The Oldest New Things

I got a quick question to sort of frame us for what we're going to talk about this morning in the message.

We started a series last week.

We're going to continue it this week, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Here's the question: Have you ever had an experience in life where you experienced something brand new, at least brand new to you, and it was a game changer?

It was like this completely revolutionized some aspect of your life to such a degree that after you experienced it, there is no going back.

I've had a few experiences that I would I would put in that category, mainly with technology.

I would say, especially with with vehicles, with cars.

And so from 2009 until 2023, for 14 years, I drove a 2006 Scion.

And uh and I have I have a picture of this car.

I had this car for 14 years.

Um this car, this is my car.

And this car was wonderful.

Uh she, yes, she had had character, okay?

I'll show you some of the character she had.

So if we zoom in here, you'll see that there's no emblem on the front.

It fell off one day.

And I could have replaced it, but nah, why not?

So uh that that's there's no emblem on that car.

Uh had a mirror that was this is a cool feature, a different color mirror.

How many of you have ever had a car where the mirror, only one of them, is a different color?

The great thing about that was that was a new mirror that my friend Warren installed, and you can kind of see some markings around the mirror.

That's because for several years I had a mirror duct taped uh to it, and it worked great, but until it didn't.

So uh Warren put a new mirror on, and then in 2023, tragically, tragically, this happened.

Uh, you'll see the picture here.

Um, this may look like a fairly minor offender, but that totaled the car.

That totaled the car.

That was how little the car was worth.

And and this story, by the way, some of you know this because you know me, I'm gonna tell you exactly what happened.

I was in a car line at a school.

Okay, I was right around Dean Rusk Middle School, Sequoia High School, if you know that area.

And uh I was in car line, sitting completely still with a long line of cars.

And what happened was I wasn't paying attention, and the cars next to me started to move.

And my brain went like, We're going now.

And so, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I just gassed into the car in front of me in a completely still car line.

To this day, I wonder what the person behind me thought.

They were just like, We're just sitting there, and out of nowhere, this guy just goes boom, slammed into the car.

Car wouldn't run after that, wouldn't go, so we had to move it off to the side of the road in car line, which is great.

Police officer had to pull up and give me a ride home, and here's the beauty of it.

Uh, he's one of my former students when I was a youth pastor here at his hands.

And so everyone in my neighborhood got to see a police officer drop me off at my house, and there it is.

And then, you know, when it was time to say goodbye, this is my last beautiful moment right there, 2023.

And then I got, and I don't want you guys to tell that many people about this because people have a weird thing with pastors and nice cars, I got a Toyota Corolla.

Okay, so I need you guys to keep that on the down low.

I don't want that getting out to the community that this pastor drives a Corolla.

Can you imagine the scandal?

But listen, it was a lightly used Corolla.

And if you haven't driven a car, that was a 2006, so it's 2023.

My most recent car is a 20 uh 2006.

It was when I got a late model Corolla, I might as well have been driving a spaceship, is what I'm trying to say.

Like the number of things that changed from 2006 to 2022 when that car was made, it's like might as well have been a completely different thing.

First of all, things in this car I'd never experienced.

Backup camera, never had one of those.

Raise your hand if you have a backup camera in your car.

How did we used to back up?

What were I mean, how?

How could we have even done this?

I don't even know.

I mean, I did it for years, but now, like, the idea of not having it and having to put my arm around the passenger seat and do that, my back can't even bend like that anymore.

The only reason I think my back could bend like that was because I had to do that for my car.

Now those muscles have died.

I can't even do it.

It's impossible.

Right back at Bluetooth.

My pre- there was no Bluetooth in my how in the world did did I function without wireless connectivity to my phone?

That was like, oh my goodness, like GPS, the ability for my car to display a screen that displays where I'm going.

I didn't have that before.

You know, there's been that law that you're not supposed to hold your phone.

Well, I'm sorry, that was a necessity in a 2006 sign.

I just flat out ignored that law.

So now I have all this amazing technology, and there's no going back.

If you put me back in that 2006 sign, I'm like, what are we doing?

This isn't even this isn't even a car, right?

I mean, it's on such a different level that I could never go back.

And I will say, this last week I had a really unique experience.

