Chosen and Forgiven: Living Stones in Christ

``Who are you? You're a baptized child of God. You're his living stone. What he says about you, he is the most important person. He is God who gave everything for you and he says, you're chosen. You are valuable. You are capable. You carry my name in this world, and I'm excited for you to do it. You are loved, and you are forgiven. Is who you are. And nothing can take that away from you because God says so. Amen? Amen. [00:56:37] (52 seconds)  #IdentityInChrist

God is saying here, there's nothing that you have done to separate you from my love. There's nothing bigger than my son's cross for you. There's nothing bigger than the fact that he has risen from the grave. There's nothing bigger than that. There's nothing mistake that you have made that is bigger than his love. It is all forgivable because he loves you that much. That thing that is just working on your heart and mind where you feel like if we all knew we would cast you out, God knows it already, and he has forgiven it in Jesus Christ. He has said, I've overcome it. I love you that much. You're mine, and I won't let you go. It's an amazing gift. This is your identity in Christ. It's what God says about you. [00:54:25] (52 seconds)  #UnshakableGrace

Ekleiton, that's where we get the word elected. You have been elected by God to be his. That means God went in the boat boating booth and chose you. Alright? And he didn't choose you because you're so pretty, he chose you because he loves you. See, that's the thing. You aren't valuable because you have done great things. You're valuable because he loves you. He chose you, all of you. In baptism today, he chose Cruz as his and said, he is mine, and I will not let you go. He says the same thing to you. You are chosen, elected by me to be mine. You are accepted by God. Accepted. His. And if God says it, it's the way it is. He chose you. It's an amazing thing. King of the universe, created all things, chose you. [00:48:17] (63 seconds)  #ElectedByGrace

And remember what he did. Remember, in the temple, there was this gigantic curtain, like 60 feet high and 30 feet wide and four inches thick, this curtain separating the people, even the priests, even the high priests from the most holy place because God couldn't stand to be in the people's presence because they were such a mess. But when Jesus died on the cross, when chose you, the father chose you through Jesus, what did Jesus do to that cross? It was I mean, to that that that curtain. Torn Torn in in two from top to bottom. Ripped in half. And what is God saying in this? He's saying that you are my priest, and you have full rights to come to me. In the book of Hebrews, we are told, I want you to approach the throne of grace with boldness. [00:50:16] (48 seconds)  #BoldToTheThrone

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Lies. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words, they can destroy me. We've all been given different gifts. I think one of the lies we tell our children sometimes, you can be anything you wanna be. That's not always true. Right? Dad, if you're five four, and mom, you're four eight, and your son really wants to be in the NBA, well, teach them marketing, and maybe they can get on that team for an NBA team, but they're not gonna be playing on that court. [00:36:04] (48 seconds)  #KnowYourGifts

And the enemy works on us with this identity piece so hard. He whispers in your ear all the time, you can't do it, you're not good enough, and they think you're not good enough. And we buy into those lies, be it a coach or a classmate, be it a neighbor or a parent, be it even a spouse. There are people in our lives where we are very concerned about what they think about us, And the easiest thing we can do as broken, sinful, fallen human people is we can easily believe that they think we are less than. [00:41:00] (45 seconds)  #RejectTheLies

good for one interior clean of your car, good for one head, neck, shoulder massage. Right? And I used a few of those, but I haven't used them all because I don't wanna lose it. I love that thing. And every now and then, pull it out, and especially lately because she's a grad to graduate high school and I've been eye sweating a lot lately. And I'll pull that out and look at it. In my office, if you walk in, immediately on your left is a cowboy hat, that's my dad's who died here just a year and a half ago. You could come to me and say, if you'll give me that cowboy hat, I'll buy you all the hats you want for the rest of your life, and I would say, absolutely not. There's there's no amount of money you could give me, that's a treasured possession. What God is saying in this text is he feels that way about you. [00:52:42] (50 seconds)  #PreciousToGod

And he doesn't stop there. He says, now, you are a royal priesthood. It means you're capable. Right? If we go back and look at the priesthood and all the things we see back there, what we find is that priests are meant to represent God in this world. There was a lot in the Old Testament that priests had to do to go into the temple or into the tabernacle to be around where God's presence was, all sorts of rituals of cleaning and all these kinds of things, and then they would represent God to the people. They would be a physical representation of who God is. And if you were the high priest, you got to, once a year, after going through all sorts of ceremony to be cleansed, you got to go once a year into the most holy place where the ark of the covenant was to be in God's presence on behalf of the people. But Jesus says, now, you you all are a holy priesthood. [00:49:20] (55 seconds)  #RoyalPriesthood