Oh, Crossing family, I want to welcome those of you joining in
all of our different locations, those of you who are part of the
crossing inside, and to those of you who are part of the Crossing
online. In fact, I want to wish a very
special welcome to Destiny watching online from Colorado.
Crossing families, you welcome Destiny from Colorado.
Here's Destiny's story. Last week, 1045 service Destiny
joined our online services for the first time and a couple of
our difference makers reached out and kind of said hello and
invited her into the private chat.
And later that day, we got a word from one of our difference
makers that have welcomed her that when they went into the
private chat, Destiny said that she was about ready to get off
the online service because she had decided that church was not
for her. But because she hopped in the
chat, the difference maker met her there.
She stayed through the service and realized her words.
It was for her. She felt like the sermon was
perfect for her and she couldn't wait to come back next week.
So hopefully, Destiny, you're joining us right now.
The difference maker again, they're great.
The difference maker was so moved that he reached out and
said, hey, I want to serve every service because I want to do the
best I can do to help other people find what I found in
Jesus. And to those of you who are
joining from all over, wherever you're watching from, we're
trying to do a better job as a church administering to our
online community. And if you're interested in
helping out, you can send an e-mail to online@thecrossing.net
and they'd love to have you join as you're traveling and doing
things like that. You might go, you know what,
even while I'm gone, I still want to be a part of helping
people find what I have found in Jesus.
Well, it was the winter of last year.
We are in a series called 50 for 50 where we are spending 50
minutes a day for 50 days, spending time reading our Bible,
praying, and doing some exercise.
And over the course of those 50 days, we were going to read
through the entire New Testament.
And as I was going through the readings in the morning, I would
be so excited to have you read what I had just read.
And I was thrilled to see our entire church all across this
region being exposed to the power of God's Word.
I mean, when you think about our people, reading through Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John and getting a more beautiful picture of
Jesus, it's exciting. Then I was thinking about us all
going through the book of Acts and realizing what happens when
the Holy Spirit comes into a person's life and they live out
faith and obedience and finding out what's possible.
But I got to be honest with you, there were, as we were going
through the series, there were three specific times where I
kind of had a, a check in my spirit going, man, I don't know
how our people are going to handle this.
One was when you guys were reading through the Book of
Revelation. I was like, Oh my goodness,
they've got to have way more questions than we have answers.
And so I just want you to hear me say this.
We're going to tackle the Book of Revelation.
It'll be one of the 1st 10 series that we put out when we
get inside the, the new production center in the new
multi site offices. Then there was a chapter in
First Timothy that I was going, you know what, we need to
definitely address it. And I want, you know, in the
next 10 years as a church, we'll treat the pastoral epistles
first and second Timothy and Titus just like we treated
Romans. But there was one book in
particular that I was going, we need to make sure that we do
something. I'm sure it caused a little bit
of concern in your life and you're going, man, what does all
this mean? And instead of running from it,
we ran to it, which is why we are in the book of First
Corinthians. I knew that chapters 7 and 8
would be a little bumpy. To those of you who don't
remember Chapter 7, that's the one that your husband took notes
in. OK chapter.
He's like, he's never taken notes before then.
But to be honest with you, chapters 1112 and 14 are going
to be a little jarring. So I just want you to know as
you're reading through it, you're going to go, are you
kidding me? Yep.
And so over the next couple of weeks, as we're going through
what my opinion are some of the three most difficult chunks of
scripture to navigate, we're going to get through it.
You're going to be fine. On the other side, if you had a
hard time parking at one of our locations, it'll probably
lighten up over the next couple of weeks.
Now before we jump into these three chapters, Chapter 11,
Chapter 12 and Chapter 14, what I want to do is I want to kind
of give you a gift and these are pillars to help you navigate the
scriptures. OK, so the first pillar is this
is not just the crossing, but here at the crossing.
But all Christians believe that God's way is the best way.
What that means is if God says it, we believe it that it's the
best way for us to live our lives and we should build our
lives upon it. Jesus says this in John chapter
10 verse 10. I have this is Jesus talking.
