SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Spring Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you joined us.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to reach the lost by raising up fully trained disciples that are empowered by God to impact their world.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you are challenged and encouraged as you listen to this week's message.
SPEAKER_01: God, I thank you for your presence in this house this morning.
SPEAKER_01: God, it is your presence, Lord, that we treasure more than anything else, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, Lord, for every person, Lord, that got up this morning, oh God, and got through, Lord, whatever they had to get through in order to be in church this morning.
SPEAKER_01: But God, Lord, unless you show up, God, unless, Lord, your presence, oh God, touches people's lives, then God, it is all vanity.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want vanity.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want religious exercise.
SPEAKER_01: God, we want an encounter with the Holy Spirit, God.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, God, for what you're doing in this church.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, God, that you are breaking chains of addiction, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, God, Lord, for the report of physical healing that's coming through in this church.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, God, Lord, for people, Lord, that were lost, oh God, but now are found.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you, God, that we have a reason to celebrate today, a reason to give thanks, oh God, a reason to lift up our hands and worship you in this house today.
SPEAKER_01: God, Lord, hide me, Lord, behind the cross today.
SPEAKER_01: God, Lord, I just pray that you would put, Lord, your grace on full display before your people today.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' mighty name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Legalism, licentiousness, and grace.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give a little bit of a definition in light of this message on each one of those.
SPEAKER_01: Legalism would be my stain is unacceptable, so I need to fix it.
SPEAKER_01: Now you can use that word sin right there as well.
SPEAKER_01: My stain is unacceptable, so I need to fix myself.
SPEAKER_01: Licentiousness is my stain doesn't matter, so I don't need to change.
SPEAKER_01: But grace is my stain has already been carried by Christ, so I don't have to hide it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to have a revelation of grace, the blessing that God purchased for us on Calvary, that we're not called to live short or less than the full providence of uh uh provision that God would want us to have.
SPEAKER_01: I believe so many people live their Christian life in a in a less than uh uh place than where God would want you to have, where we relegate or walk with God to church attendance or to church sayings or simple activity, but we miss that God has prepared so much more for us, he has provided for us so much more through the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He has not just given us a reason to get up on Sunday morning and get together, but he's given us a reason to live, he's given us freedom, and for he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, in God, there is a blessing, there's a blessing for your life.
SPEAKER_01: Can you say amen this morning?
SPEAKER_01: There's a blessing for blessing for your marriage, there's a blessing for the purpose that you have in your life, and God wants to reveal that and not only reveal that, but also empower you to be able to live out this life that God has purchased for you with his own precious blood.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Paul is setting the table, if you would, in Romans chapter 5, verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: He's speaking to a Christian and a Jewish audience, a Jewish audience that was consumed at this time with the understanding of the law.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the law is important for every Christian believer to know what the law is and what is the law.
SPEAKER_01: You just go back in the Old Testament and from Genesis 3, where to 3, where Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, right through to Moses, sin was always there, uh, Cain and Abel.
SPEAKER_01: We see the uh sin of the Tower of Babel, we see the sin, but it was when God began to take Moses up a mountain, Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, and he takes him up Mount Sinai and he begins to speak to them the Ten Commandments, that there was these commandments now that were holy and that were good and they were from God.
SPEAKER_01: It was through them that Paul now is saying, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound.
SPEAKER_01: There was always sin, but now there's an awareness of the sin.
SPEAKER_01: So because we know that thou shalt not steal, when we steal, we have a we have it in law and documented that this is missing the mark, it is sin before a holy and a righteous God.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is now dealing with this law issue, a law issue that began with Moses with Ten Commandments, that by the time that Jesus is now walking physically throughout the earth, God, the God man is walking around.
SPEAKER_01: And now these commandments, these law had not just stated 10 commandments, but over 600 laws that the people were trying to live under, the burden of doing what was right, doing what was holy.
SPEAKER_01: Now you gotta you gotta get the context so that you can get the clarity of this message.
