What up, Crossing family? How you doing today?
You guys doing good, man. It is good to be with you.
I want to welcome to those of you at all of our different
locations, to those of you watching of part of The Crossing
inside. I also want to show a special
welcome to those of you are part of our online ministry.
We are going to be debuting a new online expression at the
very end of this sermon series and I hope that it will be a
blessing to each and every single one of you.
Today we are beginning A5 week sermon series called Truth,
Intention, Balancing Faith and Love on Hot Topic Issues.
Here is what I've noticed and maybe you have noticed too.
This doesn't happen all the time.
There are definitely instances where it doesn't, but by and
large this has been what I experienced from my vantage
point, that the closer you are to the sin and the person, the
more you tend to bend on the truth, and the further you are
from the sin and the person, the harder you hit on the truth.
In this series, we are going to address very sensitive issues.
We're going to talk about L, GB, T issues and abortion now.
This sermon series is going to unfold like chapters in a book
each week, building on the week before.
You probably already know this because you guys are smart
people. But there is no way that one
sermon or one sermon series can encapsulate all the things
surrounding these issues, explain all the nuances, and
bring about the situational specifics related to these
topics. These are complicated waters, so
I want to encourage you to be here.
If you can't be here, watch online.
If your schedule doesn't allow you to watch online, leverage
our playback platforms. Our sermons are posted online by
Monday morning every Monday. And to those of you who are
watching this sometime in the future, this series took place
here at The Crossing on September or in September and
October of 2023. I say that because terms keep
changing meaning. And before you start getting
frustrated about the terms that we're using in this series, I
just want you to know that in 2023, to this group of people,
these terms were completely okay, all right?
And if I'm not cancelled by week five, I am desperately asking
you to attend. That's October 12th and October
15th because at the very end of this series, or how we are going
to wrap up, this series I believe will be powerful for you
as you chart a way forward trying to navigate truth and
tension. Now, why this series, you might
be asking? Well, this series has been on my
heart for over a year. I'm telling you that because I'm
not speaking on any of these things, because of any recent
events that have happened or any recent events that will happen
as we go through the series. This was a thoughtful decision
made over a year ago to do this sermon series at this moment in
time. Why the sermon series?
I think we're ready for it. In fact, we've been building to
this series all year, and I think you and I think I'm ready.
At the beginning of the year, I preached the sermon series
called There Has to Be a Place. In fact, I've preached A sermon
series called There Has to Be a Place.
Both January since I've been the lead pastor and during those
sermon series I've been well, I've been giving you a clue.
There has to be a place that gives people time, that allow
people to take their biggest step of faith, that tell people
that their failure is not final and that when God's in the
picture it's never over. That there has to be a place for
lost causes for those who have been shunned and shamed and
given up on. There has to be a place that
believes that Jesus still changes people, that there has
to be a place that's willing to serve those in need, give people
community sacrifice on their behalf and dig today so that
other people can drink tomorrow. Then we did two sermon series on
the family, one last year and one this year.
The one last year was better and the one this year was called
Reclaim. After that of this year we
launched A sermon series called If Then You may Remember It.
We brought in Ken Ham. We talked about questions like
if God is real, if Jesus is alive, if the Bible is true,
that means that we were created by God, redeemed by God, and
will one day be united with God in heaven.
And then we spent 15 weeks going through the Book of Romans,
which is the very best book in the Bible to capture the power
of God, the love of Jesus, and the way that you and I are
supposed to live our lives in response to their redeeming act
on our behalf. The second reason we're talking
about this sermon series is because these issues are being
talked about everywhere else. The things we're going to be
talking about, they are being talked about in the classroom.
They're being talked about in school board meetings.
They're being talked about on TikTok and YouTube and Fortune
500 companies, theme parks, big box retail stores.
It's made its way to the bigger aisles, political arenas,
Supreme courts and social media. It's everywhere.
So it might as well be here. For the church to be silent on
issues like this would be awkward, weird, wrong.
If you're a a well meaning Christian and you're trying to
Orient your life around God's will and God purposes, we need
to make sure that we're speaking into that to help you be able to
walk in that and live in that. Here at the Crossing, we have a
fundamental belief and it's this that God's way is the best way.
We believe that no matter the question, no matter the
situation, no matter the struggle, no matter the
challenge, God has a better way for us.