The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.
But I have come that you may have life and have it to the
full, which means that life that is designed and directed and
submitted to God is the best life.
You can't live the life that you were designed and created or
commanded to be apart from Him. So we believe, and Christians
believe that God's way is the best way.
Even if we don't like the way, we know that it's the best way.
The second one is that all Scripture is useful.
All scripture is useful for you. Look what it says in Second
Timothy chapter 3. All scripture is God breathed,
which means it originated not from man, but from God.
It is God breathed and it is, what's the next word useful.
What's it useful for? Teaching, rebuking, correcting
and training in righteousness. If you want to live the right
kind of life, the kind of life that God created you for,
designed you for, and commanded you to do, you need to be a
person who is a person of the Word of God.
It will help you to live the righteous life and but check
this out so that every servant of God may be thoroughly
equipped for every good work. What that means is you cannot do
the good thing that God has called you and commanded you to
do unless you are a person of the Word of God, submitted to
the Word of God. There are going to be times in
your life when you need to be taught something that you didn't
know. There are going to be times in
your life when you need to be rebuked for doing something you
should not do, corrected for believing something that you
should not believe, and trained to do the things of God.
Pillar one. God's way is the best way.
Pillar 2. All scripture is useful.
Pillar 3. Obedience to God's word matters.
Not just knowing about God's word, but doing what God's Word
says matters. Look at what Jesus says in
Matthew Chapter 7. Therefore, everyone who hears
these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a
wise man who built his house on the rock.
The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and
beat against that house, yet it did not fall.
Why? Because it had its foundation on
the rock. But everyone who hears these
words of mine and does not put them into practice is like what
kind of man? A Yeah, a foolish man who built
his house on the sand. The same rain came, and the
streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and
it fell with a great crash. You can know God's Word, but
unless you submit your life to God's Word, you are not building
your house, your life, your family on a firm foundation.
God's way is the best way. It's the only way to have the
life that you're designed to have, the full life.
All Scripture is useful in helping us find out and live and
experience God's way. But ultimately, unless you apply
what God's Word says to your life, you will not have the life
that God designed you to have. Today we're jumping into First
Corinthians 11, and I'm going to be honest with you.
There's a lot to cover, and contained in it are some of the
most confusing and frustrating chunks of Scripture.
You're ready. Here we go, verses 11 through
16. This is Paul talking to the
Corinthian church. Follow my example as I follow
the example of Christ. I praise you for remembering me
in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed
them on to you. But I want you to realize that
the head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is
man, and the head of Christ is God.
Every man who prays or prophecies with his head covered
dishonors his head, but every woman who prays or prophecies
with her head uncovered dishonors her head.
It is the same as having her head shaved, for if a woman does
not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off.
But it it If it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut
off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.
A man ought not cover his head, since he is the image and the
glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.
For man did not come from woman, but woman from man.
Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority
over her own head, have her head covered because of the angels.
Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor
is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so
also man is born of woman, But everything comes from God.
Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray
to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of
things teach you that if a man has long hair, is it a disgrace
to him? But that if a woman has long
hair, it is to her, or it is her glory?
For long hair is given to her as a covering.
So you don't have to wear a hat, but you have to have long hair.
We'll get into that. Which isn't true.
Don't worry, you're fine. If anyone wants to be
contentious about this, we have no other practice, nor do the
churches of God. And I'm assuming after I read
that you guys are going, this makes perfect sense.
Let's just pray and get out of here.
We could get our grocery shopping done early today.
Clayton. All right, let me level with
you. If you're scratching your head,
you're not alone. If you're a little confused,
you're not alone. That's why I want to walk you
through this again. God's way is the best way.
All scripture is useful and obedience matters.
There is a reason this is given to us.
Now what? When you and I are walking in
life, we have to understand that God's word is given to us for
our good. But there are two errors.
When we find ourselves with a confusing or a frustrating text,
one of the errors is to under apply it, skip over it, move
past it, Don't give it any chance to do a work in US.
Sometimes when people find something in scriptures that
they don't like, what they functionally do is they take
scissors to it and just cut it out.