Um, a good buddy of mine, uh we were hanging out together, and he recently got a Tesla, and he let me drive it, and what that meant was we went all the way into Atlanta and I didn't touch the steering wheel, and it just drove us there.

And it was amazing.

Guys, I know that the robots might kill us all, but right now, it might be worth it.

Because I sat in a car and went from downtown Atlanta home and I didn't touch.

I just, it just, it was great.

Anyone, does that anyone make anyone nervous?

Yeah, I agree.

But I it was pretty nice, guys.

I'm just saying.

I'm just saying.

Sometimes, sometimes things come out that are new and they're so revolutionary, they're so incredible, that the idea of going back doesn't make any more sense.

And we're gonna talk about something like that when it comes to our faith, like the thing when it comes to our faith, because I want you guys to know this on the front end.

If you follow Jesus Christ, you are part of the oldest new thing.

This movement of Jesus is 2,000 years old and it is still the new thing, and it is still revolutionary, and there's nothing like it.

It is a game changer.

It changes everything in terms of how we know God, how we know ourselves, how we relate to God, and the idea of going back, the idea of trying to relate to God through any other means than simply knowing the grace and mercy and love of Jesus Christ, why on earth would you do that?

Why on earth would you go backward after having this new thing?

What we're gonna read this morning, the scriptures that we're in this morning, the Apostle Paul, who's one of the leaders of the early church, he's having that exact same thought as he addresses some people that are thinking about going back to the old thing.

When they've had the new thing, the revolutionary thing.

Why would you do that?

So, for context, we're in a series right now called Jesus, not religion.

As a church, we are celebrating our 20th year this year, and the very first banner that was ever on our building said party on Sunday, just like the one that's up there right now.

So we finished a series a few weeks ago called Party, and we shared what it means to celebrate our relationship with God.

That when we come together on Sundays, yes, we're here to talk about life and the serious stuff in life.

Absolutely, but we are here to celebrate the fact that we are loved by God and we know God, and we've been forgiven for everything.

We've been forgiven for everything.

That's that's a beautiful thing.

But the second banner that ever hung on our building 20 years ago said, Jesus, not religion.

And that offended some people.

Surprisingly, very religious people.

And we weren't saying, hey, it's not good to have a reverence for God.

Of course not.

We we have reverence for God, we worship him passionately every Sunday.

We open up his word, which we're about to do, and we read it, believing it is the truth that we build our lives upon.

But religion, the kind of religion, by the way, that fought the hardest against Jesus, and Jesus fought the hardest against, religion is something different than reverence for God.

It becomes a system, a very rigid, a very oppressive system that tends to lead to self-righteousness and self-reliance, where people believe that they earn God's love and favor by the things that they do and their ability to follow a list of rules.

That was the way things were before Jesus.

But he changed that.

And as we're going to read today in Galatians chapter 2, there are people in the church that are going backward.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

They have grace, they have mercy, they have the freedom that Jesus has won for us, and they're trading it in for the law, for this old system of relating to God by following a list of rules.

Last week we read the entirety of Galatians chapter 1.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

We're actually going through the entire book of Galatians over the next month or so, because if you could actually come up with a tagline for Galatians, it would be, in my opinion, Jesus, not religion.

And so with that said, let's read Galatians chapter 2, the entirety of it, it's verses 1 through 21.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

It says this 14 years later, this is Paul talking, I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas, and Titus came along too.

I went there because God revealed to me that I should go.

While I was there, I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church, and I shared with them the message I'd been preaching to the Gentiles.

Gentiles means just anyone that isn't Jewish.

Remember, our faith began within the Jewish faith.

But it was a new thing, not an extension or an addition.

It was something altogether new.

He said, I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing.

And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile.

I'm sure much to Titus's relief.

Even that question came up only because of some so-called believers there, false ones really, who were secretly brought in.

They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus.

They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations.

But we refused to give in to them for a single moment.

We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you, and the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching.

By the way, the reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.

Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews.

For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles.

In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers.

They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles while they continued their work with the Jews.

Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I was eager to do anyway.

But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong.

When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers who were not circumcised.

But afterward, when some friends of Peter came, Peter wouldn't eat with the Gentiles anymore.

He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.

As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter's hypocrisy.

And even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

When I saw they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?

