I come to you today thankful, grateful, overwhelmed, and
overjoyed because I stand before you today a Sinner who has been
saved. And I came to church today to
make much of Jesus Christ. Because of Him, purpose can come
out of your pain. Through Him, the fear of death
can be cast aside. There is no valley I can walk
where His presence is not far off.
There is no whisper that escapes his ear.
There's not enough darkness to overcome His light.
There is no act against me that escapes his sight.
And you might be wondering, how do I know this to be true?
I'll tell you because it is a matter of recorded history that
Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin, lived a perfect and
sinless life, died on the cross, was buried, but he was raised on
the third day. He was dead, but he is risen.
He is alive. So as I said, I come to you
today thankful, grateful, overwhelmed and overjoyed.
I want to welcome those of you joining us here at 48th St. to
those of you in Macomb and Kirksville and 929 Pike County,
Hannibal, Lima, Mount Sterling, Keokuk, Monmouth, Jacksonville,
Weaver, online and inside. We are so glad that you are
here. And I want to extend a very
special welcome to those of you who are here for the first time,
or maybe the first time in a long time.
To those of you who are new here, I've been praying
specifically for you over this last month.
And I believe that God has orchestrated this moment for His
glory and for your good. My name is Clayton Hensel, and
there was a time in my life when I had no meaning, no purpose,
and no hope. I was gripped by sin.
I was crippled with regret, but then I met Jesus and He turned
everything around. So today, as I stand before you,
my life has significance and meaning.
I wake up every morning with purpose through the power of the
Holy Spirit. Sin is losing its power over me
and my desire to sin is being diminished.
And today, my biggest regret is that I did not turn my life over
to Jesus sooner. And I wonder, do you have a
story like that? And if you don't, what if I told
you that you could? That no matter where you are on
your spiritual journey, no matter what challenges you are
presently navigating, no matter what addiction has your life by
the throat? What if I told you that today
your life could be transformed, your past could be forgiven,
your future secure, your hope restored?
I titled my message It missed me.
Turn to your neighbor and say it missed me.
If you don't take anything away from this message, I want you to
take away the title. It missed me.
Let me explain. I like ice cream.
And when I say I like ice cream, that's a bit of an
understatement because I love ice cream.
I love it in cones and in shakes, on cakes and bowls and
on paper plates. I love ice cream.
And I have heard that there are people who walk planet Earth who
are not lactose intolerant, but whatever DNA gift they received,
it missed me. There are people who have
fashion sense. My wife can pull a bandana out
of a glove compartment, a hair tie out of the cup holder, a
high V SAC out of the floorboard, and she could walk a
runway. Not me.
I have the fashion sense of a mule.
I have 0 fashion sense whatsoever.
It is so bad. My wife and some of the team
here at our church get together. They pull all the clothes out of
my closet and they make me a slideshow of what I'm allowed to
wear and what I'm not allowed to wear down to the belt and the
shoes. The only thing that I have
authority over is my underwear and my socks.
And if the service goes according to plan, you will see
neither. I know that there are people,
some of you, that's you. You have the ability to
understand colors and tones and patterns and fits.
Whatever abilities you have, it missed me.
There are people who have the best smiles.
You know what I'm talking about. You see their smile and you just
kind of find yourself stopping and just taking it in.
There's a lady who serves as a difference maker at one of our
locations as a door greeter and I've tried to hire her three
different times. I don't know if she's good at
anything, but what I can tell you is, is when she smiles, your
world slows down and I desperately want her to work in
our offices so that way everybody who comes into our
offices just sees her and will have a good rest of the day.
I, on the other hand, cannot smile.
Cannot smile to save my life. My cheeks shoot up like a
mountain range. Cover my eye.
Here, let me explain. Zoom in.
You ready? This is a real smile.
Do you know what it feels like to have thousands of people
laugh at you over your smile? Listen, I get it.
It's completely fine. It's the people.
Say, Clayton, just open your eyes.