The problem is, is the moment you start doing that, you are
now making God into your image and you as a God do not save.
Selective Christianity becomes progressive Christianity and
progressive Christianity becomes no Christianity.
So we have to give the text a chance, the Holy Spirit time,
because it is for us. The second one is to over apply
it and to become legalistic with it.
Where you go so far that you make a minor issue, a major
issue. Hear me.
What we're going to talk about today is what I would call a
secondary issue. What do I mean by a secondary
issue? A secondary issue is something
that you and I could disagree on and we still get to give each
other high fives in heaven because we're both there.
A primary issue is an issue that if we, you and I are not in
agreement on that thing, we can't high 5 each other in
heaven because you and I are not in the same place.
So a primary issue. God created the world.
That man has sinned, that he sent his Son Jesus to die on the
cross to pay the price that you and I could not pay.
Three days later, rose from the grave, ascended into heaven, is
seated on the throne, and has sent his Holy Spirit to empower
us. If you don't believe that Jesus
is the way, the truth, and the life, that is a primary issue
that separates people from heaven and people from hell.
But these things are secondary issues, things that good godly
Christian people can disagree on how to apply a particular text.
Now, what I'm going to do today is I'm going to walk you through
what I genuinely believe the Bible is teaching.
And you may not agree with me, but I will tell you, make sure
that the reason you do not agree with me, you are still finding a
way for you to allow this text to work on your heart.
You can go, Clayton, I've read this book.
I want you to know I've read that book too.
There is a reason why we're going through this.
And there's all kinds of things inside of here that are
confusing and frustrating. For instance, in the original
language, the words husband and wife could also be man and
woman. So you could walk away from this
saying on some level that all women should be subjected to or
under the authority of all men. What I believe is what it's
saying is that husbands and wives so that women are to be in
submission to their husbands. But we'll unpack that in just a
second. Now, when this was written, the
Bible was written for us, but not necessarily to us.
We were a part of its intended audience, but we were not its
primary audience, which is why we're reading First Corinthians,
not First Crossings. Does that make sense?
So Paul is writing to this group of people and he is trying to
help a young church make a godly difference in a Pagan culture.
And now you're like, well, that's kind of us, a church
trying to make a a godly difference in a Pagan culture.
Starting in chapter 8, for those of you who are here, he's
addressing how Christians are to leverage and steward their
freedoms in Christ. And what you're going to see in
chapters 11/12/13 and 14 is Paul addressing how you and I are to
express ourselves and leverage our lives when we gather
together as Christians and how we present ourselves as we go
out into the world. Paul is encouraging them to
consider how best to leverage their freedom and how they look
and how they operate in light of what is loving to others and
draws attention to God. Because Christians are others
focused people. So let's break it down #1 why
all the headship talk? Paul is reminding them that
Christians are people who live under authority.
You want to be a person who lives in submission to
authority. If you find a person who doesn't
let anybody speak into their life or have authority over
their life, that is a dangerous person.
So like my life, I live under the authority of our elders.
I surround myself with other people who I lean on and allow
to speak into how I direct my life.
And when God created humanity, He made it in order on purpose.
So men are to be in under the authority of Jesus.
Women are to be in authority or live under authority to Jesus,
but they are also to live under the authority of their husband.
In other words, godly women submit to their our godly wives
submit to their godly husbands. You see, God created man and
then out of Adam he created women or created Eve, and out of
Eve came all men. This does not mean, pay
attention here that women are less than men, because in this
very text it says that God is the head of Christ.
Is Jesus less than God? No equal.
But when Jesus was walking here on earth, he lived in submission
to the Father. That is why he says in the
Garden of Gethsemane, not my will be done, but your will be
done. Men are to live in submission to
our, husbands are to live in submission to Jesus, and wives
are to live in godly submission to their husbands.
This does not mean that men make all the decisions.
This does not mean pay attention, men, that we Lord our
authority over our wives. Our model is Jesus.
Jesus said that the greatest among you will be your servant.
Men, pay attention here because you thought you were going to
like the sermon. You're not.