SPEAKER_01: When when they were living under this this law and they were trying their best to do this, it was in the culture of the the Jews at that time that the more you knew about the law, the more knowledge you had of the law, the greater the chance you had to live up to the law.
SPEAKER_01: That's why with the Pharisees or the religious leaders, they looked down upon the people when they taught the people, and the people looked up to them like they're the holy ones, like they're the righteous ones, like they're the good example for all of us.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is not arguing and saying that the law is bad or that it's sinful.
SPEAKER_01: He's actually saying that the law is good because if we did not know the law, then we wouldn't know what is right and what is wrong, what is evil, what is righteous, what is holy, what is pure, and what is right and wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's he's bringing this, but he's saying the law came so that the offense might abound, but here it is.
SPEAKER_01: But where sin abounded, grace abounded so much more.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's here's the reason that this is so important to me is I've been getting messages a lot recently of people just confessing and saying, Pastor Owen, I messed up and I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: I I feel terrible about a decision that I've made.
SPEAKER_01: People from all different people walking with the Lord for years, I made a bad choice.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody even who just went through the waters of baptism asked me, is it normal for people to fail even though I just got baptized?
SPEAKER_01: What a great question.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is important for every believer to understand the the nature and the gravity of this question because I want to introduce you to Bob this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody say hi, Bob.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I I don't like using sermon, props, and illustrations, but I got this picture in my mind of Bob, and I wanted to just use Bob as an example this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Let's say Bob just got baptized, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And he comes out and he's got a testimony and he's got a shout of praise, and he's got a photo that he puts up on social media, and he's like, I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus, and he's all pumped up about this new Christian walk, and then he's driving down to uh get his uh pick up Chipotle after church on Sunday, and as he's driving down Blanding, which would never happen in Blanding, but somebody cuts him off on his way to get his Chipotle, and he gives him the internationally recognized sign of disapproval, and it's not the pinky finger, and he thinks to himself, I just got baptized, I just made my public professional fate in Jesus, and now I've just given somebody that sign, and I hope they didn't have a dash cam so that they recorded me and are gonna put me on Duval's most wanted.
SPEAKER_01: I just I just hope, and there's there's there's this reality of man, I've missed a mark, I've fallen short, and I know the Bible says that our sim sindo, it may be like crimson, and and I I want to do, I want to do what's right, I want to do what's good, but man, I even in even as a new creation in crying, I'm I'm struggling.
SPEAKER_01: I I just got a message from somebody that hurt me deeply and wounded me deeply, and I thought I'd forgiven that person, but when I got that message, bitterness rose up inside of me, and I began to think things about that person that are not right, that are not good.
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm not talking to anybody at the Springs Church this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and then he goes into the grocery store and he's picking up he's picking up some some supplies in the grocery store and he sees a girl and and and he looks, but he looks with lust in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, how how could God ever love me?
SPEAKER_01: I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and then he he gets home and he opens up Instagram and he realizes that his best friend in the whole world is after getting a brand new Toyota Sequoia 2026, souped up to the max with all of the extras involved in it.
SPEAKER_01: And he realized he just paid for four new tires on his old banger of a car, and he he wants to say, Bless the Lord, bless him, bless you, brother.
SPEAKER_01: But really, there's jealousy and covetness inside in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm not talking to anybody this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody here at the Springs Church deals with jealousy, nobody here is deals ever gossips about anybody else, nobody here ever, ever, ever has manipulation, nobody here has ever cheated on their taxes at the Springs Church.
SPEAKER_01: No, not at the Springs Church, but yet they all we come in and we worship and we wonder what do we do with this sin, though it be like scarlet, and how do we tackle this?
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is dealing with this issue of the law, and he's dealing with this issue of sin, and he speaks to these religious leaders in Romans 2, 17, 23.
SPEAKER_01: Now follow with me, it's important.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, you are called a Jew, and he says, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and you are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind and a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, and a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law.
