What up, Crossing family? It is so good to be with you.
You may remember back in April, Ken Ham came and visited our
church. Well, last week I was able to
take my family to Ohio and while we were there, we swung by the
Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum.
And I am here to tell you it is awesome.
You should make it a high priority for you and your family
over 7th grade. Anything below that, you're not
going to get the full meal deal because it's a lot of reading.
But what I will tell you is it is a great spiritual and
educational experience for your family.
When you go to the Arc encounter, first thing you need
to do is go to the left and you go do the the virtual reality
thing that they do off the charts, right, Doug Dog it was,
yeah, it was that good. I actually got to meet some
other people from our church that were there at the same time
we were there. It was like, this is what
happens. Can be like, like, hey, we both
showed up at the same place. Hey, you're here, I'm here.
I didn't think you were coming. Okay, It's going to be one of
those things. I promise you, we're going to
try and do a trip like this in the fall of next year.
So if you don't want to go by yourself and you want to go with
other people. But I'm just telling you it is a
it's just something when you see the arc in all of its glory and
you get an opportunity to go to the Creation Science Museum and
see our world through a Christian, biblical, God shaped
vision and it's it was just incredibly nourishing.
Then on that Sunday, I had the opportunity to go and preach at
River Hills Christian Church and preach the opening sermon to
their sermon series called Weeds in My Garden.
In fact, churches across the country are preaching this
series and getting people to help and the hope that they
desperately need. Because of that, in September,
I'm getting an opportunity to share what God has been doing
through that series at a pastor's conference in Nashville
with over 1000 pastors. And that is all possible because
of you guys being willing to go on that faith journey with us.
So I just want to tell you a huge thank you for letting us do
that series and you inviting people because you're giving
pastors across the country the confidence to step into that
space. Then next weekend, like 7 days
from now. Oh no, 5-6 days from now we will
be having our Uncommon Conference, our men's conference
here at our 48th St. location and we have 9 partner churches
in eight different states that are going to be hosting the
exact same conference over the next seven months.
In fact, many of those churches are going to be coming here to
be a part of ours. I heard from Zach Campbell right
before the service started that we just crossed the 800 mark of
men who will be attending that. Super excited fellas.
There is room for 200 more people, so if you haven't signed
up, sign up. I promise you it'll help you be
the spiritual leader of your home.
It'll help you love your wife better, lead your kids better,
and you will not regret it. I want to welcome you joining
from all of our different locations, those of you watching
online and inside, and a special shout out to those of you who
are joining us for the first time or the first time in a long
time as a church. We are in a sermon series going
through the book of Romans, and if you haven't been here a while
or you haven't been here at all, let me catch you up.
Romans can be broken down into three big chunks.
The first one these chapters one through 8, and what we learned
in those chapters is I can trust God.
In chapters 9 through 11, we're navigating trust in God when
others don't. It's one thing to trust God when
you have a bunch of people around you doing the same thing,
but what do you do when you're trusting God and the people
around you aren't? And then the third thing we're
going to navigate when we get into chapters 12 through 16 are
noticeable neighbors that when you place your faith in Jesus,
it should be noticeable to the people around you.
In chapter one, we learned that we could trust God because of
the goodness of his gospel, and his gospel is true, that we are
saved not because of what we've done, but because of what Jesus
has done on our behalf. In chapter two, we learned that
I can trust God because he is patient and kind in an effort to
lead us to repentance. How many of you?
God has been patient with you. So that means that we should be
patient with other people on their spiritual journey.
We shouldn't get mean, hateful, hurtful.
We should give them the same amount of patience that God has
given us. In chapter three, we learned
that I can trust God or you can trust God because he made a way
when there was no way he did what nobody else could do.
In fact, Romans 322 says righteousness is given to all
through faith in Christ Jesus, to all who believe.
So when you place your faith in Jesus, you are made right with
God because of what Jesus has done on your behalf.
And chapter four, we learned something that's really hard for
us to understand and that is that we can trust God because
through faith in Jesus he covers forgives our sins and he does
not count them against us. How many of you have something
in your life who is still counting your sins against you?
Yeah, nobody has more of a right to do that than God, but he
chooses not to. He chooses not to count your
sins against you. In chapter 5, I kind of gave you
a tattoo verse if you're the kind of person who wants to get
scriptures tattooed. Romans chapter 5, verse eight,
we learned that I can trust God because through Jesus he's
justified us, made it as if we've never sinned.
