Fully Alive | Special Guest, Pastor Brian McCormack

So welcome back to our house of dear brother.

Prime Corpsing director of the breakaway ministers.

And so you got help me in joining back to our platform.

Alright.

Good morning, United City family.

How we doing?

Okay, okay.

You're excited to be at church.

I like that.

I like that.

My goodness, what a blessing to be with you guys.

Like Pastor Josh said, it is my third time to get to be with you guys.

Um can we can I just call myself family?

Can I just adopt myself in at this point?

Is that okay?

All right, that's cool.

Uh Pastor Josh mentioned that um I currently minister at Texas AM University in College Station.

Anyone familiar with that place?

Okay.

Um Aggies, I'm not supposed to have to prompt you for that, okay?

I just want to know which room I'm in.

Uh if you have an Aggie in your in your in your family or in your friend group, just let them be excited that we beat Arkansas yesterday.

Uh see, we're hype on that.

It's it's kind of like the Rockets getting pumped about like, man, Kingwood JV was gonna give us a hard time, but we pulled it off.

You know, it's kind of like the Rockets did that.

All the love to Kingwood, but I'm just saying that's a gap, right?

And so us beating Arkansas is terrible.

And so, but we're gonna be like, nah, we're gonna win the championship.

We can feel it now.

Let them be delusional.

This is what we do.

All right, we need your help.

Okay.

Uh, y'all, um, I get to be on the largest university campus in the country all the time.

Uh, that's what's crazy.

That's what AM is, if you don't know that.

Uh, 75,000 undergrads.

And so I am constantly getting a glimpse of what God is up to in this generation.

I get to travel and speak at other universities uh and speak to young adults and speak at churches, all this stuff.

Uh, God is up to something peculiar uh in a beautiful, beautiful way.

And I just got a couple pictures I want to show you guys to give you a glimpse of just what he's been up to.

The the first picture, this is a Bible study that I lead that was started in 1989 with four sophomores, and now thousands of students come together to experience the word of God and the presence of God.

It's absolutely incredible.

Um, yeah, we can do that.

Recently, recently, the basketball arena wasn't available, and so the school, we got so much favor.

The school was like, what if we put you outside the football stadium and you guys can just do like an open-air revival, like and we'll shut down some roads for you.

And we're like, uh, okay, we'll do that, which is crazy.

So a lot of students um just responding to Jesus in that space.

And then this last week, if you are familiar with who Cliff and Stuart Connectly are um on social media, uh, they're some of the foremost like Christian apologists uh for Gen Z, honestly.

And we got to bring them in.

Thousands of students came out.

Um, a bunch of students from atheists and agnostic and just different worldview backgrounds came out and we let them ask questions live.

I've had more conversations with atheists and agnostic students than you would ever imagine, and just people feeling drawn into freedom.

Uh, just realizing the slavery that their current worldview and their current way of life has been and stepping into freedom.

So um, as often as you see, I don't know, an AM bumper sticker or you see a sports team on SportsCenter, just anytime AM comes to mind, please be like, man, Holy Spirit, come, would you move at AM?

Would you move in this generation and would you let us be a part of it?

Sound like a deal?

Oh man, I appreciate you guys.

Thank you so much for that.

Um, and how about this?

I know you just got comfy, but would you guys stand up for the reading of God's word?

I apologize.

You like just got cozy.

You're like, I thought I liked this dude, but what is going on?

Um, I think it's just battling the familiarity, the familiarity of like just an incredibly gifted, passionate worship band and Pastor Josh, the familiarity of like, oh, it's just normal that we baptize people every Sunday at United City, the familiarity of the words we just sung and the words that we're about to read.

I think there's something about standing up in reverence for God's word once in a while.

So that's what we're doing.

Like, God, make it fresh.

We declare war on the familiarity.

We want a fresh encounter with you.

Some of us, man, we need a first encounter with you.

And do you believe the word of God can actually change people's lives?

