How many got your Bibles this morning? Raise those Bibles up in the air, come on. Oh yeah, all over the place.
All right, how many of you are doing this? You're doing the electronic device. Raise those up in the air, okay? There you go, we're all good. We're all good there, right?
All right, why do I make a big deal about that? Why do I make a big deal about having a Bible with you or having the ability to pull up a... We are a Bible reading church. Man, we are a Bible reading church, okay?
Do not have notes to take notes this morning? Raise your hand. I got one. Can somebody help me out? Are there... We're getting them, we're getting them, we're getting them, we're getting them. Awesome. Why do I make a big deal about that? We are a note-taking church. We're a Bible reading church and we are a note-taking church.
Raise those hands up again real quick if you don't have one. I got James coming around, he's gonna give you one. There you go.
Anybody else? Everybody over here, good? Y'all good? Everybody in the middle, okay? So far, we got Eileen right there, needs one. Awesome. Terry, you got yours? Awesome, even better, okay.
We are winding down our sermon series, DNA. We are in the last two weeks. Everybody say, "Praise the Lord." Praise the Lord.
It's been an incredible journey. I mean, over these last weeks, we've been looking at the seven letters to the churches. And I'm hoping that through this time that we've been challenged, pushed, enlightened, maybe a little excited, right? We're great there.
Maybe we felt a little sadness in some areas, some places that we went, "Wow, man, I didn't realize that." Hopefully, it's impacted you personally too, not just on a church level, but on a personal level as well. But that's what God's Word does.
That's the reason why I bring up reading your Bible. That's the reason why our small groups are reading through the Book of Romans over this small group session, because God's Word does that.
Well, when you start getting into God's Word, God's Word will begin to present things and show things to you that need to change in your life. It's like it says in Hebrews four that the Word of God is alive and active. It's sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit.
Are you ready for this? It says it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. That's the reason why sometimes we have such a hard time with reading the Word.
I feel like a lot of times we say, "Well, I don't read it because I don't understand it," but let's face it, the more you read something, the more you understand it. I feel like that sometimes the reason why we don't read it as much is because we're afraid of what the Word is gonna read back into us.
There was in 1 Corinthians chapter one, some scripture that popped up there that kind of opened up some things, but there was a particular verse in Revelation chapter one, and I'm not gonna ask you to open up there because we're gonna put the verse up here in just a second, but there's a particular verse in Revelation chapter one that really spoke to my heart that told me this is the spiritual place that Magnolia Church is at, where we need to go, what we need to begin to follow.
Again, this comes back to the importance of the Word of God in our lives and why we went on this journey over these last several weeks. And it says in Revelation 1:3, "Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and take it to heart what is written in it because the time is near."
Let me say that again in Revelation 1:3, "Blessed is the one who reads, who hears, and who takes it to heart." To the heart, to the heart.
Why is this important? Because every word reminds us that our walk of faith, every word reminds us that in our lives, that in our church, and the grace that we enjoy, and this has been a key point through this entire series, is it's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus.
We've been making a list, right? We've got this list, the things that Jesus likes, the things that Jesus dislikes, and where change needs to happen, and that kind of thing. And what we've come to realize is that there's a couple millennia later, in the church.
Yes, I know. Bad doctrines, sin, there's sin in the church? Yeah, you don't have to go far to see that. Unhealthiness, doors that we close, right? Lukewarm faith, we see these things in there.
Now, let me just kind of give you a quick 30,000-foot view of the book of Revelation, or not the book of Revelation, but these first few chapters of Revelation, when it comes to these seven letters to the churches, okay? So this is just a quick reminder, okay?
Seven letters to seven different churches. Five of those letters contained correction. So five times Jesus spoke to something that was wrong in the church, something that needed change. Two of those letters held no correction, okay?
So five letters had correction, two had no correction, because those two churches were facing such immense persecution that all Jesus could find was the brightness that was going on, and how they were standing strong in their faith in those moments.
But there was one letter, and we got into that last week. And so the other day, I walked in here, and I'm like, and I'm standing here, and I'm looking at this list, where are we struggling, God?
And where we're going? We're gonna take time to pray right now.
