Wow, how are you doing Crossing Church?
Are you doing, okay? That doesn't light a fire under
your Woods wet. Need to dry out, something needs
to happen. Well, I am so glad to be here
with all of you with everyone online, everyone inside all of
our locations. It's so great to get together
because when the people of the Lord get together and the Holy
Spirit inhabits, the Praises of his people stuff happens, the
Holy Spirit, begins working, amazing, things happen.
And I pray that that is something that happens.
There's something special that happens to you today.
I want to welcome all of our campuses joining together and
we're in a series called reclaim restoring what was lost fixing
what was broken and we've learned a lot, we've already
learned a lot in this series, there's a lot of things to
reclaim in our marriages. There's so much working against
us. Those of us that are married, I
mean culture is just coming against us, slamming down on us,
and we have to get back to the basics, or we have to find the
basics for the first time Allison.
I just came back from two days at our camp at a marriage
Retreat. And it's just so rewarding to
see the lights come on in people's lives, are asking
really substantive questions and things are getting put together
or put back together in a right way.
Way. That's so encouraging to me that
we can actually do proactive things to reclaim our marriages
last a couple of weeks ago. Clayton talked about technology
and how how I social media and other types of Technology
supposed to connect us. Actually disconnect us from
every critical relationship that we hold dear.
I started thinking about it and the context of my own life you
know how hyped up we can get. I mean, and right now for
clickbait all of them. Media and social media are
trying to just get us angry, stir us up all the time.
And I don't know about you, but I get the feeling that in my
heart. And so I deleted Facebook
Twitter and Instagram off my phone.
You know what? I don't feel less.
Then I felt before, because I could feel myself, amping up.
We have to reclaim the quality of those relationships last
week. Clayton, talked about porn.
Wow. That's a hard topic to talk
about. I mean a tall order, right?
And and he did such an excellent job and the thing I love the
most about last week's experience was, you know, we
always call people to come to the front and you know, to just
kind of let the burdens go and of course you know who's going
to do that when you're preaching a sermon on born, right?
So there he's going to go. Oh yeah.
And he said, come on Church everybody come up.
Let's prop provide cover for these other for people that are
dealing with this issue and the whole front was full of people
and I thought to myself if that isn't a picture of the church,
what is a picture of the church that we come around each other
and we cover each other? With our prayers with our
concerns? I thought that was awesome.
We have to reclaim our Holiness because this stuff damages us
and our culture is saturated in sexualized things that really
destroy healthy sexuality. Now today I'm going to be
talking about money and I know that some of you're going to go.
Oh, great. He's talking about money now,
I'm not talking about church money.
I want to talk about your money. And I want you to think of the
things that we've already discussed marriage.
Technology, sexuality. And now, today money, you know,
they are all incredible blessings, aren't they?
They all are but there's a reality that comes with
blessings. There's always a dark side to
every blessing and when something is used properly, it's
a blessing. And when it's misused or abused,
it can become something. That's incredibly painful, more
painful than Than the blessing can be.
And so, I'm so thankful. For the blessing of my marriage
because I win. I don't know about the rest of
you. I mean it's great.
Maybe you're doing good in your bracket, you know, for the NCAA.
But when it comes to marriage I win you guys.
Good second third, fourth sixteenth, great.
But right, there's number one, nobody beats me when it comes to
my wife, as as a life partner and a Ministry partner except
for my, that's my point of view. And that's the only one that
matters in that bracket and I am thankful for technology, you
know, particularly Now that there's such a thing as face
time because well, I miss my grandkids, I get to get on
FaceTime and I don't get to hear about how they lost a tooth.
I get to see what they look like, with both our teeth brush
teeth gone or the latest toy that they're playing with, I'm
so thankful for that. I'm also thankful that we can
have healthy sexuality because those grandkids that I'm talking
about that's where they came from.
Healthy sexuality and the Oneness that I get to experience
with my spouse. And I'm also thankful for money.
I'm thankful for the things that it can do the doors, that it can
open the comfort that it can provide.