Here's what I mean to those of you who have friends and family
members or are maybe navigating or have navigated issues
surrounding this. Personally, I want you to hear
me. We love you.
But more importantly, God loves you and has a better way for
you. I'm begging you, please don't
give up on this sermon series. I really think that you will be
glad you stayed through it. To those of you who are new to
the Crossing, or maybe this is your first time in a long time,
you're going, I cannot believe this is the weekend I decided to
show up and I want you to know what I'm thinking.
I am so glad that you are here, even though this might feel like
the wrong weekend to try out a church or to come back after a
long time. If God's way is the best way,
then anytime we are examining God's way is good for us.
Jerry and Allison, they just celebrated their 25th
anniversary and they have cemented in our hearts the
phrase an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
If my math works out, I'm going to get to be a part of this
church for 43 to 45 years, depending on my cholesterol.
And my hope is that my legacy at this church will be that God's
way is the best way. I believe that God's way is the
best way in every area of your life.
It's good for your heart. It's good for your soul.
It's good for your relationships.
It's good for your finances. It's good for your work.
It's good for your family issues, It's good for your
marriages, you name it. And I genuinely believe that
God's way is the best way to handle it, and that includes how
we handle our sexuality. The third reason we're doing the
sermon series is because I don't think many of us, myself
included, are ready to navigate these issues in a way that
honors God. I regularly see people on
opposite sides of these issues, but rarely do I see a God
honoring demonstration about how to handle and love and speak
about these issues. And in order to do that, we're
going to need a couple of ground rules here at the crossing for
the next 5 weeks. Rule #1, No clapping.
OK, now I know some of you, you're like, well, we're going
to clap at the end. You can clap at the very end of
the sermon. That's fine.
You guys are super polite. You're like, OK, good job,
preacher. OK, here's why I'm telling you I
don't want you clapping because I love it.
And when some of you guys get verbally engaged in the sermon,
you know, makes Jerry and I preach even better.
But I am not OK with you clapping at me, taking a hard
stance on a sin that you don't struggle with.
If I were to say right now, you know God made Adam and Eve not
Adam and Steve, there'd be some of you who'd be fired up and
you'd want to give, like, a standing ovation, like, preach
it, brother, preach it. But you were silent through the
entire book of Romans when we talked about the mighty saving
power and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
And if you don't clap for the cross, I'm not going to let you
clap for the sin that put in there.
Here's what I'm going to tell you.
If you start clapping when I take a swing at a particular
sexual sin, we're just all going to assume that that's the one
you struggle with. That'll that'll dial you down,
won't it? We ain't clapping now.
OK? At the end of this sermon
series, I'll reinstitute the clapping rule.
OK, All right. The second reason is there are
people sitting at your campus who are holding their breath
right now. There are people who are a part
of this church who are L, GB, TQ.
There are people that just found out that their son or their
daughter, their grandson, their granddaughter identifies as L,
GB, T or Q and they feel like a kite in a storm.
It's been said that when Christian kids come out of the
closet, the Christian parents go in.
So sad. We're just not going to let that
happen here. Here's the crossing.
You are going to be loved and you are going to be cared for.
Rule #2, No emails. Okay.
Hear me. You can continue to send
encouraging emails. They mean the world to me.
I read them, I reply to them, and I save the very best ones to
read on dark days. However, if you have questions
or frustrations during this sermon series, we are going to
have Facetoface conversations. Due to my limited availability
and calendar, one of our team may direct you to a campus
pastor or a staff member, but I'll meet with you as many of
you as I can. We would love to grab lunch with
you, have coffee with you, have a snack with you instead of
trying to figure out nuance and tone over e-mail.
That's like the worst way to communicate.
I want you to hear this. We are here for you and we are
in your corner. We went into ministry because we
love God and we love people, and it is our honor to walk through
difficult questions and difficult seasons with you.
Rule #2, no emails. Rule #1, no clapping.
Rule #3, First Peter 3:15. But in your hearts, Revere
Christ is Lord. Always be prepared to give an
answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope
that you have. But do this with everybody.
Help me out. That's the target.
Somebody comes clapped. OKOK, you're like, I like that
version. Oh, no, I'm with her, OK Our
goal in this series is to address hard things in a way
that gives an answer for our hope.
