Right Side Up

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning, guys. Recently, you may have heard that there was a big revival at Asbury University in Kentucky. It started with a bunch of people that were in a revival service, just some college students at a university in Kentucky, or excuse me, yeah, in Kentucky, Asbury. And it just started with a guy who preached a sermon that he actually texted his wife after and said, delivered another stinker, see you home in 10 minutes. And the pastor's wife definitely laughed at that because I'm sure you've gotten a text like that before. And so the guy preached on Romans 12, didn't even think he did a great job, right? Just thought he kind of laid an egg and was going home for dinner, right? That was it. It was done. And it just so happened that a handful of students stayed behind and they were, they were just, they just kept praying. And then they kind of sang around a little bit and then it was just kind of here and

It wasn't just somebody just acting crazy and then everybody else started acting. It was very subtle, very kind of low. And then a guy that left, a student that left came back after like an hour and saw about 30 people there and they were just crying and singing, but it was soft. I mean it wasn't anything kind of, again, it wasn't excited. It was soft, but just people repenting and forgiveness happening and all that. And man, he just thought, oh, something's going on. And then just a couple of hours later, it was more people. And that guy was like the Paul Revere of the Asbury Revival because he went all through the school and said, hey, revival's here. Revival's coming. It's right here. It's in the chapel. And so what started with just a handful of just some local students, it turned into tens of thousands of people coming from other countries over a two-week period.

There were lines to get in that chapel service that were miles long. That's not an exaggeration. It was miles long, right? And it went on for 12 days like that, and it wasn't because it was a great show. It wasn't because that speaker that they had was totally killer and knew all the cool things to say, right? And did finger guns, apparently. I don't know why I did that. It was just people that wanted to see what Jesus was doing, right? It wasn't overly complicated. There wasn't a concussion mortar or a laser light show. It was just really normal. And people really, really wanted to see what Jesus was doing.

We talk about Jesus bringing people to life. We talk about Jesus being the instigator. And that's not just kind of a cute way to think about it. It really is the core of what it means to be a Christian. In fact, it kind of points back to this gospel definition that we talked about many months ago, a few months back, we talked about a gospel definition. We got it out of Romans 1, 16, and 17 originally. So if you wanna go back and look at that, that's great. But our kind of quick version to talk about the gospel, we could talk about it for days. I'm gonna step on that. We could talk about it for days, the gospel. But Jesus makes us right, Jesus makes us alive, and then our part in that is belief. And so I really just want to impress upon you who's doing the acting, who is the initiator here. It's Jesus doing things, right? Jesus makes us right. Romans 5, 8, and 10.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us to justify us, save us, reconcile us to God. Jesus makes us alive. He's the one doing it. Romans 1, 5. Jesus brings us grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of his faith for his name among all people. Our part, our part of that, the way that we kind of interact with that is to believe. It sounds like you're doing nothing, I understand, but our part is to believe. Romans 3, 22, God's righteousness is available through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There's not a difference between class, race, gender, nothing. Socioeconomic status, everybody who believed. Last week for Easter, we really honed in on this idea of a lie, that Jesus makes us alive. For Romans, chapters 7 and 8, and we're going to begin there, we're going to spend another a couple weeks on this. We're doing a five-week series called Right This Way. I think. Yeah,

thank gosh. It just took me a second. Somebody write puns. It got me. We're going to begin to turn to Romans 7 and 8. So for the next five weeks, we'll be in two chapters of Romans, okay? And we're going to answer the question that when Jesus does bring someone to life, What does that look like? How do we know? What do we do? What's our part? What do we do while Jesus is doing something? While he's the one acting, while he's the one bringing to life, while he's the one making us right. What do we do? What is our part? And we know, we know that we should not expect perfection, but we often don't know what to expect. We know perfection's not on the table. Everybody's okay with that, right? Nobody's like, oh, now I gotta be perfect. Nobody's under that impression. At least you shouldn't be. Don't be under that impression. But there's nothing in its place. We don't know what to expect. We don't know what life looks like.