Romans 5/8 says but God demonstrates his own love for us
in this that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We serve a God who made the first move.
He did it before, not after. Some of you are thinking God
will love you after you get your life together.
Nope. God made-up his mind to love you
before you could do anything right or wrong.
That's how good our God is. In chapters 8 we learn that I
can trust God because he defeated the enemy of sin and
death that you and I could not defeat.
In chapter 8 I learn or in Chapter 7 I learned that I can
trust God because he gives us the Spirit that enables us to
bear good fruit. There is a me that I want to be
that I cannot be on my own. It is only through the Holy
Spirit working in my life that produces that kind of fruit.
In chapter 8, I learned that we can trust God because He's our
conqueror. And check this out, Nothing can
separate us from the love of God.
Nothing can stop God from loving you.
Last week, Jerry preached an incredible sermon on Romans
Chapter 9, and we learned that God is both great and our God is
good. And then you have to navigate
What does it mean to trust God when others don't?
That's kind of where we're at in chapters 910 and 11.
Trust in God when other people don't.
On some level, it would be great if there we were always
surrounded by other Christians who are committed to their faith
in Jesus. That's the hardship of summer
camp and the burden of this gin ministry teams here at The
Crossing and around the world. When kids are surrounded by
other kids who are growing in their spiritual walk, they
behave like spiritual beings. It's when you find yourself
around friends and around sport teams that don't have the same
priorities. It's one thing to be serious
about your faith when you're here at church and surrounded by
other people who are church folk, but it's another thing
when you have to go home and navigate relationships that
aren't the same, aren't as supportive, don't have the same
values. There's some of you.
You come to our church each week without your spouse or without
your children. You attend each service with a
sense of hope and excitement, and then you have pain envelope
you as you leave, knowing that you're going home to a place
where there's not the same level of encouragement, not the same
level of support on your spiritual journey.
Recently I was talking to a guy at our church who's both
successful in his walk with the Lord and in the business world,
and he was relating to me that the pain of his boss in a heated
moment, asking him to do something illegal.
He fortunately had the courage to push back and say that he
wouldn't do it, but that's not how work environments are
supposed to be. Here's a guy who's trying to
provide for his family, take care of the people that God has
entrusted him to, and now his boss has asked him to do
something in a heated moment that's out of bounds and he's
having to figure out, do I say Nope, My integrity is too
important. I can't do that and risk his
ability to provide for his family, trusting that God will
take care of him. Even if things go South.
That's not how it's to be. And if we're going to live this
kind of life where we're going to trust God when other people
don't, it's going to make us noticeable.
People are going to see our faith.
It's going to be like a refrigerator light in the middle
of the night. When you open it up, you want
what's all in there, but the light hits you.
I mean, I've heard stories. I've never eaten late at night,
but I've heard stories of people who do.
So I hope that makes sense. The idea that you can be an
undercover Christian is a lie from hell.
When you come into a relationship with Jesus Christ,
it transforms you. It changes you.
Jesus calls us as Christians to be a light to the world.
That's why we call our men's conference uncommon.
Because ordinary isn't working. The world does not need ordinary
men. It needs uncommon men who've
been set apart for the glory and the purposes of God.
If you're CrossFit friends, golf buddies, card club, poker
buddies, coworkers were to read your obituary, they should not
be surprised about your faith, your commitment to Christ, your
commitment to His church. Our faith should be noticeable,
which leads us to Romans chapter 10, verses one through four
brothers and sisters, Paul writes.
My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that
they may be saved, for I can testify about them.
That's the Israelites, that they are zealous for God, but their
zeal is not based on knowledge. Do you guys know that it's
possible to be zealous and ignorant, excited and dumb?
Yeah. One time I was super excited
about going to diet. I was like, man, I'm going to
get in great shape and I'm going to just eat one thing over and
over and over and over again. I just chose bratwursts.
And I did. I was like, this is the.
I mean, this will be cake. I mean, I'll just eat like 5
each meal, 15 brats a day. I mean, it's just going to melt
off of me. And it didn't.
Yeah, maybe that's why I have cholesterol medication today.
Okay. All right.
Have you ever watched like YouTube videos of workout fails?
Like people on gym equipment just getting beat to death
because they're excited? Lots of they have a lot of zeal,
but they're uninformed. This way, saying you can have a
zeal for God but be ignorant about God, let's keep going.
