Traveling Mercies: Living Under Christ's Authority

Christ didn't come to trap us or trip us up, he came to capture us. To capture us with his love and his grace and his mercy, and being captured by Christ is when we're fully set free. We shall never be trapped again. And so father, we must understand, I hope to the core of our being, that being under your authority is the best way to live. The best way to live. We love you and thank you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's give God a hand clap of praise in this house today. [01:23:21] (37 seconds)  #CapturedByGrace

I'm here for the one who lived perfectly, died painfully, rose triumphantly, and he's coming again to judge the living and the dead, not the good and the bad. The Bible never says that Jesus came to judge the good, came to judge the dead. And what he offers you is life, not goodness. You're not a bad person who needs to be made good. You're dead, and you need to be made alive. And through his death, we're offered life. But you gotta receive it. You gotta accept it. Just like we come back to remind ourselves of the receptivity that's required in order to become part of the body of Jesus Christ. [01:12:10] (36 seconds)  #ReceiveNewLife

Because the bible's so clear that if you will believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and confess, speak with your mouth that he is Lord, you will be saved. You will be guaranteed. And I know some people wanna challenge that. Why do they wanna challenge it? Because they refuse to submit to the authority of God. They want it their way. Well, you can't have it your way and Jesus. Can you believe? Can you confess? Then please come and let us serve you. And if it's your first time and you wanna tell one of us, that would be glorious. If not, keep it to yourself. It's fine. Because it's ultimately between you and God anyway, not you and man. [01:15:25] (39 seconds)  #BelieveAndConfess

Because they don't wanna submit to his authority. They wanna continue to live under theirs. And so here's the picture. You'll always only have two choices. You live under the authority of God or under the authority of man. You choose. And I promise you, under the authority of God, traveling with his mercies is a whole lot better than living under the authority of man. Because the authority of man will do to Christ what it does on Friday, and that's what it'll do to you and me too. It will utterly destroy us. [00:39:51] (31 seconds)  #UnderGodsAuthority

Something mysterious happened when she came up out of that water that no human being can possibly explain. And something mysterious happens when the people of God gather together and we take a small piece of Kroger bread and dip it into a glass of Welch's grape juice. And the minute you swallow that, my chest gets warm. Something happens inside me and that's because it goes from the secular to the sacred because of your faith. And it moves in us in ways that are far beyond the quality of these elements. But if you are not a follower, you cannot come. Because the bible says, you must first recognize his body or you take judgment on yourself. [01:14:09] (46 seconds)  #SacredCommunion

But each and every time there's a narrative in Luke, you're basically seeing this call to mercy, call to mercy, take advantage of this opportunity. Because you know, all throughout this life, now the the mercy of God does not prevent us from facing the the tragedies and the heartaches and the brokenness of life. What it does guarantee is you're gonna get through it. That the mercy of God will meet you in the midst of it like the twenty third Psalm. Right? Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me. [00:32:04] (35 seconds)  #MercyThroughTrials

We we ask for traveling mercies, you know, if we're gonna travel, we ask our life group, our friends, our family, just an extra prayer, and it's very biblical. I mean, all throughout the New Testament, you see Paul, especially in the book of Acts asking for for prayers of protection and those things. So it is a it's a reality that there there's nothing wrong with asking God for protection from point a to point b, to dispense extra mercy as you journey. The truth of the matter is, we all need traveling mercies from point a to point b, and that point b is the end of time. [00:31:02] (33 seconds)  #PrayForProtection

So they're now trying to trap him based upon who do you think you are and where do you think you've come from and where do you think you get off? Where do you think you got this authority from? And this question is ultimately the question that has destroyed any human life that's been destroyed. It's what destroyed all of creation. This is the question basically in a different format that the devil asks Adam and Eve. Did God really say? And here it is like, where did you get your authority? [00:39:14] (37 seconds)  #QuestionAuthority

Look where they're stuck. They're stuck in the middle of their own question. And it has nothing to do with the content of the question. It has everything to do with authority. Authority. Do you or do you not want to come under the authority of Christ? If you want to experience traveling mercies, you must come under his authority. If you wanna buck up and say, no, nobody tells me what to do, then go live your life. But where do you see the consequences? So they answered him, we don't know where it's from. Great. Jesus said, neither am I going to tell you. See, it all comes back to this. [00:45:21] (46 seconds)  #ChooseWhoseAuthority

You're like, that's harsh. I know. But let me ask you another question. Whether or not they hear or not is not nearly as important as what are you going to do now that you have. You're worried about people who live in, you know, the mountains of Peru having never heard the gospel. Okay. You're in Bowling Green, Kentucky hearing it. You're in Morgantown, Glasgow, and there'll be a thousand plus people literally around the world that will watch this this week. What are you gonna do? See, you're asking questions that you don't have an answer for rather than answering the questions that only you can answer. Bingo. [00:59:40] (46 seconds)  #RespondToTheGospel

I wish I could tell you how many people I've had to talk to and say, listen, now that you've been arrested, you need to understand something. Because you refuse to come under the authority of God, you now find yourself under the authority of man. And the authority of man generally knows one principle, justice. Right. It's tense. Right? It's supposed to be. He's getting ready to die in a few days. I can't paint this a pretty flowery picture. [01:00:35] (32 seconds)  #UnderHumanAuthority

You see, it's interesting when people begin to question the authority of God, it's amazing how quickly you can reveal that they don't even have the answers to their questions. And there's still a lot of questions being asked about the authority of God, like probably the most popular one is if God is so good, then why does he let so many bad things happen? Well, the the question to that is simply this. Well, who's responsible for sin entering the world? Eve or Satan? Answer the question. Right? Who was it? Eve or Satan? [00:40:46] (42 seconds)  #WhereDidSinStart

What authority what authority am I doing this by? So understand, even this day, there is no issue in my opinion on the face of this earth that doesn't have to do with the authority of God. And the consequences and the collateral damages and the sin and the poor, all of it is whether or not we're willing to come under the authority of God. And as saved people, we understand this too. Because when we begin to get outside the authority of God, it's going to get very difficult for you and I to live. [00:46:08] (34 seconds)  #EverythingDependsOnGod

And so what Christ is picking out for them is this is how you treated the prophets. Ever since God called you a people from Abraham forward, you have been a rebellious people. You have refused to come under my authority since the beginning. And you see it throughout their history, the store that salvation history is full of people refusing. Even people who were planted by God to obey God and come under his authority. And when God moves in their direction, they don't submit, they fight. They don't give up. They start going after God and the messengers. They killed so many prophets. [00:48:00] (41 seconds)  #HistoryOfRebellion

Point a will be this very moment. Okay? So from this moment, because you don't have to worry about the ones behind you. This moment forward, the question is, do you want to be protected by the mercies of Christ? And on the final week of the life of Jesus Christ, this is one of the primary issues. As the urgency of the moment is literally thrust upon human history, the animosities as you can imagine begin to increase as well. And today, you're gonna see the primary reason why. [00:31:35] (29 seconds)  #ChooseChristsMercy