Look at me when young people come up to me and say, Clayton,
we're thinking about getting married.
Here's one of the questions I ask young men and young women.
Do you want to serve them for the rest of your life?
Not are they cute, not how do you feel when they walk into the
room? But do you want to wake up every
day and serve them? Married people, husbands right
here. Here's a great way for you to
live this out in your life. Serve your family, serve your
spouse. Here's a way to do it.
Ask them how can I serve you today Because how you want to
serve them? I'm going to give you space,
babe, and go play golf. Her answer is different than
your answer. Does that make sense?
So let me tell you tangibly how this looks.
I hate running errands. I mean this.
I would rather serve time in prison than run errands.
I mean this. I hate it, and I'll tell you
why. I feel like there is a calling
on my life that every waking moment should be directed to the
advancement of the gospel and to make this region the hardest
place on planet earth to get to hell from.
And when I am about that, I feel the most alive and energized.
And to stop doing that, to wait in a line somewhere is a death
sentence. And God and His great mercy gave
me my wife. And if I ask her, how can I
serve you today, she would say, could you go get me some coffee?
Which means I have to stay in a line.
So every Friday and Saturday morning I get up early and I go
and get coffee and have it on her by her bed so when she wakes
up there is hot coffee. It means that on Sunday
afternoons, I go grocery shopping.
I hate it. And ladies, if you guys want to
do me a huge favor between like 3:00 and 5:00 on Sundays, if you
could be there and help me find the stuff that she's put on the
list, I would love it. Now my job is to show up in my
home to serve. Second thing, men are called to
die. The reason why men get to make
the final decision in the home is because men are to pay the
ultimate price for the decisions in the home.
Here's what I mean by that. When Paul is writing the church
in Ephesus, he says wives submit to your husbands.
And then he says, men love your wives as Christ loved the
church. What was the dominant thing that
Jesus did on behalf of the church?
He died for it. So men, if you're single and
you're going, I think I want to marry her, you need to ask
yourself this question, am I prepared to die for her and all
of her subsequent personalities? And if your answer, if you're a
yeah, if your answer is I'm not willing to die for that, she's
not the one you marry. Your job is you're the first one
that dies in the home. Let me unpack this, ladies.
I bet this has happened zero times in your marriage.
You're both under the covers, and as you're getting into bed,
your husband goes, oh, my goodness.
What is that? I'm so scared.
Sweetie, will you go check on that for us?
No. What does she do?
Go find out what that is. It's nothing.
Go find out what that is and whatever it is, you're either
killing it or it is killing you. That is how it works.
We are hard wired. Now listen, we are hard wired
completely differently. Now let me say this, OK ladies,
this was not planned to be on Rise weekend, OK?
This is not like a subtle flex. Like did you enjoy your
spiritual gathering? Now submit, OK?
That was not that was not why this was OK.
They moved the day to Rise so it ended up here.
So God was trying to work on you.
Let me explain. Men are called by God to serve
their family through death. We die for them.
We die first. If we were to go to Rise and we
were to put a kangaroo with boxing gloves in the middle of
Rise on stage, thousands of women, kangaroo with boxing
gloves. Here's what the women would go.
I wonder what his name is. That is such a cute kangaroo.
If you were to do the same thing and uncommon guys would go home
with black eyes, they would go home and go honey, this was the
best conference ever. Why baby?
Because I found out that if we are ever in Australia and a
kangaroo comes up on us, you're going to be just fine.
Because a man would see a kangaroo in boxing gloves and
go, I'm going to find out. I'm going to find out.
So we're a little dumb, but that's because we're supposed to
die first. Men make the final decision
because men make the ultimate sacrifice.
Hear me men, I believe that you will be held accountable for God
for the spiritual temperature of your home because you are to
lead it and you are to sacrifice for it.
You will be held accountable by God for how you led your home.
Wives, I believe you will not be held accountable for the
spiritual temperature of your home.
Your husband is, but you will be held accountable for whether or
not you are an asset or a liability to that 'cause now
don't take this to crazy extremes.
