The Joy of Unearned Status

If you are just joining us, we are in a series right now called Unbreakable Joy.

We've really spent the better part of our year studying what scripture teaches us about joy, but specifically by studying a book in the New Testament called Philippians.

Philippians was written by a man named Paul.

He's one of the foremost leaders of the early church.

And what Paul would do is he would travel around and he would start churches and communities where no one had ever heard about Jesus.

And then he would go somewhere else, and then he would write letters to the churches that he had started, these people he was very close with.

And that's what we have when we read the New Testament.

We read the letters of Paul.

We're reading his letters to these churches, these organizations of people, these communities that he started, he kicked it off.

And these weren't buildings, these weren't institutions, these were families.

These were close-knit communities.

That's something that we want to be as a church always, but oftentimes these were small, close-knit communities, and he's away, he's writing to them, he's hearing about what's going on, he's helping teach them, sometimes correct them, but always to encourage them.

Now, Philippians is a little bit different because Paul happened to be writing this letter while in prison.

He's in prison, he's facing possible execution because he's a Jesus follower, because of all the trouble that that is creating.

Jesus changes everything.

And when people start following Jesus in communities where that's never happened, like the value systems change and the powers that be, they don't want everything to change.

And so Paul's in trouble a lot.

And you would think that because he's in prison, his letter to the Philippians would be sad, it would be somber, it would be filled with him sort of pleading for them to please pray for him over and over and remember his suffering, but that's not the vibe of Philippians at all.

If you didn't know the context, if you didn't know that Paul was in prison, you would think this is someone writing a letter to friends at the absolute prime of their life.

Things could not be going better because Philippians is filled with all of these statements of joy and wonder and gratitude.

Paul shows us that there is a kind of joy that we can have as followers of Jesus that the world cannot offer us.

It is not circumstantial, it is not based on everything going well, it is not based on life cooperating with you, it is a deeper joy.

There is nothing like it, there is no substitute for it.

And Paul has it, and Philippians is kind of like a blueprint for us to have that same joy.

So we've been going through it, learning all the lessons we can, trying to soak that up and apply that to our lives.

And today we're gonna talk about the joy of unearned status.

The joy of unearned status.

And I'm gonna start by just reading Philippians chapter 3, verses 1 through 11.

Philippians 3:1–11

And by the way, I'm just using our mobile app.

If you ever want to follow along on our mobile app, all of the verses that we use every Sunday are in there, so you can always use those now or even later if you want to go back and read stuff.

So Philippians 3, 1 through 11 says, Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

Never, he says, I never get tired of telling you these things.

And I do it to safeguard your faith.

Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved.

And don't worry, we're gonna explain that.

For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised.

We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us.

We put no confidence in human effort.

Though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could.

Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more.

I was circumcised when I was eight days old.

I'm a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a real Hebrew if there ever was one.

I was a member of the Pharisees, who demanded the strictest obedience to the Jewish law.

I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church.

As for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.

I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law, rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.

For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith.

I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.

I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead.

There is a certain type of joy that you get in life by earning things.

And Paul's talking about that.

He's saying, if anyone could have earned it, it would have been me.

There's a certain joy you get when you earn something.

All of us have experienced that.

It's actually something as a dad that I'm trying to teach my kids.

In fact, I've got a little bit of a crisis that turned into an opportunity with my two youngest boys.

There's a there's this thing coming out in June called the Nintendo Switch 2.

And if you're a parent of children, you probably have a Nintendo Switch in your house, or you have, or you've said no to it, but good news, there's another one coming out, and it's way more expensive.

It's great.

So my boys found out about this.

It's a big deal as a kid.

And honestly, I grew up in the 80s and 90s.

I remember when a new video game system was coming out, that was always really exciting.

To this day, I'll never forget when my older brother got a Sega Genesis, and I thought, like, technology will never exceed this.

It's impossible.

And so, you know, the problem is it comes out in June, which is not, it's a really inconvenient time of the year, at least for me.

See, the way our family works is we have Christmas, and then all four of our kids have birthdays before April 6th.

So we go, Christmas, birthday, birthday, birthday, birthday.

And it's like, the summer is when we recover.

The summer is when we sort of get our finances in order.

And so when they when they found out it came out in June, I was like, well, no.

Just that's not happening.

But then I thought about it.

I was like, you know what though?

This is a cool opportunity.

Because this is like a Christmas gift level type thing.

So I had this idea and I met with my my two youngest, my nine-year-old and my seven-year-old.

I said, hey guys, I think I've found a way that you could get a switch when it when it comes out.

I think I've got a way.

And they're like, what?

I said, alright, I've been thinking about it.

I think you guys can earn it.

So I'm gonna come up with a list of chores.

And these aren't the normal stuff.

This is not just tidy up your room.

This is like we're gonna do stuff in the yard, the garage, their eyes are just getting bigger and bigger, right?

And I said, if you're gonna have chores to do every day, extra stuff, every single day for the next like two months.