Since they did not know the righteousness of God, they
sought to establish their own. They did not submit to God's
righteousness. Christ is the culmination or
another word. For there would be the goal of
the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who
believes. Here's the deal.
This righteousness of their own is still our struggle today.
For the Jews, it was using the Old Testament and finding their
righteousness there. However, the law did not make
them righteous. The law showed them how
unrighteous they really were and how great and holy and perfect
God really is. Now we do similar things, don't
we? We can be zealous without
knowledge, and we can try to come up with our own way of
making ourselves look good and trying to have a righteousness
of our own. Because what we try to do is we
go into the world of comparison. All of you, if you want to feel
better about how your body looks, you just look at somebody
who has a worse body than you. If you, you know, for me, I
can't find anybody. But I mean for you guys, you can
look at me, okay. Like you can find somebody to
go, well, at least I'm not ass. But if I were to go to a
CrossFit gym and compare myself to the people to CrossFit gym,
I'm like, ooh, I guess I could probably, you know, lose an inch
or 12, right? I could make some adjustments.
And that's how we sometimes do our morality.
Well, at least I'm better than. But salvation is not based on
are you better than other people.
Salvation is based upon whether or not you meet the perfect law
of Christ, and we don't. So how do imperfect people get
into the the presence of a perfect God?
We get there through a right relationship with Jesus where he
does on our behalf what we could never do.
We end up comparing ourselves, the people we'll win against,
instead of the standard that we will be measured against, which
is why he goes like this. In Romans chapter 10 versus 5
through 8, Moses writes about this righteousness that is by
the law. He says the person who does
these things will live by them, but the righteousness that is by
faith says do not say in your heart who will ascend to heaven.
That is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the deep,
and that is to bring Christ up from the dead.
But what does it say? He says the word is near you.
It is in your mouth and in your heart.
That is the message concerning faith that we proclaim.
What he's saying is the path forward for you Christians is
not so high that you have to bring it down.
It's not so far down that you have to bring it up.
It's no so it's not so far away that you have to bring it near
because it's available right here, right now, the moment you
want it. And we see evidence of that
every single week here at the crossing when people start an
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the path to
salvation is here, and it's through an intimate, personal
relationship with him, Which is why he says this in Romans
chapter 10, verses 9 through 13. If you declare with your mouth
Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him
from the dead, you will be everybody say that word saved,
for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified,
and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are
saved, as Scripture says. Anyone who believes in him,
that's Jesus, will never be put to shame.
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.
The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses.
We're going to circle back to that all who call on him, for
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
I have good news. If you're in everyone, you can
be saved when you come into a right relationship with Jesus.
Now, the Jews and the Gentiles here, they've been having a
problem. If you've been here for a while,
you've been hearing me navigate this.
You have these Jewish people who've been committed to the
law, and then you have these Gentile believers who are going,
well, we don't have to file the law because Jesus came and
they're trying to navigate that tension.
And what Jesus is trying to explain to them is that
salvation has always been through faith.
The dividing line of who is in and who is out in the family of
God has always been belief. If you believe, you are saved.
If you do not believe you're not, and you get to make the
choice about whether or not you want to stand before God on your
own or you want to stand before God with Jesus and the Jews are
going well, When did God change His mind?
How did this happen? Because the Old Testament was
leading us all the way to here and now.
All of a sudden, it looks like God's changed his mind,
abandoned his plan. And that's a fair assumption for
them and in their right to be frustrated.
But that's not what's been happening.
That's why Paul says that Jesus is the goal of the law.
What he's saying is the law was always pointing to Jesus, that
it was always looking to Jesus. Imagine my family were going on
a walk and because I'm a superior athlete, I'm way in
front of them and we come to the edge of a street and I go on
before them and my family is back on the other side of the
road and I turn around and I say stop, don't walk.
And so they stop and they don't walk.
And then I say go ahead and walk.
Did my 2 decrees to my family? Did my 2 commands contradict one
another or were they in order of one another?
I turned around and I told my family, stop, don't walk.
And the car passes by and then I say go ahead and walk.
The first command was designed to get us safely to the second
command. The Old Testament law was
designed to get us to Jesus. And now that we are in Jesus, we
take hold of him by faith through grace.
And now that we are in this kind of relationship, the Jews are
going, yeah, but this is not what we thought was going to
happen. This salvation through Jesus is
not what we saw coming. The easiest way for me to
describe this is through a marriage illustration.