Like, like I might just read the book and then it's just like, oh, like my life's different now, right?

So let's let's see what he has for us.

This is Colossians chapter two.

This is starting in verse six, and this is what he has for us, right?

It says, This actually, man, I just feel compelled to pause.

So pray with me.

Um, God, I just uh before we even read the word, I we just declare that this isn't like ink on paper bound by leather or just like pixels on a screen.

Like it's it's your word, and you speak to us through it.

And so uh, Lord, we just first we we ask that in the name of Jesus and in the power of Holy Spirit that you would silence every voice that is not your voice.

We silence all of them in Jesus' name.

Um, every voice that kind of followed us in here, voices of accusation, voices of condemnation, voices of distraction, voices of guilt, whatever it might be.

We just silence all those voices, ask you to speak into them.

And God, in this moment, we pray for the people in front of us and behind us, would you speak to them?

We pray to the people to the left and to the right of us, would you speak to them?

We pray for ourselves, would you speak to us?

We pray for Brian, would you help him handle the word well?

And now, would you speak into that beautiful silence?

This is uh Colossians chapter 2, starting verse 6.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

It says, Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him, in Christ, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

And you, you've been filled in him, made complete in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

And you, you who were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

Say all by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities, powers, principalities, and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him in Jesus.

United City, this is the word of God for us, the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

And everybody said together, Amen.

Have a seat.

I'll see you next year.

Yo, what a verse, what a passage, what a passage.

Powerful, powerful.

So here's the deal.

Here's what I think we're gonna do in this moment.

I believe that what has been laid before us is the masterpiece that the gospel is.

And I don't know what you think of when you think of masterpiece, but I would say that like the prototypical, stereotypical thing that comes to mind, uh, in my opinion, when it comes to human history, is what you see if you ever go to Paris and you show up in the Louvre and you go, and there's the Mona Lisa.

There she is.

Uh, pro tip when you go, be six nine, so that you can just be above everybody else and they'll all be lined enough to see it.

And you're like, oh, there you are, there you are, right?

That's how it worked for me.

Um now, here's what's wild about me.

Uh I always have a sharpie in my pocket.

I am a pen snob, and so I have a sharpie pen that is always reliable, always writes heavy.

I'm just a weirdo.

Okay, you can pray for your boy.

Um, and I had one in my pocket, and one of my thoughts as I was walking by was like, you know, hypothetically, I could, you know, I could improve this thing a little bit.

I was just like, what would happen?

I'm just a weirdo, right?

I'm like, what would happen if I if I did that?

If I if I tried to like, I don't know, she would look, she would look great with like a mustache, right?

Like if I just like just added something to this timeless masterpiece, right?

A couple things would happen if I had done that.

Number one, the masterpiece would immediately not be a masterpiece anymore.

It just it would not.

Mona Lisa, Lisa does Lisa does not need a mustache, y'all.

Okay.

To add to it in any way would be ridiculous.

Uh, two, the value of that thing would plummet.

It would go from priceless to, you know, worthless.

And thirdly, I assure you, it would have an immediate impact on the state of my personal freedom.

Okay.

Uh, I would in no way get through the first stroke of that until I was tackled, laid out, put in a French prison, and either deported or never heard from again.

It would not go well for my freedom.

All right, friends, the gospel is a masterpiece, and to add to it in any way is to undo it, is to nullify it, is to attack its value, and is to choose slavery over freedom.

Okay?

And this is the masterpiece.

This is the shorthand mathematics of the masterpiece of the gospel.

If you have been walking with Jesus, remember this.

If you are just here to love and support somebody that was baptized, we're so glad you're here, but you're not familiar with the way of Jesus.

Here's your mathematical shorthand.

It's this Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

That is the crazy mathematics for those who consider themselves followers of Jesus.

Jesus, that is who Jesus is and what he's done.

Son of God, sent to save the world, right?