But if you do it every day, you're gonna earn a switch too.

I thought they'd be excited.

I thought, I thought they would be like, wow, dad, thank, thank you for teaching us the value of hard work and blessing us with no, my nine-year-old.

Let's just say his emotional reaction was unenthused.

We'll start, we'll just say that.

But my seven-year-old, he was the best.

So Eli just, he kind of looks, he nods.

You can tell he's thinking, and he just went, I'll just wait till Christmas.

That's what he said.

I'm good.

Which then made my nine-year-old like freak out.

And so I was I was cool letting it be, but then I actually had gotten excited about the idea of teaching them some hard work in a way that I haven't before, and them earning it.

So I'm trying to like, you know, as parents, sometimes you just manipulate your children so that they do you play games sometimes.

And so I was, I pulled up on YouTube, I pulled up a video of one of the games, like, man, that game looks really cool.

And uh, and Judah, my nine-year-old, seven-year-old, was there too.

He was like, Well, hey, what if I do all the chores myself?

And I was like, Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

Well, I guess, Judah, then it would be your Nintendo Switch.

And then Eli can only play it when when you'll let him, because it's yours.

And Eli went, I'll never play it.

And uh I said, or you can help your brother with chores.

And so they finally agreed, and they've been doing it's been awesome.

Yesterday they cleaned out my car, including the trunk.

Today they're doing their bathroom upstairs.

They don't even know that yet.

That's exciting.

Don't don't spoil it for them.

Please don't.

And tomorrow, they're cleaning out all of our couches.

They're gonna pull the cushions out, they're going, because it's they stuff stuff in it anyway.

They they also don't know that.

So if you see my kids, don't be like, guess what you're doing tomorrow?

Um, let them experience that joy from me firsthand.

But seriously, they've been working every day, not always with the best attitude, but they've been doing the work.

And I think it's gonna be amazing for them in a few months or a month, whatever that is, when when they get to open that and go, man, we earned this.

I'm excited for that.

I think that that will be memorable for them.

There is a there's a certain joy that we get in life when we earn it.

When we do something, we're like, yes, I did this.

But at the same time, there are certain things that are simply too great to earn.

There are things that are too big, they're too wonderful, and there's no possible way you could actually earn it.

Specifically when it comes to our relationship with God.

Like we have a status with God that is truly amazing.

I don't know when the last time you reflected on the status you have with God.

I don't know when that was.

The last time you sat and really thought, man, this is where I stand with the God of all creation.

And how incredible this is.

We'll just look at a few aspects of it because let's appreciate this together.

Like we have we have forgiveness with God.

And what did we have to do to earn that forgiveness?

And it's not a little bit of forgiveness.

In fact, Paul would write this in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

He would write this later than he wrote Philippians.

He says, so we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear son.

We just got done singing about that, right?

Amazing grace.

He's so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son and he forgave our sins.

Now, what we have to understand about forgiveness is it operates a little bit differently in God's world than it does in ours.

And that's kind of a theme.

God's world has different values.

For us, forgiveness generally involves us saying, hey, I recognize what you did was wrong.

It hurt, but I'm willing to move past it.

I'm willing for us, I'm willing to have us move forward in our relationship, and we're just gonna get past what you've done.

Maybe there can't even be trust, we don't necessarily forget about it, but we just decide, let's move forward.

That is not what God's forgiveness is like.

In fact, forgiveness, it may not even be a full enough word for us to really understand what the forgiveness that God gives us is like.

In the New American Standard Version of the Bible, we typically use the New Living Translation, and there's reasons for that.

Um, I was actually gonna do a little bit of an explanation of that, but I think it would take too long, so we do this from time to time.

We're gonna record a podcast episode tomorrow and put that out on all of our apps and on YouTube and whatnot.

And you can listen to us talk about the translations of the Bible that we have access to and sort of our filters on which ones we use and why.

Okay, so uh New Living Translation is what we normally use.

It does a great job of putting everything into language that is common for us.

New American Standard, that version of the Bible is probably the closest in terms of English to the original Greek, but sometimes that makes it a little tougher to read.

Because words have a way of changing over time what they mean.

But the New American Standard does a really interesting job with explaining forgiveness.

It uses a different word very often.

So let's look at Galatians chapter 2, 16 in that version.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

Here's what it says.

Nevertheless, knowing that a person is not justified, it's not forgiven, but justified.

You're gonna hear this word a few more times.

Knowing that a person is not justified by works of law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, since by works of the law no flesh will be justified.

So I counted three times the word justified was used.

This is a word that we might hear and think forgiven, but it's deeper than that.

Because you can be forgiven and also be found guilty.

Like you can be declared guilty, but then forgiven.

That would be like a pardon.

Like I was declared guilty, but then my sentence has been commuted.

That is not what justified means.

That is not biblical forgiveness, the kind of forgiveness that God has for us.

Justified means you've been declared innocent.

