You've Been Sozoed

We challenge the way salvation is usually framed by unpacking “sozo” as saved, healed, delivered, restored, and made whole. We wrestle with why life still feels broken if the cross is truly finished, and we land on an “already but not yet” faith that awakens identity instead of feeding striving. 
• sozo as complete restoration, not only heaven later 
• body, soul, and spirit as part of wholeness 
• purpose and identity as present realities 
• the cross as reconciliation for humanity, not permission-based 
• scriptures on sin being removed, condemned, and no longer counted 
• why constant sin-focused preaching can trap people in shame 
• “already but not yet” as a framework for lived experience 
• two ditches: exhausting striving vs passive denial 
• repentance as changing the way we think 
• the seed illustration: growth as revealing what is already within 
But go deeper.

Transcript

The Unfinished Feeling

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The original title, it was a little bit too long, but the original title was You've Been Sozoed on the Cross. You've been sozoed on the cross. So I want to begin with a statement this morning that may challenge the way many of us have understood the gospel. At the cross, humanity, and when we're talking about humanity, I use that word often. I mean, I hope everybody knows what I'm talking about. We're talking about mankind. We're talking about every single person. We're talking about everybody that's that's been here, that's a part of what we call humanity. And at the cross, humanity was sozod. Not partially, not potentially, not conditionally, but fully and completely sozod. And we're going to get into this meaning in a minute, a little bit more, because some of you, I know some of you understand that you've studied it out, some of you may not. And even if we look at that and we say, okay, I can believe that, I can say, I can agree with that. We've all been fully sozoded, we've all been not partially, not potentially, but fully sozed on the cross. But yet, if we're honest, it doesn't always look like that. If we honestly look at our lives and look at the people's lives, Christians around us, it don't always look that way. So the question is: if Jesus hung on the cross and said, as he did, it is finished, why does it sometimes feel like it's still unfinished? That's a question a lot of people ask. I can be honest with you to say that's a question a lot of people, the reason they're not in church is because they they think something, but then they have questions and they ask those questions and they can't seem to get an answer to them sometimes, and it keeps them out of attending church. Simply because what they've always heard and what's being taught or what they feel inside of them and what's being taught is not lining up. And a lot of people struggle with that and it brings about questions. So before we go on, I think it's important to understand what this word means for some of us who may not. What does the word sozo actually mean? And this is important because when Jesus said in the Gospel of John, it is finished, what we have to ask the question, what does he mean? When he hung on the cross and said, it is finished, what was finished? What exactly was he talking about? The word translated saved in the New Testament is the Greek word sozo. Let me say that again. The Greek word sozo actually in the New Testament means saved. It means saved, healed, delivered, restored, and made whole. Now, when you think about that definition right there, it really adds a new, to me, it adds a new perspective to what it means when somebody says, Well, I'm saved, or are you, or they ask the question, are you saved? Understanding this definition just kind of broadens it out a little bit. Sozo is not about just going to heaven someday. It's so much more than that. It's about the complete restoration of the human condition. And when I say the complete restoration, we're talking about the body, the soul, the spirit. And we're not just going to stop right there with that because when you talk about body, soul, and spirit, and I've said this many times, I remember teaching on this. We have to look at ourselves and we have to realize that we are a triune being. Just like when we look at God and we look at Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He's triune. Three parts. He created us in the image and the likeness of Himself. We are created in three parts. We're created with a body of the flesh, but we're also created with a spirit, and we also have a soul. That soul and that spirit, although it's been taught like that a long time, is not the same thing. It even gets me sometimes when we, you know, the way we say things and we say, well, you know, God, God rests his soul. Or God, you know, his his soul is moved on to eternity. We've got to understand the difference between body and soul and spirit, and that's for another time. I'm not going to get into that. But I will say that the soul is the mind, the will, the emotions, the intellect. That is our soul, our ability to rationalize, our ability to think on another level. So it's about the complete restoration of the human condition. And when we think about the body, soul, and spirit, that also means relationship. It also talks about identity. It also talks about purpose. What is your purpose here in this life? And it's sad to say this, but if you ask most Christians what their purpose is right now, they're going to say, I just want to get to heaven. And that's a great goal to have. I mean, I think we all want to go there. But is that our only purpose for being here? Just to, I mean, my life here has no meaning to it. There's not something that He's put me here that He's kept me here for. I know there's people in this room who should not be here today. We've been through things. You've been through stuff in your life that could have easily taken you out at