So Heavenly Father, right now, as we begin to take, God, what we've learned, and we lay the church over the top of that, Jesus, I pray today that our hearts be humbled, humbled hearts, God, to receive from you what you are speaking to us today, that Jesus, that our lives are open to you, that we hear from you.
And Father, I pray today for humility in my life, God, as I try to speak through these things, God, that you've been stirring in my heart over these last couple of weeks in preparation for this week, Lord, and Jesus, let them just flow through your spirit and let everything go through the filter of your spirit into every heart and life in this room.
In Jesus' name, we say together, amen and amen.
This week, as we wrap up this series, I wanna talk about the power of grace. I wanna talk about the power of grace this week and next week. This is still part of our DNA series, right? Just call it the subtext, okay?
But I wanna talk about the power of grace and how it empowers us to holiness. Because as I prayed these things the other day, I began to realize there were two very distinct things that Jesus was beginning to show me for this church and for our lives, and two things that we need to pay attention to.
And there's two words, and those two words are repentance and reformation. Repentance and reformation.
Now, what is reformation, Pastor? Well, reformation is a fancy word for renewal, okay? Reformation just seems to ring a little bit stronger because it takes an entire change within a life.
And why are we going down this road, and why bring grace into this? Well, because grace leads us to reformation, but only after we encounter grace through repentance.
Let me say that again, grace leads us to reformation, but only after we encounter grace through repentance.
What the word of God was saying, and this week we're taking Magnolia, we're laying that over the word, to guide our hearts and our church as we move forward.
We first have to deal with repentance because repentance, it's an attitude and it's the power of grace that we encounter God, that we begin to see repentance, and we need a repentant heart, especially from people who've been Christians like most of their lives.
Why do I need to even repent? Well, the answer is best found in the word of God, right? Reasons, but those are just my reasons. But what does the word of God say?
Well, in 2 Chronicles 7:14, God spoke and said, speaking to Israel, "If my people, who are called by my name, and turn from their wicked ways," that's repentance.
If the United States, if the federal government, if the state government, if our constituents, would repent. I know I'm a mess. Ladies and gentlemen, it starts with the Christian believer in the church.
Healing comes through repentance, and grace, praise God, is that healing. James 5:16 says, "Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other." What? Wow, confess your sins to each other.
There's power in confession because confession begins a process of healing, rather than covering it up. We know that there's a struggle there. It's kinda like we take a band-aid and put it on top of skin cancer.
All of a sudden, the skin cancer disappears because the band-aid covers it up. The skin cancer's still there, and if not, possibly worse.
Repentance isn't just simply asking forgiveness for sin. Repentance is turning from it completely. It's life change, it's more than words, it's reflected in action.
And I wanna point out a couple passages of scripture today. I want you to open up your Bibles here. First of all, I want you to open up to Ezekiel chapter 16, and I want you to stick your finger in there and hold that because then you're also gonna wanna go to Ephesians chapter two, okay?
So Ezekiel chapter 16, we find in the Old Testament, Ephesians chapter two, we find in the New Testament, but you're gonna wanna open up your Bible to these two places because we're gonna spend a little bit of time here today.
You see, repentance is about coming to the end of yourself. As Jesus termed it, it's about picking up the cross. It's recognizing that what's happening in your life cannot change without the intervention of the one who carried that sin with him to the cross, the one who subsequently took the punishment, the wrath for your sin on his body and his spiritual form so that each and every one of us could be set free from the consequences of that sin.
And then Jesus' resurrection ensured that we could have the overcoming power that we need to be set free from that sin and be able to turn away from it.
You see what I've come to realize when I thought this week as I was putting this together and I was thinking of the church in Laodicea is that lukewarm Christians and lukewarm people don't really wanna be saved from their sin. They only wanna be saved from the penalty of their sin.
They don't wanna be saved from their sin. The reality is they just wanna be saved from the penalty of their sin. What's the penalty of our sin? Hell, bottom line, it's not pretty. I'm not sugar coating it, hell.
That's where your sin leads you, to hell. That's where the sin of adultery leads you, is through hell, through the hell of a divorce, through the hell of a family torn apart. It leads you to hell, not just on this earth, but to eternity, right?
