Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
But as they get the Bibles out and as you get your Bibles out,
I need to ask you a question and I want you to ponder it
sincerely for yourself. And it's this how would you live
if you had no more bills to pay? How would you, how would you
feel? What would your life be like if
there was no more debt on on you?
Let's think about this for a second.
I have here the United States debt clock, which is kind of
depressing to look at. It's overwhelming to look at.
It's going to come up any second.
And there it is. This is in real time, $39
trillion U.S. National debt.
You got mortgage debt. You got credit card debt, which
is in the hundreds and hundreds of billions of the trillions of
bazillions of sextillions of dollars, so much money.
What if all of this was wiped out and went to zero?
How would you feel? No more student loans, anybody?
No more car loans. Yep, no more credit card.
You're outing yourself and no more mortgage payments.
I love these videos where a son or a daughter or a child just
pays off their parents mortgage. Have you seen these videos?
I got one for you. Watch this.
It's just precious. Hope you can see it because I'm
kind of in the way a little. More gift for you.
For. Both of you.
Only me and your daddy. It has to be a nice present
because this is special after this.
No, I love you. Yeah, Yeah, you feel it.
I could just end the message with this line.
When the sun pays off the debt, it's pretty amazing.
Amen. Do you feel it?
Can you feel the freedom that this might bring?
What would change in your life? I want you to remember this
feeling as we zero in here to a familiar Easter story that may
have some missing details for you that I want to point out
today because I think it is imperative that we see the
entire Easter picture as it should be seen.
Let's zoom in straight to the crucifixion.
Jesus has been nailed to the cross.
He's been lifted up in front of all people and by him are two
criminals, one on his right and one of those left.
We pick it up in Luke chapter 23, verse 39.
If you're ready, say I'm ready. One of the criminals who hung
there hurled insults at him. Anyone heard this story before?
Raise your hand with me. This is the participation part.
You get a trophy at the end. One of the criminals who hung
there hurled insults to him. Aren't you the Messiah?
Save yourself and us, he says. But the other criminal rebuked
him. Don't you fear God, He says,
since you're under the same sentence, we are punished
justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.
They've earned the cross, but this man has done nothing wrong.
And then he says to Jesus, Remember Me when you come into
your Kingdom. Only kings have kingdoms.
And Jesus answered him, truly. I tell you today you will be
with me in paradise. Even as this criminal is being
put to death on a cross with his last breast.
The criminal recognizes this is the king that's right next to
him. Like, do you got it?
You got it. Have you heard this story
before? Isn't this how we know the
story? There is one criminal who is pro
Jesus and there's another criminal who's anti Jesus.
One's like, yeah, Jesus. The other one's like, Boo Jesus.
Isn't this the way the story goes?
Right. Wrong.
Unbelievable. This is why reading the entire
scriptures matters. When you see what I'm about to
show you, it'll change the way you've seen the story.
At least it did for me and I didn't.
I'm 52 y'all and I read this last year for the first time.
Like what? Right, Here we go.
Matthew chapter 27, verse 44. You don't have to turn there
because I'm going to move quickly.
It says this in the same way the rebels, plural, who were
crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
Mark chapter 15, verse 32, those again plural, crucified with him
also heaped insults on him. And so wait a minute, you're
telling me this whole time it was both criminals who were
slandering Jesus? Because I always thought it was
one that was pro Jesus and one that was just like a hard
hearted donkey of a man. That's the story in my mind.
And it's also interesting that both Matthew and Mark use a term
here translated for us as heap or heaping, which means a lot.
I think of mashed potatoes like bunches of globs of globs of
mashed potatoes. Heaps.
Are you following me? Yeah, It would be one thing to
say a side remark to Jesus, like, hey, buddy, I guess you're
a crook too. Just one, but these guys, both
of them kept going on and on and on, as it were, to kick a man
while he's down to rub sand in the wound.
They are verbally abusing Jesus. It's completely rude.
It's an onslaught. And I kind of wish there was a
Matthew chapter 27, verse 44, Part 2.
You know the first part, they're like Jesus, you should save
yourself. And Jesus would be like, you
know what, in three days you'll still be dead, so shut your
mouth. But that's not what he says, and
that's not what Jesus does. It's quite the contrary.
And what Jesus actually says and Jesus actually does changes the
heart of one of the criminals. But I want you to know, it could
have changed the heart of both of them, but only one went from
knowing about Jesus to caring about Jesus.
What happened? Well look up in your scriptures
and we're going to find out what changed the man because he goes
from insulting him to declaring that he's the king.
Luke 23 verse 32. Just look up a little bit.
Two other men, both criminals were also let out with him to be
executed. When they came to the place
called the skull, they crucified him there along with the
criminals, one on his right and the other on his left.
And Jesus said, drink this in with your whole soul, Father,
forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing.
This moment, if perceived correctly, should leave us
breathless. What's happening in this scene?
The entire world seems to be gnashing its teeth at Jesus.
You have the mock trial, you have the whipping, You have the
crown of thorns that they beat into his head with a Reed whap.
You have the piercing of nails, you have the onslaught of the
insults, just all of this abuse coming at Jesus, and here he is
full of mercy and resplendent in his grace.