SPEAKER_01: You therefore teach one another, do you not teach yourself?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Paul's gonna dig deep here for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying your boast is in the law, your boast is in the knowledge, you teach others who are in darkness, but do you yourself do as you are teaching?
SPEAKER_01: You who preach a man should not steal, do you steal?
SPEAKER_01: You say do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?
SPEAKER_01: You who abore idols, do you rob temples?
SPEAKER_01: You make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?
SPEAKER_01: Paul's like, you teach it, but you can't live up to it.
SPEAKER_01: You may know what is right and know what's wrong, but you fall like anybody else.
SPEAKER_01: See, Paul is saying, sin abounds.
SPEAKER_01: Can I just let you know that in 2026 sin still abounds?
SPEAKER_01: We're living in a corrupt and a broken and a fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: Sin still abounds.
SPEAKER_01: The reality of sin, if there's flesh, sin is knocking at the door.
SPEAKER_01: With it's in it's in the flesh, it's sin is there in your home, it's in your family, it's in your community, it's in your school.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, how about this one?
SPEAKER_01: There's even sin in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Where am I going to get away from the corruption of sin?
SPEAKER_01: Where am I going to find people that are just pure and holy and don't ever say anything bad about anybody else?
SPEAKER_01: And they actually do as they say with their word, oh, sin.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, that it just must be my church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go down to the Pentecostal church because they're spiritful people, and they they I'm going to go to the Pentecost, and you're there for six months, seven months, and then you realize, well, these two, these people are as fallen as any other people.
SPEAKER_01: These people have as many issues as anybody else.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Oh, I'm going to go down to the Baptist church and I'll go there because there's no sin in there.
SPEAKER_01: There are good people down there, and you go down to the Baptist church and you're there a few weeks and you realize, whoa, there's sin here as well.
SPEAKER_01: And so then you say to yourself, Oh, I'm done with church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm done with showing up at church.
SPEAKER_01: They're all hypocrites anyway.
SPEAKER_01: There's sin everywhere in the church.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm just gonna stay at home, I'm gonna watch the news, I'm gonna turn on Fox News, I'm gonna turn on CNN, and I am going to, I'm gonna take my spiritual advice from politicians rather than from pastors.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: And so you begin to tune in, and then you realize that no matter if you would follow the Republicans or you follow the Democrats, the sin abounds in here.
SPEAKER_01: And you think to yourself, Where am I going to go?
SPEAKER_01: What's the solution?
SPEAKER_01: How am I going to get out?
SPEAKER_01: And Paul, Paul is drawing the people in.
SPEAKER_01: He gets to chapter seven, and he says, I'm not just gonna, he's not just gonna point at every at the Jews or the Gentiles, he begins to point at himself.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter seven, he says, I know what I should do and I do not do it, and I know what I shouldn't do, and I end up doing it, and everybody that's ever read Romans chapter seven is like, uh huh, uh-huh, that's me.
SPEAKER_01: I recognize exactly what Paul says, and then he says, But oh wretched man that I am, who's gonna deliver me from this?
SPEAKER_01: Who's gonna deliver me from the sin that abounds?
SPEAKER_01: Who's going to deliver me from it?
SPEAKER_01: And everybody's on the edge of their chair because everybody wants the answer.
SPEAKER_01: Who's going to deliver me from the now?
SPEAKER_01: This is what so often the enemy comes in, you're stained, you're discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: And you come in to some environment, and somebody begins to speak and preach legalism over your life.
SPEAKER_01: Legalism, here it is, it understands that sin is serious, but misunderstands the solution.
SPEAKER_01: Legalism says I'm saved by grace.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't save myself, but now it's up to me to live the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_01: It understands the sin is serious, but it misunderstands the solution.
SPEAKER_01: And so legalism begins to take that law.
SPEAKER_01: And we have we've we have our own version of the law as well.