times, but you are still here. And I've got to ask myself at some point, what is my purpose for being here? When we ask, when we think about the bold reality of the cross, here's the part that I think stretches us a little bit and causes us to have to really get outside the box. See, Christianity's been placed in a box too long. And I'm happy that we are a congregation that we teach outside the box. It causes some issues sometimes with people. It don't make people happy sometimes when they hear it, but I'm okay with that because you're never going to put me back in a box. I'll step away from this pulpit and never preach again if I have to be placed in a box. I will not do that. So we will go outside the box. And all that is saying is it don't mean we're being rebellious. It means we're thinking a little bit deeper. We want to go just a little bit further than what tradition has always taught us. And we want to think a little bit more. So when we think about the bold reality of the cross, there's a part of it that really stretches us. Something happened at the cross that was bigger than just an individual decision. Now, when we think about the cross, we just think Jesus died on the cross, he forgave us of our sins, and if we come to an altar at some point and we make an individual decision to accept him as our Lord and Savior, then we're saved. We're born again. But it's deeper than that. It's so much deeper than that. I'm not saying that ain't true. I'm just saying there's more to the story than just that. And I believe we've got to look at it and we've got to understand, and we've got to peel back the layers of it and say, what does this really mean? Something happened to humanity on the cross. Again, I'm trying to, I want you to see the difference because it wasn't just an individual thing that he done, but he did something for all of human mankind, humanity. He wasn't just saying some people. He wasn't just uh referring to future believers. He really meant the world when he said that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. He really was talking about the world there. He was talking about everything that was created, every person that was created. He wasn't just talking about the ones who, and this is gonna mess with you a little bit, but you gotta follow with me. He wasn't just talking about the ones that come to an altar and made an individual decision. It goes deeper than that. That means that sin was dealt with. It means that separation from God was removed, it means that reconciliation was already accomplished on the cross. And this was not just a possibility for one day in the by-and-by that we always think about. It wasn't just a possibility, so when my time is up on this earth and I leave here, that I have an opportunity. It's actually for right now. That was the purpose of it. We have been reconciled, it has been accomplished right now. So this was not just a possibility, it was actually accomplished. And let's be clear a minute about what was finished. I asked that question well ago. If you believe that, if you believe that Jesus hung on the cross, and I believe it because the word says it, it says he hung on the cross, and the very last thing he said was, It is finished. So I don't question the fact that it was finished because he said it, I believe it. But I can ask the question of what was finished. And you may say, well, everybody knows that. I would I would uh debate you on that because I don't think everybody knows it. I don't think everybody has dug deep enough to see what he actually accomplished for us on the cross. So let's be clear about it. Sin was dealt with. And I want to show you a few verses right here that I want you to see this. You gotta grasp these verses. Sin was removed in John chapter 1, verse 29. Look what it says. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who does what? Takes away the sin of the one who knelt down at the altar. Takes away the sin of the world. Now, either we believe scripture or we don't. So what I'm well, the reason I'm gonna show you these verses is because if we believe scripture, then we've got to take scripture for what it says. And as we always say, we've got to allow scripture to interpret scripture. He says right here in this verse that sin was removed, it was taken away. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10 through 14, it talks about sin was dealt with once and for all. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. And every priest, you gotta see this, every priest stands ministering daily. What do we do a lot of times in the church? The church, the priest will come up, the pastor will come up, and he will begin to minister daily, every Sunday, telling you why that your sins need to be forgiven. Every single day, repeatedly, by the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin. There's not a pastor around that can take away your sin. There's not a man of God in the church today who can take away your sin. I don't care how good he preaches, I don't care what he says, he cannot take away your sin. But right here in this, it talks about it. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of the Father of God. He sat down because it was finished. He didn't sit down because he was tired. He didn't sit down because he just didn't have anything else to do. He sat down because it was finished. From that time, waiting till his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. So sin was dealt with once and for all. In 2 Corinthians 5 and 19, verse we read all the time, I quoted it while ago, sin no longer is being counted against you. This is the verse that messes with so many people because we cannot comprehend the fact that God is no longer counting our sins against us. Every Sunday we feel like we need to come to the altar, we need to confess, we need to get born again, we need to get resaved because we did something crazy. But yet this verse tells us that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses against them, not imputing their sins against them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. I'm just showing you these because I want you to see something here. Sin is no longer being counted against you if you believe the word. In Romans chapter 8, verse 3, sin wasn't just not counted against you, it wasn't just done away with, it was actually condemned. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. On account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. So sin was removed, sin was dealt with once and for all, sin was no longer being counted against you, sin was condemned. Here's the last one. I love this one. Romans 6, verse 6 and 7. Sin, you are now dead to sin. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. This is not this part. For he who has died has been freed from sin. We're not talking about when you when you're when your ticker stops here on this earth. We know you're free from it then. And we we preach that. That when somebody passes, that we always say it. They're in a better place now, they're free from this sinful world. So we take this verse, we take this little piece of verse right here, and we teach it like that. That's not what it's talking about, though. It's talking about when he died, he died for all. He was a representation of all, and when he died, we died with him. And because we died with him, sin no longer had a stronghold on us. When we died, we died to sin. This is not talking about after life. This is talking about before life. We got to see the difference in these. That's the only reason I wanted you to see it. Why? Because sin is the biggest issue that we teach about in church. Sin is what keeps people bound. I'm not talking about their behavior, I'm talking about the sin that we preach about keeps people bound. And this Bible just told us it's been removed, it's been condemned, we are dead to it, it's not being counted against us anymore. But why does every sermon on Sunday morning seem to be about something that is dead, something that is condemned, something that God's not holding against you? That doesn't even make sense. Why are we continuously preaching and reminding people about something that no longer defines who they are? And what we're doing is we're taking them from a place of identity and we're taking them back to who they used to be. That's not even what the gospel is. The gospel says moving us from who we were or who we thought we were into who God now says we are. That's the gospel, the truth of our identity, not going back. So sin was dealt with, reconciliation was accomplished. God did not wait for humanity to come to him. As I said well ago in 2 Corinthians 5 and 19, it says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Listen, I never remember a time in my life where God came down and said, Is it okay if I reconcile you? He did it without my permission. He did it without your permission. He reconciled the world. He brought us back into relationship simply because he loved us, not because we gave him permission to do it. He initiated that. We didn't. See, we think when we kneel on an altar that we initiated it. No, he did. He initiated the coming back together and the restoration of the relationship that was broke in the garden. Because of one man in the garden who failed, because he ate an apple or whatever you want to call it, he ate some fruit and he failed and he disobeyed God. He represented all of humanity. He failed, therefore, all failed. We don't have any problem believing that. But then it says, on the other hand, because of the sacrifice of one man, all of humanity has been restored. We struggle with that. I don't understand why. Adam didn't have more authority and power than Jesus, but sometimes we teach it like that. And that's the road that that's the mindset that we put in people. I believe what Jesus done restored all. Reconciliation. He came, it came to all of humanity. Identity. It was secured. You were not becoming something new from from nothing. You were actually being restored to what God always thought about you. What God created you to be from the very beginning. What you've always been in God's heart from the very beginning. And then humanity. Again, looking at the whole. That's what's taught. Unfortunately, that's not what the Bible teaches. It says all of humanity. The cross was not God changing his mind about a few people. It was God revealing his heart toward all man. Humanity. The cross was not a down payment, it was an actual declaration that he made. He says, I'm reconciling the world. He didn't start something at the cross. And a lot of times we we we misunderstand that. We think when Jesus went to the cross that something began. No, he ended something at the cross. That was the completion of it. How do you know that, Pastor? Because he said it's finished. Why would you say I'm beginning something and then say it's finished? Why didn't he say it has now begun? He didn't say it's now begun. If he would have said hung on the cross and said it has now begun, then I can understand the teaching that we've got all this stuff that we need to do to try to bring it into fruition. But he didn't. He said it is finished. So he didn't start something, he finished it. So let's answer the question that I believe we all have sometimes. If all of this is true, and I believe it is, but if all of it is true, why is there still struggle? Why is there still sin? Why is there still brokenness? Why is people still walking around with pain? Why do we have all these negative things going on in life if what I just said happened on the cross and is true? That's a fair question to ask. That's one I've asked many times. When I was sick, when when when sickness occurs in your body, you're like, God, no, you said in your word. When something else is going on and you're struggling financially, I went back many times and