Sermon Transcript:

Thank you.

It's been an honor to be here. I was telling somebody this morning, three more Sundays after today here, and then you guys will be in the hands of who God has called here. I'm grateful for that. And it's, you know, what an exciting time to be in the middle of what God is doing at Life Church. And so I'm happy for you. So don't just get excited about it. Pray for your new pastor coming in. Listen,

he's coming into you know, as he can be a great speaker and everything, but pastoring is more than that. It's shepherding the flock. It's taking care of the people. It's doing funerals and weddings and all kinds of discipleship and counseling, and you just It's amazing all the things that pastors have to do, but a lot of times, all we see is what happens on Sunday morning. It's like, as long as he preaches the word good. Listen, I've been around a lot of good communicators, and they were horrible at the other stuff. I've been a person that's been around all the other good stuff, but they were terrible communicators. And so let's pray that Derek is all of that God wants them to be because all of that stuff is the is what goes on in pastoring. It's, it's very difficult. It is, it is hard to leave a place and come to a new place. His Church is going to miss him, play for His church, pray for His church where he's at, because they're going to be missing their pastor. You know, people ask me, where are you going to go? I said, I don't know. I'm I'm a member at First Baptist Church. We plan on going there when I'm not preaching, but I already have my calendar kind of filling up until, you know, the end of spring, and so I got places to go and preach, but it won't be anything like Life Church. I've enjoyed my time here. I really have. You guys have been so loving. I think I'll say that every week until I leave, I hope to be back. I think I actually have a date back in April, I'll be back to preach when Derek is going to be out, so you're not going to get rid of me that quick.

So today I want to talk about this heaven on earth sermon series that we're doing called the law of grace. Before you hear the word law, just take a deep breath.

Jesus had a lot to say about the law,

he says, you know. And so I want to just kind of ease into this. We're a people of laws. Laws have been created for stability and rationale.

Not all laws are rational. When you write, you know, I get the point, right. You know, you know, you go through some town that wants to drop you down to 25 miles an hour, and you just were doing 70, you're just like, Dude, there's nothing out here. Why can't I just zoom through your town and be done with it? When you got a little old Sheriff waiting on the side there for you to not go 25

we have stop signs for a reason.

Did you guys know that

red means stop. I've gone through a lot of orange lights.

Have you seen the orange ones? It's when it's in the middle of that yellow and red, and you just it's glowing orange. I mean, you can see that transition. Just go, push the gas, get through it.

We have speed limits for a reason. We have police officers for a reason to uphold the laws, we must obey the laws to continue to be free.

When we break a law, sometimes we get away with it, right? So we think,

you know, in Texas, especially West Texas, you can do 80 miles an hour legally. And there's a there's a spot from San Antonio to Austin. This called this i 135 if y'all have been on it, it's a toll road. That one is 85 legally. Even doing 85 cars still zooming by you like, dude, how fast do you need to go? Where are you going? That's that, in that much of hurry

when we break the law, even though we may not get caught here on earth, God sees what we're doing. Just remember that it's hard. I live up off magnetic in the Northeast, and if you take that street and you go to Hondo past, it's 30 miles an hour,

and it's just like, No, you just feel like you're a turtle. But man, I'll be darn if they're on the guys on the motorcycles, there's a little school zone in there, in between, and it goes down to 15, not even a 20 mile an hour one. And you, if you're going 17, they're going to pull you over. It's crazy. And then you're thinking, I'm not doing anything wrong. We have signs everywhere explaining what to do and how to get there and where to go and what not to do. We have to cooperate with our city, with our county, with our state, with our government. There are signs everywhere we have we've always had laws.

Way before there was distracted driving, right?

Cell phones just added to it. But if you think about it,

if you just start watching all the signs on the road, we've already been distracted as drivers. If you try to read all those, you can say, please, I didn't even see that sign I was reading the last one I just passed. I was trying to process that one. We must keep our eye out for the road signs and know how to proceed. We have to watch for signs. Watch for pedestrians, watch for cars, watch for potholes, watch for all kinds of things. So.

Don't tell me, cell phones created distracted driving. We've already had it.

How would anyone even have the time to text with all that stuff?

But, man, don't they? They miss all the signs that go by. See you. Man, you can tell somebody's texting right? Come on, work with me.

They start slowing down on the front on the freeway, and they start kind of like easing over into another lane, and because they're so engrossed in their cell phone while they're driving, they missed all the signs on the side of the road. They don't, they just don't get it. We also have written laws, just to keep us living in this country. Sometimes we find out about these written laws when we break the law. I didn't even know that was a law. You know, there's a state of constant change. Some laws have been in effect for centuries, and some of laws only been in effect for a few years. We're a nation. We're a people of law. No law, whether from God or from man, can do what grace can do.

