Summer School – Made New

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Hey, my name is Ryan.

I'm one of the pastors here, and I get to be with you over the next few minutes.

It's great to have you here.

Also, another welcome to those that are joining us online.

Great to have you here today for our message.

It's so good to have you.

If you missed last week, we started a series simply called Summer School.

Show of hands, or maybe not a show of hands, but how many guys growing up you had to go to summer school one time?

Yeah, my people.

There we go.

You know, C's make degrees, that's where I landed.

So we we loved it, we got through it, we made it.

We're adults now.

But this whole series, Pastor Isaiah kicked off last week.

He did a brilliant job.

It's centered around the teachings of Paul.

Now, let me give you some context.

Uh, Paul was not named Paul until later in his life.

He was born Saul.

He was born in a little village called Tarsus, and as he grew up, he became uh one of the religious elite.

He was a very smart man, and through a series of events and some backdoor side deals, he ended up hunting down Christians and imprisoning them or having them put to death.

Um until a day came in Acts chapter 9, it talks about where he met Jesus.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

And let me tell you, when you meet Jesus, your life will change.

Something has to change when you meet Jesus.

So Paul is somewhere traveling from a point from point A to point B, and Jesus, one of the few times Jesus actually presents himself to someone in Scripture, shows up, Paul's radically changed and goes from a terrorist, which he was, to one of the one of the one of the greatest men of God and apostles in the history of our world.

Just like that.

So Paul started this process off post-conversion, started to just take missionary journeys, share faith.

And so he started to plant churches.

And as churches started to plant, just like in every church, because of the people, drama happens and fighting and new doctrine slips in and new theology.

But throughout this process, Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament.

Now, these are mostly letters that he wrote to his previous churches that he planted.

And so context is critical when it comes to the life of Paul.

Let me tell you this: not just Paul, anywhere in the Bible, but specifically Paul.

If you don't know who wrote it, where he wrote it from, who he wrote it to, what was the audience, what was the culture, why he wrote it, you will destroy the original meaning of Scripture.

That's just the bottom line, how we start off studying Scripture.

If you don't dig in a little deeper, and not just John 3.16, because we all kind of know that, but you dig in, you gotta dig in and find out why was this written, who wrote it, where at.

And so if you don't do that with the epistles specifically, you'll destroy your faith.

And so that's the goal.

Really, the goal of this series is not just like a topic that we're gonna hit, it is the life of Paul and how we take his writings and apply those things to our lives.

So let's do this.

Let's pray, and we're gonna jump right in.

Lord, we just we thank you that we can gather today, we can worship you, and we can we can stir our faith, we can meet you in a song, we can meet you in a moment, we can meet you in a handshake.

And now, today, in the next few minutes, I pray that now we meet you through your scripture, that you'll open up, you'll illuminate the word to us, you'll challenge us and change us through what you have here for us in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

How many love new things?

You guys love new things?

We all love new things.

A few years back, we we had the privilege of buying our first house, our brand new house.

If you ever had a brand new house and you walk in, it's like brand new carpet, the smell of new paint, brand new bathrooms that nobody's used.

It's like you're first, like you get to jump in.

It's there's something so cool about something new.

And I like used stuff too.

I mean, used cars are sometimes the best deals.

I love used tools.

Anything on Facebook Marketplace, I'm a sucker for, so I'll try to get that and use it or flip it or something.

It's good use.

Um, recently I saw a um a family feud episode that the question was, what would your what would you not like your spouse to bring home used?

Think about that one.

What thing would you would you be mad at your spouse if they brought home use?

So the top three answers are this.

Number one, or number three, shoes.

I don't know about shoes.

Used shoes just kind of kind of grosses me out.

Something about a used, dirty, moist shoe is just gross.

That's right, I said it.

Number two is mattress.

No.

The other week, somebody in our in our neighborhood Facebook uh group said, hey, I got a mattress out on the side of the road for free.

And when I went home, that mattress was gone.

Somebody took it.

You know, like they say, like after like five years, like your mattress increases in weight because of skin and oils and other stuff.

It's just disgusting.

So no mattresses, and the number one thing that spouses that my husband or wife better not bring home is undergarments.

Needs no explanation.

Undergarments.

Do not bring undergarments home.

That's disgusting, especially used.

