Grace That Finds Us

``Two words that we take for granted. Two words that are full of grace. Follow me. Because here's why it's full of grace. You see, there is there's no prequalification to be a Christian. Hallelujah and amen on that one. Right? You don't you don't have to take a a class. You don't you don't have to sign a document. There's no behavior adjustment. There's none of that. The call to follow Christ always comes before the change. [00:42:24] (41 seconds)  #FollowMeFirst

Let me ask you another hard question. Are you responding to grace? Are you just aware of it? This is the single most dangerous thing in the American church today. Sing about grace. We put on t shirts. We got on coffee cups. We post videos about it. We love to talk about grace. Are you actually living a life worthy of that grace, or are you just aware of it? [00:52:55] (33 seconds)  #RespondToGrace

So over the next eight weeks, we're gonna walk through a simple but challenging idea. Living a life worthy of his grace. This should resonate with us as we just went through Easter. We just had the Good Friday service. We went through resurrection, we should really come to know what grace is. Grace is not something that merely rescues you rescues you. It reshapes how you live. But here's the tension that we're gonna sit in every single week. Grace is free, but transformation is costly. [00:24:39] (42 seconds)  #GraceReshapesLife

We turn away from God. Maybe we get angry at him. Maybe we just won't acknowledge him. But here's the beautiful thing that we're working towards this morning. Grace closes that distance. It closes the distance. How does it happen in Genesis three? The father says to his children, where are you? Where are you? Grace is closing that distance. You see, god will always step into the place that we run from. [00:38:27] (35 seconds)  #GraceClosesDistance

Let's just have a moment. If god didn't move first, we would never move at all. We wouldn't. That's the hard truth. And if you're not willing to admit that, come see me afterwards. The truth is when we're stuck in sin, when we're disobedient to the father, when we rebel, if it wasn't for his grace, we would never turn. We would just continue to flounder in this life. [00:49:43] (35 seconds)  #GodMovesFirst

All of a sudden, here is Adam and Eve, and they sin. And because they sin, what's the first thing that they do? They hide. Right? It says that they hid themselves in the garden. They feel guilt. They feel they feel shame, until they wanna get away from their father. Now I'm not gonna ask anybody to raise their hands, but is anybody else want to hide from the father after you committed sin? Right? It's universal. [00:35:49] (33 seconds)  #WeHideAfterSin

We have to start following him. So I don't care if you've been here five minutes or fifty years. We all, all of us, need to follow Jesus. This morning, if you're in that group, this isn't about feeling something. It's about deciding something. Where am I gonna follow Jesus? Now. Right now. And if you're here not sure what you believe, this moment is not about having it altogether. It's about whether you're willing to respond to the god who is already pursuing you. [01:02:48] (41 seconds)  #DecideToFollow

Because somewhere along the way, many people have been taught a version of grace that requires nothing. A grace that forgives you but never confronts you. A grace that comforts you but never calls you. A grace that saves you but never transforms you. In the church, we call that cheap grace, and that's not the grace that we read about in scripture. [00:25:30] (30 seconds)  #NoCheapGrace