It's like you're standing trial and you have all these charges against you, and maybe you even know, like, I'm guilty, but then you're declared not guilty, innocent.

To the point where if someone tried to identify you by those transgressions, you'd be like, No, no, I'm I'm totally innocent of those charges.

Through faith in Jesus, we have been justified with God.

We have been declared innocent, not guilty.

Not just forgiven, not like God goes, man, you really messed up.

You messed up a lot, but I love you, so we're gonna move forward.

That's not what we're talking about.

I can think about that.

You have that status with God, you are innocent in his eyes because Jesus Christ paid the price for all of it.

Could you earn that?

Could you do enough on this side of heaven to earn that?

Every issue, every problem, every misguided thought?

No way.

But we're not we're not just forgiven.

Like we're friends.

We have friendship with God.

I want you to think about that.

That's that's amazing.

Jesus actually says, we looked at this last week.

We kind of finished, last week was about the joy of good friends, and we finished by talking about the fact that we could have no greater friend than Jesus.

None.

He's incredible, and he is our friend.

He says in John 15, 15, I no longer call you slaves because a master doesn't confide in his slaves.

Now you're my friends, since I've told you everything that the Father told me.

We are not just followers of God.

We get to be friends with God.

We have friendship with him.

He's brought us that close.

That's a big deal.

Like we're family with God, we're gonna talk about that in a second, but we all know that you can have someone that's your family but not your friend.

Right?

You might have friends that you wish were your family.

When you have both, that's really special.

When you have family and friends, and they're one and the same, that is that is so special.

But to appreciate the fact that we get to be friends with God, that we get to have an intimate, close relationship with him.

We don't have to approach him in this like meek way.

We can, we we should revere him, obviously, but we have a direct connection to God.

You can literally pray, and God is listening.

Like in our world, that would be like if every time you called, he answered.

And we all know that we don't do that.

There's lots of times that we get the call and we look at the name, we're like, uh, not now.

You know what I mean?

God never does that with you.

Because you're his friend.

It's like the opposite.

When you get that call from that person that you love so much, you're like, yes, you're excited, you pick it up immediately.

You have that with God.

He's brought you that close.

We are forgiven, we're friends, we're family, we've been adopted.

Scripture says that through faith in Jesus, we get adopted as part of God's own family.

In Romans chapter 8, Paul would write that since we are his children, since we've been adopted into the family, think about this.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We are his heirs.

Some translations say that we are co-heirs with Jesus.

You get to be co-with Jesus.

It says, in fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory.

But if we're to share in his glory, we must also share in his suffering.

It's not easy to be a Jesus follower, it's not easy to be his friend, it's not easy to be part of the family of God.

Sometimes there's suffering that goes along with that, but ultimately we get to share in the inheritance of Jesus.

You cannot earn an inheritance.

You can't do it.

That would defeat the whole purpose of an inheritance.

And so while there's a joy in life when you earn it, there's a joy in life when you work hard and you bust it and you achieve what you're trying to achieve, and that's the way the world works, God operates differently, and when it comes to our status with Him, it is not something that we earn.

But it's often hard for us to think that way.

Because we live in a world that teaches us, conditions us to work for it, to strive, to go out and get it, to earn it.

And Paul grew up in a world very much like that.

In fact, that's what Paul does when he starts going through his resume.

We're going to go through this in a second.

Paul grew up conditioned to believe, as a Jewish man living in the first century, that your status with God is something that you absolutely earn.

And what was happening in the early church, why Paul is even addressing this, is you have this phenomenon where in places like Philippi, people are starting to follow Jesus and they're not Jewish.

They're from outside of the family of God in the Jewish people's eyes, but they're giving their lives to Jesus.

And then the the Jesus followers who were Jewish, the first followers of Jesus were Jewish, they're like, well, okay, are we all the same?

I mean, they're not Jewish, but they're following Jesus, and we are Jewish.

And that created some conflicts because they had different traditions.

And the first one Paul brings up is circumcision.

Now, this might shock you, but the non-Jewish dudes who were following Jesus, they didn't really want to get circumcised.

I can't think of why, right?

But that was a thing.

Like the only people who were circumcised were Jewish people, and you can also understand where the Jewish guys are like, no, uh-oh, no, no, no.

You're doing that, okay?

I had to do it, you're doing it.

Like, you don't get off the hook.

It was a big deal.

It's a big deal.

And so this thing that began with Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, it was a way that God sort of set apart his people, but but only the Jewish people did that.

And so now you have non-Jewish people giving their lives to Jesus, but the Jewish followers of Jesus are like, yeah, but you still need to do the stuff that we had to do, right?

Like, you gotta do that thing.

And and Paul says, no, no, no, no.

They don't they don't have to become Jewish to become Christian.

Like, sorry guys, they got to skip that part.

And Paul begins to address this mentality.

He uses circumcision just as the entry point, but it's this mentality that, oh, you guys think that God is impressed by what you've done.

You think that you earn your status with God.