If you've got ears, you need to hear. And so here's the thing about this. We've forgotten our salvation.
Now I know you're thinking to yourself, "Wait, what? I've forgotten my salvation." That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying you've turned away from your salvation.
If you wanna write that down. In our walk with him is found in Ezekiel chapter 16. And I know that you're going, "Yes, I get that."
This work of Jesus on the cross was about. You see in Ezekiel chapter 16 verse six, "And saw you kicking about in your blood." Wow.
And you see in verse nine, it goes on to say, "I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in the linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry. I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck. And I put a ring in your nose and earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head."
Your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey and olive oil and the finest flour.
On account of your beauty because of the splendor I had given you. Now, I know you're thinking, "Well, a ring in my nose and make me a queen, what?"
Listen, we are the bride of Christ. Whether you're male or female, you are a bride of Christ. Okay, that doesn't degrade your sexuality. Understand that, okay?
That doesn't change, that doesn't give signature to say, "Oh, okay, cool, transgenderism is okay." Biblically, no, it is not okay. You were created and formed the way God created and formed you. It's not up to you to change that.
But God, I want you to see this today that God is willing to go to. That He was willing to get His hands dirty for you and for me. That He was willing to put His hands in the dirt despite the blood that was on our lives or the blood that was on our hands.
I mean, think back for just a minute. Everybody close your eyes real quick. This isn't an altar call, just close your eyes. Think back for just a minute as your Savior.
Think about the lifestyle that you were living, the actions you walked in, the way that you talked, the unforgiveness that you carried, the anger, the resentment that you felt.
But think about where you were, now open your eyes and think about where you are. Whether we are pastors, leaders, Christians for an hour, but let's just pretend for a second.
And saving power of Jesus Christ. Now move over to Ephesians chapter two because in Ephesians chapter two we're gonna see something incredible that Paul writes there when he writes this.
Amen. "In which you used to live and are the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient," right?
You were separated from God. You were laying there in the dirt in your blood. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.
But, everybody say but. I love that word. You know why I love that word? Because that word erases everything before it.
And the sin that you deserved, right? You were defined by the sin but that erases all that. Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, that you didn't deserve, that you didn't earn.
Do you see how scripture goes together so quickly? And points back to the beauty of what happened there in Ezekiel. And it says in verse eight, again, Paul says it twice, "It is the gift of God."
Let me tell you something, let me pause there for just a second. Scripture says, Jesus says this, "For the wages of sin is death." You get paid by your sin. Whoa.
You get paid by your sin and it's death, the wage that you receive, but it's salvation, eternal life is a gift from God. This is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works.
You can't earn it, you can't buy it, you can't do it, so that no one can boast, and according to his way. That's what this is about.
You see, when I was thinking about this, it's called Rust to Riches and I love it because it's about this place in California called Gotham Garage and it's incredible because this little group of mechanics takes these old rusty bolts, old rusty hunks of junk cars and they bring them in and they rehab them and they refresh them and they refix them and do all this stuff right.
Put in all new engines, new brakes, new drive trains, all this stuff right and I love this picture because this is a picture of a 68 Mach 1. Wow, isn't that a beautiful car?
But look at what it looked like on the left. It was a rusty nothing. Didn't run, rust eaten it away and then they rehashed it, rehabbed it, renovated it and created it into a beautiful work of art, but one that is meant to be driven down the road, that is meant to race, that is meant to do the things that a car is meant to do.
You see, when grace has restored our lives, we've been restored to a beautiful functioning work of art that's meant for greater things and too often what happens is, is that even though we've been restored, to be used to display the love of Jesus for others.
We like to act like this rusty car still waiting to be restored, like a rusty car. Do you wanna sit rusty or do you wanna be restored? Where do you wanna be?
That flows from the cross into our lives. I'm talking about this idea and this is what salvation should be reminding us of, is the restorative work of Christ, right?
But here's what happens when we lose that joy of our salvation, then there's another little piece that begins to happen and this is something that we see in Revelation, is that there's a lack of love that begins to take place.
We begin to run into a place of a lack of love. I wanna tell you something, let me say that again, grace should call us to love more.
