SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: This week we've included a portion of our service where Neil, our lead pastor, makes an announcement in regards to our plans for a new building.
SPEAKER_01: After that, listen to the sermon.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to realize today, I think most of you realize this, some of you may not, that uh when we talk about the promises of God, that that's not just some things that God promised us some people a long time ago to kind of get the ball rolling on this, and now it's kind of like, hey, you're on your own.
SPEAKER_02: That the promises of God still apply to you.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_02: The promises of God still apply to you.
SPEAKER_02: You're not disqualified from that.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, well, you know, ooh, there's that one situation or there's this addictive habit that I have.
SPEAKER_02: The promises of God stand unchanged outside the context of your present situation or circumstance.
SPEAKER_02: They don't go up and down, they're not more true or less true based on how you live your life.
SPEAKER_02: They're just true.
SPEAKER_02: They're unchanging.
SPEAKER_02: This past week, uh, many of us in our church, we uh uh if you're visiting today, uh you're sitting, you're standing right now around some of the most authentic people you'll ever meet.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us were reading the 37th Psalm uh out loud every morning and every night, just to kind of remind ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I took a pen and just started underlining all the verbs.
SPEAKER_02: Fret not, wait, keep, all these kind of things.
SPEAKER_02: Because God says, Hey, I'm faithful.
SPEAKER_02: The issue of faithfulness ain't on my side of the fence here, Skippy.
SPEAKER_02: It's on your side of the fence.
SPEAKER_02: Because God says, I'm faithful, and I'm always gonna be faithful.
SPEAKER_02: We've gathered together today to worship and think about a faithful God.
SPEAKER_02: Do you realize that today?
SPEAKER_02: And so if you're faithless, there's good news for you.
SPEAKER_02: This doesn't depend on your behavior, and I'm not minimizing your behavior.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna read from the Bible here in a few minutes about a lady that absolutely put it in the ditch, and the promises of God still applied to her.
SPEAKER_02: So you're in a good place today.
SPEAKER_02: Do me a favor if you would before you sit down.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to just kind of look around.
SPEAKER_02: We'll bring the house lights up just a smidge.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to look around and greet just a few people.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Teresa's gonna play us some browsing music.
SPEAKER_02: We just want to welcome each other to worship today.
SPEAKER_02: So y'all will feel at home.
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
SPEAKER_02: All right, do me a favor if you would and find your way back to your seat.
SPEAKER_02: Uh unhand the visitors, leave them alone.
SPEAKER_02: And once you find your way back to your seat, go ahead and have a seat if you would.
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you're a guest today, we don't do this every Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: I have a friend that's a member here and she hates this.
SPEAKER_02: She's like, I come in late because you're gonna make us greet each other.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I'm like, relax, lady.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, we don't do it every Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we just, it's summer's kind of crazy, and coming out of the summer, some of us are are we sporadic in the summer, and here's why.
SPEAKER_02: Because the pastor thinks if you have a Harley, it's a sin not to ride it.
SPEAKER_02: And so some Sundays you shouldn't be here.
SPEAKER_02: You should be riding through the hill country with your buddies.
SPEAKER_02: Just kind of drinking it all in.
SPEAKER_02: I spent this past week in Lano, Texas.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's a town so small, every day I'd go for a walk, someone would stop me and say, Where are you from, boy?
SPEAKER_02: And I wasn't offended.
SPEAKER_02: They called me boy.
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't like, What do you mean boy?
SPEAKER_02: I'm a grown man.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, uh, I'm I'm I'm from a town called Sugarland.
SPEAKER_02: What you doing in Llano?
SPEAKER_02: One guy's like, You got any Copenhagen?
SPEAKER_02: I said, No, but I used to dip.
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Do you miss it?
SPEAKER_02: I said, Only in elder meetings.
SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway.
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you're our guest, just relax.
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, we have a pastoral prayer time, which is this time right now, but I want to give you an update to our people uh about uh we we've been uh we had a plan in place since 2006, shortly after I became your pastor, uh uh about being good stewards of the of the of not just the property, but the position God has given us here in our city.
SPEAKER_02: And so I want to give you an update.
SPEAKER_02: We've been talking about a new sanctuary and the plans for that.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna give you an update on that.
SPEAKER_02: We've had a pre-design team, which means some people in our church have been a part of this, kind of shaping the dialogue.
SPEAKER_02: And I will give you an update and I have some pictures to show you what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02: Uh this is the footprint of our campus.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a big L, actually.
SPEAKER_02: And it goes way back there.
SPEAKER_02: This is over here on that side there.
SPEAKER_02: Back there is this, it's called the warehouse.
SPEAKER_02: That's the student ministry building.
SPEAKER_02: And this is my cat tormentor, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and if y'all don't pay attention, I'll poke, I'll shine this in your eyes today.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, anyway, this is the warehouse.
SPEAKER_02: That's where student ministry uh happens.
SPEAKER_02: This is a children's building, which is the building right back here.
SPEAKER_02: This is the building we're sitting in right now, and this is where that big green space out the side, right over here, is where this new sanctuary will go.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's the back of it.
SPEAKER_02: It faces, this is the lobby, it faces the children's building.
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you another picture.
SPEAKER_02: You can see the inside, what it'll look like on the inside.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's fan-shaped, very uh we don't believe in building cathedrals.
SPEAKER_02: We build well-made but practical and functional buildings.
SPEAKER_02: Uh here's the stage.
SPEAKER_02: Uh 1464 is out here.
SPEAKER_02: This will add 112 new parking spaces, uh, and it'll see eight.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I hear you.
SPEAKER_02: I hear you.
SPEAKER_02: We gotta park way out there and walk.
SPEAKER_02: It's such a first world problem.
SPEAKER_02: Suck it up, buttercup.
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, if you're visiting today, I would never talk to you this way.
SPEAKER_02: But when you join, I'm gonna shoot you straight.
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, this is uh this is flat surface right here.
SPEAKER_02: This is just polished concrete.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that'll be chairs on the floor.
SPEAKER_02: And this, why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_02: Because this back here is what's called stadium seating.
SPEAKER_02: It's slanted like this.
SPEAKER_02: Uh because it's not just an old shotgun style building.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's like that, it's a lot warmer acoustically and aesthetically.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and then out here is uh is a nice spacious wraparound lobby, and all God's people said, Because it feels like human pinball out here.
SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, uh this over here, I don't know if you can see, right here is an information desk.
SPEAKER_02: Uh right here is a welcome desk, uh, right here, and then right over here, my my I I've played with this with my cat too much.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, right here is the Virginia G coffee bar.
SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, uh if you're wondering whether that's Virginia G is the lady who comes every Sunday and makes coffee.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody asked me, they said, So you're a pastor this week.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: They said, Well, what does your church do when you're not there?
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Party.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and they said, Well, you're not very central to the process.
SPEAKER_02: I said, the only person central to the process is Virginia.
SPEAKER_02: And they said, Who's that?
SPEAKER_02: I said, She makes the coffee every Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: And the guy's like, I might come visit your church.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so anyway, this is kind of the schematic what we're looking at.
SPEAKER_02: Uh now you say, Well, what's the path towards that?
SPEAKER_02: Currently, uh, I brought you more information because we practice full disclosure, relax.
SPEAKER_02: There's not a there's not a sales pitch coming at the end of this, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Uh currently, we owe$2.1 million.
SPEAKER_02: We believe in manageable debt, not crippling debt.
SPEAKER_02: We do not do the field of dreams model.
SPEAKER_02: If we build it, they will come and help us pay for it.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we don't do that.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh we need to pay down about half of this, at least half of this, so we can take that step uh in the most fiscally prudent uh and responsible manner.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so what we do, we do not do capital stewardship campaigns.
SPEAKER_02: If you may have heard that phrase, you may have been in church where you sign a pledge card and all that.
SPEAKER_02: We do not disparage churches that do that.
SPEAKER_02: The reason we don't do it is that we have to, all of a sudden, we have to know what you give, and what you give is none of my business.
SPEAKER_02: I I won't have a banquet where I'll have all the top 20% of the givers in our church because I don't know who gives what.
SPEAKER_02: That way I treat everybody the same.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're rich or you're poor or whatever, you don't get preferential treatment because we're all we're all on equal footing here.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh we need to pay at least half of this off.
SPEAKER_02: And we don't do capital stewardship campaigns.
SPEAKER_02: What we do is we designate a day in the future and say, on this day, let's pray and listen and obey and do whatever God tells us to do.
SPEAKER_02: It's called the Hilarious Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: And our next hilarious Sunday is on December the 16th.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you say, no, why hilarious Sunday?
SPEAKER_02: Uh I did not grow up in church, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and and and so I didn't understand uh all this until I became a Christian and started actually reading the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is where this comes from for us.
SPEAKER_02: Uh is a verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6 to 8.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says, the point is this.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever, by the way, I love that the Bible's that practical.
SPEAKER_02: He goes, the point is this, uh, but I digress.
SPEAKER_02: The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
SPEAKER_02: Each one must give as he's decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: That means I'm not gonna take you to lunch and put a sales pitch on you.
SPEAKER_02: If I take you to lunch, I just want to get to know you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna put you under compulsion or whatever.
SPEAKER_02: You should give as you've decided in your heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
SPEAKER_02: That word cheerful is the Greek word hilaros.
SPEAKER_02: Hilarious, excuse me, hilarious.
SPEAKER_02: And it's where we get our English word hilarious.
SPEAKER_02: And so, because that's what hilaros is cheerful giver.
SPEAKER_02: God loves a hilarious giver.
SPEAKER_02: And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work.
SPEAKER_02: So, guys, we'll go back to the previous slide.
SPEAKER_02: Um, that's the background for Hilarious Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: That's our next Hilarious Sunday offering on December 16th.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: That means that we're just gonna, in the meantime, pray you listen and you obey uh our desire.
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to pay all that 2.1 million off.
SPEAKER_02: That way we could go into that and be in an even better position financially.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, this will not become the focus of our church.
SPEAKER_02: We will not paint a red thermometer on the wall in the lobby uh and give updates every week.
SPEAKER_02: You know, you want the level to go up, you better give.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what we're gonna say: you just pray, you just listen, and you just obey.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I told you earlier, that's just kind of I'll send the email because some people aren't here because they're sinners and they're sleeping in or whatever.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'll send an email uh to the whole church uh just because we practice full disclosure.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but I told you earlier we have a pastoral prayer time, and I don't want us to pray about this today.
SPEAKER_02: Uh here's why.
SPEAKER_02: Because there's bigger things in the world going on than us starting construction of a new sanctuary, like in the states of South and North Carolina.
SPEAKER_02: There's this woman named Florence that has paid them a visit, and we remember what that was like, do we not?
SPEAKER_02: We know what it's like for some of you in this in this in this church got flooded.
SPEAKER_02: There's a family in our church that got flooded during Hurricane Harvey, got everything rebuilt, got the new furniture delivered, and the next day a pipe in their downstairs broke and flooded the downstairs of their house.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, help me, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So we know.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're sitting around some rednecks with power tools, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: Because last year when the hurricane hit, we showed up here in teams.
SPEAKER_02: We were going out, cutting out sheetrock.
SPEAKER_02: I remember we walked in one lady's house and she was like, I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_02: One of our men was like, Bag up, ma'am.
SPEAKER_02: Uh just took a saw and started just cutting about 36 inches above the floor.
SPEAKER_02: And we're ripping out sheetrock, pulling out wet uh insulation, all that stuff, pulling up wood flooring, putting it out by the curb because we remember what that's like.
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible says this the Bible says we comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
SPEAKER_02: And so here's what I want us to do.
SPEAKER_02: I want us to pray for the people that have been affected by Hurricane Florence.
SPEAKER_02: And just pray, however, God puts on your heart to pray.
SPEAKER_02: We know what it's like.
SPEAKER_02: One of them, here's a couple things that I'm praying.
SPEAKER_02: That people would see God's power and they wouldn't start to believe things about God that aren't true.
SPEAKER_02: They'd see God's power.
SPEAKER_02: And it would be humbling for them.
SPEAKER_02: It wouldn't make them angry, it would be humbling.
SPEAKER_02: I'm praying that the church in North and South Carolina, as it already is, would just kind of rise to the opportunity to demonstrate.
SPEAKER_02: I met a guy, uh, my waiter yesterday, if you go to Atlanto, Texas, there's this cool little place to eat called Badu, B-A-D-U.
SPEAKER_02: They have a great brunch.
SPEAKER_02: I had ex Benedict served on cornmeal with queso and saddle holiday sauce.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, shut up.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I looked at the waiter and I said, You kind of got a restless, wandering spirit in you, don't you?
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, I sure do.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Where were you born?
SPEAKER_02: He said, Kissimmee, Florida.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, and where'd you get that tattoo right there?
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, I got that North Dakota.
SPEAKER_02: I was up there protesting the pipeline.