I think this is I think we love new things because we serve a God that loves to do new things in our lives.

He loves to have new seasons in our lives.

And the message of Paul, if we're just honest, the message of Paul can be boiled down to like one statement.

And this is it.

He's constantly calling us to a new life, a new testament, a new covenant, a new season as we fulfill God's purpose for our lives.

And so when we read Paul's writings, he's calling us to something new.

He's coming in, he's saying, Here's the Messiah.

Now let me tell you what that means.

Or he's writing a letter of correction to say, guys, you've guys, you're way off.

Get back to the original and then go into this new path that I have for you.

And so today I want to wrestle with one statement.

It's in your first fill in the blank in your notes, and this is it.

What does it mean to be made and to live new?

To be made to live new.

And as you guess, we're going to jump into a section in Corinthians of Paul's writing, a letter he wrote to the Corinthian church.

Let me give you a little background of this.

So Corinth is about a day's walk from Athens in Greece, and he um he made multiple trips to this area.

He first went there, shared about the Messiah who's come, there's a whole new covenant for you.

Converts came to know Christ.

And then he had to leave and go do other things, and he would come back and he would he would teach and more converts, he would correct, and then he started sending a series of letters because there was a lot of drama.

Uh in in those first century churches, what you would have is Christians would, because they didn't have a Bible, they didn't have a manuscript.

They had the Torah that they kind of led through, and then there's the new Messiah, and so they were trying, they were trying to figure all this out through the new covenant.

And so Paul would have to come back and say, guys, you can't choose Jews over Gentiles.

You can't say you need to be the first in the synagogue.

It's not right for you to say that you should get the food from the pantry before everyone else because you are an Israelite.

So he had to come in and kind of chop away.

And so, in the context of what's going on, is the church that was there had they started to compare themselves.

They started to bow up and feel like we're better, uh, we're even better than Paul.

Like, Paul, are you where are you at?

You're not even here, you just left us, and now you're just writing letters.

And so the context of these of these uh chapters and these verses are think Paul or somebody, Paul wrote a letter, and and they're reading this to the church.

And so they're reading these things to set the record straight.

And so, 2 Corinthians 5, 16, we want to start there.

We're gonna kind of walk through five verses today, okay?

So I'm gonna read them and then we're gonna come back and just slice it up.

So from 16, it says, From now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view.

Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

The old is gone and the new is here.

That's gonna be our anchor verse.

All of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.

And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

We are therefore Christ's ambassadors.

As though God were making his appeal through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

And we'll come back to that word reconciled as well.

Be reconciled to God.

So let's chop this up.

Let's go back up to the top.

Now that we know the context, we know what's going on.

And he says, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view.

So he comes right at the beginning of this part that we're studying, and he's like, Look, you guys are getting it off a little bit.

Why are you still looking at the world like it's a worldly point of view?

Because something happened down here where you now received a new perspective, a new way of thinking through Christ.

And so he's kind of a little bit in a disagreement and he's trying to get the record straight, saying, Look, you can't necessarily look at the world the same way you did once you receive Christ.

An example is how many of us still maybe look at our past different, we view our past different than the way we are now?

Maybe you view a neighbor or somebody you know that once was strong in Christ and now they're not, and you may throw some judgment their way.

Maybe it, you know, Pastor Liz three weeks ago shared such a good word, and she said, How are you supposed to view your neighbor through the lens of your faith?

If they're not in agreement, if they're living one way, you can't judge them.

They know no better because they don't know Christ.

And so when you come to know Christ, the way that you view the world should change.

It should look different.

And then the next verse, as we're going to continue going, says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

The old is gone and the new is here.

I studied this word for a little bit.

In the original Greek, you know what anything means?

Means anyone.

Anyone means anyone.

No matter what your present state, where you feel like you're not uh able to receive God's love because of your lifestyle, because of the sins that you think you have in your life, because of where you're at.

Anyone means anyone.

The gospel is for anyone.

For you, for me, for me tomorrow, for your neighbor.

No matter where you land, the gospel's for you.

Some years ago, I spent some uh time doing some missions work down in Swaziland, Africa, and I remember this moment we were at this rural church, there wasn't a lot going on, and uh this guy walked up and uh he put his machine gun down at the door and walked in, which I'm glad he didn't bring it with him because I didn't know what was going on.