Who has lived the perfect life we could never live, who has died the death we deserve because of our sin, who has risen to new life so we can have new life.

Jesus.

Plus nothing.

Belief in that, trust in that, embracing that, right?

Devotion to that, plus nothing.

No pilgrimage, no ritual, no minimum giving amount, nothing.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

All of the forgiveness you can get nowhere else, all of the joy, all the peace for your anxiety, all the purpose for your lack of meaning, everything.

That's the math.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Here's the deal we are so prone to adding things to that mathematics.

And it's tricky.

It's tricky, it can be really, really subtle.

And in the days of Paul in the Colossey, where this letter was being sent, um, it wasn't always offering a substitute, the way that some religions or worldviews would say, hey, don't worship Jesus, worship Buddha, or worship some other deity of our region or our ancestors, whatever it might be.

Uh sometimes it's a substitute, but often it's a supplement.

No, no, no, your Jesus is good, but also this legalistic commitment to obedience in a certain way, or this cultural adoption of the things that we've decided matter as much as the book does, right?

It's tricky.

It's tricky.

Sometimes it's legalism, sometimes it's all this secret knowledge we've discovered, or like this ecstatic spiritual experience with these other spiritual beings or angels or whatever.

There's weird things going on in Coliseum, but um, there are word things, weird things going on today.

In in in in like urban, suburban Houston, there's a lot of wild things going on that are Jesus plus uh, we found some things equals everything.

No, no, no.

When you add anything, you ruin everything.

And so we go to battle for our freedom and we see what Paul has for us in this passage.

I believe it's going to serve us very, very well.

Things to receive, things to remember, and ways for us to enter into repentance.

To remind you, Christian folk, repentance is not a shame word, it's a joy word.

It's the path into fully experiencing what Jesus has for you.

And repentance, if you are newer to investigating Jesus, is not a shame word.

It's a joy word.

I was walking towards this, but now I'm walking towards the God of the universe who loves me and wants me to know him.

Okay?

That's what I'm believing that God's gonna have for us.

So let's dive in, let's see what this passage has for us.

Uh I think it's gonna be very, very fruitful for us.

So, starting at the very beginning, we got therefore.

And the cheesy thing you're supposed to say is when you study the Bible, is like, what's the therefore, therefore?

Okay.

Uh, it is implying of everything that has come before.

And if you haven't been here for the study of Colossians, what are you thinking?

Where you been?

Welcome.

Uh, ride it out the rest of the way.

It's basically been this first, that you cannot grow in a gospel that you are not familiar with, that you don't understand.

Uh, it's also says that Jesus is not just the biggest thing and the best thing in the universe, he's the reason there is a universe.

Hello.

Uh, and then we week number three, you guys jumped into like that the mystery of God is Christ in you.

That this is wild, like just the the mathematics and the physics of like the God of the universe, the power that created everything, all of that biggest love that could ever be known, all lives in you if your faith is in Jesus.

Wild mystery, right?

So, in light of that crazy, world-changing, life-altering news, what does Paul do next?

He starts dishing out some commands, two of them, and he leads with them.

Let's see what the first command is.

The first command is to walk in him, walk in Jesus.

If you're not familiar with this term, Paul uses it often, especially in the book of Ephesians.

He tells the Ephesian believers, hey, walk worthy of the calling that's on your life as someone who now knows Jesus and Jesus is in them.

Walk worthy.

And then he uses he uses the phrase walk in a particular way, like five more times.

Here, I think there's a few qualifiers that he uses of how are we supposed to walk with him, walk in him.

It's shorthand for make your entire life about knowing him, being known by him, and being a part of what he's doing in the world.

Your everyday, seemingly unimportant but wildly crucial life, your everyday stuff.

How will you live?

How will you live?

He says there's a couple ways you're supposed to walk.

Let's do this quickly.

He says, Um, first of all, as you received Christ Jesus, so walk in him.