SPEAKER_02: I said, You smoke them left-handed Democratic cigarettes, don't you?
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, Maybe, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, relax, I'm not Johnny Law.
SPEAKER_02: And we just got to talking.
SPEAKER_02: And I just said to him, I said, What was it like up there?
SPEAKER_02: And he said, You know what?
SPEAKER_02: My truck, my truck broke down, I was in North Dakota, and church folk came out to the protest lines and helped me get my truck fixed.
SPEAKER_02: They took me in and they fed me.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Church folk, what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_02: You know, religious people.
SPEAKER_02: I said, religious or people have a relationship with Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: And he said, What's the difference?
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Come into my lair, said the spider to the fly.
SPEAKER_02: You boys serve alcohol this early in the morning, it's may take a while.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: I said, There's a huge difference.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, his name's Dakota.
SPEAKER_02: I pray for him.
SPEAKER_02: Great young man.
SPEAKER_02: Just got abandoned as a kid.
SPEAKER_02: I said, now orphans can be ruthless.
SPEAKER_02: And he went, Oh man, I've been that.
SPEAKER_02: I said, be careful, it all doesn't depend on you, you rugged individualist.
SPEAKER_02: He said, You, you, I said, Well, we'll bless you.
SPEAKER_02: He said, You're blessing me right now just by talking to me like this.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why did I bring that up?
SPEAKER_02: Because one thing he couldn't, this bell he couldn't unring is that the church, the Christians in North Dakota, came out to the protest lines and said, Hey, we fundamentally disagree with you.
SPEAKER_02: Would you like a home cooked meal?
SPEAKER_02: That's civility, folks.
SPEAKER_02: That's also Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: And so let's just pray to people in the church, believers in North and South Carolina, this opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together right now.
SPEAKER_02: We remember what that's like.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us uh uh it got close.
SPEAKER_02: Water came up to the front porch, some of it flowed the street, some of us were overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_02: We had three feet of water in our house.
SPEAKER_02: So we know what it's like for strangers to show up and just just be Jesus with skin on.
SPEAKER_02: So we pray for for Christians in the Carolinas to rise up and be the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: We don't need to we don't need a bunch of chucks and trucks from Texas to show up and try to do what they need.
SPEAKER_02: Uh what they can do.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we pray for them.
SPEAKER_02: Uh God, we bless them.
SPEAKER_02: We pray you'd protect people from believing things about you that aren't true.
SPEAKER_02: You're not mean and maniacal and out to get people.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: It's just your your power's greater than ours.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says that you keep winds in your storehouses.
SPEAKER_02: So you have a storehouse so big that Hurricane Florence can be kind of in that climate-controlled storage facility.
SPEAKER_02: That's how big you are.
SPEAKER_02: And so, Lord, we want to be humbled by that, not mad at that.
SPEAKER_02: We want to be humbled by that.
SPEAKER_02: And cause things like that to make us ponder and think about you and what you're really like.
SPEAKER_02: Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth today.
SPEAKER_02: Say something that has our name on it, we pray.
SPEAKER_02: We pray it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: If you're our guests again, thanks for looking into a new church.
SPEAKER_02: Just be yourself here today.
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, we're gonna sing a few more songs, and I'm gonna come back and I'm preaching through the gospel of John, and we're just gonna pick it up where we left off last time, and we'll just go from there.
SPEAKER_02: We may sing some songs you've never heard before, or you don't know the words to.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me.
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean you're dumb, it doesn't mean you're unspiritual, or you are you shouldn't be here.
SPEAKER_02: No, it just means, hey, you keep coming and you'll learn some of the songs, and you'll find yourself kind of humming some of those and thinking about them.
SPEAKER_02: And we'll end our service with a great country song today because God loves country music.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: That's all I got.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, Lord Jesus, when we sing songs like that, we're not saying uh we want to be narrow-minded.
SPEAKER_02: We're saying that you have a better way of doing life.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you said uh to people, because you're a straight shooter and a square dealer, you said to people, hey, broad is the path that leads to destruction, and many there be that find it, but narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that go between.
SPEAKER_02: We want to be those people that go between.
SPEAKER_02: Uh again, not being narrow-minded.
SPEAKER_02: We want to be the most gracious, generous, juiciest people anybody knows.
SPEAKER_02: So when they get around us, it's harder to be an atheist than it was before they met us.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, not because we're special, just because we're we're peep we're the people of God.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're Christians.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're the most winsome, liberated cat they've ever met, God.
SPEAKER_02: And it creates in them a desire to know more about you.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we exist, that's why we breathe.
SPEAKER_02: Not to pay down the visa so we get more stuff, uh, not to go on more vacations.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing wrong with any of that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02: But it's not the reason we're breathing.
SPEAKER_02: Remind us while we're breathing today and do so from the Bible, we ask in Jesus' name, and everyone said.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: You can have a seat if you've got a Bible.
SPEAKER_02: I invite you to take it, open up to John chapter 8.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row.
SPEAKER_02: I'm on page 894.
SPEAKER_02: Page 894.
SPEAKER_02: And today I want to talk to you about the beauty of law and gospel.
SPEAKER_02: The beauty of law and gospel.
SPEAKER_02: And you say, what do you mean, law and gospel?
SPEAKER_02: Here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_02: When you think of law, think of the rules, think of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: That's what most people think about it.
SPEAKER_02: The beauty of law and gospel.
SPEAKER_02: The law is the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, gospel is the word that we use in the church a lot, and it literally means good news.
SPEAKER_02: And so when you think about the good news, most people think about the New Testament, which is Jesus comes.
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people, I've had people say to me, I don't like old God in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: He seems like he's mad, but I like Jesus in the New Testament because he's really nice.
SPEAKER_02: Well, here's what I would say to that: they're the same person.
SPEAKER_02: You can't divide that.
SPEAKER_02: And so you need the beauty of law and gospel.
SPEAKER_02: And so, John chapter 8, I'll start reading verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, let me give you the context so you can get up to speed.
SPEAKER_02: We we're going through the book of John, verse by verse, because that way you think about what the Bible says about everything.
SPEAKER_02: And so, up to this point, Jesus has been gaining popularity, but not because he's running for office, but because he's telling the truth.
SPEAKER_02: And speaking of running for office, what we're gonna read this morning is kind of like the Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee.
SPEAKER_02: It's like his confirmation hearings.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you saw any of that.
SPEAKER_02: People would bring up stuff and try to act stuff, and and eventually, this is horrible.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that would that it's this way nowadays, but it's been this way forever.