And what does he do? He intercedes for the people.
He's praying to the Father on behalf of the very people who
were torturing him to death. I would have said something
like, Hey, why don't you strike them all dead, Dad?
Just come down and smite them all.
And Jesus says, I'm asking you Lord, to remove the punishment
that is due to them. I would have said something like
avenge me Father. And Jesus says, Father, will you
cancel the day? Will you forgive it all?
And somehow the idea of being debt free, somehow the idea of
his insults being returned with kindness, it changes the heart
of our criminal brother. The criminal thinks what I hope
that you will think today as Jesus speaks these words.
Do you think that that forgiveness is for me too?
Do you think he's praying to the Father for my forgiveness?
So this guy goes from hurling insults to Jesus to turning to
Jesus for salvation, and Jesus clearly accepts.
But here's the thing, this man wasn't just forgiven, but he was
also invited. Jesus says, truly, I tell you,
today you will be with me in paradise.
That's like having your credit card paid off and your mortgage
and your student loans and your car payments, all of that paid
off, and the same person who paid it off then handing you a
check for $100 million. It wasn't just that he was
wiping the slate clean. He was filling the slate with
all of His grace, all the beauty, all the colors of heaven
right there for that man. Here's what I'm trying to show
you today. This man, this criminal, wasn't
just in sin. We've all been there.
He wasn't just living apart from God.
Maybe you've been there, but this man was literally cursing
Jesus to his face. You might say that's kind of the
worst of the worst. I mean, all sin is equal.
All sin ends up in the same place, which is death.
But when you're cursing Jesus to his face and Jesus turns to him
and says, I forgive you and it melts the man.
I wonder if when Jesus said it, he just looked directly at the
criminal. He meant it for everybody, but
his eyes full of mercy just turns to the criminal and says,
Father, forgive him. He doesn't know what he's doing.
First Corinthians 13, a very famous scripture, if you've been
to weddings, it's the love chapter.
When you read of the love, what you're really reading about is
God because God is love. So everything you know about
love is everything you know about God.
And in the middle of First Corinthians 13, we get this
statement that should wreck you in the greatest of ways.
There is no record of wrongs. Somebody ought to say
Hallelujah. Somebody ought to say
Hallelujah. Somebody to Mezzanine ought to
say Hallelujah. Hey, Mezzanine is open at 9:00
AM Hey, that's cool. Yeah.
If you were to take your send resume and hold it in front of
you, what would you see? I mean all the times you lashed
out at somebody, your hand gestures on I-4.
Anger, lust, pride, greed, envy, jealousy, slothfulness, The
things we've said to God in a bad season in our own way,
hurling, heaping insults to God. You take that resume and look at
it. What do you see?
1st Corinthians 13 is trying to make a very clear point to you.
Jesus on the cross to the criminal is trying to make a
very clear point to you. If you could capture this in
your heart, it will change your life forever.
Your sin resume because of the blood of Jesus is 100% blank.
There's nothing there. He has canceled the debt.
Amen. So let's return to our original
question. How would you live if you had no
more debt? The good news in Jesus is that
you have no debt. The good news in Jesus is that
you do not have to pay for the sins that you have committed.
The good news of Jesus is that there's no imprisonment for you
because of the sins, because he's already gone there in your
place. This is the good news.
Jesus is covered it all on the cross in the tomb, now risen
from the dead as the reigning Savior of the world.
How would it feel? I I want to show you another
video first. I showed you somebody getting
their debt mortgage forgiven. What about your sins?
All forgiven. Please watch Jacob's story.
Thanksgiving of 2024 my my dad had been battling throat cancer
for a few years and he told me that it came back and it wasn't
looking like it was going to go away.
This time I cursed God in my mind he was allowing this cancer
to just destroy my father. And seeing him go through the
pain that he did of not being able to eat anymore, not being
able to drink anymore, having to get a feeding tube.
I thought that there is no way that there's this all loving God
that cares about his people. And so I, I just continued down
that path. You know, July 18th, my father
passed away. Then there came a point the
night where my mom had gone back to bed, my wife had gone back to
bed, and I was sitting in the room and looking at his empty
chair and looking at his empty bed.
I, I figured I didn't see the point any of this anymore in the
emptiness of that room. I went completely numb.
Like I don't want to do it anymore.
I started contemplating suicide. I grew up in the church, you
know, so that there, there were certain things I knew from
Scripture, from from the Bible, you know, like the, the
paralyzed man that you know that Christ tells him to pick up his
mat and walk. And the way that I felt
paralyzed in my depression and in that emptiness and in that
space, I, I heard Jacob pick up your mat and walk.
Those words, when they had, when they were told to me, they
resonated with something inside of me from so long ago.
That Sunday, I walked into Illuminate for the first time.
I didn't clean myself up first. I didn't have anything to offer.
I just showed up. And what I found wasn't
judgement, it was forgiveness. Already there, already waiting.
After everything I'd done, Jesus didn't abandoned me.
I don't have it all figured out, but Jesus found me anyway.
Thank you Jacob, love you man. Colossians chapter 2 says this.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of
your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.