SPEAKER_01: And we we say to ourselves, we begin to say things like, Okay, uh, I'm going to, I'm gonna try harder.
SPEAKER_01: I know I failed, I know that I've messed up.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Sarah, these are my own white shirts, so we're gonna have to get new white shirts afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I was gonna do about that.
SPEAKER_01: But here we are, Bob, you got my shirt today, and Bob gets my shirt, and he's like, I'll try harder.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna open up the U Version Bible app, and I'm gonna read it every single day until he opens it up the app one day and he's 124 days behind on his Bible reading app.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh, I failed again, but I'll try harder.
SPEAKER_01: I'll get up at 5 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: in the morning and I will pray for six hours and I will go on the treadmill for another two hours.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be the most disciplined person on the planet.
SPEAKER_01: Make my New Year's resolutions, and then realize I can't keep that either.
SPEAKER_01: And so then he goes, Well, I'm gonna behave better.
SPEAKER_01: And he starts making promises to God.
SPEAKER_01: He starts saying, God, if you will give me one more chance, I'll never sin again, God.
SPEAKER_01: I'll never go and look at with lust again in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'll never do it again, God.
SPEAKER_01: If you just give me one more chance, God, God, I will forgive them this time.
SPEAKER_01: I won't harbor any.
SPEAKER_01: If you just, if I just come to the altar and I just I cry and shed a few tears, maybe, God, that you will help me out.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe you'll make everything okay.
SPEAKER_01: And legalism begins to put a shirt and begins to put a tie over it and says, and says, You you can make up for what you did, you can do more serve, you can do more outreach, you can pay more, tithe more, you can make up for what you did.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're trying and you're working, and it's no different to the old testament.
SPEAKER_01: It's no different than when they when they sinned, they would have to bring a a lamb up to the temple at the time of sacrifice and sacrifice that lamb so that their sins could be forgiven, and then they'd walk away and realize they were still powerless to live a righteous life, and then they would have to take that.
SPEAKER_01: So, so we've got modern day people who are coming back and forth to the altar, but have no power, no victory, no, no, no life with them.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and and and then you open up your Bible and you read Isaiah chapter 64, verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: It says that all our good works, all our righteousness are like filthy rags.
SPEAKER_01: What that means everything that I'm doing that God sees through it, he sees the real me, he's not he's not mistaken by what he sees on the outside, he's looking at what's on the inside, and this is just like a filthy rag to him.
SPEAKER_01: This means nothing to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and legalism, when when you begin to embody legalism, you and you try and you work hard and you're doing everything that you can to keep it together, and you're operating in legalism, what begins to happen is you begin to become more and more discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: Because the harder you try, the worse it feels when you fail.
SPEAKER_01: And then when you try again, you're left in a place of shame and feeling low.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens next is just that people feel so discouraged and so ashamed is they want to run and disconnect from fellowship and connection because they're so so afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Legalism seems to have no answer, but it has one more trick up its sleeve.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most dangerous one.
SPEAKER_01: Legalism has one more trick up its sleeve, and that trick is hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_01: I'll let everybody see my good works.
SPEAKER_01: I'll pretend that I'm perfect on the outside, and I'll begin to even teach people.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go, Steve.
SPEAKER_01: I'll begin to teach people.
SPEAKER_01: You're right, you're wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Look, look, look.
SPEAKER_01: Look at everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Don't look in me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't look in my sin, don't look in my heart, but look at everybody else's sin that's all around, and it is hypocrisy hiding behind.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is speaking about the law, and he's speaking about sin.
SPEAKER_01: And he says in Galatians chapter 3, verse 1 to 3, Oh foolish Galatians, let me translate in my oh foolish Bob.
SPEAKER_01: Who has bewitched you?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, who's tricked you?
SPEAKER_01: That you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among us as crucified.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Jesus didn't hide his scars, he didn't hide his shame, he was crucified, he bled, he died, as he hung on the cross, he didn't hang there with a robe over him, disguising his scars.