But there is a dark side and that's why we need to talk about
having these things. Reclaimed So, where do I start
with this idea of money? Well, I'm going to start with
history. There was a man who was
considered one of the most powerful rulers of all time.
His name was Ramses. The second he was also known as
Ramses, the Great and he was the greatest leader of one of the
greatest kingdoms, that the world has ever seen the Kingdom
of Egypt. He died in 1213, BC and
Egyptians built monuments to him particularly at the city of
Eve's. And one of those monuments was a
depiction of him Seated on a throne as a young rameses.
It stood 62 feet high, that's imposing when you think about
him sitting and it's still six stories high.
And one of the things that made this particular depiction of
Ramses, the Great interesting was that it was inscribed on the
bottom in Greek. Because at the time, of course,
nobody knew how to translate hieroglyphics.
They had discovered the Rosetta Stone yet and so, a lot of these
things in Egypt were Mysteries. But this one wasn't a minister,
a mystery because it was inscribed in Greek.
And this is what it said in Greek king of kings Ozymandias.
Am I if anyone to know how great I am and where I lie?
Let him out. Do me in my work.
Wow. So as man Dias is Greek for
Ramses. nearly 1,200 years later that would have meant at the
time of Christ a Greek historian named diodorus actually went to
thieves and witness the broken ruin of what had been this
colossal statue and wrote about it in his volume of world
history and over 800 years after that, Amana a poet by the name
of Percy Shelley, got with some of his friends and they were
doing speed riding over different topics and the topic
that day was this archeological ruin of Ramses, the Great.
And so they all wrote quickly in about 10 minutes, Percy Shelley
wrote his most famous, sonnet, And this is what it says.
I met a Traveller from an antique land who said, two vast
and trunkless legs of Stone Stand in the desert near them on
the sand. Half sunk a shattered Visage,
lies, whose frown, and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command.
Tell that it's sculptor. Well, those passions read.
Which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things, the hand
that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal, these words appear.
My name is Ozymandias King of Kings.
Look on my Works, ye Mighty and despair.
Nothing beside remains round. The decay of that colossal
wreck, boundless, and bare the lone and level, Sands stretch
far away. What a picture of how the Mighty
Fall. The accumulation of all this
wealth and all of this power. And all of this Fame designed to
last forever immortalized, in stone, doesn't last forever at
all. And if that's what we're living
for, if that's what your Desiring, you're placing your
faith in the wrong place. Now I'm not talking about the
money, it's about where money or power or the pursuit of that
stands on the list of priorities of your life.
And some of those heartbreaking stories that I've ever heard
since I've been at the Crossing, or stories of people who came to
the crossing and, like, many of us before we have the
experience, with this church, never knew that we could
actually have an intimate personal relationship with Jesus
Christ. We understood about religion, we
understood about going to church, but the thought that you
could actually know Jesus that you could actually interact with
Jesus, that you could, Have this relationship with Jesus was a
foreign idea until they experienced it here, and they
experienced massive transformation and that
transformation went out into their marriage, into their
family, into their extended family, and it's so beautiful,
and they became rooted in a spiritual community.
And they were flourishing and bearing fruit.
And then I've seen some of those same people here about
opportunities, maybe more money, maybe A career advancement.
And the desire for that next thing that desire to go up the
next rung of the ladder. LED them to go somewhere else
and they hadn't done their homework about, where's the
spiritual Community down there. I've had phone calls where
they've called me and said, can you help me?
We're trying to find a place down.
We're not able to find a place down here and you know, we're
watching online or we're doing this or that.
And they never get rooted, they never get routed down.
They ever put foundations down in a new spiritual community and
then I hear the story later on that the marriage is blown up,
the family's blown up. And it's just a tragedy. now,
I'm not saying that you can't do it like once you're here, you
know, the door only swings one way you can't leave, but I am
saying that you have to pay careful attention to the most
important things in life because without the spiritual support
bad things can really happen and wealth can be a blessing, but
only if it's used in the way that God intended, The Apostle
Paul was teaching Timothy about this very thing and in 1st
Timothy Chapter 6 in verse 6 he says this but godliness with
contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into the world
and we can take nothing out of it.