But he walked in, and as he started to walk down the aisle, I was up on the stage to the side, he starts to cry.

And uh and he comes down and uh he comes to where I'm at, and so I just approached him and I said, In my mind, I'm thinking, oh dear Lord, I hope I'm not dying right now, but let's go with it.

And so I went up to him and I said, What's going on?

And he spoke some English, and uh he was part of a group that for years uh kidnapped children and turned them into soldiers.

And you've heard some of these stories throughout history.

And Africa is a very rural tribal nation, so you see this still in the areas there.

And I don't know why, but this verse popped in my head, and I said, Look, I need you to understand something.

You're a new creation, so the old is gone.

And I said, Why are you still carrying that gun?

And he said, Because people are my my life is marked.

And I said, Well, I'm telling you today that your life is marked by Jesus because you're a new creation.

And so when you walk out of this door, you need to live like that, that you are a new creation.

And he just fell down and he just the love of God overwhelmed him.

And I'm here to tell you that the love of God is for anyone, nothing disqualifies you.

In fact, let me say, you can't even earn it.

There's nothing you can do to get it, because it's it's it's who he is.

In fact, the verse goes on to say this therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this is a critical part of this verse because it's it's what?

It's positional.

This is a positional statement.

It redefines how you are.

We live in a world that if you perform enough, you what?

You get a raise.

If you if you work hard enough, you get a promotion.

If you study hard enough, which you should, you get a good grade, right?

If you work, you get this A plus B equals C, and it's usually further or better.

It's based off your performance.

Can I tell you today that your relationship with God is not based off of how you perform?

It's not based off of merit, it's not based off of what you do.

It's rested in the fact that you are a new creation in Christ.

This positional statement is should redefine how you approach God.

I grew up in uh Orlando, north of Orlando, in a little town called Sanford.

Um that's right, I'm proud of Sanford, I'm there.

Uh I grew up in a really charismatic, really uh famous church.

Uh this guy was on TV, healing evangelists.

I won't say names, but you if you if you're old enough, you'll probably put two of them together.

But the theology that was that was proclaimed weekly from the stage was very much about performance.

It was very much about how you do, what you do, getting what you need from God.

And so as a young child, as a high school or middle school, I found myself messing up during the week.

Wednesday night, right back at the altars, getting saved all over again, messing up in a week, Wednesday night, getting back saved again, and this cycle where I felt like I had to perform to earn the love of God.

And it'll mess you up as a child, it'll mess you up as an adult.

And uh I got to this place where I sat down with a pastor and I said, Here's where I'm feeling.

I just feel like I'm not good enough for God.

I just feel like I can't do enough.

And he just simply said the statement, uh, why are you trying so hard?

Why are you trying so hard?

And then he pulled out his Bible and he shared this verse with me, and it changed my life forever.

Galatians 3, 3.

It says, Are you so foolish after beginning by the means of the spirit?

Are you now trying to finish by the means of the flesh?

What God did in the spirit, he did all the heavy lifting, he changed history by sending his son Jesus.

I found myself in a place thinking, why am I trying to do this?

Why am I trying to achieve, earn, gain God's love by what I can do or what I didn't do?

Maybe that's just as important.

That's a real buzzword right now, especially in faith circles.

And uh this is the word right now, deconstruction.

It's a real buzzword, it's real cool, it's it's it's it's all over.

And a lot of it comes out of people that had either grown up in their faith or they walked away or the church hurt them or a Christian hurt them, which is always gonna happen because Christians are humans and flawed.

A little side note.

And you can stay, you can stay breaking down the walls of your faith, kicking what you learned from the past, hating the situation.

You can stay, you can destruct all of your life.

But I'm here to tell you this, and this is a very important fill in the brain.

Deconstruction without reconstruction is spiritual death.

If you stay in a cycle of deconstruction, and you never get out of that, you never reconstruct, you will spiritually die.

I've seen it over and over again.

I've been in ministry over 20 years, I've seen it over and over again.

People that stay in that cycle where they just want to learn something new and set the record straight.

You know those people?

It's like they stay in this cycle and it becomes an echo chamber of the same kind of people, and all they want to do is kick around and say, what's wrong with the church, what's wrong with Christianity, what's wrong with faith, what's all this, and they never get to a place where they into a new season where they start now building on some of those unfortunate things that happen.