SPEAKER_01: No, the Bible says that when Jesus went to the cross, he went naked to the cross, every scar was seen, every cut was seen, every every broken part of his body was on full display for everybody to see.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is saying, Clark Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified.
SPEAKER_01: His scars were there for everybody to see.
SPEAKER_01: This only I want to know from you, Bob.
SPEAKER_01: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?
SPEAKER_01: Are you so foolish?
SPEAKER_01: Having begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect in the flesh?
SPEAKER_01: Man, the Bible doesn't hold back any punches.
SPEAKER_01: It said, Are you so foolish?
SPEAKER_01: No, you see, you thought you were just saved by grace, but you're not just saved by grace, you also stand by grace.
SPEAKER_01: If God saved you by grace, then the only way that you're gonna get through it is that you stand on grace.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 5, 1 to 2 says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm standing on holy ground this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm standing in the presence of Almighty God today, and I'm not standing here because I'm pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, some.
SPEAKER_01: I'm standing here because amazing grace, how sweet and sad and saved a wretch like me.
SPEAKER_01: The once was lost.
SPEAKER_01: But now I'm standing on grace.
SPEAKER_01: I'm found.
SPEAKER_01: I was blind, but now I see.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, let's just take a moment and thank God for amazing grace.
SPEAKER_01: It's the grace of God by which we stand.
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
SPEAKER_01: Who are we fooling?
SPEAKER_01: Man, what we're doing is we're just putting burdens on other people.
SPEAKER_01: Making people think, oh, you gotta be perfect to show up to church.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta be perfect to do this.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta be perfect to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you, that's just putting the law on other people.
SPEAKER_01: If I could be there say, it's almost cursing people, making them into a place where they never can actually live out.
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus hung on the cross for our sin, he hung there by his by his wounds.
SPEAKER_01: We are healed, the prophet Isaiah said.
SPEAKER_01: He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we're healed.
SPEAKER_01: When I look upon Jesus, when I look upon the cross and I'm reminded that it wasn't a Hollywood version of perfect little piercings in the hand and perfect little piercings on the feet, and a little designer crowned his head.
SPEAKER_01: No, his body was marred because my sin was costly.
SPEAKER_01: He's the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: He's the Lamb of God.
SPEAKER_01: You know why people did?
SPEAKER_01: They got to the foot of the cross and they began to gamble over his robe.
SPEAKER_01: They began to gamble and they missed what Jesus wanted to actually give them.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus wanted to give them so much more.
SPEAKER_01: This week Sarah went down to Orlando with the kids, and she left me by myself.
SPEAKER_01: So I was there.
SPEAKER_01: And one afternoon, I was drinking my Irish cup of Barry's tea, and I put it on our rug in our living room, our good rug.
SPEAKER_01: And when I got up to leave, I spilt the tea all over the rug.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Surely I know my wife Sarah.
SPEAKER_01: She's not gonna have mercy and grace on me.
SPEAKER_01: I shall be judged.
SPEAKER_01: So I went to to chat GBT, and I said, How do you get a tea stain out of a rug?
SPEAKER_01: And so they told me about vinegar and spice and all things nice.
SPEAKER_01: And I tried to, I tried to fix it myself, and I was scrubbing it with all these chemicals, and what I was finding is the more I scrubbed, the worse it got.
SPEAKER_01: It just smudged it in deeper and further and all around it.
SPEAKER_01: And I began to think to myself, what am I going to do?
SPEAKER_01: I said, I know what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm gonna take the couch and I'm gonna put it up over the corner of it.
SPEAKER_01: She won't even know.
SPEAKER_01: But then my better sense got a hold of me.
SPEAKER_01: I knew that Sarah would come in that door, she wouldn't have even seen the carpet.
SPEAKER_01: And from from the very doorway, she would say, What happened to my carpet?
SPEAKER_01: What happened to my rug?