said, No, God, this ain't right. You said in your word. And see, that's the way I began to look at it. I was looking, I would say, I wasn't questioning God, but what I was doing is looking at my life and saying my life is not lining up with what the word says. Come on, God, what's going on here? Because I believed his word. And it's okay to be a detective. I've always said you got to be a detective. You got to look at the word, you got to look at your life, and you gotta say, okay, where am I missing it at? If it's not lining up with what the word of God says, then something is out of alignment. And we got to be willing to question that. We're not questioning God Himself or who He is. We're questioning why is my life not reflecting what the Word says? So when we have struggle and sin and brokenness and pain, and that happens all around us. It happens in our lives. That's a legitimate question to ask. If this is true, why do we still see all this? Why don't we always feel whole if we've been made whole? This is where we have to understand something that a lot of people, I believe a lot of people, don't truly grasp. Not because they're ignorant or not because they it just simply because they don't read deep enough. They don't study it out. They just take the verse for what it says, what it's always been taught, and just they leave it at that. It's it's surface level. But when you dig a little bit deeper, that's when you get the reward. That's when you get down to the deep stuff and you start getting an understanding of a verse that a lot of people miss simply because they stopped right here. This is where we have to understand something that I think most Christians miss. And this word's gonna sound really crazy right here, but listen to it. Already, but not yet. Think about that. Already, but not yet. It sounds like a contradiction. How can you say it's already done, but it's not yet done? Sounds like a contradiction. But here's the question I always ask, it helps me understand this. Do you believe that something can be true in Christ, but yet not fully experienced in our life? Do you believe that God can redeem us on the cross, but I not step into redemption? Do you believe that God's word can say that by his stripes we are healed, but yet I haven't experienced healing in my life yet? Do you believe that he says, give and it shall be given, pressed down, shaken together, runneth over, increase more than enough. But yet there's months I ain't got two nickels to rub together. I mean, it can be true in Christ, but yet not being experienced in our life. The gospel can hold two truths at once. Even when they feel like opposites, it's not a contradiction. I'm gonna show you here why it's not. And you can see this, it's not my opinion. You can see this all through scripture. I'm gonna give you one example, but you can go in scripture and find many more. In Ephesians, it says you have been saved. E.D. past tense. It's already happened. In Hebrews, it says you are being made holy presently. And then in Romans it says we wait for full redemption. That's future. So you write right there in three different verses, you got a past, a present, and a future. And you might say, well, how is that? If he finished it on the cross, and it's done and it's finished, what are we waiting on? Which one is it? Is it past? Is it present? Is it future? It can't be all three, can it? Yeah, it can. It can be all three. The already, you have been saved. You have been reconciled, you have been made whole in Christ. That is already accomplished because of what Jesus Christ has done, and nothing that you will ever do. It's not based on your merit, it's not based on your intellect, it's not based on your education, it's not based on anything that you've ever done or never will do. It's based on what Jesus Christ did on the cross. It is already done. But then we move to the not yet. You're still growing. Every single one of us are still learning and we're still growing every day. You're still renewing your mind with every little bit of new information that you get. You are still awakening every single day to what's true about you, even though you may not see it yet. Every time that knowledge and understanding comes, I think differently. Every time I learn something I didn't know before, I walk out of ignorance, I walk out of darkness, and I walk into light, knowledge. So every day, even though we're saved, reconciled, and made whole, I'm still developing every single day. I'm growing and I'm learning. So what is finished in Christ? Think about that. We just said what's finished, but what is finished is still unfolding every day in our experience. This is where I think we get it wrong at, and we miss it sometimes. Most people fall into one or one or two areas. Either we fall into the completely into the not yet, like a lot of churches do. Everything's futuristic. It ain't come yet. We're waiting on it. One day when he rides down on the cloud, one day we're gonna get it. That's the total not yet category. And you know what happens with that? That's what they say is I'm trying to be saved. I'm trying to be accepted, I'm trying to become whole. And see, this leads to a life of striving. It leads to a life that I have to work for, it leads to a life of fear. And to be completely honest, it leads to a life of exhaustion. I can exhaust myself trying to be good enough for God. And then you got the people that's on the other end of the spectrum. They are living completely in the already. It's already done. This is where people miss what we're teaching here because they think we are somebody who is living completely in the already. The ones who are living completely in the already is what people call universalist. Everything is done, no matter what you do, go live however you want to live. Everybody's saved, everybody's heaven-bound. We don't teach that. We believe that there's some things that's done, but there's an all