You and I are Jews by birth, not sinners like the Gentiles.

Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law.

And we've believed in Jesus Christ, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law.

For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.

If there is a statement that could be as clear as possible, it is that.

No one could be made right with God by following the law.

But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then are found guilty because we've abandoned the law.

Would that mean that Christ had led us into sin?

Absolutely not.

Rather, I'm a sinner.

If I rebuild the old system of law, I already tore down.

For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me.

So I died to the law.

I stopped trying to meet all its requirements so that I might live for God.

My old self has been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless.

For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

If keeping the law can make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

Now, there's a lot there, obviously, it's a whole chapter.

But here's essentially the situation.

I want to give context.

If you have the message companion on our website, you can actually read the entirety of Acts chapter 15, verses 1 through 21 as well.

Acts 15:1–21

I'm not going to get into all of it, I'm going to sort of summarize it for you.

But there's a companion with Galatians chapter 2 and the book of Acts.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

If you're unfamiliar with the sort of the New Testament and how it works, the book of Acts is the story of the early church.

In fact, we have a podcast right now that we're putting out every week that's us going through the book of Acts.

You could always follow along.

And if you read the letters in the New Testament that Paul wrote, like Galatians or Ephesians or Corinthians, those letters are written to churches that he started, and the book of Acts tells the story of Paul going to those places and starting those churches.

So those two sort of go hand in hand.

When you read Acts, there's going to be things that you're like, this sounds familiar if you've ever read any of those letters, and vice versa.

So Paul went to this region of modern-day Turkey and he started churches there.

And by churches, we're talking about small groups of believers in cities that meet in one another's homes.

They didn't have buildings.

This wasn't some big official thing, but they're following Jesus.

And at the time, there's a lot of confusion.

What we have to understand is that when Paul went to Jerusalem, that moment that he's referencing, to figure some things out, the church, the movement of Jesus, was only 15 years old or so at the time.

Now think about this.

We are celebrating our 20th year together as a church, as a single church here in Woodstock, Georgia.

This is our 20th year, and the entire church, the entire movement of Jesus was younger at this time than we are as a church.

And if you know the story of Jesus, you know that Jesus is very comfortable with us figuring it out.

Like sometimes we get frustrated by that.

In fact, one of my favorite teachings of Jesus, it's one of my favorite things to quote, and I've quoted it many times, and if you'll give me some grace, I'm gonna quote it again.

Jesus once told his followers, when you get arrested, not if, but when, when you get arrested, don't worry about what to say.

For the Holy Spirit will give you the words when you need them.

How many of us could re like admit we would typically consider that to be terrible advice?

Like, here's Jesus telling you when you get arrested, like that's going to happen.

And he could tell you what to say.

Like he could have said, hey, when you get arrested, make sure to not say this.

Instead, say this.

Like, here's the script.

Most of us would prefer the script.

Okay, so I'm getting arrested.

Don't even worry about what to say.

Ah, don't worry about it.

Holy Spirit, I'll give you what you need.

I mean, most of us, I think, if we're honest with ourselves, we would be like, no, no, no, just go ahead and tell me what to say.

Please.

But Jesus didn't give us a script.

He gave us a spirit.

He gave us his spirit, the Holy Spirit, at work within us.

When Jesus left, and he told the disciples, one of my favorite moments in scripture as well, because I just love to picture myself as one of those disciples.

And here's Jesus, and he's died, and he's taught you all these things.

But let's be honest, most of them were parables and stories, and they're kind of open to interpretation.

It wasn't like he gave them a clear list of rules, because guess what?

That time was over.

That's kind of what Paul's talking about here in Galatians.

The clear list of rules, that was for a season.

That was never the point.

He teaches them all these things, he writes them on their hearts, and then he rises from the dead, he appears to them, and in the very last time they see him in person, before he ascends to heaven, he says, Hey, I want you to go to the whole world, everywhere, and teach them about me and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, make disciples, I'm out.

And then he's gone.

He didn't tell them where to start, step one, step two.

The only thing he actually said is, Hey, make sure you don't leave Jerusalem, which is where they were, until the Holy Spirit shows up.

And he didn't even tell them what that would look like.

It's like they're sitting there, like, but like all the questions in their head, but Jesus, wait, wait, how are we gonna know?