Here's what I mean, if you're here today and you have a
deadbeat husband who is a drunk and is scary and all those
things, none of this, we are talking about how you are to be
rightly ordered in the home under God's protection.
OK? So if you have a bad dude,
you're going to have to make decisions that are outside of
his leadership to protect your family from a person who is not
doing what God has called him to.
Two second thing, what is all the head covering stuff that the
Bible's talking about? Well, Corinth was a messed up
place. Women were mistreated, enslaved,
prostituted, and there was all kinds of gender confusion.
When this happens, the value of women is destroyed.
The distinction between men and women is blurred.
Pagan priests would wear coverings over their head when
they would go about their practices, and women would cover
their heads indicating that they were married.
So when all of a sudden the church shows up, the men are
dressing like the pagans, and then the married women are not
keeping their head covered. So they're basically showing up
for church. And they're saying either one of
two things as married women. They're either saying, hey, I do
not respect the authority of my husband and I want you to know
it, or two, I'm married, but I'm on the market and that's a
problem. So he's saying, hey, this is how
we are to show up. This is how we are to behave.
We are to be salt and light. In a culture that confuses
gender, Christians respect it. In a culture that's trying to
unorder the family, Christians seek to reorder the family in
God's design. What does this mean for you and
I today? That you and I are to present
ourselves in a submissive way to God and to one another.
You and I are to think about how we dress and how we conduct
ourselves and what we put forth in culture to draw people's
attention to God. Like one of my rules for our
staff is any time we're in a place we should be better
dressed than 80% of the people around us.
If I'm dressed at 105% and I'm wearing a three piece suit,
nobody's going to want to talk to me.
If I show up and I look like I just rolled out of the trunk of
a car, nobody's going to want to talk to me.
I specifically put this outfit on because my wife laid it out
for me. OK, Yeah, she did a good job.
Although this shirt got a bunch of hits last year because they
thought it was made by Coleman and it's a tent.
But what I want you to think is, is when I go places, how am I
presenting myself? How am I honoring God and the
cause and others? How am I making sure that I'm
living in submission to somebody or something?
How am I living in a life that is serving others and pointing
other people to Jesus? Hear me.
When it comes to women, we are to recognize and respect our
differences. Men have value.
Women have value. Each have something to
contribute. Each has something to protect.
God chose to place his image in men and women with their
differences, and when one gender is elevated too far, it can
undervalue the other, or it can remove the distinction between
gender all together. And you and I, as Christians,
protect that. Then Paul takes a really hard
right turn. You just survived the tough
stuff. Take a deep breath, let it out.
You made it through the weird stuff.
OK? 17 through 34 in the following
directives, I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more
harm than good. So when they gathered together
as a church, it was a dumpster fire in the 1st place.
I hear that when you come together as a church, there are
divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.
No doubt there have to be differences among you to show
which of you have God's approval.
So then when you come together, it is not the eating, it is not
the Lord's Supper that you eat. They're talking about communion,
for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own
private suppers. As a result, one person remains
hungry and another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat and
drink in? Or do you despise the Church of
God by humiliating those who have nothing?
What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you?
Certainly not in this matter, for I received from the Lord
what I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night he
was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, that
word in the Greek is Eucharisto. For those of you who are
Catholics. He broke it and said, This is My
body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, This cup
is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in
remembrance of Me. For whenever you eat this bread
and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in
an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the
body and the blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine
themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the
cup. For those who eat and drink
without discerning the body of Christ, eat and drink judgement
on themselves. That is why many of you are weak
and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.
But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we
would not come under such judgment.
Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are
being our disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned
with the world. So then my brothers and sisters,
when you gather to eat, you should all eat together.
Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home so that when
you meet together and may not result in judgement.
And when I come, I will give further directions.
Let's unpack it early. Church is not meeting in a
building like this. They're meeting in people's
homes. If you're going to try and get a
bunch of people into a house, you're going to go to a large
house. A large house is going to be a
wealthy person's house. So they're having church at
wealthy people's houses and the wealthy people are inviting all
their wealthy friends over and they're pre gaming and all the
food that they were going to eat when they had the meal, which is
more than just a moment like we do, They were going to celebrate
the meal while the rich people got together and they ate all
the food and they started to drink all the wine.