I can't do I can't. They're just like, it's just
whatever facial tissue. You guys got it missed me.
There's some people who have, I want to make sure I use the
right word here. A metabolism.
Have you met those people? They can eat whatever they want,
whenever they want at whatever time they want and they just get
to keep enjoying life. I on the other hand, I I went
the other day. I don't want to make a big deal
of how good of a husband I am, but I was grocery shopping by
myself and I stayed too long in the cinnamon roll aisle and
gained 5 lbs because I wasn't wearing gloves.
I, I just, I, I was my mistake, I shouldn't have done it.
There's some people they can go to friends houses, sit in any of
their furniture and not worry about what's going to happen
after that. This is missing most of you, but
there's some of you who live with my condition where it's not
good. Let me testify for just a
second. On multiple times at multiple
houses, I have destroyed their furniture.
I sat down just like everybody else and then I kept going.
Unlike everybody else. There are certain people who
I've been to their house multiple times and on multiple
occasions I have broke their lawn furniture.
There's even one family where I broke 2 chairs and one night
there was plastic shrapnel going everywhere.
It was like bombs are going off. I basically qualify for the VA.
Whatever gifts God gave some people be able to sit in lawn
furniture. It missed me.
There's some people who are going, Oh my goodness, it would
be so great to be tall like you, Clayton.
You wish you were tall like me until you had to live like me.
It's not all it's cracked up to be.
Let me explain. They've never had to do an
origami sequence to get out of a car.
They've never been in a vehicle and going.
I should have taken up yoga because I'm going to need about
6 sessions to get out of here. You don't have to hold your
breath while you're tying your shoes.
You don't have to worry about standing up too fast because
your blood can't keep up with your brain and passing out.
They've never been hit in the head by the door closer while
walking into the Pizza Hut all you can eat buffet.
No joke. The door was just closing in
front of me and you guys don't think doors closing is a big
deal? It's not a big deal for normal
people, but the door closer came out and tapped me in the
forehead like I was Goliath and about put me out.
You've never had to worry about your dryer getting too hot and
turning your pants into capris and you got to know when you're
my size, you don't wear capris. They've never.
You guys can just put on shirts and you can wave at people.
I can't wave at people. I got to be super careful
because I can turn a curved hem into a mid drift real fast.
Do you know how hard it is to make friends after you've shown
them your belly button? It's incredibly difficult.
Whatever gifts you guys have, it missed me.
A long time ago, I took our youth group down to Six Flags to
ride the roller coasters. I had never ridden a roller
coaster in my life. So we got in and we all stand in
the line and everybody comes over and they do their thing and
then the attendant comes out. Do you know how hard it is to
ride your first roller coaster as a pastor with your youth
group and not cuss when you are being held on by 1 Metal Tooth
manufactured in China and prayer?
There are a lot of normal sized people floating around.
But normal sized, well, it missed me.
Turn to your neighbor and say it missed me.
There might be some of you today.
And you think because of the way life has turned out, because of
what you've done, that the plans of God, the purposes of God, the
grace of God, the mercy of God, the love of God have landed on
everyone else. But it missed you.
And if that's where you are today, I wrote this message for
you. If you want to understand God,
the very best way to do that is through his scriptures, through
the Bible. And as you read your Bible,
you'll discover that God is holy and perfect, good, great, loving
and righteous. Because of that, God cannot
accept sin, nor can he tolerate it.
And this makes sense. A judge who does not punish evil
is not a good judge, nor a judge who should be trusted.
So God in his goodness made a way for the sins of people to be
made right, because sins carry a penalty.
Romans chapter 6 verse 23 tells us that the wages of sin is
death. So how do we atone for our sins?
Hebrews 922 tells us that without the shedding of blood
there is no forgiveness of sins. That means that my sins and your
sins deserve an eternal punishment because they were
committed against an eternal God.