But if we have food and clothing, we will be content
with that. But those who want to get rich
fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and
harmful desires. Plunge people into ruin and
destruction. For the Love of Money is the
root of all kinds of evil. And some people eager for money.
Have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many
griefs. now, I want to go back into that scripture and I want
you to look at the beginning of it, and I think every single
person Listening to the sound of my voice right now.
Would agree with me and agree with this scripture.
That that's what we want. He says godliness with
contentment is great gain. How many of you really love the
idea of godliness you want to be more Godly?
You want to be closer to God than you are?
How many of you would agree with that?
Right now you say yep. That's what I want.
Sure, of course we all want that right?
And then the second thing that said, there is contentment.
Contentment. How many of you are pursuing?
The Secret of contentment? You want to be content?
No matter what, the circumstance that you'd love to be more
content. How about that?
Yeah, again, we're all in agreement.
That's what we want. But where we looking for that,
Where's the source for that? And then you see this other
thing and I can I know that nobody wants this other thing
that people who want to get rich and that uses the word fall fall
into temptation, kind of gives you this idea of a pit like like
like like you're just falling into this big a hole in the
ground, right? They fall into temptation.
How many of you want to be tempted?
Oh yeah, tent me. And attract, how many of you
want to be entrapped? Not a hand.
How many you want to have foolish and harmful desires.
Give me some foolish and harmful desires.
I'm anybody know where I can get some foolish and harmful
desires. No, nobody's asking for that.
Nobody wants that. And then it uses the word plunge
plunge people. Again this idea of falling ruin
into ruin and destruction because somebody please show me
where I can get some ruin and destruction because that's what
I want. Nobody wants that.
And yet how many people are looking for the opposite thing?
Then what is provided? Because people who want to get
rich, believe in that lie. Now, I want to put this in the
proper perspective, I'm not saying that money is bad, I'm
not saying that taking care of your families, but on the
contrary, in first Timothy 5:8, just one chapter before just one
page before in your Bible, Paul instructs Timothy.
He says, anyone who does not provide for their relatives and
especially for their own household, has denied the faith
and is worse than an unbeliever. I don't think anybody wants to
be worse than an unbeliever. That's pretty bad.
Do I I want to be worse than one.
Well if you don't provide for your family, you're worth.
So wait a minute. This is frustrating.
On the one hand you tell me I'm supposed to avoid the love of
money. On the other hand, I'm supposed
to provide for my family. So how do I walk this tightrope?
I don't understand how these two things work together.
Maybe a better way to say it is, how do I enjoy the blessings of
God's Financial provision but not let it spin me out or my
family out? Well, let's Let Jesus instruct
us today. Let's look, Jesus teach us.
So Jesus is preaching the most epic sermon of all time.
The Sermon on the Mount, is Matthew, 5, 6, and 7.
And as he's coming to the ending of that sermon, he tells this
story. This, this Parable, this lesson
in the story and it has to do with this very thing.
And this is what I want to bring to you.
You have to start if you want to walk that rope that tightrope
you have to build your life on the right foundation.
Matthew 7:24 to 27 says therefore anyone who hears these
words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who
built his house on the rock and the rain came down the streams
Rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house yet, it
did not fall because it has Had its foundations on the rock.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put
them into practice, is like a foolish man who built his house
on the sand, and the rain came down the streams Rose, and the
winds blew and beat against that house.
And it fell. With a great crash.
We need to build our life on a firm foundation.
We sing that song. That Christ is my firm
foundation. Do you have a firm foundation?
Do your foundations go deep? Are they stable?
A couple of years ago we did a series I love this series and 10
lessons in it and we started at the beginning of the year was
called closed on Sunday and it was based off of a song that
Kanye West had written and he had just released this album
that went like Mega platinum and it was just an awesome awesome
song. I remember the lyrics like stand
up for my home. Even if I have to walk this
alone you remember that was just like wow.
It just captured the this idea this concept of putting Christ
first and putting down those kinds of Foundations.