Where's the Holy Spirit?

And he's just gone.

And they're like, what do we?

Jesus was very comfortable with them figuring it out.

Because they had the Holy Spirit, and so do we.

And I want us to know if this isn't the point of the message, but but I just want you to know if you're in a place in life right now where you don't know what to do, there's a lot of things going on, you have confusion about this or about that, whether it's the steps you need to take in your future, maybe you're young, you're a student, you don't know where to go, what to do.

Maybe you're you're young in a relationship and you're not sure if this is the right person or you're not sure if this is the right decision.

I want you to understand this God is very comfortable with you not being certain of exactly what to do.

And he wants you to make the right decisions.

And if you seek him and you trust his wisdom, the wisdom of scripture and his word, and if you listen to the spirit that he's given you, you will make the right decision.

But he's not going to lay it all out in front of you.

He's not going to say, Well, let me explain exactly what's going to happen step by step.

Let me tell you the phases of your life.

Let me explain to you what you're going to do today that's going to pay dividends five, six years from now.

He won't do that.

He doesn't do that.

But he will be with you every single step of the way, guiding you, speaking to you through the Holy Spirit that he's put inside of you.

And if you grow in your faith, if you grow in your maturity, in your relationship with God, if you grow in your knowledge of his word and the truth, you will have everything you need to be equipped to make the right decisions.

And when you make the wrong ones, of course, correct.

But he's very comfortable with you not knowing exactly what to do.

It's like you could go to him and say, I feel like your instructions have been unclear.

And he would say, I know.

Isn't it great?

Me and you are gonna figure this out together.

He's very comfortable with that.

And so this is the early church, and they have all these issues and these struggles, and the biggest one that really arises early on is, hey, we've got we've got two groups of people.

We have the Jewish people who had given their lives to Jesus and they followed Jesus, they believed in Jesus, and they saw Jesus as the fulfillment of their scriptures, which by the way, he he is.

In fact, guys in the back, apologize because I'm gonna go all the way to the last verse I have for you today.

It's Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20.

Matthew 5:17–20

Jesus once said, Don't misunderstand why I have come.

I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets.

We could just say the Old Testament and all that it's about.

He's like, I didn't come to do away with that, to throw it away.

That is why, by the way, we don't discard it.

We read it, we study it, we teach on it.

We spent most of our year so far going through the life of Abraham, one of the earliest characters we have in the Old Testament.

Jesus didn't come to do away with that, but what he does say is this I came to accomplish their purpose.

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.

So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you'll be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.

But anyone who obeys God's laws and teaches them will be great, great in the kingdom of heaven.

But I warn you, unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven.

This is part of the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps Jesus' most famous teaching, and it would have been very confusing to his followers at the time, but remember, Jesus is okay with that.

He's like, you'll figure it out.

He's saying that, hey, the law of God is holy and good, and he said, I would never tell someone to disregard it.

But there's this idea that he puts into that teaching.

He says, Do you know the purpose of the law?

He says, I have come to accomplish its purpose.

And the average person would have thought, well, the purpose of the law is to make us godly, to make us righteous, to make us holy.

And Jesus would say, Oh, no, no, no.

You think that's the purpose of the law.

But it's not.

This is a dumb analogy.

Please forgive me.

I'm a child of the 80s.

Uh anyone ever see karate kid?

Come on, karate, the original karate kid, right?

Like wax on, wax off.

Like, it's a dumb movie if you really, if you watch it, honestly, if you watch it today, it's it's not held up super great.

I really don't think that kid should have won any karate tournaments at all.

You know, I have a son who's an athlete, and I know how hard he trains, and and like I'm just telling you, that kid was not prepared for that.

Whatever.

Okay, but we'll we'll suspend belief because it's a movie.

You know, the whole point of that is the you know, Mr.

Miyagi, he's like, he has him, you know, he has him paint, right?

He's painting for like days, painting a fence, and it's like, oh, that's actually how to block.

He has him like waxing, like the surfaces are like wax on, wax off.

And he's like, This is actually how you're gonna block.

It's like that doesn't work, by the way.

You know, so South African baseball team, I promise you, you guys, that's not how you teach your kids how to swing a baseball bat or throw a ball.