Some things happen to us, it happens.

Don't stay there.

So you get this position.

So now we're in Christ.

Why?

Verse 17.

Therefore, as anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

The old is gone and the new is here.

New creation.

If I can give you one statement to take a picture of, write down, tattoo on your arm, share, this is it.

It's your fill-in-the-blank.

God doesn't want you to make you into a better version of yourself.

No.

He wants to make you into a new version.

You're not a refurb.

You didn't get a new screen on your iPhone because it broke.

You're a brand new creation.

Because of the position you have in Christ, when you receive him, you're brand new.

You are a new creation.

Maybe another way of saying it is like this you can improve the old or you can become the new.

So have fun.

Try to improve the old if you want.

Or you can have the new.

That costs you nothing.

Jesus paid the ultimate price for it.

It's the finish work of the cross.

So why are you trying so hard?

Why do you stay in that mental cycle of where you just don't feel like you're good enough for God?

He paid the price for you.

Take a deep breath.

It's not about you, church.

It's about him.

You just gotta step into that.

So I told you I was, I'm from north of Orlando.

Uh when I was, you know, every 15-year-old, when you get to like 14, 15, you start dreaming about like, when I get my first car, I'm out of here.

I'm gonna drive all over the place.

And you end up going to like the gas station in Walmart.

That's about it.

Like, what are you gonna do?

Where do you think you're going?

You just end up, you know, blowing gas, and that's right now it's an expensive thing to do.

Um well, when I was 16, I bought uh my first car.

Here it is.

This beauty right here.

I called it Vader because it kind of looked a little like Vader, not really, but that's what I call it.

This guy cost me 400 bucks.

Best 400 bucks I've ever spent.

Had no AC, the gear shift, uh smoke constantly came out of the gear shift because I had a gasket that leaked and I just kept pouring in the oil, never fixed it.

You know.

The seats in this car had, I left them on there.

They had this, this um, I don't know where they the car came from, so this is probably gross, but it had these covers that were like long black fuzzy hair.

So if you got in there and you sat down, when you left, you had like black hair, black, you had like back hair all over your clothes.

So if you wore white or light colors, you're just so my sister as we were driving, she'd hate it because she'd go to school and she'd have all this fuzz all over the place.

Well, the point is, is it's like every 16-year-old, you think you got some game, and so I took this girl out on a date one time.

And when I got in the day before, I thought, holy cow, this car smells so bad.

I gotta do something.

So I went to the store just like every young person does and bought me a little air freshener, new car air freshener, which just smells terrible.

I mean, we send people to the moon and we can't come up with a better new car smell.

Come on.

So I bought six of these.

I thought it was six can six can handle this smell, and I threw them underneath the passenger car seat, which didn't help at all.

So I picked this girl up, and uh, it smelled terrible.

She got in, and after about four or five minutes, she said, I gotta level with you.

What is that smell?

Because it's a mixture of this bad odor and good, kind of good odor, and it was overwhelming.

But at the end of the day, she had a headache because the smell overwhelmed her, and it was just kind of a ruin of a night.

But I wonder how many of us treat our faith the same way.

We try to fix the external, we try to work on the appearance, we try to work more, we try to do more spiritually.

When God is saying if the inside is not fixed, the outside will always remain broken.

If you can't start with the revelation that you're new, you're not a refurb, you're not a fix-up, that you're new, that you're made new through the price of the cross, then you can walk in that freedom today when you know that.

So Hebrew says it like this I will put my laws into their hearts and on their minds, I will write them internal.

God is saying, I'll put my laws in you.

It's no longer this idea of the people of Israel just sitting down and reading the Torah and applying it.

I'm gonna change something inside.

I'm gonna take out the stony arm, I'm gonna put the new heart in.

I'm gonna change something, I'm gonna write my laws inside of you.

And so, just real quickly, this last point, and then we're moving on to the next verse.

You can change from the outside in or the inside out.

Super simple.

You can change from the inside out or the inside in, and I'm here to tell you right now, the inside out, it's so much easier.

Let's go to verse 17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

The old is gone and the new is here.

That's just that's all the point that I want to make on 17 is the old is gone.

It is gone.

So when you walk out today, this is for someone, the old is gone, your past is behind you.

Why are you still looking at it?

Why are you still holding on to it?