I remember my son Joey said Jerry or dad live by the Kanye
die by the Kanye. So he said, be careful because,
you know, the the wind blows around and I but I really think
I really think that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were
trying to make it happen. They really were but it didn't
last. And those of you that do follow
these things on social media, know that Kim's back to dating
around and doing skimpy. Photoshoots and Kanye who is
now, ye is getting cancelled for all of his outrageousness.
And all I can think is that. So sad, you know, why it's sad
because it was all in front of them.
They knew the right answer. But worldly desires got the best
of them. A good foundation is expensive
and it's even more expensive. If you've already built a whole
structure of your life on a bad Foundation, because what that
means is, you got to tear all of that down all the way down
below. Those foundations and lay the
right one. The Apostle Paul said in First
Corinthians 3, there is no Foundation that can be laid
other than the one already laid and that Foundation is Jesus
Christ. He has to be that foundation and
they have to go down deep. so, my question to you, is this Are
you on the right foundation? Do you have an intimate personal
relationship with Jesus Christ? If you're going to try to live
on that tightrope to be providing for your family and at
the same time, not allowing the love of money to take you down,
that really destructive Road. You have to have that
relationship with Jesus. So if that's the case, maybe
some of you are saying, hey, I've laid that I've got that
Foundation. Jesus Christ is the rock on
which I stand. Great.
What are you building on it? And what could we learn from
Jesus on how to build what we build on it?
How about this, don't build what you can't afford.
Make sure you can afford what you build.
Jesus told three stories in succession told the story of a
hundred sheep and one got lost in the shepherd, went to find
that lost sheep left the 99 to go.
Find that one lost sheep. Then told a second story about a
woman who had 10 coins and lost one of those coins and swept her
whole house to find it would rejoice when she found that one
of ten coins and then he concluded with a parable of two
sons. We know this story is The
Prodigal Son. And the younger, the one who
didn't have the responsibility to family, the wouldn't get the
double portion of the inheritance asked his father to
have his inheritance early and his father did as he acts, so he
gave him half of his inheritance.
Now that would have been a lot. You can build a life on that,
but what did he decide to do? The Bible uses this term, he
spent it on loose living. Anybody have any illustrations
personally in your life about something that would fall under
the heading of loose living? Yeah.
How did that last? How did that work out?
Could you afford that when you did that?
You know the story, right? So, he spent his inheritance on
that, and then when the money was gone, there was a famine in
the land and he was starving to death.
And so he found work in a pigsty but he still didn't have enough
to eat and he was longing to eat.
The slop that was being fed to the pigs and then he said, I'll
go home to my father. Either?
I don't deserve to be a son, I'll just be a hired servant he
memorized this whole speech so you can.
Can you see this emaciated disheveled young man coming
back, mustering the energy to come back to his father.
The Bible says, while he was still a long way off and
probably not recognizable, his father saw him all that way away
and ran to him. And here, he's got the speech
prepared in the father throws, his arms around his Go, son and
won't hear any of that. My son was dead and is alive
again. He was lost and now he's found.
Let's throw a party. What a beautiful picture of the
love of God. for his children and yet, He didn't get another
slice of inheritance, did he? It was gone and he had to start
from scratch. This man had everything he
needed for a great life, but he wasted it.
The moral of this story for us is don't waste your life, don't
waste your resources, building. Something that is disposable so
many things in our lives, we've considered them disposable but
your life itself, that's not disposable.
It has Eternal ramifications eternal.
Joy said, pay you back. Don't blow that Sometimes.
We get a skewed view of what makes life good.
So we build our lives on things that we shouldn't like on debt.
Now, I'm not saying that dead is a sin.
I'm not saying loan is a bad thing but it can ruin you.
We have to be very careful with that and not try mean you me you
me you might look at some other people and you go look at that
car. They're driving.
I wish I had a car like that. Look at the house or living in.
I wish I had outside. Look at the clothes, they're
wearing then I wish I had something like that.
And so what do we do with our credit card?
Then what happens? When we're dealing with like,
exorbitant interest rates. We can spend our lives on once,
and totally miss what we need. And I need to tell you this.