SPEAKER_01: What happened to it?
SPEAKER_01: What happened to my rug?
SPEAKER_01: She wouldn't have known.
SPEAKER_01: She would have known.
SPEAKER_01: So, so as I was there and I was trying to figure it out, and I had a brush out for some reason.
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to brush it out, and the fan was going up over my head, and I lifted up the brush and it whacked off the fan, hit off my head, and so now I'm sitting on the couch.
SPEAKER_01: It's worse than it's ever been before, and I've got a headache, and I'm trying to hide the fact that I've stained this rug, but the more I try, the worse it's getting, and I've got a headache, and what do I do about it?
SPEAKER_01: And as I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, what a picture of sin.
SPEAKER_01: What a picture of people trying to hide their sin from God, making a mess of it, making it worse, thinking you can hide it from God.
SPEAKER_01: You got more of a headache trying to get out of it than you do than just dealing with it.
SPEAKER_01: And I just called up my wife Sarah.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Sarah, I spelled tea on the rug, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And she responded back.
SPEAKER_01: Sarah sounds like the Holy Spirit sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: She said, said it's okay.
SPEAKER_01: She said, roll it up, put it by the washing machine, I'll take care of it, I'll deal with it.
SPEAKER_01: And right then I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to me.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I thank God for the grace of Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: That the more I try, the worse it gets.
SPEAKER_01: But the minute I confess it before the Lord and say, God, Lord, I have sinned before you.
SPEAKER_01: You're a holy God.
SPEAKER_01: I cannot fix it.
SPEAKER_01: I just keep on making this worse.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit says, I'll deal with it.
SPEAKER_01: You just put it at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: I'll deal with it better than any Maytag whirlpool, wash pool, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: I'll deal.
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing sin as I scalar, I'll make it as white as snow, I'll fix it completely.
SPEAKER_01: Thank God for the grace of Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when we come to church, we come to an altar.
SPEAKER_01: We don't come here with the best version of ourselves pretending.
SPEAKER_01: No, when you come to an altar, you can pretend before other people, but you can't fake it before God.
SPEAKER_01: He knows.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I wonder what's the point of coming to the altar if you're not going to be honest with God?
SPEAKER_01: What's the point in shedding tears if you're really not repenting and saying, God, I need to go in a different direction?
SPEAKER_01: This is what I'm really dealing with.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the altar is one of the most important part of our service is the altar call moment.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new to the church, when we get to the end of the service, it's not your moment to try and rush to the buffet.
SPEAKER_01: It's the most important moment.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm asking you, if you're going to make this your church, that you respect the altar call at the end of the service.
SPEAKER_01: Because people are doing business with God and God's dealing with people, and he's breaking chains at the altar.
SPEAKER_01: I love the altar.
SPEAKER_01: I believe the altar should be the messiest place.
SPEAKER_01: You can come down here, you can you can be drooling with with tears and snod and everything else just because it's messy.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes in the presence of God, God's gonna deal with things.
SPEAKER_01: You come down here and you give him your mess, you give him the reality of what's going on, the things that you've been dealing with.
SPEAKER_01: See, grace is not a do-do-do, grace is a done, done, done.
SPEAKER_01: He has done it all.
SPEAKER_01: Let me finish here by leading you to the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15, verse 17 to 22.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, everybody knows the story of the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_01: He took his father's inheritance, and he's the Bible says he went out and spent it on riotous living, spent it on parroting, spent it on trying to live an opulent lifestyle, and he wasted all his money and ended up in a pig pen.
SPEAKER_01: And he's eating from the trough of a pig pen.
SPEAKER_01: And it says in verse 17 of Luke 15, but when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger?
SPEAKER_01: I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_01: See, legalism understands that the gravity of sin.
SPEAKER_01: I have sinned before you, and I've sinned before heaven.
SPEAKER_01: I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_01: He understood the gravity.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Make me like one of your hired servants.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I'll work my way back.