there's already done, but there's a not yet as well. And that's where people miss it at. But the ones who live only in the already, it's already done, everything's finished, the mindset that they develop is nothing matters. There's no need for growth. These Gnostics that I talked to you about last weekend in the Bible, that's what that they were in this place. There's no need for growth. We can't grow anymore. We're at the peak of everything we could ever know. People who are living in the already, there's no need for transformation. There's no need to wake up every day and learn something new about God. There's no need to step into something different. We're already there. That's what these people believe. That is not what we believe. This leads to being passive, and it also leads to denial. But the truth is you're not becoming something. You're really just waking up every day becoming aware of what you already are. So he's finished it. Sin is dealt with, reconciliation has occurred, but a lot of people is walking around in their life not knowing it. So what we're waking up to every day and trying to awaken people to is the truth of what's already happened on the cross. He's not going to the cross again every time somebody kneels down on an altar. Have you ever thought about it in those terms? If we say the cross was about salvation, but somebody walks in that door in just a minute and they're not saved, and they walk up and say, I want to be saved, and they kneel down, Jesus ain't going back to the cross. Which means for them to be saved, he had to already do it. He's not doing it again. That may sound crazy, but that's one of the things that made me start looking at this and saying, Something ain't right here. He's not going to redo this stuff over and over again so every single person can be saved. What he did is saved. And then we come into agreement with it, we wake up to it. I'm not dismissing an altar experience. There's nothing wrong with that. But when we come to an altar, we're not changing God's mind about us. We're waking up to what he's already done. So, what does this mean for your life? Make it practical. What what difference does understanding this really make in our lives? Does it really matter if we learn if what if I choose not to go deeper? What if I just stay here? I just go to church on Sunday, listen, take a few notes, go home? Does it really and that person over there studying all the time and learning and going deeper? Does it really matter? Maybe it don't to some people. And that's okay. It matters to me. Because it really does change everything. It changes your identity. So you don't fight for identity anymore. You fight from a place of identity. You know the fight is a lot easier when I know who I am and I know what I'm fighting for. And I know that I'm already this sounds crazy to say it like this, but the fight is not that bad when I know I've already won. But if I think I'm trying to win, that means there's a possibility I could lose. That puts a lot of pressure on you. But if I look and and I go back to the word and I confess, remember what confess means? Same thing, same language. And when I'm entering into a fight, I say, I'm not basing this on my own strength. I'm not basing it on my own knowledge. I'm gonna go back to the word, and where the word says this is not your fight, it's already been won. I'm gonna come back and say, God, I got a battle I'm about to step into, but I'm not taking this on my own strength. I'm not going to into it with what I feel like I know or what I feel like I can do. I'm going back into it in your word. And your word says, What am I doing? I'm confessing his word. I'm coming into agreement with his word. And his word says, the battle's not yours. So that's when I say, God, we're going into this battle. Not I. But guess what? You live on the inside of me. Your word says Jesus died on the cross and he went into heaven, and it was good that he went into heaven because he sent back a comforter. And that comforter ain't just moving around out there somewhere. He's residing on the inside of me. So whatever battle I walk into, Holy Spirit walks with me. Whatever problem I encounter, Holy Spirit encounters with me. We're never alone in this. But if I don't know that, I walk in like I'm fighting this thing by myself. So understanding my identity changes when I go deeper, when I truly understand the word. I know what the word says. The word says, for we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I'm gonna preach on that later because that's one of the verses we talked about Wednesday night. What glory means in there. Don't mean we've turned it, we've turned glory into a place. Oh, he's in glory land now. We've turned glory into a location. Glory is not location. Adam lost the glory. Jesus brought back the glory. I don't want to get into it right now, but you've got to understand what glory means to understand those, fully understand those verses. But it changes the way we think about sin. Sin is not your nature. It is not your nature. We teach people that they are born with a sin nature. If we tell somebody they're born with a sin nature, then they're always fighting to escape it. But if we tell them the truth and they understand and they go deeper and they get an understanding of what the Word of God says, they realize that sin is dead. That sin is no longer being held against them, that sin has been condemned, that sin is done away with. And then I no longer live with a sin nature now. Sin is not your nature, it is anything that contradicts your true identity. Does sin still occur? Absolutely. There's times that you're gonna wake up and you just ain't gonna feel like a child of God. You ain't gonna think like a child of God. Something's gonna happen to you and you're gonna respond like you used to respond. And you're gonna say something that God ain't gonna be happy with. But you're still a child of God. You