You don't give them chores to do at your house and go, actually, you've just mastered the sport.

It's not how it works.

Right?

But that's how, that's how the movie worked.

But the whole, you know, aha moment in that movie, and it is something we can connect with, is oh, the kid thinks he's doing something for a stupid purpose.

He thinks he's doing something for, he just thinks the guy's using him.

And in reality, the purpose of what Mr.

Miyagi is doing is totally different.

And it had a purpose.

And I know, again, dumb analogy wasn't in my notes, probably for a reason.

But, but the point is that sometimes a master teacher will allow you to think you're doing something for one reason, knowing that it's not the actual reason.

You're just not ready to understand what the real reason is quite yet.

That is something that master teachers do all the time.

Jesus is a master teacher.

God is a master teacher.

And the people thought that the law, all the rules that they had from the Old Testament, all of them, they thought the purpose of the law was to make us holy.

Oh, no, no, no.

The law can never make you holy.

Try it.

Try it.

Let's just let's do this.

Let's be honest as a church.

Let's just go basic Ten Commandments.

Alright?

Ten commandments.

I'm not going to go through all of them.

That would take a while, but let's just let's pull out some highlights.

Don't lie.

Anybody?

Never lied?

Anyone?

Just show your hand.

Just one of us.

One liar.

Raise your hand.

Go ahead.

Anybody?

Okay.

Yeah, right?

Allison?

Yeah, of course.

Not you.

Never stolen.

I mean, some of us might say never never stolen.

You know?

But like anyone, like never, never stolen anything?

A couple of us maybe?

I don't know.

Like, I'll tell you this.

Um maybe there have been times where my wife has bought a certain type of ice cream that I know is probably for her and the kids, but I'm home and it's there.

Is that stealing?

I mean, if you think about it, I bought it.

At least collectively.

We we bought it.

It's in my fridge, in my house.

Is that stealing?

And if some of it's gone and it's like, who ate the ice cream and I'm just silent?

Is that lying?

Does that count?

Oh man, yeah, I think it is.

It is stealing, and it is lying.

It's both.

Two at once.

And we could say, okay, hold on, but what?

I've never murdered anybody?

Never murdered?

Well, Jesus said, if you've ever hated someone, like hated them, you've committed murder in your heart.

And it's like, dang it, Jesus.

That's one of the few I thought I could hang my hat on, you know?

Never worshiped an idol?

No one here has ever participated in idol worship.

Well, another way we might put it, never valued something above God and dedicated yourself to something that wasn't God.

Dang it.

Like, the Ten Commandments, like, this is the kind of joke about the Ten Commandments.

They're not the pinnacle of human achievement.

It's not give all your money away to the poor.

It isn't spend all your free time serving people.

It's just don't kill each other, don't lie, don't commit adultery, don't, guys, like do basic human behavior.

And yet, none of us, not one of us in this room, not one of us could say, I've done it.

So if the purpose of the law, and those are just the basic ones, is to make you holy, uh-oh.

Oh no, but what we find from the New Testament, this is the twist, right?

This is our wax on, wax off moment.

This is the twist.

That was never the purpose of the law.

The purpose of the law was not to make us holy, it was actually to show us we're not.

It was to bring us to a place of humility and repentance to realize we can't do this.

And now we have something greater, something new, something better.

We have grace.

We have forgiveness.

We have mercy.

We have Jesus.

And Jesus makes us right with God.

And we just sang it today, is one of the songs, Holiness is Christ in me.

We are holy not because we follow the law.

The law just brings us to our knees and go, we can't do this.

And we're holy because Jesus makes us holy, because he's within us.

His spirit is the only thing that can make us holy.

And Paul experienced this.

Paul, who, by the way, if you read Acts chapter 15, he'll describe it.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

I mean, Paul was so dedicated to the law.

He was so fierce in his faith, and he did all of it, at least he thought he did all of it, and it was for nothing.

Grace was the new thing, the revolutionary thing.

It still is, by the way, because other religions in this world are still doing it the old way.

You want to be right with God, you want to appease the angry God that's mad at you for whatever.

Well, pray this number of times a day, make sure you pray facing this direction, and make sure you do this and you do that, and don't do this on these days, and do that on these days, and make sure you observe these specific things.