SPEAKER_01: I'll work as a servant, I'll work beneath your household, and I will just serve.
SPEAKER_01: If I can just be in your house, I'll just work my way for my for my living.
SPEAKER_01: And he rose and he came to his father, but when he was still afar off, the father saw him, had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and he kissed him.
SPEAKER_01: And the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, but here it is.
SPEAKER_01: And the father said to his servants, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I want you to catch this.
SPEAKER_01: The father said to his servants, now Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a picture of the father speaking to the son: Go get the robe, go get the royal robe, go get the robe that identifies him with this household.
SPEAKER_01: Go get the robe that gives him authority in my house.
SPEAKER_01: Go get him that robe which gives him power inside of my go get him that robe that identifies that he is my son and that I am his father.
SPEAKER_01: Go get the royal robe.
SPEAKER_01: You see, if you if you see the gospel as just being saved from your sins, you've only got half the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Not only have you been saved from your sins, hallelujah, but God has also given you his very own righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: He has taken off the garments of mourning and he's given you joy, clothes of gladness.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that when he told the disciples, he said, Go down and wait in Jerusalem until you're endured with power from on high.
SPEAKER_01: It's a picture of the Holy Spirit coming in.
SPEAKER_01: See, I want you to know today, as we're inside in this place, that God hasn't given you servants' robes, He's given you royal robes.
SPEAKER_01: See, the enemy wants you to feel like you're not a good enough father, you're not a good enough husband, and surely you'll never be able to minister again.
SPEAKER_01: You're a failure.
SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you, you may have failed, but you are not a failure in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You're not a failure in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: No, the Bible says you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Not because you earned it or deserved it.
SPEAKER_01: You think I deserve Sarah as my wife?
SPEAKER_01: No, but sometimes I gotta speak grace over my life.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is not just something I sit at a meal and thank God for the food that I have that's in abundance in the stores.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is, God, I would be lost, I would be broken.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying I thank you, God, that you've given me a wife, you've given me kids, you've given me friendships, you've given me, you've been so good to me.
SPEAKER_01: My cup runs over, cause.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Does anybody just want to thank God that you are blessed by grace this morning?
SPEAKER_01: That your cup runs over.
SPEAKER_01: Mercy means you don't get what you deserve, which is judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Grace means you get what you do not deserve.
SPEAKER_01: I get peace.
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, you do get peace.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a theory, it's a reality, it's an encounter with God.
SPEAKER_01: He gives you the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You want to live out this life, you're endued with the power of Almighty God, the Holy Spirit living inside of you.
SPEAKER_01: I may not feel like it sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm stained.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not worthy.
SPEAKER_01: I don't feel like this sometimes, but let me tell you, God's word is bigger than your feelings.
SPEAKER_01: The reality, this is the reality.
SPEAKER_01: The test of faith is not can I do good enough to be uh to be worthy to come into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: The test of faith is do I believe that Jesus is enough?
SPEAKER_01: You gotta catch that.
SPEAKER_01: The test is not can I be good enough Christian this week?
SPEAKER_01: The test is on Thursday when you feel at your lowest point.
SPEAKER_01: The test is a test of faith.
SPEAKER_01: The just shall live by faith.
SPEAKER_01: I am white as snow.
SPEAKER_01: My sin was like scarlet, but today it's as white as snow.
SPEAKER_01: The enemy's not gonna keep me back, the enemy's not gonna keep me bound in lies and accusations, he's not gonna rob for me, he's not gonna take me down.
SPEAKER_01: I am an ambassador for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I am clothed in royal robes, I'm clouded with the identity that I belong to my father.
SPEAKER_01: And if I belong to my father's house, then everything that's of the father's house now belongs to me as well.
SPEAKER_01: Everything, everything.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, somebody just say everything, everything, somebody needs a bit of everything this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone need everything this morning?
SPEAKER_01: I don't just need a little bit, I need all of it, I need all the Holy Spirit, I need all of the mercy of God, I need all of the grace of Almighty God, I need all of it.