In 2010, JD Greer wrote a book called Breaking the Islam Code,
and in it he gives an illustration that he would use
to explain to the people he was trying to reach about the
character of our God. This is how the story goes.
An ancient king had a reputation among his countrymen as being
the most just and the most loving king that had ever lived.
One day it was discovered that money was being stolen from his
treasury, and so he made a decree that whoever was caught
stealing would be whipped with 10 lashes.
Several weeks went by and the stealing of money persisted, so
the king issued A decree doubling the punishment.
The thief who was caught would receive 20 lashes.
News spread across the land. Several more weeks passed by and
still money was being stolen from the treasury.
And so the king issued this decree, doubling it again. 40
lashes will be visited upon the thief, and 40 lashes was a death
sentence. Nobody could survive it.
Several days passed and the thief was discovered and
apprehended, and to the shock and the horror of the country,
it was none other than the King's own mother.
What was the king to do? Some thought that the king would
punish her, but others asked how can this be the most loving king
who has ever lived and kill his own mother.
Others thought that such a loving king would surely pardon
his mother, but others contended that this would not be just.
The punishment had been declared, and if the king were
just, he must dole out the punishment.
The king decided that because the law was clear, the
punishment had to be given. And so, in front of the entire
country, the King's mother was brought out, her arms bound and
stretched over the whipping stone.
They undid the back of her dress and exposed her bareback.
And the guard stood off to the side and raised his hand to
deliver the 1st of 40 lashes. And the king cried out.
Stop. Everybody in the country held
their breath, wondering what was going to happen next.
The king walked over, took off his shirt and laid himself over
the back of his mother. Turn it to the guard and said,
now hit her. The guard said, king, there is
no way for me to hit her without hitting you.
The king said I am the king. I am giving you an order.
Give her the punishment. Now hit her and the guard
proceeded to administer all 40 of the lashes upon the King's
mother. But each of those 40 lashes
landed on the King. His body shielded her from the
punishment that she deserved. I titled my sermon today.
It missed me. It missed me the punishment that
I deserved from a righteous and holy God.
It missed me. The punishment that I had earned
missed me. The punishment that I owed the
debt of death and blood. It missed me.
But let me be clear, it did not miss me because I was good.
It did not miss me because my parents took me to church or my
parents loved God. It did not miss me because I
tried to live a decent life. It did not miss me because I
made enough money or gave enough money away.
It did not miss me because I was clever and dodged it.
It did not miss me because I was smart and talked my way out of
it. It missed me because it landed
on Jesus, and it landed on Jesus because He shielded me and
covered me from what I deserved. It missed me.
Romans chapter 3 verses 25 and 26 give us insight into this.
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through
the shedding of Jesus's blood to be received by faith.
How does it miss me when I in faith, grab hold of what Jesus
has done on my behalf? God did this to demonstrate His
righteousness because in His forbearance, in His patience, He
had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.
He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present
time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have
faith in Jesus. Let me unpack that.
You see, God is not just good, He is also great.
He's not just holy, He's also loving.
He is not simply just and doing what is right and issuing the
punishment that we deserve. Watch this.
He is also the justifier who makes people like you and me
right through the powerful work of His Son Jesus.
No wonder Isaiah the prophet cries out in chapter 53.
Look at what happens to Jesus and look at what happens to us
in this passage. But he was pierced for our
transgressions. He was crushed for our
iniquities. The punishment that brought us
peace was on Him. By his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray.
Each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on
him the iniquity of us all. There's this interesting word in
the Greek language, the language that the Bible was written in.
The word is to telesty. There are a variety of ways the
word was used by the writers of the 1st century.
The word simply means it is finished.
They would use to telesty when a task was accomplished, when a
dangerous feat had been performed.
It was used when a plan had been put into effect.
When someone's will was carried out.
They used to tell us die at when a promise was fulfilled, when
orders to a soldier were executed.
They used the word when an oath was made effective, when a legal
document was formally signed. They used it when a prayer was
brought to pass, when a request was granted.