SPEAKER_02: Eventually, if you can't get anything on the record, then get a woman to accuse this man of something.
SPEAKER_02: And all that is, is men using women for their own political means.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, that didn't start with a political nomination to the Supreme Court.
SPEAKER_02: That goes way back in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: Because what we're gonna read about is the Pharisees, they were kind of like the religious police of the day.
SPEAKER_02: They hated Jesus, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Because when the people heard Jesus talk, all the people said, I don't want to listen to you guys anymore.
SPEAKER_02: I want to listen to this guy talk.
SPEAKER_02: And so everyone was gathering to listen to him, and they like, we've got to do something about this.
SPEAKER_02: And so they couldn't do anything, they couldn't come up with a way to contradict what Jesus was saying, so they set up a trap for him.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what we're gonna read about.
SPEAKER_02: They try to pin Jesus down in front of God and everybody and get him to incriminate himself.
SPEAKER_02: This is the way the Bible says it.
SPEAKER_02: John chapter 8, verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: They went each to his own house.
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_02: Early in the morning, he came again to the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and he taught them.
SPEAKER_02: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst.
SPEAKER_02: They said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
SPEAKER_02: Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
SPEAKER_02: What do you say?
SPEAKER_02: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
SPEAKER_02: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and he said to them, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
SPEAKER_02: And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.
SPEAKER_02: But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they?
SPEAKER_02: Has no one condemned you?
SPEAKER_02: And she said, No, no one, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you.
SPEAKER_02: Go.
SPEAKER_02: And from now on, sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: What do I mean when I say the beauty of the law and the gospel?
SPEAKER_02: I want to here's what I want to do this morning.
SPEAKER_02: I want to make three points right out of the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: I want to point to three things in the Bible, and then I want to give you four or five questions just to kind of reflectively think about.
SPEAKER_02: And the first point I want to make is simply this is that Jesus upholds the law.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus upholds the law.
SPEAKER_02: You say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_02: In verse 5, this is kind of where they start.
SPEAKER_02: They say, now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
SPEAKER_02: Now they've invoked two sacred things in New Testament time: the law of God, I mean the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the law, and Moses.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a Republican bringing up Ronald Reagan, okay?
SPEAKER_02: If you ever notice that, the closer anytime someone's running for president, they start quoting Ronald Reagan over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_02: Moses was like that for these people.
SPEAKER_02: It was kind of like two sacred things in the law, Moses, and in their mind, they're just smiling because they've kind of backed Jesus into a corner.
SPEAKER_02: In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
SPEAKER_02: So what do you say?
SPEAKER_02: They said this to test him that he might have some basis to bring a charge against him.
SPEAKER_02: Now, when I say Jesus upholds the law, they start with the law.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why is this a big deal?
SPEAKER_02: This is a big deal for three reasons.
SPEAKER_02: Number one, historically.
SPEAKER_02: It's a big deal historically because if Jesus breaks the law, then he's guilty of sin, and therefore he's in need of forgiveness and redemption, just like the rest of us.
SPEAKER_02: And so if Jesus breaks the law, who dies on the cross in Jesus' place for the sins of Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: You got a problem right off the bat.
SPEAKER_02: So that when I say Jesus upholds the law, it's a big deal historically in three contexts.
SPEAKER_02: Historically, secondly, situationally.
SPEAKER_02: Situationally, because they think they've kind of pinned him down, and now the people will turn on him because if he violates the law and most Moses, oh, it goes against Moses.
SPEAKER_02: They're like, oh man, we got you now.
SPEAKER_02: Thirdly, the context is currently.
SPEAKER_02: Currently, what what I mean?
SPEAKER_02: We live in a culture that takes one verse out of this passage and builds a worldview around it, and it's all the Bible they know, so it applies to everything.
SPEAKER_02: There's most people you meet on the street, they don't know anything about the Bible, but they know two verses.
SPEAKER_02: Number one, judge not lest you also be judged.
SPEAKER_02: Number two, whoever's without sin, let them be the first throw stone.
SPEAKER_02: Who am I to judge you?
SPEAKER_02: And so I get that, and I get why that universally appeals to people, but here's the problem: you end up with a culture.
SPEAKER_02: Now, now think about this.
SPEAKER_02: When I describe this, there's probably not a culture anywhere in the world that exists like this, but if we're not careful, it will happen.
SPEAKER_02: Uh when you build a worldview on one verse in the Bible, taken out of context, what happens is you end up with a culture where nobody is wrong, much less sinning, because who are we to cast a stone at you?
SPEAKER_02: So what we have is we're kind of left to slog around in this lukewarm vat of moral neutrality with no real hope of anything ever changing.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing can change.
SPEAKER_02: You say, why?
SPEAKER_02: Because unless there's an objective standard by which we evaluate in right and wrong, everything's subjective.
SPEAKER_02: It's subject to my opinions, my whims, my appetites.
SPEAKER_02: It's subject to your opinions, whims, appetites, preferences.
SPEAKER_02: And so what happens is you have no law, and you do what happens in the Bible when the people said, Hey, there was that there was no fear of God before their eyes.
SPEAKER_02: And so what did they do?
SPEAKER_02: People did what was right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if you know of a culture that exists anywhere in the world today where this is true, where people just kind of do what they want to do, and it's just kind of like, hey, whatever.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when this woman swiped right on Tinder, she never knew it would end up here.
SPEAKER_02: She is just like, holy crow, what has happened?
SPEAKER_02: One minute, I'm in the act of adultery.
SPEAKER_02: Next minute, by the way, it was in the act.
SPEAKER_02: The literal translation for the Greek was woman, Jesus, we caught this woman in the act of adultery.
SPEAKER_02: So best we can tell, she has no clothes, a bed sheet, or she is at best scantily clad at the feet of Jesus, and she does not have a leg to stand on.
SPEAKER_02: Now, back to Jesus upholding the law, you're like, what, what, why is that such a big deal currently in our context?
SPEAKER_02: Here's why.
SPEAKER_02: Because unless we have some objective standard that's outside of us and our circumstances and our preferences, whereby which we evaluate and establish what is right and wrong, then you cannot have right and wrong.
SPEAKER_02: You can't.
SPEAKER_02: If everything is subjective, then no one's wrong.
SPEAKER_02: There's no such thing as sin, there's no such thing as law.
SPEAKER_02: You don't need any of that if everything is subjective.
SPEAKER_02: And we live in a day and age of what I call subjective moral relativism.
SPEAKER_02: It's all subject to something, and it's all relative.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, it all just depends.