But we got to do it in a way that is characterized with
gentleness and respect. I want you to hold me
accountable. I want you to think through the
lens as you hear us talk through this over the next couple weeks
where they being gentle and where they being respectful.
In the future, when you go out and you represent the cross and
you represent Christ and you represent the crossing, I want
you to make sure that when you speak about things, you do so in
a way that's gentle and respectful.
Too many times I see people on the far right or the far left
make really good points, but they do so in a way that makes
me cringe. They do so in a way that's void
of care and compassion. Their answers are dehumanizing
and they repel the very people that Jesus died for.
Why does this matter? Why does gentleness and respect
matter? There was a survey done of 1700
L GB people from and there is people who participated in it
were from every state. 83% of them were raised in the church.
51% of them left the church at the age of 18, and only 3%
stated that their primary reason for leaving was because of their
church's beliefs that their lifestyle was wrong.
The rest cited that it was the way that they were treated,
ostracized. The lack of compassion, tone,
gentleness and respect matter. So week one, you've made it
through the intro ready. We got to begin with truth, an
interpretive lens for understanding God's will.
It was laid out by the Wesleyans, and it's called the
Wesleyan Quadrilateral. It basically says there are four
ways or lenses through which we understand God's will on any
issue, on any issue. And here's what it is Scripture,
Church history and tradition. Reason and lived experience.
Pay attention to the arrow. Where do you start?
You start with scripture. You move through church history
and tradition. How did they live it out?
How did they follow it then? You reason through what are you
supposed to do? And you apply it to your lived
experience. And the order through which you
approach your discovery of truth can lead you to very different
and dangerous places in the world we live in today.
Because there's been so much pain around sex, because it's so
polarized, because it's so personal, a lot of people don't
start with what does Scripture say or what did church tradition
say. Instead, they start here.
They start with their lived experience.
They'll use phrases like my story, my truth.
Most of the time, the questions I get are not what does the
Bible say, it's how do you explain what happened to me?
So they start here on the lived experience, and then they reason
through what's happened to them. And then they begin to evaluate
and critique how the early church fathers in the early
church or church tradition handled it and how they were so
wrong for it. And then by the time they
actually get to Scripture, scripture is irrelevant.
It's lost its power. There's no way it could mean
what it actually means. However, all throughout church
history, the order has always been the exact opposite.
And the difference on how people who both claim to be Christians,
Jesus followers can end up on completely different sides of
these issues has everything to do with how they approach truth.
I was surprised by this. I follow people on Twitter, and
if you're on Twitter and you follow me and you see the people
I follow, you might go. I don't know if I'm okay with
Clayton following all these people.
I follow the fringes because I want to see what's coming.
And I was listening to a Christian pastor who believes
the exact opposite of everything that we're going to talk about.
And I was like, how does he call himself a Christian and yet have
a completely different take on everything?
And I'll tell you, it's because he starts here, I listen to one
of his sermons and he starts here and then he basically undo
does the truth of Scripture as the sermon gets longer.
Here's what you need to know for almost all of church history,
and by almost all of church history, I mean until 1975 and
here at the Crossing, the method and strategy for understanding
and applying God's Word has been and is to start here with
Scripture. You start with the truth of
God's Word, believing that God's way is the best way.
And then you look at how that truth was applied by the people
closest to it and how it was carried on.
Which is why I said until 1970 or 1975, And then reason.
And then how do I apply all of this inertia into my life?
We start there. We start because scripture has a
unified voice on these issues and Scripture cannot contradict
itself. And then you move through the
2000 plus years of church history of people who have
followed Jesus and they have a unified voice on this.
We have sages and spiritual mothers and fathers who have
gone before us and have dealt with about every single issue
under the sun that we deal with. And then we reason.
And then we import all of that into our experience and we
adjust and bend our lives to the truth.
It serves to bring you and me under a far bigger, wiser,
older, cultured, weathered faith authority than us making
ourselves the authority. That being said, let's look at
the three big verses in the New Testament about this Romans
chapter one, verse 26. Because of this, God gave them
over to shameful lust. Even their women exchanged
natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with
women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in
themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to
retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved
mind so that they do what ought not be done.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil
greed, and depravity. They are full of envy.
Murder, strife, deceit, and malice.
They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant
and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil.
They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no
fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God's
righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,
they not only continue to do these very things, but also
approve of those who practice them.