And if you do all of those things just right, maybe, just maybe, that angry God will let you in.

We'll see.

And our faith is totally unique because Jesus says, Hey, look, I uh I love you.

And like, you know, you can't do this, right?

You know you need help.

Let me help you.

Let me take your sin away.

Let me pay the price for you.

And let me give you forgiveness and mercy.

And let me restore your relationship with the Father, and you'll be a child of God, not a follower, but a child.

Let me do that for you.

And that's the new thing.

And so here you have Paul with this church, and you've got these two groups of people.

You have the Jewish believers who are still doing both.

They're trying to believe in Jesus, but also follow all the requirements of the law as if that is going to accomplish anything.

And you have these Gentile believers, they didn't grow up as Jewish, and they were told in Acts chapter 15, there's this big meeting, and they were told, hey, we don't have to make the Gentiles become Jewish to become Christians.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

They can just believe in Jesus and you know do some basic things, but they don't have to go through all the law.

And now you have these two groups of Christians, and the Jewish believers are trying to make the Gentile believers follow the law.

And Paul's like, why?

Why?

And he looks at the Jewish beliefs.

He's like, we don't even have to follow the law.

We don't have to.

What would it accomplish?

If we could make God pleased by following the law, if we could make ourselves righteous by following the law, then what did Jesus come for?

We have to remember, Jesus came to change things, change everything.

He didn't come just to hang out.

He didn't come just to give us, you know, some updates.

You know, like Christianity is not Judaism 1.2.

Like, oh, there's a new update.

Like, great, some small tweaks.

No, it was a totally revolutionary thing.

It wiped everything else away and it and it gave us freedom.

Beautiful freedom.

That doesn't make what God did in the Old Testament meaningless or worthless, not at all, because all of it was to point us to Jesus.

And actually, if you understand it, it's more beautiful than ever because of what Jesus has done for us.

And you recognize in it, if you ever want to do a real fun study, just study the Jewish feasts and festivals and how they point to Jesus and how rich and deep their meaning is.

But it's because of what it points to.

It points to him and what he's done for us.

And Paul looks at these people and he says, never go back.

Why would you go back?

You have the new thing, the revolutionary thing.

It's a game changer.

Relationship with God, freedom through Jesus, forgiveness, mercy.

You've been made right with God through faith in Jesus, not by observing the law.

Why would you go back to the old thing?

I said this last week.

The biggest crisis that the early church faced was not the immorality of the culture around them, although it was incredibly immoral, just like ours.

It wasn't hostility from the government.

Even though their government was extremely hostile toward them, that wasn't the greatest threat.

The greatest threat from Paul's eyes was the rise of self-righteousness in the church.

People who believed they were better than other believers because they happened to X, Y, or Z.

And I'll tell you this as a pastor.

I've dealt with that.

The most division, frustration in the 20 years that I've been involved here, 19 technically here at his hands.

It's honestly some of the most intense division and hurt that I've seen happen within the church has been from people who considered themselves to be spiritually greater, looking down on others who weren't on their level and telling them how they were lacking.

It's like I once had a person here at the church, I won't say names, or I won't even tell you if it was a lady or a guy.

I once had a person here at the church that was, you know, by all accounts spiritually mature, and they met with me to tell me that they thought we needed to fire a person on our staff.

And uh it was a person who was in charge of running a lot of our technology at the time, and they ran our soundboard, and this person said, You need to fire that person.

I was like, why?

They they they've they do a great job, they they're they work hard, they're here on time, they have a great attitude, they're good at what they do.

Is there maybe there's some moral thing I didn't know about, maybe that I don't, who knows?

And the person said, Because I don't think they have the Holy Spirit.

I don't think they're filled with the Holy Spirit.

And this person happened to believe that the evidence of that was that they didn't have a certain spiritual gift, and we can get into all this, it was a very different thing.

And I had to look at this person to go, well, they know how to run a digital soundboard.

And I know that's not listed as one of the spiritual gifts in the Bible, but I don't know how to do that, and I don't think you know how to do that.

And so we're we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and not fire that person.

And that same person, it was a couple, met with me a few months after that, and they were kind of frustrated with how we do baptisms.

And by the way, we have two people getting baptized today, rock on.