So today we're going to be covering Romans chapter 7 verses 1 through 6, just six verses. And what we're going to see is a very vivid, very poignant example, an illustration. We talk about this in terms of, well Romans chapter seven verses one through six talks about this in terms of married people And all that that implies if you catch my drift and this morning Because there are young children present. I'm going to refer to things like marital affection or

spousal familiarity I hope you get my meaning. I hope you get scriptures meaning because it goes pretty far into this metaphor about marriage. So now that you're insatiably curious, let's read verse one, okay? Romans chapter seven verse one says, or do you not know brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law, do you not know that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? Okay, so we have just gotten out of the discussion Romans chapter 6 where we're talking about freedom from sin slavery. Okay and we are about to get into this extended example where we're gonna use a married couple and and how the law is binding on them but only as long as one person is alive. Okay so Romans chapter 7 verse 2 next next verse 4 for a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.

So it's comparing now a situation between a married woman and a widowed woman. So it's not supposed to make a lot of sense yet, so it's okay if you're a little confused. Married woman and a widowed woman. And today, because we're going to be talking about a husband and wife here, let's give them a name. Let's talk about Owen and Naomi. That's right. Owen and Naomi. You'll see why in a minute. Owen and Naomi, they get married. They get married, and Owen and Naomi love each other very much. And even in their wedding vows, the default wedding vow is, as long as we both shall live. That's it. That's the normal wedding vow. So all this is saying in verse 2, For a married woman, it's bound by law to her husband while he lives, only while he lives. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law of marriage, okay? So if Owen, let's go back to Owen and Naomi, if Owen passes away, Naomi is free to remarry

whomever she chooses. And so in the eyes of the law, not trying to be too grim here, but in the eyes of the law, she is no longer under any obligation, okay? So legally free, okay, next verse. Let's just look at the first half of Romans chapter 7 verse 3. Accordingly, in the same way, she will be called an adulteress. Took a turn there, didn't it? She will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. OK, so if Owen is still alive, and Naomi then, legally or otherwise, is not free to express marital affection anywhere else. OK? She's not supposed to do it. she's gonna be called an adulteress. It's a different thing. She can't remarry while still being married. Okay, that's bad. So next half of the verse, Romans 7, 3b, right? But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.

Okay, so if she remarries after her husband is passed away, it is totally different. even though it's the exact same action. That's Paul's point here in these first three verses. This woman, Naomi, we'll call her, is doing the exact same thing, but in situation A, Owen's alive, in situation B, Owen's dead. Even though her actions are the exact same, Owen's state of being has huge ramifications on the legality, even, the morality of what she's doing. That's the point that Paul is so vividly, poignantly trying to drive home. It's the same action. The only thing that's changed is the husband's status. In the next verse, we begin to see a few of these parallels. First half of verse four says, likewise my brothers. Okay, so this is now we're talking about us. Likewise, my brothers, you have, excuse me, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another.

Okay. Here's what this illustration can get a little confusing because in this illustration now we are playing both sides. Okay. So our old self is Owen. Oh. Our new self, Naomi. Right? Yeah. Owen and Naomi. Our old self is Owen. Our new self is Naomi. We're playing both sides of it. So our old self was married to sin. And because sin is the husband, and I'm just going to tweak this a little bit, because sin is the husband, we're going to rename our old self to Olivia. Sin is the husband. It's just going to help, promise. It's just going to help you make sense of it. So our old self, Olivia, was married to sin. Sin was the husband of Olivia. Our old self, Olivia, was legally bound to sin. This is a really colorful way to illustrate what we covered a couple weeks ago with the first and second wrong. Okay? So under the first wrong, under Adam's sin, we were all married to sin, right?

It was an arranged marriage. We were stuck in there. There was no way out. We were married to sin, okay? And yet, and yet the second wrong, we were also willing partners in that arranged marriage. Okay? You with me so far? Okay. weird, but we're going to keep going. Our old self, Olivia, our old self died so that we could marry Jesus. I realize when I say that, that sounds weird, but we just sang a song about being the bride of Christ. In the New Testament, the Bible is not shy about calling the church the bride of Christ. So we're all sons of God and we're all the bride of Christ. You just get it either way, one gender or the other. But we get both. Our old self died so that we could marry Jesus. So old self, Olivia, has died. Enter new self, Naomi. New self comes in and is free to belong to another. Not simply that Naomi, our new self, not simply that our new

is unattached, but that we belong to Jesus now in marriage. Read the second half of verse 4 it says, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. Okay, so our old self died so that we would, our new self would bear fruit for God. Bearing fruit is a not so veiled euphemism for having children. Okay, this is what it is, okay. Bearing fruit is euphemism for having children and just so that the parallel is obvious, let's read the next verse, verse 5. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work and our members to bear fruit for death. Look, I'm not trying to be lurid. It's just the example and it's right there in verse 5, but that's exactly what it's going for. Okay? While we were living in the flesh, while we were married to sin, while old