Well, look, if anyone could earn it, Paul says, I could have.

And so we'll go back to Philippians chapter 3 and verse 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

He says, We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us.

Our relationship with God, our status with God, yours and mine, it is not dependent on what you have done.

It is dependent on what Jesus has done.

That is really good news.

He says, We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could.

Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more.

He goes on to say these things.

I was circumcised when I was eight days old.

I'm a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a real Hebrew, if there ever was one.

I was a member of the Pharisees who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law.

I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church, and as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

So a couple things just to understand what Paul's saying here.

He's like, the whole circumcision thing, guys, I did that.

Not only did I do that, I did it the exact way the law prescribes.

So I'm one of you.

Just imagine this group of Jesus following, but also Jewish men who are really upset that these other guys are coming into the faith, but they're not doing all the things that they had to do.

And Paul basically says, hey guys, I get it.

I understand where you're coming from.

Let's talk.

I'm one of you.

I was circumcised when I was eight days old.

That's the way the law prescribed it.

So I'm in.

But then he goes on.

He says, in fact, I'm a pure-blooded citizen of Israel.

Now, what you have to understand is that in the ancient world, okay, can you guys nerd out with me for a second?

Can we like talk ancient history for just a minute?

Learn some stuff?

Is that okay?

Alright, cool.

All right, so this will be quick.

So in the ancient world, it was a very big deal to the people of Israel that they remained what they would call pure-blooded, and it wasn't racism.

We can think of it that way.

It's very important when you read the scriptures, especially when you're reading like the Old Testament, even the New Testament, guys, these are cultures thousands of years old.

And if you try to read through it with like modern sensibilities, you're just gonna, you're just gonna waste a lot of effort and energy.

Because we could get on an airplane right now and fly somewhere in the world.

I heard a pastor say this once, it blew my mind.

We could get on an airplane today, fly somewhere else in the world, and their culture would shock us.

Okay, well, now think about doing that and then go back like three, four thousand years.

It wasn't racism, it was that in ancient cultures, your race, where you're from, and what God you worshiped were synonymous.

Like you just worship the God of your ancestors.

Which is why in the Old Testament, you have so many times when the people of Israel get really off track because one of their kings would marry someone from another kingdom and he would begin worshiping those gods, and then everything would go crazy.

This happened with Solomon, it happened with Ahab, a bunch of other kings of the Old Testament.

And so the Israelites were commanded to stay exclusive, to only marry other Jewish people.

Again, not racism, it was about not worshiping false gods.

But because Israel had been conquered many different times by many different cultures, right?

You had the Persians and then the Greeks and the Romans, the Babylonians back in the day, all kinds, a lot of the people tended to intermix.

And so very few families could claim that they had kept that, that they had stayed fully Jewish.

It was like, well, grandpa fell in love with a Greek lady, so you know I can't really claim that.

And Paul knows that.

He's talking to these guys, he's like, Yeah, hey, circumcision, cool.

How many of you can say that you are pure-blooded?

And the number of hands that Paul would be talking to would go down?

Maybe a few guys, and he's like, Well, I am.

So I have more to earn.

If we want to go the whole earn it game, if we want to play resumes, you know, my resumes, it's gonna win.

He addresses that.

Then he goes on to say that he's from the tribe of Benjamin.

This is a big deal.

Not all the tribes of Israel, 12 tribes of Israel, not all of them were considered equal.

Benjamin used to be a really small tribe, but they rose to prominence when the very first king of Israel, a man named Saul and Paul, Was originally named Saul.

He changed his name to Paul, went by that after he began following Jesus, but the very first king of Israel was a Benjamin.

And so Saul became the first king, and his tribe rose in prominence because of that.

The tribe of Benjamin would always lead the army of Israel into battle.

We have scripture on that.

So in Judges chapter 5, verses 13 and 14, it says, Down from Tabor marched the few against the nobles.

Judges 5:13

The people of the Lord marched down against mighty warriors.

They came down from Ephraim, a land that once belonged to the Amalekites.

They followed you, Benjamin, with your troops.

The tribe of Benjamin, they would lead the way into battle.

This is a prominent tribe.

Like if you were a Jewish man, you would love to belong to the tribe of Benjamin.

It was one of the most, it was one of the most influential, one of the most prominent.

In fact, in Israel's history, they had a split and they divided into two kingdoms.

This is before they were ever conquered.

You had the northern kingdom, which kept the name Israel, and the southern kingdom, which went by the name of Judah.

And it was the southern kingdom that stayed true to God.

The northern kingdom of Israel went way off track really fast.

The southern kingdom, that kingdom lasted much longer, stayed more faithful to the Lord, and that kingdom was only made up of two tribes, Judah, the namesake, and Benjamin.

And so Paul's sitting here with these guys, he's like, hey, you're talking about circumcision.

How about this?

Circumcision, being pure-blooded, being from the tribe of Benjamin.

You know, now all these other guys would be like, ugh, I'm not, I don't know if I can really keep up.