It was used when a time period had come to an end to tell us
die. They used it when a sickness had
reached its conclusion and healing was being poured out.
They used it when a debt had been paid.
In fact, when archaeologists started putting together scraps
of legal documents written in papyrus repeatedly at the top of
these legal documents they would find the word to telestye across
the receipts and the bills of sale.
It was their way of saying paid in full.
If you go home today and you were to open up your Bible to
the book of John to the 19th chapter, while Jesus is hanging
on the cross, you see Jesus pushing up with his legs that
are pierced, pulling up with his arms that are pierced so oxygen
can fill his lungs so he can say something.
And what is it that he says? John 1930 Jesus said to Telesty,
it is finished. And what a fitting word for Him
to proclaim from the cross, perhaps the most fitting word of
all, because in that moment the task for which the Father had
sent him was accomplished, for He had paid for our sins.
The dangerous feat had been performed, but it cost Him His
very life. The plan of making you and I
righteous had been put into effect and the will of God had
been carried out. The promise of God was
fulfilled. The oath was made effective.
The legal document declaring us righteous in His sight had been
formally signed. The prayer of our souls that
have victory over sin was brought to pass.
The time period when Satan had control and the right to bind us
by guilt and shame had come to an end, and the sickness of sin
had reached its end. For by His stripes we have been
healed, and across the debt of sin that you and I could never
pay, Written in love by the very blood of Jesus Christ are the
words to Telesty Paid in full. It missed me and it landed on
Jesus. When you read the Old Testament,
you get all of these pictures of God, and then when you read the
New Testament, you see them fulfilled in Jesus.
You see, Jesus is Jehovah Roki, who is the shepherd who lays
down his life for the sheep. He's Jehovah Nisi, who wins the
battle that I could never win and grants me victory over my
enemy, the devil. He's Jehovah Rapha who heals me
from the sickness of my sin. He's Jehovah Shalom who gives me
a peace that surpasses understanding.
He's Jehovah Mechadesh who sanctifies me.
He's El Rohi who sees me in my shame and guilt and moves on my
behalf. He is Jehovah Jireh, who
provides what I could not provide for my It missed me.
Like I said, I came today thankful, grateful, overwhelmed
and overjoyed because there was a time in my life when I had no
meaning, no purpose, no hope. My life was gripped by sin and
crippled with regret. But then I met Jesus and he
turned everything around and I stand before you today as a
person whose life has significance and meaning.
I wake each day with purpose to the power of the Holy Spirit.
Sin is losing its power over me and my desire to sin is being
diminished because Jesus has declared to tell us die over my
past, my present and my future. Do you have a story like that?
And if you don't, do you want one?
Because the penalty that I deserved, it missed me and it
landed on Jesus. But in that moment, but my sin
and my shame and my pain and my sin landed on Jesus.
Grace landed on me. Mercy landed on me.
Purpose and meaning landed on me.
Love landed on me. And I want it to land on you
too. We're moving to a time of
decision. So to that group of people I
want to talk to 1st or those of you who don't know Jesus, you've
never started that intimate personal relationship with
Jesus. Lean in real quick and don't
miss this. You might be thinking, hey, I
just heard Clayton's story and it's great that he had this
encounter with Jesus and that he's been redeemed and he's been
set free and he's got a story. And you may be thinking, what
about me? But I get to tell you as a
follower of Jesus as well that that is my story as well, that
at my very lowest and at my worst, Jesus met me and he
conquered the sin that was in my life on the finished work of the
cross. He simply said to Telesty, it is
paid in full and making Jesus Christ my personal Lord and
Savior was the very best decision that I have ever made
in my life when I was just 17 years old.
But I will tell you that my biggest regret is that I did not
do it sooner. I had friends and had family.
They invited me to church. I had friends and I had family.