You're a new creation, the old is gone.

So walk like that when you walk out of this building because the old is gone.

Amen.

Alright, the next verse, 2 Corinthians, we're gonna jump into here, 18.

All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

This word reconcile, uh, it's it's a it's a business term.

You see it in scriptures here and there with this transaction from God, and it just simply means this to bring two estranged parties together.

Paul is saying that there's this chasm between eternity and you.

There's this chasm between your old life and your new life that you could have.

There's this chasm, and the only thing that will fill that is Jesus.

The only thing that will fill that is you coming to the to the place where you surrender your life and you receive this new embodied spirit of God through his son, and it's the only way you can achieve it.

It's not by coming to church, it's not by being a Person, it's not by doing a little bit here and there and serving, it's not it's about that relationship that you have to have with Jesus Christ.

That is it.

And then we end this this part of this verse with this and God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.

Come on, that is a that is not counting sins against them, that is countercultural because everything is counted against us.

We say one thing that someone doesn't like, they push us aside, they cancel us, they move us.

If Jesus were alive right now, the things that he would say, holy cow, he would slice into culture, he would deliver the truth from the gospel, he would be labeled as a terrorist, and that kind of things that he says.

The areas that he called us higher would be radical, would be unattainable.

So that reconciliation comes in, calls us to this new place because we are a new creation.

And then verse 20.

We're gonna land a plane here.

This is the last verse.

We're there for Christ's ambassadors.

God is making his appeal through us.

Did you catch this?

So we're made new, our position is changed in Christ.

Old is gone, the new is in front of us, we're set free.

We get all this stuff that happens.

Why?

Because he makes his appeal through us.

Church.

God never designed you to get set free, to get whole and healed, and then to stay where you're at right now.

The action point here is now you go out and you tell the world.

You go out and you change the world that's around you.

You go out and you don't judge the neighbor that you know is all into some kind of lifestyle, but you love them so when things break down, who are they gonna run to?

You.

Because you have the answer, and it's Jesus Christ.

God never intended you to stay where you're at.

He's gonna set you free, make you new so you can move on and change the world that's around you.

That is the action point of what Paul is saying.

We're gonna tell you doctrine, we're gonna show you all this that has to do with you and you and you.

We're gonna set you free, we're gonna set you on the path.

And now go and fulfill God's destiny for your life.

So the what, which was the first still in the blank today, is again what does it mean to be made and to live new?

Here's the how.

The how is this fall and stay deeply in love with Jesus.

Look, let me let me use an explicit uh kind of analogy.

Um this October, my wife and I will be married for 20 years.

That's right.

20 years.

She kept me around.

Look, I don't wake up every day and think, okay, let's I I let me not cheat on her today.

Don't cheat on her today.

Okay, I don't I gotta I can't cheat on her today.

Okay, I gotta make sure I don't cheat on her today.

No.

Why?

Because I'm I'm deeply in love with her.

That never crosses my mind because I'm deeply in love with her.

Your faith through your relationship with God, through your relationship with Jesus Christ, it's not about behavior modification, it's not about sin management.

When you fall deeply in love with Jesus, you'll find yourself not wanting to do those things.

You see the difference.

When you fall deeply, madly in love with Jesus, the person of who he is, the person of Christ, who he is, you'll find yourself not wanting to do those things.

You'll find addiction start to fall off.

You'll start to see that the past emotional trauma starts to get not as important, not as uh painful because of the new relationship you have in Christ Jesus.

Paul is saying, you can't live in the old because you're gonna die there.

Let me show you the new, let me tell you why you're new, and then let me set you free to live out this new life.

The same message to Corinth is the same message for us this morning.

How are you living today?

Are you are you is it a performance-based spirituality?

Do you feel is it based off of merit and how you how you do and what you achieve and how much you read?

And I haven't talked to God since last week.

Is it is it you're trying, you're trying hard.

You come on Sundays, you you do what you can, but I mean, look, if you rely on just Sunday mornings as your faith, you're gonna you're gonna be in a rough spot.

How many of you guys eat one meal a week?

And you try to survive to the next week with the same meal.

It just simply cannot happen.

It's it's it's the other six days.

It's faith in action, it's knowing who you are, pursuing God.

And let me give you four quick, real quick, practical ways you can do that, and then we're gonna be done.

