there's nothing magic you have to do.

I want to lead you through a simple prayer of acknowledging that faith.

You can say it out loud, you can say it in your mind, or God can hear you.

Something like this Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

And I believe that right now I am seen as righteous by God.

I thank you for a new life.

I thank you for an eternal life.

And I pray this in your powerful name.

Now I want to speak to the people in the room who are believers, but you have been racked by fear and insecurity.

You're still trying to earn something that you never were able to earn.

It's a free gift.

You're scared to death of losing something that Jesus has guaranteed in your life.

And for you, I want to pray for you.

Jesus, you are good.

You are love, you are our hope.

We have no pride in this room, God.

You've broken us all down.

It is not us, it's you and only you, Jesus.

You're all that we want, and God, we are crying out that you would break strongholds of fear in our life.

Jesus, that we would leave today with an assurance that would allow us to begin living the life you've actually given us to live.

A life that clings to and cries out for you, Jesus, and only you.

And we pray it in your name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.