They, they share the good news of Jesus Christ with me, but I
put it off. I ignored it and because of
that, I just kept living life my way with my terms and I was left
without purpose and I was left causing destruction all around
me. But that's not just Clayton's
story. And I know that's not just my
story. I know that there are thousands
of people who are part of the crossing church, that that is
their story as well. And so for those of you who
don't know Jesus yet, this and I'm going to do something and I
just need you just to kind of glance around real quick and see
how beautiful the the testimony of his people are.
If you're in this room and even if you're online right now, if
the greatest decision you've ever made was making Jesus
Christ, your personal Lord and Savior, could you just raise
your hand, put it down? And I know there's some of you
in this room. There's some of you online.
You, you have this foundation of faith.
Your family raised you and you, you had an early faith early on.
But I believe there's probably a lot of you like me and like
Clayton, that your biggest regret is that you didn't do it
sooner. If that's your story, would you
put your hand back up, Look around.
It's not just our story. God is doing it over and over
and over again. And, and I believe that God can
do it right now in this moment and in this space in your life
over you, if you don't let it miss you.
And it's just a moment. The worship team, they're going
to come out on the stage. We're going to sing some songs
and some are going to come up to the steps and they're going to
pray. And I would invite you, if
you're like, I want to start that relationship with Jesus
today, Easter Sunday. You want to claim new life.
Maybe you have questions or you want to talk to a pastor.
There's going to be someone right over there by the
baptistry, right underneath that screen that would love to talk
with you and help you make the greatest decision of your entire
life, your entire eternity. And online right now, there's a
prompt that just came on the screen for you.
If you would like to start that relationship with Jesus, just
click that button and don't put it off any longer.
For the rest of us who are following Jesus, maybe you just
started following Jesus. Maybe you've been following them
for a couple months, years. I don't know how long.
Listen, by now, I'm hoping our hearts are full and we're ready
just to go into this time of worship and response and just
like lift our hands up and just sing a little bit louder at just
the goodness of God, all that he's done on and in and over our
lives. But I'm assuming that there's
probably something in your life that you're like, hey,
something's not quite right with the Lord.
If you need to turn something over, you need to recommit and
just say, hey, I want to be all about the work of the Kingdom.
A version of this word to Telesty shows up a little bit
later in the New Testament that I want to share with you.
It's Paul who is talking to Timothy, and it's in Second
Timothy chapter 4, and it says these words.
I have fought the good fight. You probably heard this.
I've fought the good fight. I have finished the race.
I've kept the faith. And believers, if you're in this
room and I just want to ask you a few questions as we go into
this time of worship. Are you still fighting the good
fight? Are you still running the race
that has been marked out for you?
Are you still holding tightly to the faith?
If not, I'm praying that you would use this time to recommit
your life to the cause of Christ.
I invite you to the steps. Maybe you bring your family up,
maybe just get down on your knees and you just give God
thanks. The reason we come forward, we
humble ourselves, is because we simply want to say, I'm lowering
myself before an almighty God and I want to recommit whatever
is not in alignment with His will.
I'm praying that there's a lot of us in this room.
That's probably what we need to do.
Or if there's a sin that just has you wrapped, up, a sin that
you just keep running back to, maybe for you, you just need to
claim to telesty. It is finished, it is paid in
full, and you give it to him In this moment, would you stand
with me as we respond and as we come to the steps and as we sing
and we celebrate the name of Jesus?
Heavenly Father, we love you. I thank you for this moment.
I thank you for your gospel, your good news.
I thank you for the cross. I thank you for what the work is
that was completed on the cross. But but more importantly, we're
thankful that the cross is no longer, the grave is no longer.
You have defeated death. You have defeated shame.
You have defeated my sin and their sin, and right now we are
covered by your blood. We are covered by your
righteousness. And so God, in this time,
whether it's someone who is coming and just declaring a new
life in you or there's someone who is just recommitting their
allegiance to you, I pray we come humbly, we come excited, we
come expectant, what you can do in US and through us in this
moment, in Jesus name that I pray, Amen.