self, Olivia, was married to sin, our passions were aroused by the law. We were and those passions were at work in our members so that we would bear fruit for death. That's a it's a weird way to word that but it's essentially it's it's married to sin and the fruit that you're getting is death. The children you're having is is death. This is a vivid picture of sin slavery. Now the way that we often think about it is Romans 5 8. We talk about the wages of sin, the paycheck for sin is death. Okay and this we're just talking about in a in a different context that's much less comfortable or polite conversation in mixed company. But there it is. It's right there. All of this is not just here to shock us or to make us feel a little uncomfortable. It's here to help us see that sin slavery, when you are married to sin, when your old self is married to sin, the only result that you're going to get from that is death.

It's the only thing that's going to come about. It's the only thing that you're going to produce. And so if you are planning on sinning, if you are planning on some long con, some scheme, some way to cheat and cut corners and whatnot, or deceive, if you're planning on doing that, if you're caught up in that right now, and you believe foolishly that you will get away with it, you are entirely wrong. The only thing that awaits you is frustration and death. Galatians 6, 7 is very instructive on this point. It says, do not be deceived. God will not be mocked for whatever one sows. That he will also reap. Another metaphor, a farming one. Whatever seed you put down, honey, you're getting at when you reap it. It's going to come right back to you. You don't plant corn and get snow peas. It just doesn't work. Then when you plant corn, you get corn. You plant snow peas, you get snow peas.

Don't be deceived, God is not mocked. This is true for anyone, Christian or not, if you're acting in sin slavery, it will always take you further than you want to go, and it will always cost you more than you wanna pay. Always, always. And you know how I know that? Because Galatians 6, 7 says, I shouldn't be deceived because God is not mocked. In other words, God will make sure by his own reputation that whatever a man sows, he will reap. Whatever a woman sows, she will reap. It's not something that's up for debate. It's not something that like, oh, maybe something bad will happen. I'm not saying that something bad happens every time because the Lord God is gracious toward us. But what I am saying is that if you think you're going to keep playing that game, you're going to keep crossing that line, it's not going to end up in death, you're deceived. Your Bible calls you a fool.

Death awaits you. This is not a game that you can win. And that actually is really bad news for some of you. I mean, it's super bad news. It's good, it's warning, it's good, but it's negative. going to be punished. And the reality, and we've talked about this several times, we're going to talk about it next week, the reality is like we're drawn to sin, right? You and I sin all the time. We sin on a daily basis, on a minute by minute basis, right? And in that, we are frustrated. We do see those things that lead to death. And that is bad news. Let's take a second, let's look at verse 6 and let's meditate on some good news. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code. Okay, so we are free to serve the spirit's way.

Serving in the new way of the spirit is the same as bearing fruit for God. Those, verse four and verse six, are kind of right there talking about the same thing, different metaphor, same thing, okay? That serving in the new way of the Spirit is the same as bearing fruit from God, and although we are going to go in more in-depth on this next week with some, you know, the things that are happening at the end of verse 7, there are a few things I believe that this risque illustration already shows us that gives us instruction on verse 6. So let's ask the question again, what does it look like? What does it look like whenever Jesus brings somebody to life? What does that look like? Well, it looks like we get more metaphors here. It looks like bearing fruit for God. It looks like serving in the new way of the Spirit. Yes, yes, that's great. Thank you. But practically,

right, what should we expect? What does it look like? If I'm alive in Jesus Christ, how's my life supposed to look? What are some markers? I want to suggest three things based on four things, based on this vivid picture that we received. And you see in verse 6 it says that we serve so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit. In other words, and I don't want to pass this up, we our old self died and our new self has come alive so that in order to, for the purpose of serving in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. So you have a positive and a negative and what we're going to do for each one, each of these four, I'm going to give you kind of a positive and then a negative. Show you what it looks like to serve in the new way of the Spirit and then show you what we shouldn't be doing by serving in the way of the law, the old way of the written code. So first, if we are serving in the Spirit's

in the spirit's way, it begins with communication. It begins with communication. It might be helpful to think of this as like marriage advice for your spiritual health, okay? And I've been to a marriage conference before, I've heard marriage speakers before. This is not unlike what they say, right? It begins with communication. There are certain things that begin in the kitchen, if you know what I mean. And all that's trying to say, all that's trying to say is that, look, if you wanna serve in the way of the Spirit, then it stems from actually speaking to Jesus in prayer.