I'm 63 years old. So everybody that's younger than
me, listen to this. Okay, God is faithful.
When you put him first, he will take care of you.
You think you're good at taking care of your kids, he's better.
He will take care of you. But you have to put him first,
you have to live your life by his priorities and not by your
own. He has always been faithful some
of you right now. You're saying I'm disconnecting
from this because you don't I'm already there I'm already not
not not in the good way but in the bad way like I'm like you
know I can't even get a credit card anymore, all the other ones
are blown up. I got people, I got this.
I don't know how I'm going to make it.
I'm worried, I'm struggling. Look, we know that that's a
reality in your life and in American culture, and as a
church, we want to reach out to you want to help you.
So at all of our locations today, there's an info bar.
There's a place where you can connect and there's something
we've been doing for a long time, Financial Peace
University. And we want to encourage you to
go back to the info bar, at the end of a service and sign up.
And say, I want to be a part of that.
I want to learn how to do that, because the stories of how
people in such a short time are actually able to reverse that
curse, you can do it. And it's christ-centered is
god-honoring. You can do that some of your
going. I don't have time to attend a
class. We're going to have one online
for you. so, if you don't want to get in a car on a cold day,
we got you We want to be the people that have these things in
there, right? Order, our priorities, and our
right order. We want to help you do that.
So, make sure you build on a right foundation.
Don't build what you can afford and number three, build a life
that lasts. You can have a good foundation
and you can build a good building.
What is your life but will it last?
Jesus was confronted with the question.
In Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 13.
Read it with me. It's someone in the crowd said
to him. Teacher tell my brother to
divide the inheritance with me and Jesus replied men who
appointed me a judge in an Arbiter between you, then he
said to them, watch out be on your guard against all kinds of
greed. Life does not consist in the
abundance of possessions, can I get an amen to that?
Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions and he
told them this Parable, the ground of a certain rich, man
yielded an abundant Harvest and he thought to himself.
What shall I do? I have no place to store my
crops then he said this is what I'll do.
I will tear down my Barns and build bigger ones and there, I
will store my Surplus grain and I'll say to myself, you have
plenty of grain light up laid up for many years.
Take life, easy, eat drink and be merry.
But God said to him, you fool, this very night, your life will
be demanded of you, then who will get what you've prepared
for yourself? This is how it will be.
With anyone who stores up things for themselves.
But is not rich toward God. you know, sometimes we think that
success, with possessions means that we are a successful person
it doesn't mean that we might think the bigger the barn, the
better, the life, Sometimes we can feel that way.
I know that sometimes I felt that way.
So a couple of months ago, January I was asked to speak
down in Phoenix and a friend. This friend of mine invited me
to speak and it happened to be the same week as the
Barrett-Jackson Auction. And I'll just say if, you know,
you know, okay. One of the things that I had
said to this guy the year before he was asking me a question,
what's your favorite car Jerry? And you know what somebody's
going to say you know, they're going to say Ferrari or
Lamborghini or you know, some exotic car Maybach or something
like that. And I said a lucid And he went
what and I said a lucid. I've never heard of elusive.
Most of you haven't heard of a lucid.
How many of you've never heard of a lucid?
Yeah. See what I'm saying?
Poor people, so sad. Well, Lucid is an electric car.
It's actually made in Arizona about an hour south of
Scottsdale where the Barrett-Jackson Auction is.
And I told him about it and then when we were coming, the next
year, we were going to go to Barrett-Jackson.
He said you're not going to believe this.
They have a lucid Driving Experience there and you could
even you could actually drive a lucid, okay?
You a lucid is a sedan, it's got four doors.
It has six different ways. It can massage you in the seat.
This is what it looks like. That that's that.
That is a lucid at the Barrett-Jackson Auction.
It is also the Lucid that I drove next picture.
Just in case you're wondering that's me getting in the lucid.
Okay. Do I like it?
Because it's comfortable. Wilshire.
Do I like it? Because, you know, it's got
great interior finish. Yeah.
No, the reason I like it. It has over 1,000 horsepower.
Over 1,000 horsepower. Yeah, this is actually the
middle lucid. Like the low end loose.