As you received him, and and friends, if you have forgotten or if you don't know, we do not receive him by earning, we do not receive him through financial contribution, we do not receive him by checking boxes of religious observance.

We receive him by grace through faith.

Grace means a gift.

It's by receiving the gift of forgiveness, it's by receiving an invitation into his family by adoption, it's by receiving, and we receive it how?

By by faith, by putting our trust in him as evidenced by the way our life looks, right?

By grace through faith.

That's how we come to Christ, that's how we're saved, if you will.

But the thing here is you're supposed to now walk in him in the same way, by grace through faith.

Yo, I I was a lead pastor in Seattle for a decade.

Before that, I was a youth pastor in suburban Houston.

Since I was in Seattle, I now am with college students and college station and on campuses across the country.

And across all of these backgrounds, the most miserable, demoralized, depressed followers of Jesus I have ever met are all the ones who have been saved by Jesus, but are trying to live for him through their own power.

Um that they were saved by grace through faith, knew they couldn't do it themselves, but humbled themselves, received the power of the Spirit to be saved by Jesus, but then regardless of what they would have put on a belief statement, their lives evidence the fact that they think it's now their decision, it's it's their work, their power.

They have to scrape the bottom of the barrel of their own efforts to be good, to try to become like Jesus, to then endure the hardships that come next, to live day to day, to walk in their own power, a life that they were called into by Jesus.

Those are the tired, miserable people.

And I know it's a bunch of us in here.

He's saying, no, no, you're you're not just saved by grace through faith, you're not just saved through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Friends, you live in that power.

It's why the Christian life is hopeful, it's why the be like Jesus thing is a certainty, not a joke.

Because the power of Jesus is working in you.

All right, get receive the reminder.

He also says, How are we supposed to walk?

We're supposed to walk rooted in this Jesus, rooted in him, okay?

Uh where our sustenance comes from, where our nutrition comes from.

We're meant to be built up in him, growing in him, established in the faith that is about him, abounding in thanksgiving.

Man, thanksgiving's underrated.

Because when we practice gratitude, we honor the one who gave us a gift and we remember the value of the gift that we have.

All right, something deeply powerful.

So walk in him.

Don't walk with anyone else.

Walk in him.

This is kind of like the difference between a wedding and a marriage.

Those are different things.

Married people say amen.

Okay.

Uh a wedding is a really important thing, but it's where you make your vows.

A marriage is where you keep them.

Alright?

So I'm saved by grace through faith, but now I'm living in a particular way.

Alright?

So all of that's there.

But then what else does he say here?

There's a second command coming, and the second command is just as important as the first.

It says, see to it that no one takes you captive.

A Christian is somebody who's been set free.

Who's been set free from sin, who's been set free from fear, the fear of death, the fear of failure, somebody who's been set free from darkness, somebody's been set free from all these things, from earning, from grinding, right?

But it's possible, it's not possible for a Christian to be taken, uh to be unfreed in an eternal sense.

But darkness can try to convince a Christian to crawl back into a cell they've been sprung from.

Okay.

Well, what does that look like?

Well, it uh it looks like this: it looks like philosophy, it looks like empty deceit, it looks like human tradition, um, not all kinds of tradition, but particular kinds, and then it's according to the elemental spirits of the world.

That's kind of a wild phrase, but it sums up what we're talking about here.

That the original language is basically implying um that their elementary spirits can also be translated to elementary principles.

So, whatever the foundational building blocks of humans doing their best to build a life and build meaning apart from their creator, it's ultimately gonna go bad no matter what the expression of it is.

That's one thing.

Just all of like those elementary principles, but the word the word can also mean elementary spirits.

To to be a Christian is to sign up to believe unashamedly a collection of completely crazy things.

Can we just own that?

Stop trying to convince your friends that Christianity is not crazy, it's a hundred percent crazy, it just happens to be true crazy stuff.