It stems from having a time where you set aside and you talk to Jesus and you listen to Jesus. And this is just like a spouse, right? If you have a spouse and you don't talk to them, that's bad. I don't care how long you've been married. If you go weeks without speaking to your spouse, I mean, unless it's like under duress or something, if they're being held hostage, obviously, you can't talk to them. But beyond that, you should have conversation with them. This means that we pray. What's this look like? It looks like you pray. What do we pray for? We pray for lots of things.

I just wanna give you a couple of encouragements. Number one, you can pray for the Lord to do something about what you see in front of you, like fixing a problem, right? That comes in all sorts of varieties, like you have a problem with a coworker, you have a relationship that's in disrepair, maybe there's something that isn't going forward, maybe you need a promotion, maybe you need more money, maybe something, and you're asking God, hey, God, would you remove that barrier? Would you help me kind of get access there? Okay, yes. And then there's other kinds of prayer. Other kinds of prayer where you are praying for something to happen that is not there. This is akin to our church praying to plant four churches by 2040. That is a prayer. And although that seems crazy to some, the kind of prayer that is, is a prayer where you are asking God to do something that is in line with His will that He's really,

you know the Lord wants churches, right? You know that, and so you're praying toward that end. We're not praying for the Lord to make us a lottery winner, although fine, if you get the lottery, just make sure you get time. Just saying, but the kind of prayer I'm talking about, the kind of prayer I'm talking about is where you are praying, Lord, Lord, help me see what you want me to do with my life. Help me to see what you want me to do in these relationships with these people that don't know you. Help me have an opportunity to share my story, to talk about the gospel. Help me have those things. Help me pray more. Help me care more. Those kinds of prayers are different than just removing barriers, different than just like bunker mentality where you're just like, oh, please make it stop. Those are fine prayers to pray when you are in a bunker. So no shade on that.

But there's also other kinds of prayers to pray. Don't forget about those other kinds of prayer. So it means we pray, begins with communication, it means we pray. The opposite would be that bunker mentality. It'd be like crisis only praying. You only talk to the Lord when you're super desperate. Not a little desperate, not a lot desperate, but like edge of your hanging on by a thread, desperate. You're only coming to church when you really feel it, when you're really excited, right? That you don't kind of have these disciplines where you're praying on the everyday. I'm not saying you got to be perfect. I'm just saying if all you're doing is waiting until you feel it, then you might be serving in the way of the law and not by the Spirit. And it's possible to do that.

Serving in the Spirit is an overflow of a relationship that you are already building when you are serving in the Spirit. You're praying. It's an overflow. Okay, second thing, serving in the Spirit's way satisfies you, satisfies you in the deepest ways. When you serve in the spirit, it connects you to the deepest purpose that a person can have, which is to know that what you are doing now will last forever. That's it. That's the secret, by the way. Just in case you're wondering, if you want the best purpose ever, find something that will never be destroyed. And put everything on that. Bet all of it on that chip. On that square. My gambling reference is off, sorry. It connects people to the deepest purpose that a person can have, to know that what you're doing will last forever. It means, this means if you are satisfied in the deepest ways, it means that the reason

that you're there is because you are taking the time to reflect on the goodness of God. And it doesn't mean that your life is sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. It means that you're taking the time to reflect upon. And look, some of you love journaling, some of you hate journaling with a passion, it's fine. You don't need to journal necessarily, but something that journaling helps you do is to remember. Even as you're writing it, you remember it. You feel it differently. You go through it again. It makes a deeper impact. It means that we should take time to remember God's goodness, that our relationship with the Lord, we are serving in the way of the spirit, it should satisfy us in the deepest ways. And it doesn't mean euphoria every time, right? I don't mean like going from ecstasy to ecstasy, but I do mean that it satisfies you that you find joy in it. The opposite would just be serving by the law,

which would be doing Christian things, but you're totally just duty beaten, okay? You're just doing religious things and you never quit because you're not a quitter. Well, congratulations. I mean, everybody's super proud of you, but if all you're doing is just maintaining this cool reputation you have, it's not worth it. It's serving in the way of the law. It's gonna kill you. The only thing that's gonna bring is death. Even if it is going to church. You don't have joy, you don't have life.