And so somebody gets drunk on the stuff that was supposed to
be for communion, which is why we give you guys the itty bitty
stuff because if you want to get drunk on that, take you all day.
Right now, poor people are showing up at the church, at the
rich person's house, and they were going, hey, you know what,
things have been a little tight this week.
The pantry's a little empty. You know what we're going to do?
We're going to use communion to kind of get our bellies full.
And what Paul's saying is, no, when you show up to take
communion, you know what you're supposed to do Take communion.
You're supposed to remember what Jesus has done on your behalf
and to mold and shift your life to be in alignment with him.
Paul's saying communion is about Jesus paying the price that you
could never pray or pay. It would be like you showing up
at a War Memorial acting like a fool.
Everybody would go, how can you do that in this place, in this
moment? So when you and I get ready to
take communion, there's four things we can do to make sure
that we're doing it in a way that honors the Lord that
remembers what he did. 1 You can look back at what Jesus has
saved you from. Nothing will produce humility in
your life like thinking back through all the dumb things that
you used to do. 2 You look within.
When you look within and you self examine, you realize that
there's some areas in your life that are still way out of
alignment with the cause of Christ. 3 We can look around and
realize that the way we live impacts our brothers and sisters
in Christ and the mission that God has called us to live on.
Number 4, you can look forward to when you get to eat it with
him in heaven. That's one of the promises that
Jesus gives. He says I will not eat of the
bread or drink of the cup until I do it with you in my Father's
Kingdom, which means there will come a day where you and I will
actually take communion with Jesus in heaven.
What a glorious moment that will be.
Now, about the warning. You're going well, Clayton.
It says I don't want to do it in an unworthy way because if I do
it in an unworthy way, I'm going to be judged.
Yeah, you are. That makes total sense.
Think about this. Your God, you send your son to
die on behalf of all humanity, and then people make light of
your son's sacrifice. Would you take that personally?
Yeah. God's saying if you show up to
remember what my son did and you do it in a haphazard manner,
that's I'm. I'm going to judge you for that.
That's not OK. Now you might be going, but
Clayton, I always feel unworthy. You should.
We will always feel unworthy when we take communion because
we will remember that Jesus came on our behalf to save us from
ourselves. We will never be worthy, but he
was worthy and because he was worthy, we are made worthy to be
able to take communion now with I may not feel like I'm worthy,
but that's not the issue. The issue is, am I acting in an
unworthy way? So how do I make sure that I'm
not operating in an unworthy way when I take communion?
There's a couple things you can do.
One, make sure the posture of your heart is right.
When you get ready to take communion, you can feel
unworthy, but you can make sure that you do not act unworthy.
And the way you make sure you don't act unworthy is with the
right heart posture. So here's a couple questions.
Am I being self reliant? Am I thinking to myself, I am
who I am because of what I have done?
Hear me, if you are in Christ, it has nothing to do with you.
It has everything to do with Him.
You are who you are because of who's you are, and you are who's
you are because of what He did on the cross on your behalf #2
are you defiant? Is there a sin or a pattern of
your life that is out of alignment with God's Word that
you keep repeating? And if you keep showing up for
communion to remember the sacrifice that Jesus paid on
your behalf for your sins, and yet you keep doing the sins over
and over and over again, that ain't right.
Three, are you self-centered? Are you only thinking about
yourself and not thinking about the mission and the cause of
Christ and your brothers and sisters in Christ?
That's why I've told you guys this.
That's why I pray these four prayers.
One, thank you for paying a price that I could not pay.
It is important for me to remember that my salvation is
because of him, not because of me.
Two, thank you for not giving up on me.
Hear me, I am not on my like fifth chance with God.
I'm in I don't know how many digits.
I'm on the millionth chance for sure.
Let me say something to you. There is nobody on planet Earth
who has been worse to you than you have been to God.
And yet He still hears you when you call on His name.