Imagine this. A husband and wife who are
struggling. I know.
Try hard to imagine it. The husband has promised the
wife that he will do something to work on their marriage to
save it before it falls apart. The wife is constantly giving
him subjections. Typical.
We need to go to this conference.
Look at this retreat. We need to read this book
eventually, she starts being very specific.
Hey sweetie, there's a convention planned for the last
week in September. I want us to go to it.
I think it's what we need. And she believes deep in her
heart, that this conference at the end of September is what
they need to save their marriage.
She goes on and on and on, as women sometimes do, about the
conference. Finally, but just let me pause
before you guys send me hate mail.
This is not this is just an illustration.
I borrowed it from Michael de Fazio.
This is not me and Jennifer cuz I'd had to go on and on and on.
OK, I'm leaving her alone this week.
OK, Finally he comes home one day and he says clear your
calendar for that week in September.
I've made plans for us to do what is necessary to heal our
home. She is obviously delighted.
The day comes, her bags are packed, they hop in the car and
they are on the road. But along the way she seems a
little confused because he seems lost.
She thinks about correcting him and asking Are you sure you know
the way? But she doesn't want to ruin the
weekend before it starts, so she just stays quiet and she just
trusts. Then he veers off on some weird
Rd., leading to what seems like nowhere.
We're basically off roading at this point.
She's getting tossed around in the car, and eventually she
screams out. Where are we going?
He says. Trust me.
And then he pulls up to a solitary cabin in the woods.
He stops the car. He puts it in park.
He goes, we're going to work on our marriage here, And he
smiles. She looks around.
Lonely cabin in the woods and starts to get a little angry and
spouts off. I know what you're thinking and
that is not the answer to our problems.
We don't need a romantic getaway, we need a solution.
He says relax and he leads her inside.
They go inside the cabin and he explains to her that he has
downloaded some videos from the conference that she was so
excited about. He has purchased the books that
were on her marriage reading list, and then he opens up a
schedule that he is printed off with her that he is prepared
for. Their weekend romance is not
excluded, but the bulk of their time is about patiently and
intentionally talking through the issues that have gotten them
off track. She wants to be angry because
she feels betrayed, because they're not at the conference
that he thought that they were going to.
But then she realizes that he hasn't broken his promise or
commitment to her at all. In fact, he's done more than she
ever expected. It doesn't look quite like what
she expected, what she thought she wanted.
But the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes this
is exactly what she has been asking for.
Hoping for, praying for. He has indeed kept his word in a
way that is surprising, in a way that is magnificent.
In the end, it's perfect. This is what Paul is trying to
convey to the Jewish believers. Jesus coming and being the
righteousness on our own behalf is better than we can expect it,
although we didn't expect it. Second thing that gets brought
up inside of this passage is they start talking about Jesus
as Lord. When you talk about Jesus, Lord,
there's two realities. One is that of ownership and the
other one is that of deity. I got to.
I got to get in your grill for just a little bit because I had
to get my own. When when you're talking about
ownership, it means that Jesus is the landlord.
We're simply the stewards, the tenants.
If Jesus is Lord, he's in control.
Not you, not me. It's his, not ours.
Your life, your marriage, your family belonged to him.
The second thing is that of Deity.
That Jesus is Lord. He's in control.
Whether you acknowledge it or not does not change whether or
not he is indeed Lord. It's kind of like no matter how
stupid somebody acts this week, it doesn't change my name.
My name is what it is and your behavior doesn't change who I
am. In fact, you can be a real Jack
wagon all week and it doesn't change my position.
I'm still a pastor. No matter how messed up you
might be, I'm still a pastor. Whether you acknowledge Jesus's
Lord or not does not change whether Jesus is Lord or not.
And this is where we have to get into a a pretty tough area.
Look what it says in Philippines chapter 2, verse 9 through 12.
Therefore, God exalted him. That's Jesus to the highest
place and gave him Jesus the name that is above every name.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on
earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledged that
Jesus Christ is everybody. Say that word, Lord, to the
glory of God the Father. There is no more significant
claim in the New Testament than Jesus is Lord.
You're like Okay Clayton. We get it.
But Nope. Nope.
Come here. Let me Let me take you on a
little journey here. It's awesome when you say Jesus
is the Christ, and it's wonderful when you say that he's
the son of the living God. It's accurate.
It's appropriate. It's fitting.