are not, don't have a sin nature. You don't live in a sin nature. You weren't born with a sin nature. But anything that contradicts what God says you are, who God says you are, that can happen with all of us. But the good thing is we pick ourselves up, we dust ourselves off and say, get right back to who you are. I don't have to condemn myself. Why? Confession. Because the Bible says there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. That means I don't sit there and beat myself up about it and stay out of church for you know three months because I feel guilty about going in. And that happens all the time. Growth happens. Transformation is not earning something, it's actually awakening to the truth of who God says we are. Freedom happens. You're not trying to get free, you're learning to live from freedom that's already been given to you. You didn't have anything to do with it. Jesus gave it to you. He says, I just want you to receive it now. Understand it. How can you live in a place of freedom if you think you don't have it? If you think you're working to get it. This is where he says, repent. Change the way you think. You don't have to work for freedom anymore. You don't have to earn freedom anymore. I've given it to you on the cross. Receive it and walk and live in freedom. That takes a shift of the mindset. Everybody's not willing to do that. Some people love feeling like they have to fight for it every day. I don't. I used to. I felt like I was doing something. I was getting up fighting for God every day. It was just a messed up mindset that I had. It wasn't wrong. And then one day I said, you know what? Why am I fighting for something I already have? That's crazy to keep wearing yourself out trying to get to a place that you already are. Why not just open our eyes and realize we're there? So think about this illustration right here. Imagine planting a seed in the ground, a real seed, just a little tiny seed. And I've said this before, but this is the truth. You may not even know what that seed is. But you throw it in the ground, you put it in the ground, you throw some dirt over it, maybe you water it a little bit, you might throw some fertilizer on it. You don't even know what the seed is, but the DNA is already on the inside of it. Even if you don't know it yet. The moment that seed goes into the ground, everything needed for life is already there. You are going to do absolutely nothing to bring the life out of that seed. Only thing is it had to it had to go into the ground. It does not, it won't grow above. It had to go into the ground. The DNA, the design, the full potential of what it will become, it's been there from the very beginning inside. You didn't plant half a tree. You planted a complete reality of a tree in seed form. One day that thing will grow up to be a tree or whatever, whatever kind of seed it is. Because why? It will reproduce whatever is on the inside of it. It reproduces after its own kind. I promise you. If you want an apple tree, you can't plant an orange seed. You will not get an apple tree. Because it ain't in there. It will only produce after its kind. So you throw the seed in the ground. Everything is needed is already there. But you come back the next day and you don't see a tree. Ain't that frustrating? Because see, that's the type of generation we are. We want to plant that seed, and the next day we want to see a tree pop up. The tree's already there in essence, in truth, in design, but it's not yet visible in its fullness. Over time, what was hidden begins to emerge. First the roots, then the little sprout comes up, and then as it continues to grow, a trunk develops, and then the branches come out, and then the fruit begins to grow on it. Nothing new is being added to the seed. It's simply becoming visible because of what was already true within it. Now, why does that story matter? Because the kingdom of God is just like that. In Christ, the seed has already been planted in you. The phrase in 1 Peter, where we're told that we've been born not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, is important right here. This is where Scripture starts to build on scripture and starts to interpret itself. You see, because corruptible seed means it can die. It can go bad. It can be corrupted. But incorruptible seed, nothing you do can change it. You can't mess it up. Everything is already finished. It's already complete. It's already whole. The not yet part of it is not God holding back until you get good enough, until you get holy enough. The not yet is the area that you haven't experienced yet, because you haven't awakened to it. If you don't know you have something, you're not going to experience that thing in your life. It's only when you have an awakening that this thing is real, this thing is here that I experience it. Everything is finished, complete, and whole. What we're waiting on is the unfolding, the revealing, the awakening to what's already been placed within us. I'm getting ready to end right here, but this is the real tragedy in it. The tragedy is not that God hasn't finished the work. The tragedy is that many people are still living life like he hasn't. They're asleep to what Christ actually did on the cross. Still striving, still begging, still trying to earn what's already been given to him. That's a tough place to live in. So in closing, here's the question I want you to ask. Not are you saved, are you awake to the salvation that's already yours? You're not waiting to be saved. You're waking up to the salvation that he's already given. You're not working to become whole. You're discovering the wholeness that he's already given. The cross didn't make salvation possible. It made it actual. It made it real. It actually happened. For the life of me, I can't figure out why that message right there is so unpopular. Why would you not want people to know what God has done for them? Why would you want to withhold that