SPEAKER_02: See, here's if you spool this out, here's where it gets even worse.
SPEAKER_02: People are ill-prepared for the fate that awaits all of humanity, and that is to stand before a holy God and give an account for how we did compared to the law.
SPEAKER_02: Now, most people read this story about this woman caught in adultery and about these mean religious people and how Jesus was so cool, and Jesus said, Hey, it's cool.
SPEAKER_02: Uh just go your way and sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and they miss exactly what is being said here.
SPEAKER_02: Because here's what happens in our mind.
SPEAKER_02: We kind of read this story and we go, I hate mean-spirited religious people.
SPEAKER_02: I love kind, compassionate Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm gonna be more like kind, compassionate Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Can I love us enough to say that's noble, but that ain't you.
SPEAKER_02: That ain't you and that ain't me.
SPEAKER_02: You and me are the woman.
SPEAKER_02: You are the woman caught in adultery.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have a leg to stand on.
SPEAKER_02: And you say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says it like this in 1 Corinthians, it says that we all have an, or excuse me, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, we all have an appointment to stand before the judgment seat of God and give an account for the deeds done while in the body.
SPEAKER_02: And so, while we can build compassion for this woman, she is just a forerunner to us.
SPEAKER_02: We're all gonna stand naked and without excuse before a holy God, and hear this, you're gonna be evaluated on how you did it fulfilling the law.
SPEAKER_02: If you're in this room and you're kind of like, you know what, I think Jesus was a great person, but I don't trust anybody but myself, then you have to keep the law perfectly the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_02: That sounds liberating, but really you've obligated yourself to a form of spiritual bondage.
SPEAKER_02: You say, I like this.
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean he upholds the law?
SPEAKER_02: I keep saying he upholds the law.
SPEAKER_02: This is what I mean.
SPEAKER_02: It's Leviticus chapter 20, verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: This is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_02: And look at me.
SPEAKER_02: This is in the Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Now, anytime you have a conversation in 2018 about sexual ethics or sexual morality, people run to the book of Leviticus and they pull some obscure reference out of it.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, the Bible say you shouldn't wear a blended shirt that has cotton and other fabrics in it, and so the Bible's flawed.
SPEAKER_02: We can't trust anything it says about morality, much less immorality, because it's this crazy things back here.
SPEAKER_02: But when you try to explain to people, hey, here's the context, and here's why God told people not to wear blended shirts and things like that.
SPEAKER_02: It's not like, hey, that applies today.
SPEAKER_02: It applied back then because God's calling his people to come out and be holy and be pure.
SPEAKER_02: They're like, I don't want to hear any of that.
SPEAKER_02: I just want to be immoral.
SPEAKER_02: And I've had to say to people before, hey, do you want to have a conversation or do you just want to live an immoral life?
SPEAKER_02: Because I don't want to waste my words here.
SPEAKER_02: Well, do you think you think what I'm doing is immoral?
SPEAKER_02: Let me ask you this: do you tell your grandmother what you do?
SPEAKER_02: I asked one guy and he was like, Oh, dude, you played the grandma card.
SPEAKER_02: I said, I'm just saying, prison rules up in here.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying deep inside, you know this isn't true.
SPEAKER_02: When you and your girlfriend sometimes get together, does she ever cry?
SPEAKER_02: How'd you know that?
SPEAKER_02: Because she's telling you, hey, we can do this in the context of a thing called marriage.
SPEAKER_02: We don't have to do this right here.
SPEAKER_02: She's doing this because she doesn't want to lose you.
SPEAKER_02: So you're manipulating her with sex to stay with you.
SPEAKER_02: That's really, I mean, that's jacked up, don't you think?
SPEAKER_02: Dude, you're making me angry.
SPEAKER_02: You think you're the first person to say that to me?
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, I'm not trying to make people angry.
SPEAKER_02: I just want to say let's think about it.
SPEAKER_02: When I say Jesus upholds the law, the law says this if a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulterer shall surely be put to death.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me.
SPEAKER_02: Hear this clearly.
SPEAKER_02: That is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: You can't take it out of there.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why do I point to that?
SPEAKER_02: Because we live in a day and age where we want to appeal to you by trying to cover up and kind of say, hey, hey, don't notice that.
SPEAKER_02: That's that's not in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: Get behind me.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is warm and compassionate.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is a swell guy.
SPEAKER_02: You should give him consideration.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: There's a reason I point to that today.
SPEAKER_02: Hear it again.
SPEAKER_02: If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulterer shall be put to death.
SPEAKER_02: Stoning.
SPEAKER_02: That's what they're referring to when they say, Hey, Jesus, Mr.
SPEAKER_02: Compassionate, nice guy.
SPEAKER_02: In the law, Moses commanded us to stone people like this.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what I want you to hear today.
SPEAKER_02: If you do away with the law of God, then you have no backdrop against which to marvel at the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_02: If you do away with the law of God, you have no backdrop against which to marvel at the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: This past week, a very popular preacher in our country, man named Andy Stanley, good guy.
SPEAKER_02: But he said a very untrue thing.
SPEAKER_02: He said that we should unhinge from the Old Testament for the sake of people who find it offensive.
SPEAKER_02: This is what I mean when I say to you, hey, before Christianity is personal, it's historical, Andy went on to say that we can just start with the resurrection and move forward with the good news of Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: And I just asked this question because one of my friends called me and said, Hey, what do you think about it?
SPEAKER_02: Did you read this?
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, I got an internet connection.
SPEAKER_02: I see what people are doing out there.
SPEAKER_02: I think this is an appeal to the masses.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I think it's horrible.
SPEAKER_02: And here's why.
SPEAKER_02: If you start with the resurrection of Jesus and go forward, it's like we don't need this bad stuff back in the Old Testament of war and injustice and all kinds.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, all that is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, but here's the thing: if you do away with the Old Testament and you say, we're just gonna start with the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: See, now we're talking about the beauty of law and gospel.
SPEAKER_02: If you just start with the gospel, the good news, then how do you know it's good news?
SPEAKER_02: If there is no bad news, and the bad news is that we're all cast naked and defenseless before a holy God and the law.
SPEAKER_02: And we're guilty, and we deserve punishment.
SPEAKER_02: Without that bad news, how do you know that the gospel is good news?
SPEAKER_02: If you just start with us and our felt needs, all you have is a motivational speaker with a cross on top.
SPEAKER_02: And that's very popular in our country.
SPEAKER_02: Very popular.
SPEAKER_02: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying simply this: without the Old Testament, you have no good news.