It's biblical. But if you omit the central
confession that Jesus is Lord, you ignore the central claim of
New Testament Christianity. Here's what I mean when I'm
talking about that. If you were to go through the
book of Acts, Jesus is referred to twice as Savior and 92 times
as Lord. If you're to go home, read the
entire New Testament and you're to make tally marks on the left
hand page every time it talks about Jesus as a savior and
you're to make tally marks on the right hand side of the page
every time it talks about Him, that's Lord.
You would have 10 times mention him as Savior and 700 times him
mentioned as Lord. And anytime they're mentioned
together, Lord always precedes Savior.
Here's what I'm saying. And everybody wants Jesus to
save them and clean up the mess on aisle three of their life.
But not everybody wants to turn their life over to him.
Jesus, who I am, all that I am, it belongs to you now.
You're in charge. My marriage, my family, my
ethics, my money, how I navigate things.
It gets filtered by you. Now I'm not in control.
You're driving Now. I'm in the back seat.
Here's what we want. Hey, Jesus, I screwed up again.
Will you clean it up? I'm not going to make you the
Lord of my life. I'm actually just going to keep
letting you be my savior. And what we think is, is that
this is a better alternative to this.
I don't want to turn all these things over to God, because what
if, just so you know, God's not saving you from the things that
He's done on your behalf. He's saving you from the things
that you've done on your behalf. The areas of my biggest regret
are in the areas where I haven't had Lordship turned over to him.
The things he's saving me from are the things that I did, not
the things that he prescribed me to do.
If you're going to come to faith in Jesus Christ, you are not
just making him your Savior, you are making him your Lord.
You're turning your life over to him, believing and knowing that
life in his hands is better than life in your own hands.
And when Paul is talking to him, he's saying Jesus is Lord.
Those who belong to God have made him the Lord of their
lives. And then he says, when you make
Jesus your Lord, you will never be put to shame.
That means that on the day of Judgment, you and I will be
wearing the gift of the robe of Christ's righteousness and not
be ashamed of who we are or what we've done.
We will be bragging about what God did.
In other words, you have two choices on Judgment Day.
You can show up with a righteousness of your own, or
you can show up in the righteousness of Christ.
Look what it says in Isaiah chapter 61.
I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God, for
he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a
robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like
a priest, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Look what it says in 2nd Corinthians 521.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God.
Look what it says in Isaiah 64. All of us have become like one
who is unclean, and all of our righteous acts are like filthy
rags. Here's what they're saying.
You have a choice. Here are your righteousness.
And you know what they are? They're filthy rags.
They're not enough. Here's what Christ offers.
When you stand before God, do you want to be wearing your own
righteousness, or do you want to take what Jesus has done on your
behalf? And here's what happens.
Jesus takes our filthy rags and put it on himself, and he takes
all of his righteousness and he puts it on us.
So you can stand there on Judgment Day and God can see
your sin, your righteousness. Or on Judgment Day, He instead
of seeing your sin, he could see his Son that you are covered in
the blood, in the sacrifice of what Jesus Christ did for you
and in you and through you. You can show up on judgment day
wearing your righteousness or Jesus's.
But the only one that gets you into heaven is belief that what
Jesus did on the cross has been applied to your life.
That's why Paul says my righteous acts.
I consider them as garbage in Philippines 3.
That I may gain Christ and be found in him wearing his
righteousness, not having a righteousness of my own that
comes from the law, but that which is through faith in
Christ, the righteousness that comes from God.
On the basis of faith, we receive what Jesus did by faith
in our lives, and we stand before God covering the blood of
Jesus. That is how we get in.
And some of you might be going, well, that's fantastic, but I
mean, who is this for? Well, this is for everyone.
He richly blesses all of us because all of this belongs to
him. And some of you might be going,
Well, we got to be careful. But how much grace we give out
because we don't want God to run out of it.
God has an awful lot in common with a grandma at Thanksgiving.
No matter how many people show up, more food keeps coming out
of the kitchen. No matter what you do, God will
never run out of grace for people who want to turn to him,
He is fully able to bless all the more that come to faith and
salvation. Grace will abound.
No need to worry about over promising, No need to keep the
guest list short. So who is this for?
It's to everybody who calls on the name of the Lord.
Confessing His Lordship is what sets us apart and what puts us
in a right relationship. Our appeal to our salvation is
not our own righteousness, it's the righteousness of Jesus which
leads to chapter 10, verse 14. In light of all this, how can
they call on Jesus on the 1:00 they have not believed in?