It's on like 860. Like, who cares 160 horsepower?
Okay, that's like a rocket ship. This is over at the one.
I drove is over 1000. They have one called the
sapphire. Has 1,400 1,400 horsepower.
Yeah, the engineer sitting in the right seat, when I was
driving said he goes we don't even ask ourselves doing ask the
question about is that enough horsepower anymore?
Now we're having ethical conversations on.
Is it right? Should you even have that much
horsepower? And I thought I would be driving
it in a parking lot. He goes on now.
We're going out on the highway and I took that sucker out on
the highway and he goes, he goes, keep it slow, keep it
slow, keep it slow until I got about 300 yards between me and
the car in front of me. He goes let it eat.
And I put down the accelerator pedal, and I only got halfway
before. I was on that bumper.
I felt like, I mean, you've heard of the ten dollar test
where you put a ten dollar bill on the dash and see if you can
get it, you can have it like it, put it like, if you're so stiff,
it's your car so fast. It pushes you back in the seat.
I've never experienced anything like this.
This was like, just this like being an astronaut going
horizontal. It was crazy, and so I get out
of car. And I get on the phone, and I
call that woman right there. And I said, Allison, I need, I
need this car. I need this car bat.
How much is it? That's 138 thousand dollars.
Come on. Needless to say, I didn't come
home with a lucid. And here's the rear.
So here's the the other truth of that.
I cannot imagine the beautiful leather seats of that.
Lucid having like divots in the back seat, from the car seats
for my grandkids. I can't imagine cleaning up the
stain on the beautiful carpet from the juice box.
I can't imagine what it would be like, pulling out the half
sticky, half melted candy. You know I'm trying to say No
matter how beautiful something, might seem how incredible it
might be. It won't last.
You know, what does last an intimate personal relationship
with Jesus Christ? That'll last.
You know what, a last when you make his priorities, your
priorities. When you put him first every day
and when you don't, you repent of it.
When you do life, his way, not your way in every way, it'll let
you choose a better spouse. Raise better kids have a
purpose, filled life, and find peace in the midst of storms
with an unshakable, hope for the future Be a fool.
I got a text message this morning from my oldest sister.
Carolyn who said death is imminent for my sister Arlene,
she's dying right now. She hasn't already passed away.
But let me tell you something about my sister Arlene.
She is a spiritual Tyrannosaurus.
She knows the word better than I know the word. and I remember
texting her back this morning before first service going, can
you imagine Can you imagine the people?
Welcoming her mom, dad my brother, Larry.
DJ and a lot of other other names, the thought of it.
To be in a new body that will never wear out.
Never grow old. Never expand, like mine has
Commit to imagine it. Oh, I'm going to miss her
terribly. I love calling her, getting her
advice. And I'm not going to have that
for a while, but that is the treasure that you lay up for
yourself. When you lay up Treasures in
Heaven rather than putting them here on the earth.
It's not just about money, it's about relationships about
opportunities. I'm going to give you five quick
things. 52. Dues ready.
Number one, trust God. You know why you should trust
God? Because you can There, maybe
everything else in this world that you can't, but you can
trust God number to put down the idol of wealth.
Quit living, comparatively, welcome those people live in the
house, I should live in a house that big I should drive a car
like that. Save yourself, the pain of
self-imposed piercing with grief.
Number 3, automate, your giving, you know, Jesus said, when you
give don't be like the pagans. Don't let your left hand know
what your right hand is doing, right.
My givings automated. I just live in the reality and
90% doesn't bother me. I don't think about it.
And God's blessing people like crazy with it.
Number four, bunch of generosity.
Everything. You give over the tithe, you're
the Lord of that. That means you see a person in
need, you want to bless a person?
It would it be great to have a couple hundred bucks in here in
your wallet, your purse and you say hey here here, Just to be
able to reach out and help a person that's in.
Need number 5, look to the example of Jesus.
Look to the example of Jesus. None of you in this room or any
of our locations have ever heard of James, Allen Francis, none of
you. He was a preacher, not a
particularly well-known preacher in the 1910 1920 range.