And again, look, I'm not talking about Pollyanna, okay? I'm not talking about just prancing down the street singing tra la la, I mean that you have a satisfaction. I mean that you are alive. I mean that you are present in a given situation. So serving in the spirit, communication, satisfaction. The third, serving in the spirit's way is going to move through suffering. It's going to move through suffering. That's really important, the through there, moves through suffering. We're talking about back in Romans 5:3 that we rejoice in our sufferings a couple weeks ago. What that means is not that we just, again, we don't just love it whenever tragedy happens and we're super excited.

It means that suffering doesn't take us down and that we understand the purpose of suffering and that is to make us look more like Him. And that in that sense, in a real sense, that suffering is not wasted. Your spiritual life, in your growth and looking more like the Lord Jesus Christ, will last forever. The only thing that changes when we get to heaven is that it's completed. It starts now. Starts in the middle of suffering. And look, let me just, on a side note, we've been going through it, haven't we? We've been suffering a few things, a few losses, a few giant setbacks, a few, life wasn't supposed to go this way moments, we've had a few, many of us have, and my heart goes out to you. But it is to say that it's not a comfort to say this too shall pass. That's not a comfort. It's a reality, I guess, but I mean, it's not going to give you any kind of comfort or hope

or joy. It's like it's a really holy way to say, like, wait it out. What does Scripture say? Scripture says that that suffering right now is going to produce character and that's going to produce endurance and that's going to produce hope. It's going to make you a different person. You're going to be able to last through things. You're going to be able to encourage other people. You're going to be there for other people the same way other people were there for you. don't understand that your suffering is part of a bigger plan to turn you into somebody that can serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the law. If you serve in the old way of the law, then your mentality is that it's an even trade. It's an even trade on the suffering scales. If I do what I'm supposed to, I'm going to bypass a lot of suffering. The reason people suffer is because they're not religious enough.

Friends, that is toxic and wrong and weird. No. No. That's not how it works. It's not even trade. Often. I mean, read the book of Ecclesiastes. Often when you do exactly what you're supposed to do, suffering will still knock on your door. It will beat it down, actually. And it will come in uninvited. Suffering will hurt you. things from you that you will never get back and it will be hard. The Lord's promise in that is not that you will not suffer, the Lord's promise in that is that he's going to use it, that he wants to use it. This is what it is to serve in the way of the Spirit, that we move through suffering, that we move along suffering, that we grow in suffering. Lastly, fourth one, serving in the Spirit's way. When you are serving in the Spirit's way, you freely give. It is freely given to you and you freely give to others. When you love someone, you want to

do things for them. I don't understand why this is true. I don't know if there's like a scientific, you know, brain explanation for this, okay? But I do know it from experience that when you love someone, when you truly care for another person, you want to meet their needs. You want to serve them. You want to help them. You want to help them grow. You want to move them along. You want them to be benefited by your presence. You serve their needs. You freely, you don't just freely give things to them. You freely give yourself to them. This is love. giving yourself to another person. Look, we often talk about whenever we pass the plates and we do offering, and when we do we talk about this, but it's worth saying in a different way that it's not just money that you give to the Lord by giving it to the church. It's not just that, it includes that, it's everything else though.

It's how you spend your time. It's how you love people. It's how you make time to be present in a given situation. It's making time to talk to somebody. serving needs, that when you do these things that you need to do it in a free way, that you need to understand that it is not a, it's not an even trade, it's not like I do something for you, you do something for me, you know, it's just freely given. No expectation of return. Just it's something that I am doing freely for you because I love you. Full stop. When you love someone you want to do things for them freely. Your service to Jesus, the service in the way of the Spirit, should be given freely. And this includes everything. This is like praying, right? You don't pray because, okay, if you're praying because, man, if this is going on in your mind, I need to pray today because if I don't pray today, something bad is going to happen to me. Look, do

everybody a favor and don't pray. Don't. Don't. Not that day. Pick a different day. I want you to pray, but I don't want you to pray that way. That's praying like God's got a gun in your head. That's leveraged prayer. That's coerced. But people do that all the time. They pray so that nothing bad will happen. They read their Bible so that they can have a good life. They take the Lord's Supper because they want to make double sure. They worship on Sunday mornings. They attend church. Some of you are here this morning because you think by doing this, God owes you something. something now, but he doesn't. He never did. That's kind of the good news. God's not beholden to us. We're beholden to him, but he loves us. He cares for us. He freely gives things to us. In fact, the actual meaning of a tithe, right, an offering, right, money that you give back to God, is that you give something, you give a little bit back,