And Paul goes on, he says, I'm a I'm a true Hebrew, and he uses a different word there.

Instead of saying Israelite, he says Hebrew.

And this this is because Paul was someone dedicated to his way of life, his culture, he spoke fluent Hebrew.

Very few of the Israelites spoke like their own language because it was not the common language of the day.

It's not the language you would hear in the marketplace, it's not the language you would speak when you went to work, and so as time went on, more and more Israelites just didn't speak their original language.

They spoke Greek.

They spoke Aramaic.

But Paul, who spoke those languages too, also fluent in the original language.

He dedicated himself to that.

He was a Pharisee.

He was like the strictest follower of the law.

The Pharisees were the ones that opposed Jesus.

He actually was not just a persecutor of the church, he was put in charge of that.

Like he was entrusted by the religious leaders to try to stamp down this Jesus thing before it catches on.

Paul basically says, hey, if we want to play the resume game, if you want to talk about earning it, I can say this, this, this, and this, and this.

I'm better than all of you if we want to go down that road.

And then he says, but I consider all of that worthless.

He says, I consider it all worthless.

When compared to knowing Christ.

It's worthless.

In other words, we don't have to earn it.

And that's a beautiful thing because who of us really could?

There is a joy in life that comes from earning something, but man, when you have an experience or something, you're blessed with something that you could not have earned if you even tried to, there's nothing like it.

And I'll pause here and I'm gonna share a quick story just to kind of make this personal.

And I'm gonna apologize to those to those of you who have been part of His Hands Church for a very long time.

You're gonna hear me tell a story that I've definitely told before.

I've told this story at least once a year for the last I've been the lead pastor here for 11 years, and even a few times that I spoke before that.

And I'm just gonna be honest with you, I'm gonna tell this story once a year for the rest of my life.

Okay?

You can't stop me.

It's just sometimes, sometimes, look, things happen in life to you that are so personal and meaningful and cool, and it's definitely a God thing, and you you have a responsibility to tell that story.

You gotta keep that story going, and it brings me joy, and you don't know how much self-control it takes me not to tell the story like every three weeks.

So please, just give me some grace, okay?

Because all right, I'm gonna go back.

2009.

The year is 2009.

I'm uh I'm in my 2009.

Oh, I'm in like my mid-20s, okay?

Didn't have kids yet, so I had this thing called free time.

Haven't had it since 2010.

Uh no, 2009 was a really interesting year for me.

I worked here, I was the youth pastor here, I started here in 2007, been here a long time.

But in 2009, I started doing some, just for fun, just kind of messing around, some like freelance sports journalism.

And I would have a day off and I'd write articles covering college basketball.

Those of you who know me well, basketball, I have a kid who plays basketball, blah, it's you know, running joke.

I use it almost every Sunday.

But I was a huge fan of the ACC, right?

The conference that a lot of our schools around here are in uh in the in the southeast.

But specifically, and don't hate me if you do, I can live with it, grew up as a huge Duke basketball fan.

And so, I understand.

Um, in 2009, I'm I'm doing these, I just started like January writing some articles for fun, covering mainly Duke, but also ACC basketball.

And I found out that that year the ACC tournament, like the big basketball tournament where all the teams compete for the championship of their conference, was here in Atlanta, and I wanted to go, and I looked at the prices and I was like, nope, not going.

Couldn't afford it.

And a friend of mine who was here at his hands asked me to pray about it, and I did not want to.

Like, I get that God's our father and he loves us and he gives us gifts, but I just felt weird praying, like, hey Lord, if you could hook me up with some sweet tickets, that'd be really amazing.

Now, honestly, we should we should pray for whatever, that's fine, but it just felt, I was like, and they said, no, no, pray about it.

And I basically relented and said, fine, I'll pray about it just to get them to stop.

So I prayed once, like, hey God, you know, ACC tournaments coming in town, I'm sure you knew that.

Uh it'd be cool if I could get tickets.

And then I moved past it because I really didn't think about it for another second.

Kept writing the articles, and all of a sudden my article started getting picked up, and it was like a really cool thing.

And I had some some articles that I wrote that got put on like major websites and like featured on major websites, and this started to have traction, and then out of the blue, about three weeks before the ACC tournament, I get a phone call, and it was from someone that represented CBS sports, and they wanted to use me, like to contract me to cover the ACC tournament.

And I was like, what does that mean?

I'm like, well, that means you'll you'll be in press row, you'd be CBS.

You're CBS at the tournament, you're press row, you have access to all the players and the coaches, you'll interview them after every game, you know, go to the locker room, talk about them, try to find storylines and write, and and we'd like to send you, you're our guy for the tournament if you want to do it.

And then they said, The problem is it's in Atlanta, they didn't know where I lived, and we don't cover travel expenses.

And I was like, I got this.

Okay.

So I show up, and I mean, honestly, I thought I was being pranked.

Like there was a part of me so nervous.