And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
And how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written?
How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?
The only way anyone can accept be accepted by God is through
the gift of God's own righteousness found and the
basis of Jesus Christ. And the only way to receive it
is by faith in Christ Jesus. But in order for them to
believe, they have to have first heard or hear.
And they cannot hear unless someone speaks.
And unless someone goes, no one will ever tell them.
Here is something that you and I have to wrestle with God of the
universe, allowing you and I to be part of his salvation
mission. What an incredible
responsibility. And what a privilege some of you
might be going. I don't know enough.
You know more than you think, and I'll tell you this much.
If you get passionate of about something, you will learn about
something. I'm a horrible baseball player,
but my boys want to play baseball and I want to be their
coach. So I found the time in my
schedule to learn how to coach baseball, because if it matters
to you, you will Orient your life around it for some of you.
You've been saying I don't know enough for a decade, and if
you'd have taken as much time as you did saying you don't know
enough to actually learn something, you'd have been just
fine. Some of us, we don't like the
world that we're seeing and we don't like where the world is
headed. But if I were to ask you, who
have you baptized recently, who are you investing in
spiritually? I'm guessing it would be a goose
egg. So we can't get frustrated at a
world that we're not investing in.
Recently I picked up the game of golf, and here's what I've
learned. People want me to get better
because I'm God awful. I'm so bad at golf.
Other people cuss. OK, that's it's just bad.
I mean, it's so bad. But here's what's happening.
The more people see me trying to get better and struggling, the
more people come around me to help me get better.
I got a putter and I got a wedge from Lucas.
I got a driver from Mike, I got shoes from Ben, I got golf balls
from Craig, and I got a bag from Connie and I got clubs from Pat.
There's not a single thing I have other than my underwear
when I show up to golf that I purchased and it's because
everybody goes golfing with me and they go you.
This has got to change, but they see me wanting to get better and
they want to come alongside of me and resource me in the
journey and what I can tell you. You raise your hand up and say I
want to learn more about God. Someone will meet you, resource
you and go on the journey with you.
Some of us pride is keeping us from raising our hand and saying
I want to know more. I want to be a better leader in
my home. I want to be able to be better
able to articulate the gospel. I want to know how to read my
Bible. Just raise your hand around
somebody around here and they'll come alongside of you and go on
the journey. And when you go on the journey
to start telling people around you, when you step into these
moments when you choose to be a light and a dark place, you get
beautiful feet. And the reason why he says
beautiful feet is he's hearkening him all the way back
to the book of Isaiah when a messenger came delivering this
message that the Babylonian captivity was over.
When they had walked along the mountain ridges, they had
traversed muddy and dusty and windy and rainy terrain, and so
when they showed up, their feet would have been the most
disgusting part of them. But the good news that they
brought was so good that even their ugly feet looked
beautiful. And when you and I carry the
gospel message to those in need, we receive beautiful feet.
When you and I carry the gospel message to those who don't know
about God's loving and redeeming work, we get some beautiful
feet. Teachers, I have a special word
for you. This month, my kids will join
millions of other kids across the country and starting back to
school. And I want to tell you before it
all starts. Thank you.
I know there will be long days. Angry parents, challenging
expectations, limited resources, and heartbreaking stories.
Thanks for reenlisting to serve on the front lines of our
society. Thanks for shaping and guiding
and directing the minds and imaginations of those who will
come after us. Thank you for pushing through
your own pain to minister to the pains of others.
Thank you for being kind even when you're hurt.
Thanks for being generous, even when things are tight.
I just want you to know that this church, 11 campuses, 10,000
square miles wide, is in your corner.
But more than that, God is with you.
He will be your strength, your patience, and your kindness.
You are the pastor of your classroom, and with all of this
in your favor, you should be the very best teacher, the one with
the waiting lines around the block to be in your class, the
ones that everyone wants to be on their team.
And when you go out and you love people like this and you show
them a better way when you preach Jesus in those moments,
you have beautiful feet and nobody can take that from you.
But furthermore, this is not just for teachers, this is for
everyone. No matter what your profession
is, you can have beautiful feet when you choose to leverage your
profession to point people to Jesus.
If you're a farmer, I just let you know.
It doesn't matter how good your corn crop is, or how bad it is,
or how good the soybeans are, or how bad they are, or how good
the market is, or how bad it is, or how fantastic the the well,
the weather. I'm not going to talk about that
because you haven't had it this year.