Uh yeah, it's gonna be awesome.

And um, which by the way, small thing, this is a favor.

When people get baptized, do me a huge favor.

Because I know it's at the very end.

Let's make sure that we all stay for all the baptisms because if you're getting baptized and what you see are people walking away from you in your own church, that's hurtful.

So let's just never do that.

Because again, we start at 10, I'm almost done, I see the clock.

We'll always beat the Baptist to lunch.

I promise you that.

Okay?

I promise you.

It's okay.

Now it's easy.

Actually, we won't beat the Baptists that go to their early service to lunch, but you know, that's more of a brunch anyway.

So we're good.

We're good.

Um we're good.

Let's like make sure we stay and support people who get baptized.

But this couple met with me and they wanted to, they wanted to change some things, and they said, hey, listen, we think that before someone gets baptized, they should have to take a class because we want to make sure that they really understand this.

They really understand, and I get it.

Like I want everyone to understand their faith and grow.

And I sat there and I listened to them, and they had all these reasons, and everyone should have to take a class.

And I said, guys, I I appreciate what you're saying, but here's the thing: that would be us creating a step that Jesus himself never created.

That would be us making something that Jesus made fairly simple, a little bit more complicated.

And I don't feel comfortable doing that.

Jesus did not require people to take a class when they got baptized.

In fact, when the disciples were baptized, if you would have asked the question, who is the Messiah?

they would have failed.

They didn't even know Jesus was the Messiah yet.

They may have had a guess, but it would be a while until they could even answer that basic question.

So, no, we're not going to do that.

And then that couple left.

And that's fine, by the way.

My point is that there are people that, and I've actually even seen it from people who are like new believers and they've even lived like a really wild life before.

Like they partied hard, then they got saved, and then like two months later, they're judging everyone else for doing what they were doing two months ago.

I'm like, the only reason you know they were at that bar is because you know what that bar is, because you used to be there all the time.

I don't I've never even heard of that bar.

But how do you like it's it's a dangerous thing, and it can happen fast, where you can go from like dependence on God to like, I am holier, I am better, and they ought to be more like me.

And I'm telling you, nothing will kill the spirit of a church faster than self-righteousness, self-reliance, and religion, which is why Jesus fought against that so hard.

It's why Paul fights against it hard.

We are all brothers and sisters in our faith.

Not one of us is more spiritual than the other.

Some of us might be more spiritually mature, but actually, if you're more spiritually mature, you should probably have more grace.

Like, like, example, and we're almost done, I promise.

I am rambling just a little bit, but just give me a second.

How many of you have ever waited tables in your life?

You've waited tables, yeah, yeah, me.

Five years, myself, chilies, and then a Mexican restaurant after that.

Um, those of you that are waiters, are you now, let's show of hands, how many of you, because you've waited tables, are harder on waiters and waitresses?

How many of you are much easier on them now?

Of course, right?

Because you've done it.

Like you know, you know all the things that can happen, all the things that can go wrong, how one person can call out and ruin the entire day?

Like, you know all that.

Shouldn't it be like that in our faith?

Those of us that have have been saved and we used to live a certain way and God's been good enough to get us out of that, and now we look and we see other people struggling, shouldn't we go, man, I've been there?

Let me encourage you, let me tell you that God can get you through this, that God can bring you freedom from this.

Because if we look down on people and go, what's wrong with you?

You should be more like me.

No, no, no.

We should all be more like Him.

We are not the standard.

And Jesus made sure of that.

Now I'm gonna wrap up with one thought.

Because the question might be asked, well, what does this just mean?

Paul sort of asked it in Galatians 2.

So, okay, because we've been given freedom by Jesus and He's forgiven us for everything, now what?

Nothing matters, it doesn't matter how we live, we can just go sin and do whatever we want?

Of course not.

But there's a switch that happens through faith.

And some of us have already taken the plunge, but man, it's easy to go backwards.

I've experienced it.

And some of us grew up in hyper-religious environments, and even though you know that you've been saved through faith, it's by grace, it's not something you've earned.

Even though you know that, even though scripture teaches that, you still have an earner mentality.

It's hard to shake.

You grew up a certain way, and it's like it's tough for you just to rest in that.

Here's the switch.

If you live by the law and religion, you have to.