Jesus was asked at one point, "What is the greatest command?" Well, that's one of two. He says the greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
And he said the second one is just like it. Love goes two ways. Love goes vertically and it goes horizontally. Your neighbor goes vertically and it goes horizontally. Your love of God and that love of God.
You see, love reaches up and reaches out. Love reaches up and reaches out. You know, there was a song that was really popular in Christian circles just a few years ago. I started bringing it in today but it's this song called Reckless Love.
How many of you are familiar with that song, right? Awesome song, I love the chorus. "Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God. It chases me down, fights till I'm found, leaves the 99. I couldn't earn it, I don't deserve it. Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God."
I love that song because it seems to summarize grace so well but then I started to struggle with the wording a little bit because I began to realize God's love is anything but reckless.
You see, to be reckless means you just throw it around without care, without worry. I believe that God is very careful and I believe that he thinks about his love and where it goes but I will say this though, his love is most certainly relentless.
He definitely has a relentless love. You see in the church in Ephesus, it's obvious that Jesus, that this was a big deal because in the church in Ephesus, Jesus said, "You're doing all these great things, you've got all this stuff happening, you look wonderful but there's one problem, there's something I have against you. You've lost your first love."
You've lost that first love. You've lost what love looks like. See, Jesus addressed love to the church in Ephesus because it's the power of love that calls us to all creation, right?
God's love is relentless because his love is boundless. God's love is relentless because it's boundless. When the joy of our salvation begins to dissipate, when we begin to forget how much grace costs Jesus, it causes our love for God and others to fade and perhaps this might be your thought right now, how far I've fallen out of love with God?
How can you even make that assumption? Who do you think you are? I would be offended too as a matter of fact, I offended myself when I began to write that down but then I realized something.
Did you get that? I love the things that she loves. From the love of his father. This is the relentless pursuit of grace in our lives and church, if we're not trying to reach our neighbor with the love of Christ, that same love that redeemed us, then are we really in love with Jesus?
When I'm in love with Jesus, I'm telling everyone about him. I mean, where's the focus of your prayers? Be honest with yourself. When you pray, what is the focus of your prayers?
And if every prayer you prayed this last week was answered, how would your life look and be different? When was the last time you prayed for somebody other than your family who didn't know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or the box that we just prayed over a few moments ago?
When was the last time you prayed for God to use you to reach a broken and hurting world? John Michael, if you'll come on up.
When was the last time you were obedient to the answer that God gave you, and you said, "Okay, I'll go." You see, the greatest focus of our prayers should be on the things that ache God's heart.
The greatest focus of our prayers should be on the things that ache God's heart. God's definition of love is really straightforward, okay?
And his definition of what matters is really straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love. How we love him and how we love others.
It's easy to love people in church, even though they irritate us sometimes, amen? Right, like sometimes they get under our... I kind of get on our nerves, like, "Oh my gosh, you know. Vacuuming."
Yeah, they're sweeping. Come on, people, seriously, right? But the reality is, is you still love those people, right? I mean, I love our church, I love our people, right?
But Jesus is calling us to love others just as much, to love them equally, to love them like you would love yourself, to care for them the way that you would care for yourself, man.
It's not just people in the church that need to hear about Jesus, but people who are all around us need to know and understand the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and that's the beauty and the reminder of grace in our lives.
The point and the purpose of our lives is to point all honor to God. That's what this is about. Our whole life is about worshiping him, about giving honor to God, giving honor to God, and whatever it is that you're doing, God wants to be glorified.
Who? God wants to be glorified, right? Because the reality is, is all this is his, every last bit of it.
And you have to stop loving and pursuing Christ in order to sin. Because if we're really loving Christ, we're going, "Okay, I know that's not right, I know that's temptation."
Temptation's not sin, temptation acted on becomes sin. Hear that. When you're pursuing love, when you're running towards Jesus, you don't have the opportunity to stop and wonder, "I wonder if I'm doing this right."
You know, I wonder if I'm serving the way that I should. I wonder if I, did I do enough this week? Did I get in there? Was I loving and caring towards my neighbor or was I triggered by something that they said?