It doesn't matter how good or bad of a farmer you are.
What matters is did you use your farming to point people to
Jesus? If you're a doctor, it doesn't
matter how good your diagnosis is, although it matters.
The most important thing about your job is pointing people to
Jesus. If you're a nurse or a blood
tech, I mean, yeah, be the very best you can possibly be at
getting the blood on the first poke.
By the love of God, be good at the first poke.
But what's more important, what's more important, is that
you have beautiful feet and you tell people and you point people
to Jesus. If you're an insurance agent, if
you're an Uber driver, I guess around here you're a Lyft
driver. No matter what it is that you
do, Your primary job is that beautiful feet.
And they carry a gospel message that people can be in the right
relationship with God if they believe in God.
And hear me when I say this, right now, our world needs some
people who will carry the gospel message and have beautiful feet.
Right now is when we need it. We need it now because right now
there's a man struggling with a porn addiction and he doesn't
know what to do or how to tell his wife.
And we have good news for that. If only we had some beautiful
feet to carry it. Right now there's a couple
struggling with sexual intimacy and growing more and more
resentful and distant, and we have good news for that.
If only we had some gospel feet, some beautiful feet to carry it.
Right now there are middleclass families navigating immense
financial pressure and wondering if the stress will destroy not
their dreams, but their present reality.
And we have a gospel message for that.
We have a beautiful message for that.
If only. If only we had somebody with
some beautiful feet to carry it to him.
Right now. Their parents are getting ready
to sign divorce papers. Right now there are spouses who
are filing papers for divorce, and their husband or wife
doesn't even know. Right now.
There are wives in the midst of emotional affairs, and we have
good news for that too. If only there were some
beautiful feet to carry the message.
Right now, there are addicts overcome by their addiction and
they don't know where to turn, but we know where to turn.
We know that you can turn to God who never gives up on you, who
never stops, who never sleeps, who never you never have to wake
him up. We have good news for a person
in a situation like that. If only there was someone who
has some beautiful feet who would take it.
Right now there's an addict who just broke a sobriety streak,
and the shame and the frustration is making them want
to give up and never try again. But we serve a God that it's
never over, that any moment he can step into the picture, then
he can turn things around that God's not afraid of failures.
God saves failures. We have a message for that.
If only we had some beautiful feet to take it to him.
Right now a man in our community is having suicidal thoughts and
we have a gospel message that it's not over as long as God's
in the picture. If only we had some beautiful
feet to take it to him. Right now there are kids getting
ready for school and they have mixed emotions.
At least they'll be fed regularly, but being but their
poverty is a lightning rod for getting bullied.
So they're going to have full stomachs but empty hearts for
the next nine months. And we have a message for that.
We have a message to teach the people around them, the kids
around them, that we should treat them that the way that we
would want to be treated, that they are worthy of dignity
because they have the image of God inside of them.
We have a good news for that, but we also have a good news for
the kid, good news for the kid in poverty, that what defines
your worth is not what is on you, but what is in you.
We have a gospel message for them.
If only we had beautiful feet. Right now there's a young girl
cutting and self harming and we have good news for that, that
she was known by God and loved by God and pursued by God before
she was ever even formed. We have a gospel message.
If only we had somebody, if only we had somebody who had some
beautiful feet. Right now there's a young girl
empty inside and getting ready to cross boundaries sexually in
the hope to find love and acceptance.
But what someone needs to tell her is the gospel messages that
she's already loved. She's already accepted.
If only we had beautiful feet. Right now, rich people who have
everything on the outside but are empty on the inside are
trying to figure out if this is all that life has to offer,
while on the outside they're trying to make sure that
everything looks OK and keep everything fine.
It's the fact that they've been trying to keep up their image
that's keeping them from being honest about where they're
really at. And we have good news for that
right now, a friend or a coworker, it's going through a
diagnosis and there's people around them that don't know how
to answer their questions. Right now, there's people who
are dealing with loss, and there's a gospel message for
that. If only.
If only there were some people with some beautiful feet who
would take it to him. And our world doesn't need this
answer. This church doesn't, or this
world doesn't need this solution.
Intend. Years it doesn't need it in five
years it doesn't need it. Next year it doesn't need it.
This year. It doesn't need it.
Next month. It doesn't need it this month.
It needs it right now. It needs it right now.