from them and say, keep working and striving for what you want? Maybe because it makes us feel good, like it used to do me. It made me feel good to feel like I was working for God. Like I had to get up and do that. The cross didn't make it possible, it made it actual. You've been sozoed, saved, redeemed, made whole, and now it's time to live like it. It's time to recognize it. It's time to wake up to it. And it's time to let our life begin to look like the truth. No more work, no more striving, no more. This is the way I've got to do it because this is the way I've always been taught. That's okay if you if that's where you're at. But go deeper. There's nothing wrong with learning. There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, I've always believed this to be true, but now I realize it wasn't the whole truth. There's nothing wrong with that. That's growing, that's growth. The one thing that I never ever want to do is in a month from now, even a week from now, to be in the same place that I was last week. Because there was no growth. I want to learn something. I want to progress a little bit further, a little bit deeper every single week, every day. But if we're content with what we've always been taught, that's where we're going to stay at. And then we're going to rebuke anything else that sounds different than that. And we're going to call it new age, and we're going to call it unbiblical, and we're going to call it all this other stuff. When in reality, it's just going deeper. It's really digging into what the word is actually saying. And saying, God, I'm not satisfied with where I've been. I want more. I'm not happy. Thank you for my life that you've given me so far, but I'm not happy with it. I want more. I want this to, I want to walk this out of my life. I'm tired of just hearing about it. I'm tired of it just being preached from a pulpit. I want to walk it out of my life. I want to see it demonstrated. And I'm telling you, because when you get to that place, you'll want to walk this thing out. And I've been there. And some people say it's crazy, but I've been there and I've had that argument with God. And I said, God, if I can't demonstrate this, if you want me to stand up and preach it, but I can't demonstrate it and I can't walk it out, I won't preach it. Now I was young and stupid when I said that and didn't know a lot, but I that's the conversation I have with God. If I can't do what your word says, I'm gonna throw it down and never preach it again. Because all it is is I'm telling lies. That's that's my that's what I felt. But it wasn't that I was telling lies, it's that I didn't understand. I was asleep to all this stuff. And then when I awoke and my eyes opened up, and I said, it's not always what I've been taught, but there's more to the story. See, you can't walk out what you don't believe. You can't walk out in life what's not real to you yet. That don't mean you're not going to heaven. That don't mean you don't you don't believe in God. It just means that if it's not a reality to you, you won't walk it out and you won't see the evidence of it in your life. Going deeper brings evidence. What is faith? Substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. When I begin to go deeper into this and really dig into it and say, help me understand what this really means, help me see the purpose of the cross, help me see what it was really about. It was more than just the forgiveness of sin. Then, man, my life changes. It really does. It begins to shift. I don't think the same anymore. I don't talk the same way. I don't act the same way. I don't live with condemnation anymore. If I've sinned, I don't beat myself up and stay down for a few weeks. I just realize I get up and I go on. Because we're all going to make mistakes. But Jesus has already finished the work. And when I make a mistake, I just try to get up and realize who I really am. That's not given a license to go out and live how you want to live. And that's the argument with this, is people think that that's what you're teaching. That's not. And that's the biggest thing with understanding this, is you start to come to a level of understanding where you realize what it's really saying, and all that other stuff that's said, you can start saying that they don't even understand what they don't understand this. Because that's not what we're saying. So that's the biggest thing is understanding what the word of God is actually saying in our life and moving forward. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for what you're doing in this church, in this congregation, Father, for every single person that's here right now within the sound of my voice. I pray, Father, that you just open up their understanding to this word, that you will open it up in a way that has never been opened before, Father, that they'll begin to see things in this scripture that's that's been hidden before, that their eyes have been closed to, that they've been in darkness in a sense in this area. But Father, you're bringing light, you're bringing knowledge into certain areas of our life. Father, I pray for every person that's here today. I thank you for who they are. I thank you for what happened on the cross and for the completed work that's occurred for every single person in this room. And I pray that they live from that identity, they understand that identity, and every part of their life begins to change and begins to manifest because of who they are and the understanding of what you've already done for us. So, Father, we thank you for each person. I just ask you to bless them, bless their homes, their finances, their families, bless them on the jobs, bless them everywhere that they go into, Father. Every word they speak. Let it carry power and anointing. And so, Father, we thank you, and we'll be careful to always give you the praise, honor, and glory in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.