I'll never forget the feeling of at every turn thinking someone was gonna be like imposter.

You know what I mean?

Like I showed up and I went to the place that you get your press pass.

I'd never even done this before.

So I'm pretending to know what I'm doing and I don't, which is most of my life.

Um but like I I walk up and I go, hey, Justin McTear, CBS Sports, and they go, here's your press pass, and I was like, okay.

Like trying to be like, this is normal.

I'm totally comfortable.

This is I'm not gonna scream.

I go back and I'm like, I'm in.

And there's there's free food and there's TV personalities that I knew growing up, and then the craziest part was like the first time I went into the Duke locker room after one of their wins, and I'm standing there talking with the players, like shaking, like shaking their hands.

Well, it's more like this because they're very large people, so I'm like shaking their hands, you know.

And the and the coolest thing is Duke won the entire tournament that year.

And I'm in the locker room with them as they're celebrating a championship.

A few months ago I was praying for tickets, and I'm standing in the locker room, talking with the players and the coaches.

Coach K, by the way, did not like me.

I asked him a couple questions, he said I don't like that question, and he moved on and picked somebody else, but that's fine.

He and I aren't friends.

It didn't happen, it didn't work out, but it's okay.

There's still time.

But like I'm there, I'm there, and I didn't earn that.

I remember being around other guys that did earn it.

They went to school for that.

A bunch of the guys that were in the same position as me, exact same access, exact same experience.

They went to college for that, they studied it, then they got a job as like a beat writer at some small newspaper, and they wrote articles about stupid sports that no one cares about for years and years and years, and they finally got called up and got a better opportunity, and then after like 15, 20 years, they they got to cover the ACC.

And if they would have asked me, hey, so tell me your story, I was like, I started writing articles like six weeks ago.

Um friend of my church told me to pray, you know.

You should try it.

It's so much easier.

It's so much easier.

Like, like you should give it a try.

I could have said that, but I cannot tell you, I I tangibly had to fight this feeling the whole time, like you shouldn't be here.

I truly.

And for some of you, that's like not that exciting, but for me, how I grew up and what I value, that was that was like winning the lottery.

That was such a cool experience.

I was I was in a place that I didn't earn.

And it was it was like a gift.

It was such a cool experience.

That is where we all are with God all the time.

You are loved by God, you are forgiven, you are friends with God, you you are family, you are co-with Jesus, and as much joy as there is in earning that, you can't earn that.

That's why Paul said, Yeah, listen, I tried, I did this, this, this, this, I have a great resume, and he tore it up and he said, It's worthless.

It's worthless compared to just knowing Jesus, to knowing him, to having a relationship with him.

And if you're here and you're not a Jesus follower, you haven't decided to give him your life yet, and by the way, I'm so glad that you're here if that's where you're at.

I know many of us are in different places.

Everything else in life that's valuable for the most part, you've got to earn it.

You do.

You gotta go out, you gotta crush it, you gotta win the girl, you gotta work to keep the girl, you know?

It's a good girl.

You you've gotta impress the boss, you've gotta woo the client, you've got to keep the client.

It's a good client.

You have to work, you have to strive.

Life is a struggle, and so we're conditioned to think about a relationship with God in the same terms because that's how this world works.

That was that's what Paul grew up in.

That's religion, by the way, is you have to earn it, you've got to work.

And so many of us come in, and some Sundays we we feel I'm sure you've had Sundays if you're like me.

I mean, I work here, so I have to be here, but if I it's actually been really helpful for my faith.

It really has.

I have to be there.

I can't miss.

Y'all can miss church, I can't.

And I'm really grateful for that because I know there have been seasons of life where I probably just wouldn't have come because I didn't feel worthy of walking through the doors.

Because we're trained and conditioned to believe that we've got to earn it.

So if I had a week where I didn't really do the God stuff very well, maybe I just won't go because I don't want to feel like a failure.

And if you've ever felt that way, I'm really sorry.

And part of that is like, yeah, we have a conscience, and when we do things we shouldn't do, it messes with us, and that's a good thing.

We should adjust and adapt and make different choices.

But your family with God, you are friends with God, your relationship with him, it's not dependent on what you've done or haven't done.

It's not your obedience, it's it's Jesus' obedience.

He has won it for you.

It is a gift, it is unearned, so enjoy it.

Enjoy the unearned status that you have.

There's there's nothing like it.

If you haven't given your life to Jesus, I just want you to know that you don't have to spend the rest of your life trying to earn some connection to God.

You don't have to read a certain number of books, you don't have to pray or a certain number of prayers.

It's been done for you.

You just need to know him.

You just need to know Jesus.

You just give your life to him.

You put your faith in him, he's done the work for you.

That doesn't mean we don't live in response to that.

Of course we do.

But he's the one that's brought us into his presence.

And so I would just I would just uh implore you to ask God to speak to you, ask God to move your heart and give your life to Jesus if you haven't done that yet, because otherwise you're gonna spend the rest of your life striving and working and trying to earn something that has been given to you and won for you.