SPEAKER_02: You just have some news, but it's not good news.
SPEAKER_02: You have to reclaim the gravity of our sin so we can experience the greatness of God that is brought to us in the gospel, which is why we need law and gospel.
SPEAKER_02: First point, stay with me.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus upholds the law.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, Jesus applies the law to everybody.
SPEAKER_02: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
SPEAKER_02: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
SPEAKER_02: And once more he bent down and he wrote on the ground.
SPEAKER_02: But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
SPEAKER_02: Don't miss how subtle the Bible is.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus bends down and he begins to write in the ground.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't say anything.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, no one knows what he wrote.
SPEAKER_02: Books have been written speculating what Jesus wrote when he just kind of drew in the dirt.
SPEAKER_02: I just now the law says that both these people, when I say Jesus upholds the law and he applies the law, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_02: The laws we just read in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 10, says both the man and the woman should be put to death.
SPEAKER_02: And so Jesus is got.
SPEAKER_02: I think what Jesus is saying is, yeah, let's apply the law.
SPEAKER_02: Which is why I think, and I'm not being funny here, I just think he just reached out in the dirt and just drew an arrow to the guy she committed adultery with.
SPEAKER_02: Batter up.
SPEAKER_02: And then the Bible says this.
SPEAKER_02: And they and they left.
SPEAKER_02: One by one.
SPEAKER_02: Hear this the older ones first.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible's so subtle.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me, what is it saying?
SPEAKER_02: The older you get, the more you should understand your depravity and you should become a more gracious person.
SPEAKER_02: Not a universalist.
SPEAKER_02: Who am I to judge you?
SPEAKER_02: You know, hey, I'm not out sin, I can't throw rocks.
SPEAKER_02: We're not throwing rocks.
SPEAKER_02: We're loving people enough to say you should turn from behavior that the Bible calls sin, which is going to ultimately end up in your death.
SPEAKER_02: And so, what do we mean?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus upholds the law, Jesus applies the law.
SPEAKER_02: Basically, Jesus just kind of saying, hey, where's the guy?
SPEAKER_02: Where's the guy?
SPEAKER_02: Long before me too.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus doesn't need a me too movement, and I'm not making light of that.
SPEAKER_02: He just doesn't need a me too movement to inform how he feels about women, ladies.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_02: You religious morons set up some scenario where this woman gets caught in the act of adultery?
SPEAKER_02: How did you know she was committing adultery if you perfs didn't set it up and watch and then jump out of the closet and go, we got you now?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, ask yourself, who watches someone commit adultery?
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you who.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody looks at pornography.
SPEAKER_02: That's who?
SPEAKER_02: So before you kind of go, yeah, most religious perfs in the Bible, can you believe that?
SPEAKER_02: That's what the point is.
SPEAKER_02: It's just watching people commit adultery.
SPEAKER_02: So, so long before the internet, I mean, this was going on in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: She's caught in the very act, and Jesus just applies the law to them and everybody else.
SPEAKER_02: And most people miss the point and they misapply what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_02: He is not saying, hey, we're all sinners.
SPEAKER_02: God understands.
SPEAKER_02: Let's not get crazy and go all legalistic on this woman.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I mean, who hasn't sinned, right?
SPEAKER_02: Instead, what Jesus is saying is, hey, you guys right here, right now, you are in sin because you do not want to apply the law.
SPEAKER_02: I want to apply the law.
SPEAKER_02: So if we're going to stone her, let's stone you too, Mr.
SPEAKER_02: Ringleader in charge.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, this is not a statement about the way God feels about adultery or adulterers.
SPEAKER_02: It's a statement about how God feels about sin and all its manifestations.
SPEAKER_02: So we've got to stop playing identity politics with certain sexual sins in America and saying these people are a protected group and class of people and they deserve special treatment and special rights.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible doesn't pick on those people any more than the adulterer or the bank robber or the liar or the glutton or the idolater or the prideful person.
SPEAKER_02: Sin is the Bible's against sin in all its manifestations.
SPEAKER_02: At this point, let me just inject this.
SPEAKER_02: The woman.
SPEAKER_02: The next thing you know, she's just kind of at the feet of Jesus without a leg to stand like, uh, how about a sheet here?
SPEAKER_02: Help me out here, anybody?
SPEAKER_02: The best we can tell is she was cowering in the fetal position, waiting for the rocks to come raining down on her from religious, mean-spirited religious people.
SPEAKER_02: Why do I say that?
SPEAKER_02: Here's why.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me.
SPEAKER_02: This is both her worst day and her best day.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because she doesn't have anywhere to hide.
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's her worst day.
SPEAKER_02: It's her best day because once you realize that God already knows, you don't, there's not anything that there's not any need to hide.
SPEAKER_02: So she has a leg up on all of us because she's like, I tried to keep it on the down low, and my sin has found me out.
SPEAKER_02: So Jesus upholds the law.
SPEAKER_02: They come at him in the name of the law.
SPEAKER_02: He upholds the law, he applies the law, they drop their rick rocks and they split, and the woman's left there, and then Jesus fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_02: Hear this.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus stood up verse 10 and said to her, Woman, where are they?
SPEAKER_02: Has no one condemned you?
SPEAKER_02: By the way, when he says woman, he doesn't say it like we say it sometimes, men, when we're kidding our wives, hey woman, is my supper ready?
SPEAKER_02: He's not like somebody coming off the oil rig, hey woman, his house kind of looking kind of kind of messy and cleaning his house up.
SPEAKER_02: Woman?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever asked yourself, how does your name sound coming out of God's mouth?
SPEAKER_02: You should ask yourself today, how does my name sound coming out of God's mouth?
SPEAKER_02: This is the way my name sounds coming out of God's mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, buddy.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, buckaroo.
SPEAKER_02: Now y'all think I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_02: Ask my wife, she'll say, Yes, my husband thinks that about God.
SPEAKER_02: He thinks God thinks that way about him.
SPEAKER_02: Not because I'm special or I'm a preacher.
SPEAKER_02: I just think he likes me.
SPEAKER_02: He knows everything about.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, sometimes it's like, hey, Neil.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's Neil.
SPEAKER_02: And when I hear like that, I'm kind of like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe not.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: By the way, don't take offense when he says woman.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it comes so tender out of his mouth.
SPEAKER_02: This is also the same way he addressed his mother from the cross.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Woman, behold your son.
SPEAKER_02: What I'm saying to you today is that the God of the Bible, I don't know the God of your experience or whatever, the God that you were heard about as a kid, but the God of the Bible is very tender and compassionate, long-suffering and patient.