You have to go to church on Sundays.

You have to give and be generous, you have to serve, you have you have to be nice to people.

You have to.

You have to do all those things in order for God to love you and accept you.

So when you get saved and now you have grace, you don't do that stuff anymore.

No more serving, no more giving, no more being kind to people, no more coming to church on side.

I hope that, by the way, that would kind of crumble everything we do, by the way.

No, no, no.

Now you get to.

It's a huge difference.

There's a friend of mine named Brandon Smith, and we filmed the God story of his.

In fact, if you have the message companion on the website, which you can always go, you'll see message companion.

It has all the verses that we go through, everything in it.

We linked uh Brandon's God story on there.

Sat down with him about two, three months ago, and Brandon had this switch in his life, and he realized, no, I I get to do all these things.

I don't have to, I get to.

I want you to hear this.

You don't have to ever come to church to be loved by God.

You don't ever have to come back here.

You don't have to.

But you get to.

You don't have to give.

If you give financially, I want to say a huge thank you because we couldn't do all the things we do without you, really.

But you don't have to.

You don't have to ever do that again.

But you get to.

You get to use the things that God has given you to bless other people.

You get to be generous, you get to let go and not be ruled by money.

You get to do those things.

You don't ever have to serve on a team.

You don't ever have to volunteer.

You being a volunteer doesn't give you a better status.

We don't have volunteer parking.

We don't even have a pastor's parking spot, believe it or not.

We don't have one of those.

You don't have to serve, you don't you don't have to volunteer, you don't have to do any of that.

But you get to.

You get to use your talents and abilities to help other people, to make people feel welcomed and loved.

You get to.

We have been freed from the law.

That's the old thing.

We have the new thing.

And now we get to.

We get to worship God because He loves us.

We get to give generously because He's blessed us.

We get to serve Him.

We get to do all these things.

And it's through faith in Jesus, not by the law.

So never go backwards.

Never go back to the old.

Even if people show up in your life that make you feel like you're not spiritual enough or whatever, pff, look.

Pray for those people.

Some of them are really miserable.

I know them.

Some of them, like, they just they got like just uptight.

You know what I mean?

Pray for those people.

That's a hard way to live.

I always thought when God comes back, when Jesus comes back, he's gonna do surgery.

Some of us, it's heart surgery.

Some of some people are gonna have some sticks removed from some places.

Like, and they'll be like, whoa, you know?

Like, this is how it feels to be free?

He's like, Yeah, you could have been living this way all these years.

Like, I never knew.

I'm sorry.

That's a terrible thing to transition into Lord's Supper with.

But oh well, here we are.

Let's take Lord's Supper.

I don't know.

I am the pastor of the church.

Don't really know how that happened, but it did.

Okay.

No.

You know what, guys?

We get to laugh in church.

We get to be together and have joy.

We get to because we're free, because he's forgiven us, and that is what this meal is about.

If you're new to his hands, we take this meal every week.

This is our freedom.

This is the new thing.

2,000 years later, this is still the new thing.

This is revolutionary.

Jesus Christ died for you, gave his life for you because he loves you.

And if you put your trust in him, you are right with God, his righteousness becomes yours, your sins are washed away, and now you have freedom.

You get to live for God, you get to know God, you get to do all the things that God calls you to do out of love for him, not out of a fear of upsetting him and not making it in.

This is a revolution.

And with that in mind, let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this bread.

This bread represents the body of your precious son Jesus.

Jesus, thank you for what you did for us.

Thank you for loving us, for giving yourself to us.

And you know, Lord, you didn't have to.

You didn't have to.

You don't have to do anything.

You're God.

But you love us so much that you, I believe, would look at us today and say, No, I get to.

You got to die for us.

You got to forgive us.

That's your heart.

Let that be our heart and how we live as well, Lord.

We thank you for what you've done.

Let's take the bread.

Now the juice.

Lord, we thank you for this cup.

This is your blood poured out for us.

Lord, we love you.

Father, we just ask that as we drink this, that you would fill us with your spirit more so than ever before.

Give us an even greater appreciation for what you've done for us and how you've set us free and help us live our lives with this mentality that we don't have to do anything, but we get to.

And we're grateful for that.

We love you, Lord.

Let's take the juice.