Let me tell you right now, okay, I'm there. I got triggered by something my neighbor said. When you're running towards Christ, you're freed.
When you're running towards Jesus, you're free. You're free to serve, you're free to love, you're free to give thanks without guilt, you're free of your worry, you're free of fear.
All as long as you're running towards Jesus, you're safe. You are always safe when you're running towards Christ. And that's what repentance brings us to.
It causes us to get those questions off of us. It points us back to a savior who loves us enough to die on a cross so that we could be set free.
And somewhere along the way, we've forgotten that cost. It cost God everything to save you and me because God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whosoever would believe in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.
In their muck, in their mire, some of us, man, you were knee deep in sin. Others of you, you were in over your heads. You didn't see a way out, but love got their hands dirty.
Love got their hands dirty to lift you out. We need the thrill of that salvation in our lives again. Amen, right?
Who knows, maybe we got saved and didn't even feel it in the first place. I don't know, but instead of being formed in the image of God, somewhere along the way, we started forming God in the image of us and that's a really arrogant place to be.
When we try to compare our glory to that of Christ, our love fades, not just for Jesus, but for others. And let me tell you this morning, grace forms us in the image of Jesus.
Grace forms us into the image of Jesus, the great commandments twofold, Jesus and people. Jesus and people means we have to get back to a place where saved people love people, that saved people have exciting faith for what the future has ahead and that saved people serve people.
That's the place that we need to return to. And this morning, I want to return to that joy of our salvation. How does that sound? Doesn't that sound like Jesus?
I want to return to that joy of our salvation. How does that sound? Doesn't that sound like fun? Doesn't it sound like fun to just say, "You know what, today I'm just gonna worship and just let God move and do something incredible today in me, right?
I'm just gonna come back to that joy. I'm gonna admit today to God, right? I'm gonna come in and this morning hear just a moment and maybe come and repent of some things in my life.
Maybe I've grown apathetic, maybe I've grown in anger, you know, maybe I've grown in anger, maybe anger's got a deeper hold on me and somewhere along the way, I need to change this focus problem that I have.
But today, our hope is that we can just come and just return to that first love. A love that gave up everything, a love that cost God everything so that we could live again.
And let's live again. That's not incredible, right? And so here's what I want us to do. I want us to stand together this morning.
You know, normally every Sunday I ask if you don't have a relationship with Jesus, I want you to raise your hand. But today, here's what I wanna say.
We're gonna put some worship music on here in just a second. And I'm gonna open up these altars for you just to come down and I would love to see everybody come down here this morning and be a part of this time.
And maybe there's something happening in your life. Now I mentioned this earlier, healing comes when we begin to confess to others. I want you to come up here, I want you to grab somebody's hand and say, "Can you pray with me in this?"
Right, we're all family here, right? And here's what we're gonna say, right? This is a no judgment zone. Hear that.
This is a no judgment zone. We pray for them, right? And we remember to pray for them outside of here. We don't talk about it. We don't condemn, we don't belittle, right?
So can we do that this morning? Can we just come into a spirit of repentance? Everybody just come down, everybody just come down.
I guess we're just gonna do this together. We're just gonna do this together. Everybody come down. Pastor Tim, if you can get ready.
There's a song that he's gonna play right now and it's called "Crowns Down." And man, I just want you just to feel free to worship, to pray, to confess to the Lord, to say, "God, there's this thing that's in my heart, whatever it is, and I just wanna give it to you today, Jesus."
And let's just let a refreshing spirit begin to take a hold of our lives today. Last week we said, "Man, we wanna break a lukewarm faith," but this week, God, we want a refreshing of your spirit today.
We want that refreshing of the spirit today. Come on, can we do that this morning? Come on, everybody, just lift up your hands.
Pastor Tim, glory be your name, Jesus. We just praise you, Lord. We are coming to this place right now, Jesus, and we're just asking for your hand and your mercy just to begin to move through us, God.
That, Lord Jesus, that we just begin to hand this all over to you, Lord. Just give this all to you right now, Jesus. Repenting of our attitudes, behaviors, things that we've done, Lord, where we've allowed things to separate us from you, Jesus.
Just give it all to you right now.
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on Mar 27, 2024