percentage back because of what was given to you praying reading your Bible taking Lord's Supper worshiping here giving offering even serving with VBS Rec Week to just pick an example out of the air look and I mean it man it look serve freely serve freely you've got qualms over it and you're not sure you can serve in a free way it's gonna hurt you to serve. I mean, you know, maybe the lemonade is still going to get made, but it's going to hurt your heart, right? It's going to be bad. When we serve in that way, it is free, right? It should be freely given. It's not leveraged. It's not something that we're going to do it, and if we don't do it right, or if we don't do it perfect, then God's got a gun in our head. And I want to end on this and say this in particular. There There are certain times, certain things that I hear, I see, because I watch people when

they talk about the Lord. It's a professional habit, so to speak. And when people talk about God, I can always tell the ones that either were leveraged or are leveraged. The ones that were leveraged, which some quick version of that would be like an adult who doesn't follow the Lord anymore, but they grew up in a Christian school. Some version of that, they had a lot of religious experience when they were teenagers, but now they're 40 and they don't. Everything that typically, this is generally speaking, there are exceptions to this, so fine. What comes out of their mouth is if I don't do this. If I say this bad word, then God's going to get me. If I don't do this good thing, then I'm gonna owe God. And what I'm describing, although it sounds insane, it actually is the working theology of the majority of people that you come in contact with on a given day.

That is what they're thinking. If I smoke this cigarette, then I'm a bad person and I'm going to hell. And although it pains me, it does. pains me to hear it, it drives me crazy to hear it, okay, but I have to remember not everybody is where I'm at, right? Not everybody understands what I understand and it's by the grace of God that I understand it anyway, so I don't need to get too proud, but it does, it hurts so bad to hear it because it's like I just want to say, and sometimes it's inappropriate to say this because we're just in a restaurant or something, and it's my waitress. But I want to say out loud like you can be free. You can be free but you're just you're in a cage and you like it there. Think about how much better life would be outside of that. It's not I do something good and good likes me or do something bad and God doesn't lie. It's not that. It's never that. It never has been that. And whatever

church or whatever Christian school taught you that, I mean, man, I hope that changes. I hope they wake up. I hope they realize that that's not the way to do it. But I also don't just put the blame on the church or the Christian school because sometimes that's really easy for us to think, right? It's a really easy lie for us to swallow. So you can say, well, I was lied to as a kid. OK, sure, fine. Most of us were. But what do you believe now? What you got now? Because now it's you in the cage, and the key's around your neck. You can get out any time you want, but you're not. You're just chilling, because it's just cleaner. It's just simpler. Look, let me just encourage you, from the bottom of my heart. My wife tells me I look mad when I do these things. And I'm not mad, OK? Sorry, I'm excited. But I do look mad. Sorry, I'm not mad.

I'm not, I'm just passionate, loud. I'm loud and passionate, which sounds angry a lot. But I just wanna say, man, from the bottom of my heart, just you don't have to be in that cage. You've been, you've already been set free, it's just that you don't think it. God's not looking to strike you down as soon as you do something bad. God's actually waiting for you to talk with him like in a paternal, in a spousal, in a really familiar kind of way. That's actually what the Lord God in heaven wants. That's actually what your creator wants for you. You wanna serve in the new way of the Lord?

Then just understand and begin to act on the fact that God in heaven wants a relationship with you with no strings attached, with no coercion involved, that it's freely given and freely accepted. We're about to have our time where we just sing a little bit. I want to encourage you just to worship freely, as you were given freely. But also that after the service, I'm just going to be hanging around near the front. And if you want to talk to somebody, man, please come up and talk. And let me know how we can pray for you. let me know what I can do to help, to be of service, to... If there's a question that you have, you want to play Stump the Pastor, that's fine. We can have that conversation. That's cool. But I'd love to talk to you. So as we sing, as we consider how we will freely sing to the Lord in worship, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this moment. Thank

you for the opportunity to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, not because we're good or we're worth it. With this gospel that you've given, it tells us that we're free. So help us to walk in a way that's free. And it's your name that we pray, amen. Would you stand?