Okay, so stop trying to explain away the fact that like a virgin got pregnant and then the God of the universe put on flesh, and then he, you know, lived a perfect life for me that I could never live.

So I don't have to I don't have to do that on my own.

And then he died for me on the cross.

Yeah, the son of God died for me, but he didn't stay dead, he rose to life again, and then he floated up into heaven, and one day he's gonna float back, this time not in humility, but like in total glory.

And then I am going to float up to heaven, depending on your theology, and then I will be with him forever, right?

And there will be no pain, all justice, no injustice, no more cancer, no more pain.

It's gonna be a beautiful reality, and I get to participate here and now, like mysteriously, of bringing that reality in pockets to the present.

That's nuts.

And that's the most hopeful collection of truths in the universe.

It's all crazy, my friends.

All of it's crazy.

And listen, you have an incoherent Christian worldview if you don't believe that our ultimate reality is a spiritual one where evil and good.

Are going to battle with each other.

And not just as cosmic forces, but like a good embodiment, namely Christ and God.

And then a an evil, an evil representation, personally.

Devil, demons, dark spiritual forces.

On one side of this equation, we have the truth of God, the people of God, the spiritual forces of God and light.

And on the other side is everything else, regardless of its awareness or intention, because ultimately it is something that is trying to keep you from nearness to the light and the good.

That's the only Christian worldview we've got.

That's the only one we've got.

And so what that's what's trying to take us captive.

And we have to have eyes to see when is something subtly trying to get us to choose slavery again, even if freedom is something we've been given through Jesus.

Okay?

Um now the rest of this passage, the rest of this passage is giving you reasons, basically, Christian, why it would be ridiculous to not continue walking and living with the one who gave you the ability to walk and the one who made you alive.

Ridiculous to consider any other option than him.

Okay?

And we got to do these quickly, but there's basically five reasons why you should not even consider another person to root yourself in, another way of life to build yourself up in, that this is the only thing we ever need.

Okay.

So the first one is this it says, In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

If you're a note-taker, write your first reason why it's Jesus or nothing.

He's fully God.

Jesus is fully God, y'all.

He's fully God.

Um, are you looking for supplements or substitutes to Jesus because you think he's one of several viable options?

He is not.

And he does not give you that option when you read the things that he said.

He is fully God, no one else is.

No other religion founder, no other so-called guru, he's the only one who's fully God.

And so this is a great way to make sure that the Jesus you are worshiping with your life is like the right one, like the right Jesus.

And it's a great tool when trying to discern if the people who approach you at work are the people who knock on your door or the people who hand you a brochure on the sidewalk, when they say, Oh yeah, we love Jesus too, you gotta be like, which Jesus?

Tell me about him, right?

Tell me about him, and a way to cut through all of the confusion is are we talking about the Jesus that's fully God?

Like fully, because then there's the Jesus of Islam, which is a prophet who was born of a virgin, who's highly revered, and all of that kind of stuff, not the savior of the world, not God Himself.

All right.

Then there's the God of Hinduism, or excuse me, the Jesus of Hinduism, which says, hey, we've got like a whole household, a pantheon, like a bunch of gods, and you can add Jesus to your collection of your gods.

And Jesus is like, I'm sorry, I'm not, I don't work according to that.

I don't, I don't belong on that shelf.

I'm over I'm over the whole shelf, right?

Right?

That's that's the whole thing.

Then there's the God of Mormonism, the Jesus of Mormonism, who is not eternal, was like literally born of the Father, has completely different essence than the Jesus of the Bible.

And then there's the Jesus of progressive Christianity, which says this guy's got some great ethical ideas.

We should take a bunch of those and eliminate all the supernatural stuff and eliminate things that don't you know align with our political views?

Um, but that that Jesus is not the Jesus we're talking about either.

We could keep going down the line.

Is the Jesus you're worshiping fully God?

All the authority who's made himself known in Jesus, lived, died, resurrected, reigning, returning.

Is that your Jesus?

The one that's fully God, all right?