It needs the good news of Jesus Christ carried by beautiful
feet. And how could we do anything
last? We're moving to a time of
decision. To those of you in this room and
to those of you watching online who have never started in a
relationship with Jesus Christ, hear me clearly.
Your right relationship with Jesus Christ is not going to be
based on you. It's based on Jesus.
And I keep using the same invitation every week.
I feel like in the Book of Romans, but it's because Book of
Romans keeps saying it over and over and over again.
Your salvation is not based on you, it's based on Him.
The only thing keeping you from being saved is you believing
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, making
him your Lord and Savior, that if you believe in your heart and
confess with your mouth. And the Bible also talks about
being obedient in the area of baptism, that you can receive
not just the washing away of your sins, but you will model
the life, death and burial of Jesus Christ, but also his
resurrection into the newness of life.
And it is available to you right now.
You don't have to wait. And it's just a few moments.
If you're watching online, it probably has already happened.
Somebody's entered into the chat that if you want someone to pray
with you, they're willing to. And we have a team of people
here at this church and also around the nation who will take
you into a private prayer room and they will chat with you and
they'll help you navigate whatever it is you're
navigating. They'll help you get connected
to our church or a church in your area, because we don't want
you to live the Christian life alone.
But to those of you who are in this room, you can choose to get
right with Jesus today. And I'm telling you the only
thing keeping you from making that happen is you.
If you want it, you can have it right now.
To the rest of you in the room, the Christians, who in your life
needs the good news about Jesus. Who in your life needs you to
have beautiful feet? What we're going to do right now
is the church is we are going to bang on the door of heaven for
that. We're going to come up here on
the steps, we're going to get down on our knees and we are
going to bang on heaven's door for the good news to enter their
life. Now I want to give you some
prayer coaching. Let's say that the person you're
praying for is Bob. This is not what your prayer
should be. God, you know how bad Bob is.
Bob is bad. And I'm tired of Bob.
And when I married Bob, I was kind of tired of him, but I
married him anyway. And God, Bob never shows up for
church. And Bob's mean to me when I'm at
home. And then Bob isn't always
helpful when I need help around the house.
And Bob sometimes got a short temper.
And God, I just, I need you to change Bob or some of you.
Your problem's not a Bob, It's a Becky.
And if you're a Becky or a Bob, I just got to pick different
names each week. So just, you know, I'm not
pointing at you. You know, I'd be going, you
know, God, I'm tired of working for Becky.
Becky's mean and not considerate.
And God, I need you to change Becky's heart.
I need you to make Becky more like you.
Because that's what we want to do, isn't it?
We want to pray for other people to get their life right so we
can stay the same. It's a lot easier to pray over
the failures and the shortcomings of other people
than to pray about the failures and the shortcomings and us.
Here's a better prayer. God.
You know who Bob is and you know what it's like when I'm around
him. But God give me the strength to
be kind, even when He's not. Give me the courage to be
patient, even when He's rushed. Give me the courage to be sweet,
even when he's harsh. God, give me the courage to
stand for you. Be kind on your behalf.
Be loving God. Show me the things in my life
that are hurting, Bob. Show me the things in my life
that are keeping Becky from seeing and receiving and hearing
your good news. God, I know that they need a
gospel message and I don't know enough.
God. Convict me enough that I'll
start making moves to know more about you.
God, I'm claiming the promise and scripture that says you'll
give me the words that I need in the moment that I need him when
I decide to talk to him about him.
God, I'm not asking you to do work.
And Bob, I'm not asking you to work.
And Becky, I'm asking you to do a work in me.
Start the work in me. Do it here first before they
need it. Before they need it.
I need it. I need you to get my heart
right. I need you to set me right.
Set my heart aflame with what you want to do in this world
before you start lighting the flame and other people.
Start it right here. Start with me.
Start it now. I don't know what God could do
with the church to pray those kind of prayers.
But I'd like to be around to find out.
Would you stand with me? Do something right now.
Heavenly Father, I'm begging you, do something right now.
Got young and old in their faith.
Lot of flame. But God, don't you light a flame
there that you haven't started in here, Started in me.
Got to bring about a change, a commitment in me.
God make it all the way to the back of the room.
People who are far from you and people who've been close to you.
God, draw us all closer. Got started working here?
Send us out this week with a beautiful gospel message, a
message of hope, and help us to steward it well.
And your name, I pray. Amen.