Don't waste your time.

Go all in with Jesus.

There's nothing like it.

And if you have given your life to Jesus, and worship him, you guys can make your way up.

If you have given your life to Jesus, and I know that on a Sunday, most of us here, like you got up, you came here, you probably have.

Don't slip into earning what you already have.

That is it's so easy to do that.

So that experience I talked about, you know, the whole Duke thing and locker room and championship, so that was 2009.

2010, I did it again.

I was in their locker room when they won the ACC championship in 2010, same experience.

In fact, that year they won the whole tournament, like the big tournament.

They were really good that year, but it felt totally different, and here's why.

The first year was a gift.

Literally, I was like, pinch me, I'm here.

How is this happening?

Duke wasn't even supposed to win the tournament that year in 2009.

North Carolina was better, but God loves me so much that He that He hurt Ty Lawson's toe.

Okay?

Ty Lawson was North Carolina's point guard, and God was like, that toe is going down.

And uh and if you're a North Carolina fan, no big deal because it got better and they won the whole tournament, but they didn't win the ACC tournament.

I got to, it was great.

Um, so I got to talk to him while he iced his toe.

It was an interesting experience.

So the first year was a gift, it came out of nowhere.

I didn't earn it, I didn't work for it.

I I was just writing articles for fun, and then that landed in my lap.

It was a God thing.

But after I did that, the next year I was like, I'm doing this again.

And so I I worked my tail off.

I wrote, I wrote so many articles that year, articles I didn't even want to write.

I was reaching out to publications and like, hey, give me whatever you want, and I'm writing this, I'm writing that.

Uh I had to tell my wife, hey babe, after the game, I have to I have to watch this game.

And when it's over, I'm calling into a radio show because they they have me on as like a person to talk about the game, so I'm gonna be tied up for the game and then after the game, and she loved that.

And uh that was the first year that we had our son, Liam was a baby at the time, and I'm like, hey, shh, keep the baby down.

I'm on the phone with some radio station in North Carolina that no one listens to.

Like, come on.

And I did it, and I was in that tournament and I was in that locker room, but it felt totally different.

Because that year, it was the result of my labor.

And even though I technically earned it, I didn't experience one iota of the joy that I did the year before.

Because there is a there's a different joy when it's a gift.

I promise you, if I went to Judah and Eli right now and said, hey guys, forget the chores, I'm getting you a switch.

They they would not be like, no, dad, we want to earn this.

Please, Father.

I'm pretty sure they'd take that deal.

As followers of Jesus, we want to do what he says.

You know, it's important to me that my kids obey me, but it doesn't determine their status with me.

It might determine how well their day goes, but it doesn't determine whether or not they have a seat at my table.

That's just theirs.

That's an inheritance.

You, through faith in Jesus, have something you could have never earned.

You have total forgiveness, justification, you have friendship status, you have family status with the God of this universe.

You are co-with Jesus.

You didn't earn that, you couldn't have.

But he did it for you.

And Paul in Philippians is basically begging us to enjoy that, to treasure that, to never forget about that, and to never slip into trying to strive and earn what we've been given.

That is easy to do in church.

I'll wrap up with one example of that.

So last Sunday, I uh I mentioned giving.

I'm sorry.

If you weren't here, you're like, yes, skip that one.

Uh no, no, it's something we talk about it from time to time.

We're not a church that focuses heavily on money, but it was a really weird experience.

I gotta tell you the experience I had last Sunday.

It was really weird.

I think you guys can appreciate this.

So, we just mentioned giving last week because as a church, we have grown tremendously in the last couple of years.

Our attendance is up 43%, that is over 400 people every Sunday, and that is awesome.

Yep, we can clap for that.

It's not, we haven't tried to do that, it's just really cool.

But the interesting thing is not everyone comes every Sunday.

And it's kind of good that they don't, because we don't have room if they did, but if no, like if you're averaging, this is just the way it kind of works in church, if you're averaging 400 more people every Sunday, that means you probably have about 1,500 to 2,000 more people who would call this their home.

And that's that's you know, a couple thousand more people who have needs, who have challenges in life, who have crises, and and they call, and and so we're we're very busy right now.

Our staff is very busy, and we love it.

But I mentioned last week that giving has has as we've attendance has gone up in two years by 43%, giving's only gone up by 16, and we're fine, we're totally fine right now.

But obviously, if that continues, that there's a day that won't work, and so I just asked if this is your church, and giving isn't something you've done before to pray about it and to let the Lord lead you in that, and it's between you and God.

But here's what made last week interesting.

So I shared with you, if you were here last week, my car broke down, so a buddy of mine let me borrow his car, but it is a much nicer car than I drive.

And I was like, God, I'm talking about giving.

I cannot be pulling up to the church in a nice car on the giving.

I can't do that.

I can't be like rolling in and being like, hey guys, we really need to pick it up, okay?

You know, these heated seats, they're not paying for themselves, okay?