But he also wrote a piece of literature.
Not like Percy Shelley, not with all of the Pomp and Circumstance
of sonnets and poetry. And even though you've never
heard his name, this piece of literature was part of a sermon,
he preached. And somebody pulled it out of
that sermon and published it. And I'm going to read it to you.
Here is a man who was born in an obscure Village as the child of
a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure
Village. He worked in a carpenter shop
until he was Thirty, and then for three years he was an
itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book, he never
held an office. He never owned a home.
You never had a family, he never went to college.
He never put his foot inside a big city, he never traveled. 200
miles from the place where he was born.
He never did one of the things that usually accompany
greatness. He had no credentials, but
himself, he had nothing to do with this world except the naked
power of His Divine Majesty. Manhood.
While still a young man the tide of popular opinion, turned
against him, his friends ran away one of them denied him,
another betrayed him. He was turned over to his
enemies. He went through the mockery of a
trial. He was nailed upon a cross
between two thieves his Executioner's.
Gambled for the only piece of property.
He had on Earth while he was dying and that was his coat when
he was dead. He was taken down and laid in a
borrowed Grace. I threw the pity of a friend. 19
wide centuries have come and gone.
And today, he is the center of the human race and the leader of
the column of progress. I am far within the mark.
When I say that all the armies that ever marched, all of the
Navy's that were ever built all of the parliaments that ever sat
and all of the kings that ever reigned put together, have not
affected the life of man upon the Earth as powerfully as has
this one saw. Solitary life.
That is the person that I want to follow because he did it,
right? And I am willing to entrust my
life to him. How about you?
We're moving to a time of decision.
I thought it was so interesting to put those two pieces of
literature beside one, another to see what the Pinnacle of
human achievement is And to see this other thing. that at the
time would have been considered an anti Pinnacle like the lowest
Valley and yet The reason that you are here in this room right
now. The reason that you took time
out of your day, the reason that you're listening to this is
because of that one. Solitary life.
Jesus wasn't a man. He became a man.
He's God himself, who came? Put on the mantle of Flesh.
Humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
And has been exalted by God, he died alone on that cross.
He bore your sin and mine and when he was dead, they buried
him in a borrowed tomb, but he rose again on the third day, and
he's alive right now, and he's here in this room and he knows
your name. Not only does he know your name,
he knew your name before you knew your name.
And he loves you. He loves you to the point of
Dying For You. So that you could live forever.
He holds you accountable to your debt of sin.
And then he pays the price himself.
That's who Jesus is and he wants you to have an intimate personal
relationship with him. There's going to be someone
right over there by that baptistry because in a moment
we're going to stand and singing.
When we do, if there's somebody somebody in this room that does
not have that relationship with Jesus Christ.
Why don't you accept the greatest gift ever given to any
human being on the face of the Earth?
And make it your own. Many of you here today, and
you've had made that decision for Christ.
You've accepted him into your heart and your life, you've put
that foundation in. I hope that those the, the the
foundation goes down deep and you're building your life on
that. But, you know, as well as I do,
the lower story sometimes gets the best of us.
We start building things our way instead of his way, sometimes
things get backwards, and sideways and wrong.
And there needs to be times where we just go back to our
knees. We remember, He's the Lord and
who's not the Lord. We turn the burdens over to him.
We remind ourselves or let the Holy Spirit, remind us who we
need to be serving. And those of you that come up
here and you lay something down, I'm telling you, you'll feel the
presence of Jesus Christ, raising you up back up onto your
feet and you will walk away from these steps lighter than when
you walk to them. Can I get an amen?
It's true. But that's in your hands.
And so is this moment would you stand with me in Jesus name,
heavenly father I pray. Take this moment.
Take this moment help us father to see ourselves as we truly are
the way that you see us. I pray.
Father, the Angels around this building facing outward swords
drawn. No one can get to us.
We stand on Holy Ground because you're here.
And I pray, father, your Holy Spirit would be unimpeded.
Speaking to the depths of our soul and that father, we then
like little children would respond to you.
I pray in Jesus name. Amen.