SPEAKER_01: Paul would say in Romans, put on the Lord Jesus Christ in Colossians.
SPEAKER_01: He would say, Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, here I'll finish with this: put on the tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bear here it is.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the fruit of grace, bearing with one another, forgiving one another.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ in his grace forgave you, so you also must do.
SPEAKER_01: But of all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and that the peace of God rule in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be careful what I say, but I'm I believe this is almost I'm about to say it, I believe this is prophetic.
SPEAKER_01: That there's a day coming that if we do not have grace for our brothers and sisters, the church is going to be powerless.
SPEAKER_01: In a day of AI, in a day of change, things are always changing.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's hard to misdirect a parked car.
SPEAKER_01: If a car is parked, it ain't going anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you we're going somewhere?
SPEAKER_01: No, we're going somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not staying the same way as I am.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going from image to image and glory to glory.
SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you right here?
SPEAKER_01: Your pastor, he's just he's just flesh and blood like the rest of you guys.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna make mistakes along the way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna think we should go left and then we should have gone right, we should have gone right, and then we ended up going left.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna make some bad decisions along the way, and guess what?
SPEAKER_01: So are you, but thank God for the grace, grace of Almighty God, that the love of God covers a multitude of sins.
SPEAKER_01: We're going forward, we're not gonna be held back.
SPEAKER_01: I'm standing in the righteousness of God, and I'm stepping into all that God's got for me in life.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I just want to sing amazing grace.
SPEAKER_01: Can we do that for a moment?
SPEAKER_01: Would you just would you just stand with me?
SPEAKER_01: I just want to worship the Lord for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Amazing grace.
SPEAKER_01: How sweet the sound.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone need amazing grace this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody need the amazing grace of Almighty God?
SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe you're here today and you just want to receive that grace this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to come down to that altar, you come down, you're not coming with just a fake version.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to bring the real version of yourself to the altar this morning, thank you, sir, this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else want to be honest in this faith?
SPEAKER_01: No, I I don't want to just be saved by grace.
SPEAKER_01: I want to stand in Almighty Grace this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I want to stand on the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_01: How sad would it be if Sarah said to me, Oh, I cleaned the carpet.
SPEAKER_01: You can't be on the carpet anymore.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's my house.
SPEAKER_01: I can go on that rug.
SPEAKER_01: I can go on that.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, God saved you.
SPEAKER_01: He draws you in, he brings you close.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Come on, don't wait for the worship.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else want to just I need grace this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I need to come back into my faith, believing that I'm not who I was.
SPEAKER_01: I am who Christ says that I am.
SPEAKER_01: If God calls me clean, then who is anybody to call me unclean?
SPEAKER_01: I am safe.
SPEAKER_01: I am born again.
SPEAKER_01: My name is written in the lamb's book of my I do have a purpose.
SPEAKER_01: I do have a calling.
SPEAKER_01: I will be the father that God's called me to be.
SPEAKER_01: I will be the husband that God's called me to be.
SPEAKER_01: I will be the evangelist that God's called me to be.
SPEAKER_01: I will be the sister in Christ that God has called me to be.
SPEAKER_01: I will be a part of the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: I will be a part of seeing God's kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: I will be a righteous standard.
SPEAKER_01: I will be an example to the younger generation.
SPEAKER_01: I will be a part of what God is doing on earth.
SPEAKER_01: I will not leave it to another generation.
SPEAKER_01: I will not leave it to somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: No, I am believing that God has saved me, God has delivered me, and He set me apart for such a time as this because of amazing grace.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to the Spring Church podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you were encouraged, uplifted, and challenged by the message today.
SPEAKER_00: If you need prayer or want to learn more about the church, we would love to connect with you.
SPEAKER_00: Visit the New Year page on tsjacks.com.
SPEAKER_00: We pray you have a great week walking in all that God has for you.