He still moves on your behalf, His mercy and His grace is still
available. So when you come into communion
with a heart posture that says thank you for doing what I could
never do, thank you for not giving up on me, you are well on
your way to taking communion in a worthy manner.
The third prayer that I pray is to help me to live a life in
response to your love. How could I receive it and do
nothing with it and for it and four, help me to remember, you
did not die for just me, but for the sins of the world, which
means that I will never put my eyes on somebody that God did
not send his son to die on the cross for.
So that means I change how I treat other people.
Like I said, Christianity is others focused.
Why does all this matter? I'll tell you the very first
verse in first Corinthians Chapter 11, Paul says follow me
as I follow Christ. So can you say that when you
think about your home life, are you living your life in a way
where other people could follow you and end up with Jesus?
When you go into your work, when you present yourself in culture,
in society, are you living your life in such a way that it
points and draws people to Christ?
Because if you are not pointing them and drawing them to Christ,
you are pulling them away from him.
And that's like the worst thing you could do for a person who's
found Jesus. I want you to think about that
as we move to this time of decision.
To those of you in here or watching online who have never
started an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ,
let me just level with you. You will live in submission to
something. You just want to make sure that
whatever you're submitting to leads you where you want to go.
And if your life is not found in Jesus, you are walking a road
that you do not want to walk and it ends at a place that you do
not want to go. It requires no change, no
repentance. It allows you to make all your
own decisions, live life exactly the way you want to live, but it
will not put you where you ultimately want to go because
the truth is you are either following Jesus or you are
following Satan. You might be clean.
I'm not following Satan, I'm just following me.
Well, following you doesn't lead to heaven.
The Bible puts out two roads. One's a wide Rd. that requires
nothing of you but you to keep walking.
It's full of hardship and pain, and where it leads is no good.
But there's a narrow Rd. this road.
For the record, it's also hard. So hard, in fact, that God says
He has to give you the power of the Holy Spirit in order for you
to walk it. Just like the wide Rd. the
narrow Rd. has valleys. The difference is that the
Christian, when they're walking the narrow Rd. of Christ, does
not walk that road alone. Because even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you're with me. Jesus promises to walk the
valleys with you, and Jesus comes.
And this is what Jesus says to those of you who want to get to
God. You want to be where God is.
You want heaven on your horizon. This is what he says.
Jesus says I am the way, I am the truth.
I am the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me. Heaven is the place where God
dwells. If you want to be in heaven, you
need to be on the road that leads to God.
The road that leads to God goes through the person, the work,
the death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and every other Rd.
doesn't. So you have a choice today.
You can be found in Christ, in submission to Christ, or you can
say no. I just want you to know what's
at stake. You can either be where God is,
which is heaven, or you can walk the road to lead where God
isn't, which is hell. Today.
The decision you make matters, and not making a decision is a
decision. And so just a few moments when
the people around you stand and sing and some of the people come
to the steps and pray, I want to encourage you to walk right over
there next to that baptistry underneath the screen and talk
to somebody about how to start a relationship with Jesus Christ.
To the rest of you in the room, to those of you who would call
yourself a Christian, I just want you to really allow this
question to have the kind of weight it deserves in your life.
Can you say follow me as I follow Christ?
If your home were to follow you as you follow Christ, would they
actually draw close to Christ? When you go into your workplace,
can you say follow me as I follow Christ?
And if they were to follow you, would they draw closer to
Christ? Paul says, listen, I'm not a
perfect person, but I'm a person who's under the authority of
Christ and I'm chasing him. And as Christians, if you are
not in a spot today where you can say follow me, do what I do
as I follow after Jesus, then this is a perfect time for us to
re examine, repent and make things right.
Would you do that? Would you stand with me,
Heavenly Father? Would you reveal to us what it
is that we need to do? You know every step that every
person needs to take. You know every challenge that
they're presently navigating. You know the work that needs
done. And so, God, in faith, we're
asking you to not just reveal to us what it is that you want us
to do, but God, that you'd give us the courage to do it.
Your name I pray. Amen.