This might be a group of people that we probably need to
navigate carefully during the sermon series.
Is there some people who may not be participating in this, but
they're people who approve of this?
Look what it says in First Corinthians chapter 6.
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the
Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.
Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor
drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the
Kingdom of God. And that is what some of you
were. But you were washed.
You were sanctified. You were justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God, First
Timothy, chapter One. And we know that the law is good
if one uses it properly. We also know the law is made not
for the righteous but for the lawbreakers and rebels, the
ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who
kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually
immoral, for those who practicing homosexuality, for
slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for whatever else
is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the
gospel concerning the glory of the blessed of God which he
entrusted to me, The Bible makes it abundantly clear that
homosexual behavior is a sin. It is not God's best way to
live. However, I think it's important
to note that it's not the only thing that he mentions.
He mentions wickedness, evil, greedy murderers, gossipers,
slanderers, disobedient kids, thieves, drunks, swindlers,
slave traders, some of your like whoo.
Finally, I'm glad Slave Traders is in there because I've never
done that one. Liars, sexually immoral and
homosexuality. It's an interesting question.
Why is it that Christian parents reach out to us on staff and
wonder if their kid is going to hell because they're gay, but
they don't ever ask if their kids going to hell because
they're living with their significant other watching porn?
Drunk liar. Disobedient.
How come this one got so elevated?
How come this one got a category of its own?
How come we have permission slips galore for all the
heterosexual sin, but we pull the highlighter out for the
homosexual sin? You might be experiencing some
tension right now. You might also be thinking some
of the things. Same things that I thought.
I'm on that list, And if I'm on that list, what right do I have
to talk about somebody else who's on that list?
I'll tell you why. Because we tell everybody what
God wants. Because we deeply believe that
God's way is the best way, and we have grace and patience for
other people as they navigate their sin issues.
Because people have grace and patience with us.
In fact, that's how God treated us.
But we don't excuse sin just because we sin because we were
called. We were commissioned that when
we made Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, that we became
Harold's messengers of the gospel sinners telling other
sinners about a Savior. Some of you might be thinking
this personally. Some of you might be thinking
this corporately. What if I was made this way,
Clayton? What right do I have to say to
somebody who they didn't have a choice?
If they could choose, they would not have chosen this.
Here's what I would tell you. There has been no genetic link
to homosexuality. There appears to be some
combination of nature and nurture.
To make it all Nurture puts an unbelievably heavy and
unnecessary burden on family and friends.
To make it all about nature excuses human responsibility.
There is a difference between disposition and Commission.
I'm not going to tell you which one of my kids, but one of my
kids struggles with anger. One of my kids struggles with
lying. But their struggle, their
disposition, is not a permission slip for Commission.
Just because one kid naturally just seems to want to be a liar
and the other one just naturally seems to want to be angry
doesn't mean that I don't hold God's standard over their life.
There's nothing I'll tell you. Process this one slowly.
Attraction is not a sin. Activity is.
You probably can't help who you're attracted to, but you are
responsible for how you act. We can be tempted to sin, but
the Bible tells us we are told to flee sexual immorality.
Some of you you might be attracted to redheads.
You don't know why, but by golly, you are.
Some of you, you're attracted to blondes.
Some of you are attracted to brunettes.
I'm obviously attracted to short, crazy brunettes, emphasis
on the crazy. And I am sure there has been a
moment or two when Jennifer has been attracted to other men,
which is hard because she has bad eyes.
But while Jennifer may from time to time be attracted to another
man, because of her love for God, because of her love for
herself, because of her love for me, she restrains herself.
You see, you can be tempted to sin and not sin.
We got a really interesting verse for you.
He was chapter 4. Therefore, since we have a great
high priest, this is talking about Jesus who has ascended
into heaven. Jesus, the Son of God.
Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
Keep it there, Jeff, for just a second.
Because of Jesus, let's hold firmly to the faith that we
profess. This is what we're going to do.
We're going to hang on to it. We're going to hang on to the
scriptures. We're going to hang on to the
truth. Keep reading, for we do not have
a high priest who is unable to empathize.
Pause. He gets it.
He knows what he's asking you to do.
He knows what you're he's asking you to go through with our
weaknesses. But we have one who has been.
Everybody say this word, tempted in just as we are.
Yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's
throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help us in our time of need.