Baptism, we do that here.

We celebrate this, we turn it into a party so that you can come be baptized.

Jesus commands us to do it, and it's just showing that the old person is gone and the new person is here.

You invite your family, your friends, we throw a party, and because of that, they'll look around one day and like, this is different.

I've never been a part of a church like this.

And it's not even about the church, it's not about the light, it's not about the celebration, it's about the spirit of God that'll be in the room.

So there's so many layers of why you should be baptized.

Groups.

We just kicked them off today.

I'll say it like this.

We say it like this: truth is communicated in rows on Sundays, but life is done in circles.

When you meet with people outside of the church and they speak into your life and they call you out on things, and you call them out on things, and you tell them what God's doing in your life, and you sharpen each other, and then you start to grow into maturity.

Next steps class is so easy because we do it all for you.

That class is designed for you to help you discover your giftings, how God has uniquely called you and has created you to fulfill that, and then we tell you how to do it, we show you how to do it and set you free to do it.

And then, number four, I threw that in there because this is a word that people don't usually like, because it just takes time.

It's that one meal analogy, like you have to dive into discipleship, you have to become a disciple of God.

I mean, you gotta study, you gotta get with people, you gotta pray, you gotta spend time, you gotta get to know this person that you've committed your life with.

And this all forms you into the person that God has called you because you're a new creation.

You're made new, you walk it out.

Maybe you're here today, and there's I got two quick questions as we close.

Maybe this is like that's fine, Ryan.

This is great, but I'm still kind of kicking the tires of faith.

I still don't even know where I stand.

I don't I don't even know.

Can I tell you today would be the perfect day for you to bow your head and commit your heart, ask Jesus to come in and be your savior.

You don't have to do anything.

In this moment, salvation is free.

You have to then walk it out, which there are responsibilities and things you have to do, but in this moment, he does all the heavy lifting.

He can come in, wash away the past in a nanosecond, set you free in this moment, and come and be your savior.

Maybe you've never committed your heart to Jesus Christ.

And I want to pray with you.

Would you close your eyes?

Bow your heads with me today.

If you're online, feel free to do the same.

And you're like, look, Ryan, I just I need to make sure when I walk out, I know I'm in right standing with God through this commitment to Jesus Christ.

No one looking around.

This is personal, this is the only thing I'm gonna ask you to do.

If that's you and you want to be included in this prayer, just simply slip your hand up and put it right back down so I know I'm praying with you.

That's it.

Awesome.

I see that hand.

Anyone else?

I see that hand.

That's okay.

That's fantastic.

Anyone else?

Multiple hands going up.

That's so cool.

What an incredible day.

Anyone else?

One last time.

I'm lingering just for one second because there's someone that needs to respond in here.

And you just need you just need like two seconds of of like guts to say this is me.

So one last time, heads bowed, eyes closed, you and God.

That's you.

You have it lift your hand.

I want you to do so right now.

Just put it right up.

I see the hand, I see the hand.

I knew it.

Man, God is so good.

I see that hand.

Beautiful.

Come on, let's pray together.

God, of all the things that you could have done to get the attention of all humanity, you chose to send the very best thing you had, your son, to die on the cross for me, for us.

So in this moment, I pray with our friends that have gathered today that want to make this decision.

And we say, Jesus, you're welcome into our heart.

You're welcome into our lives.

We surrender ourselves to you.

We confess with our mouth and we believe in our hearts that you are our Savior.

We give you our lives, we give you our past, our present, and most important, our future.

It's yours.

And maybe you're here and you just say, Look, I just, I just need a fresh kind of revelation of the new, that new creation, that new life.

Maybe you've worked hard at this, you've tried to achieve it, you've tried to do your part, and I feel like God's saying, you don't have to do anything else.

Just be my son, just be my daughter.

Receive, receive the fact that you're a new creation and the old is gone.

So I pray for our church today.

I pray, God, that we would walk fully into this moment through the scripture that says we are a new creation, our position is in you, Christ, and we don't have to earn it.

We can't gain it by doing anything special other than receiving you.

So in this moment, I pray that we would feel light.

Holy Spirit, that you would allow us to feel a light when we walk out of this place because of the freedom we have in you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Guys, we had at least five hands go up to receive Jesus.

I think we need to celebrate that.

Come on, give them a hand clap.