He forgave us all our sins. Having canceled the charge of
our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned
us, He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a
public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the
cross, as it was for the criminal breathing his last
breaths. It's true for us too.
It's never too late. You're not too ruined.
And not only that, you're invited to live in paradise
forever. In God's family.
You can be debt free. Just imagine what that could do
in your life. And I think this is important.
This is where you go from knowing the Easter story to
caring about it. The whole world in general knows
the Easter story. Even if they're not believers,
atheists, agnostic believers in other religions, they know that
on Easter Sunday, the Christians gather in their houses of
worship to honor the one who is sacrifice.
They've heard the story of Jesus in some way, shape or form.
They know the story of Jesus. You may be here today and you
know the story. That's why you're here.
Easter Sunday, I know the story. We go to church.
But when you move to caring about Easter, it changes your
entire life because you realize that Jesus didn't just know you,
but he cares for you to the extent that he went to the cross
so that you wouldn't live with this £10,000 rock of sin and
shame and guilt dragging behind you every day of your life.
All the ways that you've messed up, all the people that you
hurt, the ways that you hurt yourself, the ways that you've
cursed God, dragging them through Jesus with this mighty
machete. Messiah went whack and he
eliminates it all. What could it be like in your
life to live without the shame of the past?
What would it be like for you to be truly forgiven and all the
guilt to be gone? For you to receive the love and
the forgiveness of Jesus could be like Jacob, buried in the
water, raised to new life in Christ, leaving everything
behind in the water, newness of life.
Jesus says not only you free, but you're free indeed, 100%
done through the blood of Jesus. So how does one enter the
Kingdom of heaven? How does one enter paradise?
This is how you enter forgiven. You enter washed in the blood of
Jesus through the forgiveness of Jesus.
Here's a test as we wrap up today.
When you sin, not if you sin, but when you sin, you feel me,
you feel me. You're allowed to talk in
church. When you sin, do you move
towards Jesus or away from Him? When we sin, we often think,
well, I've messed up. I can't go to a holy God or I've
messed up and he's not helping me.
So I'm going to live over here in my sin and my brokenness and
my shame and my guilt. And I kind of get in this spiral
that the only way I can feel better because I'm not going to
God is to continue to do the things that give me temporary
relief but just make me feel worse.
You feel me? Do you feel me?
One criminal kept turning from God in the moment that he could
have been forgiven. The other criminal turned to
God, recognizing His grace and forgiveness.
Maybe you're in here today. Feel like man.
I thought the roof was going to cave in when I walked in.
I thought the place was going to light up, spontaneously combust
because of me, because of how bad and wrong and filthy I am.
That's the mindset of this criminal over here.
Jesus says to you, Father, forgive them.
Cancel it all. So that you will turn to him
like the criminal and say, Remember Me in your Kingdom and
hear Jesus saying to you as he said to me when I was 13 years
old. He said, Tim, you're going to be
with me in paradise. That's the offer for you this
morning. If you would bow your heads,
close your eyes. We bow our heads as a sign of
humility. We close our eyes to focus.
This is not just a religious posture, it has meaning.
I want to ask you this morning, are you running from, are you
running to God? If you've never placed your
faith in Jesus Christ to say God, I receive your forgiveness.
I want to live with you forever beginning now on in the
paradise. The Bible makes it clear all you
have to do is confess with your mouth and believe in your heart
that Jesus is Lord and you will be saved free indeed.
Debt cancelled forever. The sin resume blank, forever
saved from sin, saved from death, saved to the heart of the
Father, saved to God's family. What we're going to do, church,
is every voice is going to pray this together.
And if you're praying this for the first time, then just make
it personal. Every voice repeating after me,
louder than a library, but not at a football game.
Somewhere in the middle. Here we go saying, Father, in
the name of Jesus, I recognize that I am a Sinner in need of a
Savior, in need of forgiveness, and I confess and I believe that
Jesus is Lord, my Savior. He paid the price so that I
could be free. Now Jesus, a little bit more.
Now, Jesus, come live your life in my life, all the days of my
life. Hallelujah, just with your eyes
close, your head bowed here. Just take a moment to speak to
the Lord. Let the Holy Spirit encourage
you. If you prayed that prayer for
the first time, receiving Jesus by faith, you just became a
believer, a Christian. The Bible calls you born again,
once born of the flesh, now born of the Spirit, and this is the
greatest thing you've ever done. I'm going to ask you to do one
thing if you're believing for the first time, one bold thing,
as bold as Jesus's love for you on the cross.
I'm just going to count to 3. And if you've received Jesus
today, I want you to raise your hand as high as it will go up
into the air because our ushers have something they need to give
you today. It's crucial that you receive
this. So on the count of three, raise
your hand 123 anyone believe in Jesus for the first time, nice
and high. Come on, we're celebrating with
you. We see you all the way up here,
all the way here. Any in the mezzanine, we're
moving to you. Any others Today?
All the way over here, we're coming to you.
Right over here, we're coming to you.
Come on, church. Celebrate with me.
Hallelujah. Thanks for joining us today.
We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can text connect to
407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot church.
Have a great week.