Um, my friends, this should be the whole list.

And if I don't pick it up, it's gonna be the whole list.

Um, but listen, if he's if he's fully God, where else are we gonna look?

Like what if we believe he's truly divine, where else are we gonna look?

There's this incredible moment in the Gospel of John, early in the Gospel of John, chapter six, where Jesus is teaching some hard stuff, and then it says a bunch of disciples left.

And then he looks at the 12 disciples and he says, Hey guys, you guys out too?

And Peter says this incredible thing, right?

Peter says this incredible thing, and I think some people think he steps forward, like chin up, chest out, to say it.

I don't think so.

It's so early in their ministry.

I I think it's more like desperation, just like he says, Jesus, where are we gonna go?

If we don't, if we're not with you, where are we gonna go?

Like you alone have the words of eternal life.

Where are we gonna go?

This dude hasn't connected all the dots yet, but he's seen enough to be like, where where are we gonna go?

And the fact that he says, you alone have the words of eternal life is so incredible, friends, because an understanding of that phrase eternal life is the perfect transition into the rest of the reasons.

A lot of us here think that eternal life means after I die, I get to be with God forever.

It starts after my death and goes on forever.

A biblical understanding of eternal life is abundant life, is flourishing life, is fully free life, is the life that starts now when you put your faith in him and goes on to forever, right?

Huge difference.

So look at this.

Look at the second thing it tells us um, not just that he is fully God, but also that he is fully sufficient.

You have been filled in him.

This means you've been made complete in him.

This means that everything you lacked on your own, righteousness, right?

It's like qualification to stand before a perfect God, like all the things peace, joy, meaning all of these things have been given to you, your lack has been addressed fully.

You've been made complete in him.

You already see the point he's making.

If you've been made complete in him, if he's given you everything you lacked, Christian, how could your eyes start to wander?

You only shop around if you're not satisfied with the goods, services, or relationship that you've been given.

Okay.

I don't want to get too personal, but I just left T-Mobile.

Okay.

The reasons are my own.

I don't want to get a cease and desist from T-Mobile, like please stop slandering us at churches across America or whatever.

I don't have time for that.

My business.

It might have had something to do with terrible service in a town like College Station, but I digress.

Okay.

I I decided I'm not receiving from T-Mobile what I need to receive from them for them to have my loyalty and my devotion.

Okay.

I'll tell you who I've never once thought about making a similar decision like that for.

And that is Lupe Tortilla.

They got me.

If what I need is beef fajitas, I could do a whole spreadsheet of like, well, tortilla, like, I mean, if we're doing enchiladas or chicken, whatever, but no, beef fajitas.

If I need like wildly flavorful beef and then a tortilla that's as big as my torso, right?

I'm gonna get what I need in that place.

There'd be no reason for me to look elsewhere.

Friends, if you have been made complete, filled, and all the ways that matter most by Jesus, where are you gonna go?

Where are you gonna why would you why would you consider?

Why would you shop around?

Why would it be you only do Jesus in horoscopes or Jesus and tarot cards or Jesus in crystals or Jesus and my ancestral gods from my culture or family line?

You only do that, or Jesus in legalism, or Jesus in my cultural preferences, or Jesus and hymns only, or Jesus and King James only, or whatever.

You only do these things if the essentials of Christ Himself are starting to not feel sufficient to you.

Okay, so he now does something incredible.

Paul pivots and he gives us a couple more reasons to bring us home why we should not look elsewhere.

All right.

If you skip down with me, you're gonna find a very, very good reason, and that is uh that you are fully alive.

All right?

Look at this.

We were raised with him through faith.

All right.

Then we he says it twice.

You who were dead in your trespasses, right?

You who were dead in your trespasses, God made I don't want that in red.

I want it to be ominous, I want it to be beautiful and glorious.

Come back to me.

God made alive.

God made alive.