SPEAKER_02: See, Jesus fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_02: What I mean when I say that, it's why we don't stone people when they commit the sin of adultery.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're in this room right now and you're like, dude, my friends set me up.
SPEAKER_02: They brought me, they knew you were going to teach.
SPEAKER_02: No, they didn't.
SPEAKER_02: But here's the beauty because Jesus fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_02: This is the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: This is good news.
SPEAKER_02: We don't stone people that commit the sin of adultery or pride or gossip or gluttony or whatever your favorite sin is.
SPEAKER_02: We're not only face to face like this woman with our depravity, but we've been charged with doing something that is utterly impossible.
SPEAKER_02: Hear it again.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus says to her, Where are they?
SPEAKER_02: Has no one condemned you?
SPEAKER_02: And she said, No one, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you.
SPEAKER_02: Go and from now on, sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: And the lady's like, see, what was?
SPEAKER_02: Do you know who you're talking to?
SPEAKER_02: That's the way we all hear that.
SPEAKER_02: We hear that like, I mean, come on, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You know how long I've struggled with this addiction?
SPEAKER_02: Come on.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, really?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'll do my best.
SPEAKER_02: Will you be my sponsor?
SPEAKER_02: We, we, we kind of, hey, do you know who you're talking to?
SPEAKER_02: And I'm inviting you to come on this side of the dialogue this morning and realize who's talking to you?
SPEAKER_02: Who it is that says, hey, go your way and sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: This is the beauty of law and gospel.
SPEAKER_02: This is the God who upholds the law, who applies the law, and who fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_02: When he says, Go your way and sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: Clearly he believes what you're doing with sin.
SPEAKER_02: Not sinning is impossible apart from a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_02: So what I mean when I say that he fulfills the law, it's the book of Romans, chapter three, says this.
SPEAKER_02: But now the righteousness of God has been manifest apart from the law.
SPEAKER_02: Let me just say this: those two words, but now.
SPEAKER_02: See, if you don't have a then, the Old Testament, the bad news that we've all sinned and fallen short, established in history over thousands of years, you don't have a but now.
SPEAKER_02: But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
SPEAKER_02: Although the law and the prophets, that's the Old Testament, bear witness to it.
SPEAKER_02: For the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe, for there's no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02: When he says there's no distinction for all of sin and should fall short of the glory of God, what God in the Bible is saying is that I'm no better than you.
SPEAKER_02: You say, Well, you ain't committed sins like that, have you?
SPEAKER_02: No, I've never I never committed the sin of adultery.
SPEAKER_02: I haven't.
SPEAKER_02: But that doesn't mean I'm better than you.
SPEAKER_02: We've all sinned.
SPEAKER_02: There's no distinction.
SPEAKER_02: You've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the part we don't talk about enough.
SPEAKER_02: We use that first part like a club to beat people into submission.
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible goes on, same sentence, no period.
SPEAKER_02: After we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, comma, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
SPEAKER_02: This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he has passed over former sins.
SPEAKER_02: It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So when Jesus says to the woman, hey, neither do I condemn you.
SPEAKER_02: Go and from now on, sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: What he's really saying is, Hey, you got faith in me?
SPEAKER_02: You willing to have faith in me?
SPEAKER_02: You willing to stop trying to put faith in yourself and these guilty uh conversations you have with yourself where you say, I'm gonna stop.
SPEAKER_02: This is wrong, I'm not gonna do this anymore.
SPEAKER_02: I know this is wrong, I was raised better, I know different, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: You have faith in yourself.
SPEAKER_02: We all pull out something.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody pulls out something to kind of disqualify themselves from the gospel, to say, yeah, but you know, here's this thing back in 1986.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know I did that?
SPEAKER_02: And I just say to that, I just point you back to Romans chapter 3, verses 21 to 26.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says that we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and we're justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation, as a wrath-atoning sacrifice by his blood, whom God put forward.
SPEAKER_02: So here's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me, and we'll be done this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you put forward to say, yeah, but here's this thing from that trip to Cancun that no one knows about.
SPEAKER_02: I was on business and oh man, whoo.
SPEAKER_02: God just kind of says, I play this trump card called Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I put Jesus forward.
SPEAKER_02: I get that.
SPEAKER_02: Well, what am I saying?
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying you can only be justified by a just God, a God who takes sin seriously and does something about it, which is why Jesus can say to this woman and to you and me as well, go your way and sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: Stop allowing yourself to be manipulated and used by men.
SPEAKER_02: That's not why I created you.
SPEAKER_02: Sin no more.
SPEAKER_02: And if you just hear that through the lens of you, you're like, well, by chance, but I'll try, okay.
SPEAKER_02: I give myself two days.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm just saying, come over here and see it out of the and hear it out of the tender mouth of an all-knowing God.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, this Jesus knows he's gonna die for that woman and that sin.
SPEAKER_02: And he's saying to her, hey, you willing to have faith in me?
SPEAKER_02: You willing to stop acting like this all depends on you?
SPEAKER_02: Are you willing just to bask in the beauty of law and gospel to come together?
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_02: And while you're praying and just thinking, we like to teach the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: If you're our guest today, just relax.
SPEAKER_02: No one's gonna try to get you jammed up and make you do something.
SPEAKER_02: We like to teach the Bible and we'd like to give you some space to think about it.
SPEAKER_02: And here's some here's some questions to think about this morning while we're just kind of meditating.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, who or what is your faith in?
SPEAKER_02: Who or what is your faith in?
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, is the grace of God big enough for you?
SPEAKER_02: Is the grace of God big enough for you?
SPEAKER_02: Or you just think, man, I'm such a sinner, and I would just say to you, no, you're not.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, you may be a great sinner, but God's an even greater savior.
SPEAKER_02: Is the grace of God big enough for you?
SPEAKER_02: And if you answer yes to that, then the question becomes what behaviors accompany That belief.
SPEAKER_02: If I believe the grace of God is big enough for me, then how do I demonstrate that?
SPEAKER_02: What behaviors do I do that kind of demonstrate that?
SPEAKER_02: And lastly, how does the gospel empower me to stop sinning?
SPEAKER_02: Let's just give some time to think about that.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we're mindful today that you're the God that knows everything about us.
SPEAKER_02: You could write all our sins in the dirt if you chose to.
SPEAKER_02: But today we just kind of hear you drawing a big arrow back to yourself and saying, get a load of me.
SPEAKER_02: You can't jam me up with your little games.
SPEAKER_02: These people want to come to you and gotta get you to break the law.