When you get tempted to operate outside of God's will, I want
you to know Jesus was tempted too.
But he didn't give in to it. And because he didn't give in to
it, and because we are in Him, we have the power to not give
into it too. And because of that, we can
enter in to the throne of room of Grace where He will give us
what we need in our time of need.
You see, you and I, we were designed on purpose.
We were put together. I like to articulate this
through like knives, lawn mowers, vacuums, and washing
machines. Here's what I mean by that.
Why does a knife take the form that it has?
Why does the knife have the features that it does?
If we look at the different parts of a knife and the process
of making it, we would be looking through the lens of
causality. It's like, it's like this
because they hammered it, they tempered it, they sanded it,
they shaped it. Why did they do all of these
things? Because the making of the knife,
the process of making the knife is guided by the purpose of the
knife. The knife is designed to cut.
And so everything that goes into the making of the knife is
designed to allow it to do that. When you were to look at humans,
how were did we get to where we are?
Why were we made? The way we were made tells us
something about our created and our intended purpose.
Our bodies tell a story. God was purposeful in the way he
created the universe to work, and that includes our bodies.
And by looking at our bodies, we are able to discover that
purpose and live it out. And it is God's right as the
Creator. The Christian response when it
comes to any area of our life, including our sexuality, should
be this. Not my will, but yours.
If you struggle with homosexuality and you want to
act out on it, not my will, but yours.
When you're a heterosexual and you want to have sex before you
get married, you should be going.
Not my will, but yours. When you're engaged and you want
to have sex before you get married.
Not my will, but yours. When you're married and you want
to have sex with somebody else who's married.
Not my will, but yours. We surrender our sexuality to
God's plan and God's purposes. And when you look at our bodies,
it reveals something so we can recognize it.
That God created this natural world, which includes our bodies
with purpose and with goodness. I don't know when the last time
you looked at yourself in the mirror and went.
God made this and it was good. OK, but this is what this is,
the natural law that we were put together, and breaking God's
natural law is sin, and sin does not lead to human flourishing.
You and I, we are morally obligated to honor the bodies
that God gave us, and we are obligated to honor the bodies
that he gave others and our bodies.
Exhibit a plan, design and order a purpose.
And Scripture serves as a moral guide of how we should use our
bodies and make the most of our bodies in worship to glory and
honor our Creator. What's a lawn mower designed to
do? It's designed to mow the grass.
And who decided what the lawn mower's purpose was?
The guy who made the mower. The mower didn't decide.
The grass didn't decide. The maker made the decision.
And who decided how much the lawn mower was worth?
Did the grass decide how much it was worth?
Did the mower decide how much it was worth?
Actually, in this instance, the maker and the buyer decided what
it was worth. The maker sets the price and the
buyer decides whether or not they will buy it based on 2
guiding principles. Can they afford it and do they
feel like it is good value? Money well spent.
The grass did not set the value and the mower did not set the
value. In the same way, God, our
Creator, decided our purpose and our worth in creation and He did
it in the story and how He created us.
He created you and I in his image to rule and reign with
gender complementarity to be fruitful and multiply, and when
he was done, he called it very good.
But what happens when a lawnmower has free will and gets
jealous of vacuums, So it tries to come inside and it wants to
help out around the house. However, instead of
strategically pulling up dirt fibers from the carpet and
moving the small toys out of the way as vacuums do, instead it
start to fling toy shrapnel through the windows and the
walls. In addition, the fumes of the
lawnmower hurt the family's heads and the ability to make
decisions. What if the lawnmower decided
that it wanted to be a washing machine and it would destroy
absolutely everything that you threw at it?
God's plan and purposes are visible in our gendered and
sexual design. Hear me And any deviation from
that purpose is sin and causes deep and significant pain.
God's design for sexual expression is reserved for one
man and one woman inside of a covenant of marriage.
And anytime sex takes place outside of that, lawnmowers try
to become vacuums. And then they get mad at God for
all the things that the lawn mower broke in the house and God
goes, I made that for the grass. And then hurt happens not just
to you, but to the people you care about, to the people you
love. We have to get to a place,
personally, corporately, where we trust God's vision of what is
best for us, where we go. You have a better way.
Hear me? This is not just about our
sexuality or homosexuality. This is about every part of our
lives. Think about the list again.
Remember the list that I read? The list that you were on?