So to be very clear, the gospel is not about turning bad people good or mean people nice, it's about dead people, spiritually dead people, coming to life in Jesus.

That's my gospel.

That's what our friends who got baptized today preach to us without having to say a word.

This cosmic union, he actually uses baptism right before this to say we are united with Jesus in his death, and that's seen as we go under the water, and we're united with him in his resurrection as we come up out of the water.

That's the symbolism.

It's preaching a beautiful gospel to you with no words, and it should remind us of the glory of not just what happened for them, but what's happened in your life if you carry the name Christian, and it's why you are forbidden from ever golf clapping at a resurrection baptism.

Adorable, like no, yes, yes for them, yes for me, just yes, okay, a hundred percent.

So you've been fully made fully alive, but not only that, my friends, you've also been fully forgiven.

He has forgiven all our trespasses, say all.

And he did it by canceling the record of the debt, nailing it to the cross.

I cannot, I gotta do this quick.

I gotta do this quick.

Do you believe you've been fully forgiven or not?

Do you believe you can be forgiven or not?

I think some of you have been avoiding actually trusting Jesus and like calling yourself a Christian or going all in because you look at what you did a decade ago, a year ago, a month ago, last night, and you're like, that's too much.

That's too much.

And even trickier, some of you are followers of Jesus and you are not walking in the fullness of freedom and joy because of the following.

Uh you believe that there is grace for the people around you.

Like if I ask you right now, hey, is there if you consider the people to your left, to your right in front of you, behind you, is there any way they've done anything in their life that makes them unqualified or uninvited from the forgiveness that Jesus has for them?

What's your answer?

Is there anything they've done that can do that?

No.

What about you?

Do you feel that shift?

Do you feel that where we're like, it's easier for me to believe there's grace for them no matter what than I than it is for me to believe that there's grace for me and what I've done?

What is that?

And with some of you, the people that you love, it sounds like this.

Um, I know that God has forgiven me because of the cross.

I know God has forgiven me, but I just can't forgive myself.

I heard someone said, ooh.

I can feel that, right?

I know what that feeling's like.

It sounds so noble, like I just take my sins so seriously.

God forgives me, but I just can't forgive me.

Whose opinion matters more?

In fact, let me say this.

I say this in love.

Who do you think you are?

That your opinion on that would nullify his opinion on the matter?

What is that all about?

Like when we say that, Jesus said on the cross, his last three words, it is finished, it's accomplished, it's done.

The sin problem's done because I died for you on the cross.

All sins, past tense, present tense, future tense.

It's finished.

When you say, Oh, God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself, what you really say is not for me.

I believe he sent me here to tell some of you his three words are better than your three words.

It really is finished.

And if you've been fully forgiven, where are you gonna look when it comes to who you're gonna live for and what you're gonna do?

He nailed them to the cross, my friends.

And then the last thing you are not just fully alive, you're not just fully forgiven, you are fully free because he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him in Jesus.

Um, you are not fully free if you live in the shadow of armed enemies who are constantly attacking you.

True?

That's not real freedom.

And the dark forces in the world, the ones you're aware of and the ones you're unaware of, their primary weapon is accusation, like darts.

Can you believe you did that?

Can you believe you did that back then?

Can you believe you're still dealing with that?

Can you like if this was really real, would you really be struggling like this?

Just darts, just armed.

And Jesus goes to the cross, dies for you, nails a record of your debt being paid to the cross when he is nailed to the cross.

And it says paid in full.

And it disarms the enemies by throwing accusations at you.

Because he's like, No, no, you're right, but the debt's been paid.

The accusations don't stick.

You're saying they deserve punishment.

I've been punished for them.

What else you got?

Disarm the enemies, but didn't just disarm them, put them to shame.

And I close with this image because it's just too beautiful.

I love it.

All right.

How did God at the cross put your foremost enemies to shame?

Well, your foremost enemies, death and darkness, right, used to walk around strutting.