SPEAKER_02: You uphold the law and you apply the law because you fulfill the law.
SPEAKER_02: Which is why we don't kill people for various sins.
SPEAKER_02: That a holy God says, you know what?
SPEAKER_02: That's so unlike me.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want that to continue.
SPEAKER_02: You sent your son into the world to be killed.
SPEAKER_02: So sinners like me could not just be forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: So the God like you that says, I like to get down low so I can lift you higher.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Jesus left the sanctity and the security of heaven to get down low on this earth to lift up fallen people like me and everybody else in this room.
SPEAKER_02: So let us hear you today saying, Ali and free.
SPEAKER_02: Come out, come out wherever you are.
SPEAKER_02: Stop hiding.
SPEAKER_02: So, Lord, thank you for the Bible and the way it causes us to think.
SPEAKER_02: We want to keep thinking now in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: If you're our guest today, let me say thanks for being part of our service.
SPEAKER_02: Hope you've had an opportunity to fill out a little guest card as you leave this morning.
SPEAKER_02: If you would just drop it on these wooden boxes by the doors, that's also where those of us who call this your church, that's where we obey God with generosity or obedience.
SPEAKER_02: There's a few things we want you to make be aware of before you're dismissed by way of announcement.
SPEAKER_02: So if you would just give your attention to the screen for just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: Community groups begin today.
SPEAKER_01: Dozens of homes in our city will host gatherings where we engage in healthy dialogue with spiritual consequences.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not involved in the community group, it's not too late.
SPEAKER_01: Just ask one of our pastors at the conclusion of our service.
SPEAKER_01: Our main retreat registration opens today, online and in the live.
SPEAKER_01: Every year, this is one of the most significant and memorable gatherings for our family.
SPEAKER_01: We will be led in the work of faith and craft, worship together, and have time to unpack what God is doing for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: The cost is$50, and this also covers breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: It all kicks off at 7 p.m.
SPEAKER_01: in the warehouse, so sign up today.
SPEAKER_01: As always, for more information, check out our website at grandparkway.org or follow us on social media.
SPEAKER_02: As I said, the registration opens today for the men's retreat.
SPEAKER_02: By way of reminder, we are not going off like we have in the past.
SPEAKER_02: We're doing it here in town because we're going to get more men involved.
SPEAKER_02: We're going to meet in the warehouse back here on Friday night, Saturday morning, and then Saturday night.
SPEAKER_02: And so, men, we'd love you to come and be a part of that.
SPEAKER_02: You get to sleep in your own bed, you get to be around other men.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, our retreat speaker is not going to talk about what a bad father you are and how you should be a better husband and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: He's going to talk about how to approach God with confidence, with assurance in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: Talking about you and your heart before God.
SPEAKER_02: He and I talked this past week.
SPEAKER_02: He's excited about being here.
SPEAKER_02: I would love for you to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_02: If the 50 bucks is a pinch for you, let me know.
SPEAKER_02: We've all been there before.
SPEAKER_02: Let me know.
SPEAKER_02: I met a guy in Atlanta this past week where I was on a study break.
SPEAKER_02: I said, tell me your story.
SPEAKER_02: He said, Oh, I lost everything.
SPEAKER_02: I said, You're a very gracious man.
SPEAKER_02: How'd you get this way?
SPEAKER_02: He said, I went flat broke.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, now I'm interested.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I lost everything, Neil.
SPEAKER_02: And I was in the mortgage business in 2008.
SPEAKER_02: And so I would pray and ask God for$20 so I could get gas money to drive to work in Austin.
SPEAKER_02: We were broke for two years.
SPEAKER_02: We were selling off everything.
SPEAKER_02: And I was teaching a Bible study, and I taught in the story of Bartimaeus, the blind guy, that he says Jesus was walking by, and pardon me, he goes, I got to start raising hell.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, bless you.
SPEAKER_02: He said, He was just raising hell to get God's attention.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, I just think I was just being all mannerly.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, So I taught that about in Jesus, they bring him to Jesus, and Jesus says, What do you want?
SPEAKER_02: He goes, I want to see.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, It was a great Bible study.
SPEAKER_02: The next morning I got up to read my Bible and start my day, and the Lord said, Hey, you didn't tell me what you wanted.
SPEAKER_02: And I looked at him and he said, I don't want to sound like a TV preacher.
SPEAKER_02: He said, But the Lord's like, What do you want me to do for you?
SPEAKER_02: And he said, God, I just I just told him, God, I'm tired of being poor.
SPEAKER_02: I've been poor for two years, God.
SPEAKER_02: I'm tired of being poor.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be poor anymore.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, My business turned around, deals started coming in.
SPEAKER_02: The next 30 days, we made over$100,000.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, What page is that story on the Bible?
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go back and read that.
SPEAKER_02: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_02: It's because it's not about getting you jammed up, it's about setting you free.
SPEAKER_02: And and that's what we I talked to uh Jason, our retreat speaker this week when I was at Atlanta, and he just he's excited.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he just says, I just want men to understand how to approach God with with full full assurance in their heart.
SPEAKER_02: And so we'd love you to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_02: We've all been there.
SPEAKER_02: If the 50 bucks is too much, I got a guy.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, the guy said, and by the way, it's been that way ever since.
SPEAKER_02: God's just so blessed my business.
SPEAKER_02: I set aside a certain percentage and I give it away to the poor.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, did I tell you we're fixing to build a new thing somewhere?
SPEAKER_02: I didn't do that.
SPEAKER_02: You know what I said to him?
SPEAKER_02: I said, good on you, mate.
SPEAKER_02: He goes, What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: I said, that's what my Australian friend says.
SPEAKER_02: I said, just good for you.
SPEAKER_02: Yay, is God good?
SPEAKER_02: You were dirt poor and now you're just rolling in it.
SPEAKER_02: He goes, I know.
SPEAKER_02: I never dreamed it'd be this good.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, awesome.
SPEAKER_02: Now pay for brunch.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, don't let money keep you from coming to the men's retreat, okay?
SPEAKER_02: It's worth it.
SPEAKER_02: So just don't want to be an obstacle.
SPEAKER_02: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_02: Let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_02: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_02: Your God is the God of incarnation, which is a big religious word that means God left heaven, put on flesh and bones, and came to earth.
SPEAKER_02: And this is why He did it.
SPEAKER_02: So we can get down low and lift you higher.
SPEAKER_02: Depart now.
SPEAKER_02: Live in that exalted created state and space that God made for you.
SPEAKER_02: In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Bless you.