Oh, tell me you weren't just thinking about the homosexuals
during this sermon. I was wanting you to think about
you because I was thinking about me.
Every one of those sins is a deviation of God's best for us,
and it hurts our families. It impacts our finances and our
futures. It hurts our witness and becomes
the source and pain and misery of the very people we're trying
to reach. The sins devalue us.
We lose sight of our worth, but in the passion story we see the
set price that the maker was willing to pay and the buyer was
willing to pay because we read that the scent of God gave his
life as a ransom for many hear this.
Who did Jesus die for? He died for sinners.
You know the people on the list. One of my favorite things is all
the things that I read to you were written by one guy.
His name was Paul. You might be going.
Paul says really hard things. You know what else Paul says
when it comes to sinning? I'm the chief of all sinners.
Maybe that's what truth intention looks like, that you
say the hardest things even though they're true, but you
never take an eye off the fact that you're a Sinner too.
And maybe we should do the same. We're moving to a time of
decision. Yeah.
OK. You know, Yeah.
OK. Alright, We're going to another
church. I recently got a car and it's so
hard to buy a car when you're the pastor.
Like, do you really negotiate hard or do you just go, What is
it? Yeah.
I mean, how how do you do that? Yeah, I mean, that guy's A
cheapskate. But you know, when you're buying
a car, like, you just have this natural inclination to like,
look for every nick. I mean, you just looking at it,
look at that. And will you look at that?
Oh, my goodness. Will you look at that?
And then you take it home and you find one you didn't see.
I didn't know that that one was there, as if you wouldn't have
bought the car. I thought that was a bug.
But no, that's that's real. And your goal of going around
and like picking out every problem in the car is what do
you think? That every neck, every Dang
reduces the price? Oh yeah, not a lot of tread left
on these old tires, the seatbelt belts.
Why is it that the driver's side always has the crack?
Maybe you guys haven't driven old cars like I have, but this
is the first time I have a vehicle where the driver's side
doesn't have, like, the, the foam showing.
I'm pretty jazzed about it. I've already put duct tape there
just in case. All right, Are you go around
there and you're just going, man, what's hoping that the
price would go down? And I wonder if subconsciously,
if that's how you view you. I wonder if subconsciously
that's how you view others. You hear about their sin and
you're like, oh, those seats are a little worn.
Oh, man. You hear about their current
situation, like, oh boy, there's a dent in the side of the bed on
that thing. You hear about their struggles.
Oh boy. The tailgate just doesn't open
and close the way it's supposed to.
Maybe that's the way you think about you.
I mean, because you know you and you know what you've done and
because you know all the problems.
Because that's what's like when you try to sell a car, because
you try to hide all the things that you know are wrong.
Just take it around the block, just not on the street.
Because you know the shift from 2nd to 3rd okay, they're not
buying that okay, just keeping the neighborhood anywhere you
want in the neighborhood, drive on the sidewalks.
But do you know that it's the exact opposite when it comes to
Jesus, He paid for all the sins. The more you sin, the more he
paid. He paid the most for the worst
sinners. He's just that good.
But our dents and our Dings and our mess ups and our mistakes
didn't lower our value. It just cost him more.
And he paid it. And he paid it to give you the
strength to live the life that he called you to and that you
were destined for. God's way is the best way.
And his love is to repurpose you, and I hope that you allow
him to do it this weekend. I'm asking all of you guys to do
me a huge favor, especially those of you who are here.
I'm asking you either to come up to the steps and get down and
pray or pray right where you're at on your knees.
But here's why I want you to do it.
Because I want us as a church holistically to want to live
God's best way and to pray for that in our lives.
Maybe there's a sin that you need to give to God, or you need
to ask for forgiveness. Maybe you need to pray over your
friends and your family members, people that you know are
struggling with truth or struggling with one of these sin
issues, because there has to be a place for them.
And I think it's here, and I think it's with us.
I think it's with a group of people who want to own their own
failures and their own struggles and beg God to do something in
it. Would you join me in that?
Would you stand God, I'm asking you to do a mighty thing in this
church, something that only you can do to bring about
restoration and redemption. Not just in the issues that I'm
speaking about, but in every area of our life.
God, we have good news. We have the gospel.
And God, we want everyone to hear it and everyone to submit
their lives to it, including ourselves.
So help us to do that and hear my pray.
Amen.