I can't do that.

And let's be honest, there's a lot of pastors who have done that, and I'm not gonna do that.

So I like snuck in.

Last week I was I drove in more shamefully than I've ever been.

Like, I don't want anyone to see me.

One guy did.

One guy in the tech team, I got in the car, I was like, it's not my car.

My car's in the shop, broke down, it's not my car.

Friend of mine borrowed it.

This is this is I just uh and I just walked in, you know.

It was an interesting experience.

But then this is the thing, I'm uh the main point is uh that was funny, but so I give the little thing like, hey, let's just we're in great shape, but let's pray.

And we want to be healthy as a church, and so we're not doing giving campaigns and stuff like that.

Like that's not the way we we operate.

So we just pray, and it's between you and God, and if it's your church, help out.

Well, then I I get on online later in the week and I look at my giving, and I don't know how this happened, but like three months ago, I have it like automatic.

I've always had an automatic withdrawal, automatic withdrawal, but we've been nuts for the last three, two, three months, and I haven't been checking my bank account crazy because we have a pretty consistent budget, right?

It stays pretty much equal.

But for whatever reason, like two months ago, my automatic giving just stopped, and I freaked out.

I felt like super guilty.

I was like, oh my gosh, I talked about giving, and I was driving that nice car.

I mean, I gave it back, I'm not driving anymore.

Uh and and I I haven't even been giving for the last few months, and I didn't know that, and I'm telling everyone to pray about it, and I'm not giving, and I had this little moment with God where I was like, God, I'm so okay, okay, if I okay, if I can make it up, and I was like, well, dang it, I checked our bank account and I was like, hey, there's more in here than normal, cool.

And so I booked a fun little Megan and I have a 20th anniversary.

Our 20th wedding anniversary is in a couple weeks.

Yeah, that's exciting.

And so, yeah.

So I went a little extra on our 20th anniversary.

We're gonna we're gonna have some, we're gonna go to a place and it's gonna be great.

But I know that I hadn't been giving, so I had this freak out moment.

And I was like, I guess I could cancel the vacation, Megan will be mad.

But and it was like God had to stop me, and He's like, just relax, just do it next month.

Like, freak, who cares?

Some of us were raised in this belief that any type of of misstep, God's probably mad at you now.

Right?

Like, oh, you you forgot to give, you didn't, you didn't go to church, you didn't, whatever.

Oh, now you're now you're like, you gotta play catch up.

You gotta, you're working from behind.

That is not how it is.

So I had this moment where this week I'm like panicked for a minute.

I'm like, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, it was an accident.

I didn't know.

I I guess I should have been more watchful of my finances, but that's not a sin, okay?

That's not a sin, and honestly, it's really the church's fault.

If you think about it, like I didn't cancel it.

So it's whoever, I mean, I know I lead the church, but whatever, we're getting into splitting hairs now, Lord.

But like I went, I had this moment of panic, and it was like God did just say, Stop, stop.

You're fine.

All of us, relax.

We are not earners, we are heirs.

We are children, adopted, but fully children in the family of God.

We are friends with God, we are forgiven.

We have so much grace, we have so much slack, and and we should live obedient lives out of gratitude for that, but that's not what get that's not what determines our status with God.

It is unearned.

So if you don't know Jesus, give him your life and experience a kind of joy you could never earn on your own.

And if you do know Jesus, never let yourself slip back into earning it.

That's a trap that is not from God.

That was fun for me this week.

We're gonna finish by taking Lord's Supper.

And if you're new, welcome again.

We do this every week, and when you walked in, there were these tables that have little cups with bread and juice.

And if you missed it, by the way, you can get up right now and go grab one.

You're not gonna mess anything up.

No one's gonna look at you and be like, nope, that's not how we are.

Uh but if you don't want to, that's fine too.

We just we do this every week.

It's been a tradition of followers of Jesus for 2,000 years.

It's a way for us to get our eyes on him.

And as we take this this morning, I just want us to remember what we've talked about today.

You did not have to earn your status with God.

But Jesus did earn it for you.

He won everything that you've been given.

So as we take this, and this bread represents his body that was crucified on the cross, this juice represents his blood that was spilled.

We should be so filled with gratitude for the fact that we don't have to earn where we stand with God, but Jesus did it for us on our behalf.

So, with that in mind, let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this piece of bread.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you willingly gave yourself up as an offering, as a sacrifice, that you paid the price for our sin.

That you want a freedom and a status for us that we can never earn for ourselves.

We could never do enough or say enough to say thank you.

We can never earn this, but Lord, remind us that we don't have to.

Help us enjoy that.

It's a gift.

Let's take the bread.

Pray for the juice.

Lord, thank you for this juice.

This is your blood poured out.

Cleanses us from everything, leaves us blameless, just like we sang this morning.

We are blameless.

We're called holy now because you've made us that way, not because we've earned it, because you did it.

We thank you, Lord.

We love you.

Let's take it, Jesus.