Death used to walk around strutting because he was undefeated, like Mike Tyson going to Japan all those years ago to fight Buster Douglas.

And then all of a sudden, Mike Tyson's no longer the undefeated juggernaut he was walking into that place.

No one sees it coming.

It's not still a dangerous dude, never feared the same way ever again.

Because he wasn't undefeated anymore, right?

Death is no longer the undefeated juggernaut because your Jesus in mind rose to life again on the third day and promised that everyone whose faith is in him will do the same, right?

And so here's that's already putting death to shame.

But I want you to imagine like two armies are battling, two generals, two kings, and the victorious king forces the losing general to be the door holder at the victory party, as the victorious come home to the celebration.

That is death in your life now, believer.

Death is now the doorman because Jesus has died for your sin and risen to new life, so you can have new life.

Death is the doorman.

So, Christian, when you go home one day, when you get called home, you breathe your last, right?

And you're called home, you get welcomed into a welcome home party celebration.

You high-five death, nice try, right?

Nice try.

I'm home, and you rejoice in the fact that death has been put to shame.

Friends, if you're trying to figure out who you want to live in, live for, walk with, perhaps you should start with the one who raised you to life and made death the doorman.

Amen.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

We need not go looking for supplements or substitutes of any kind.

And the opportunity we have now is to tell Jesus if that's exactly what we've been doing, so that He can give us the power to let go of those things, to stop clicking on those YouTube rabbit trails, considering other spiritual forces, options, whatever it might be, to own all of that, admit all of that, sidestep the shame, receive the forgiveness, and experience joy and assurance in the beautiful simplicity of Jesus.

Plus, nothing equals everything.

We need not look anywhere else ever again.

Will you guys stand and respond to me?

Respond with me rather.

Let's respond to God's word in our lives.

Would you just bow your heads?

So I just bless you and give you an opportunity to respond here.

Christian, I declare over you, regardless of the present tense state of your faith, you have been set free.

You've been fully forgiven.

You are fully alive in Jesus.

You are fully free from death, from debt, and from darkness.

And the cross is the proof, and the resurrection is your double proof.

Christian, I invite you, I implore you in these moments to follow that you would admit and confess to Jesus the ways that you have been trying to add to Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

If you've been adding your cultural preferences, if you've been adding your legalistic standards, if you've been adding anything of the occult tarot cards or horoscopes or other lowercase G gods, you've been trying to hold on to the cultural gods of your family tradition, would you just recognize that lack of loyalty and that incompatibility with a life fully devoted to Jesus?

And would you just bring that to him in humility, ask for and receive that forgiveness and step into full freedom?

I am imploring you, dare I say begging you, that as we start to sing, you would come forward to some of these leaders up front and tell them precisely what it is you've been adding to that simple math equation.

And just know that there's grace, forgiveness, and encouragement waiting for you.

And then, friends, if you are not a follower of Jesus, you've never devoted yourself to him, I just ask that you would hear the Holy Spirit calling you home, that you would forsake your loyalty to other so-called gods.

Even if you, even if it's you, if you've been trying to live like the God of your life and you're ready to trust Jesus, to say you lived the perfect life I couldn't live, you died the death I deserve for the forgiveness of my sin.

You rose to new life so I can have a new life starting now.

Man, as soon as I say amen and we start to sing, would you come forward and trust the leader in this place?

Joy through confession, freedom through repentance, and more man, loving excitement, and joyfulness than we think possible as we walk through together.

Because Jesus was nothing, truly is everything.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we pray.

Everybody sit together.

Amen.

I love you guys.

If that's you, come forward.

Let's do it.

Love you guys.

Man, what an amazing time that we had today.

Hey, if you know of someone that needs to hear this message, we'd love for you to share that on socials.

We'd love for you to actually go and check out our socials so you can stay up to date on everything happening in the life of United City.

And if you need to take the next step, we'd love to help you do that as well.

Love you guys so much, and we'll see you next week.