None you see, laws were meant to be broken. Let me say that one more time, laws were meant to be broken. They would have never created, and if they didn't know you were

going to break

them, I know you're going to say what? What is talking about? This morning, I was trying to make some time here with these texts that we gotta go after. If a law has been made, it's there because it's a guideline that one that has been determined. But they know law measures actions. That's why we need Jesus. Jesus is our only hope to matter what we do or we don't do. He's it. He's what we hope for. His grace is sufficient for all of us. Amen. So let me read my text now that we got enough law stuff out, so now that you can understand that we are a people of laws, I want you to hear what Jesus has to say, because I have heard it way too many times. I don't follow the Old Testament anymore. I'm a New Testament Christian. That's the old law. I go under the law of grace, or the New Covenant. Good for you. I don't know if you know this, but about 80% of the New Testament is Old Testament doctrine.

Doctrine. Did you know that? Basically, the disciples and the writers of the New Testament were quoting what they knew from the Old Testament, because all of the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. And so we can't say we don't need the Old Testament. We need all 66 books of our Bible. We need all of them. All scripture is God breathed. We need all of it. So listen to what Jesus said. This is Matthew Chapter 517,

through 20. So stand with me.

Remember, he's preaching to the masses. He's seated on a mountainside. He's preaching to 1000s of people, and he says this, do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets,

I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not even the least stroke of a pen will be by any means, disappear from the law, until everything is accomplished. Therefore, anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven, Father, thank You for Your word. I thank you that we have the master teacher, Jesus speaking to us this morning in your name. I pray amen. You may have a seat.

I am a believer that you teach scripture text in chunks, not just pulling them out here and there. I like reading through entire text, entire books, because I believe sometimes we miss the hard text that we don't like to talk about, and it actually pushes us as pastors to exegete and get out our theological brains to figure out what exactly is he trying to say, remember, he's already talked about the Beatitudes, and he's been talking about other things, and now he comes to this, and then he just lays this on him, and he's like, listen, just because I'm here doesn't mean the law doesn't exist anymore. He said, I've come to fulfill that law. And he uses this language. And so I want to say my first point is called the Old Covenant law of grace. Did you know there was Grace in the Old Covenant, as long as you adhere to what God said you were given grace.

Jesus uses language that he clarifies any misunderstanding of

the Kingdom of God and His mission, Jesus came to bring fulfillment of the prophets predictions and.

Persuasions about one day that there will be a king, a Messiah and a ruler over all things. Now

I don't know if you know this, but his completeness

made 300 plus prophecies come to life. There were over 300 prophecies completed in the life, the death and the burial of Jesus Christ. So whenever you read things in the Old Testament that talk about the Messiah, and really, I think it's about 330

I just say over 300 prophecies came to life through the life of Jesus. Could you imagine if the law had been destroyed, prophecies would have already been fulfilled, but they weren't until he came. The original law of grace was set, first by Moses, by way the 10 Commandments, and then the prophets were who were his voice, were God's voice, and so the original law of grace was this. This. Were the 10 commandments, love me and me only. That's what God said.

Don't use my name in vain.

That's a touchy subject in it

all you OMG texters.

You don't. You aren't doing it in reverence to God. When you use that,

it's I know, I know. That's the culture we live in. But as believers. Let's try to tone it down when we say, oh my god, unless it's in reverence to God, we have no business saying those things.

When we use the Jesus, the name Jesus, out of context. We as believers, we should never misuse his name. And God made that clear from the beginning.

He said, Don't worship idols. I'm the only God.

I don't know idols. Pastor, really, just check your phone.

I know some of you still reeling from Tiktok being gone. I heard his back. Is that true? I never had it. So

keep the Sabbath holy. That means we need a day of rest. It doesn't necessarily have to be Sunday, but one day we don't have rest on Sundays as pastors, so we have to figure out, when do I take a day off? When do I actually rest? When do I tone it down? When do I get in? You know that motive? I just want to chill for a little while. You know us guys, we have this nothing box in our brain, right? Women would never understand that when we say we're doing nothing, we really mean it. Women leave us alone. We are enjoying the nothing box. It exists. We don't have every wire crossed up in there, just like you guys do. You know you can be talking about it, and you you're over here, and we're like,

that's why guys go. Weren't we talking about this? We miss it, man. We need a day of rest. We gotta love mom and dad. We can't steal, live, murder, commit adultery or covet other people's property. This was Grace, because it allowed us to follow God's laws. And he said, This is what I need for you to be in a relationship. For me, he let us live and have part of the afterlife if we were to follow just because you have Jesus now, doesn't mean you can take a break on loving mom and dad.

I don't care how sometimes they're a little annoying, you know,

I'll say that real low. I love my mom and dad.

Sometimes they ask things of us, and we just go,

why? And I think sometimes even as us, as parents, we pass it on. No, Mom and Dad are still to be honored and respected. If you have Jesus, it should be even more Amen. Jesus didn't change our relationships with each other. He changed our relationship with God. That's what he changed. And then he said, Now I want you to get the relationships here on Earth right? And the prophets of grace, the Old Testament, prophets, all had a message of grace. This was their message. You ready

repent and turn to God or burn in hell?

Could you imagine preaching that on a Sunday morning people be like, Oh, what do you say?

Not every kind of, not a very kind message, but sometimes we just need the facts, right. We gotta know, you know people we're afraid to say, hell anymore. Like it's a cuss word. No, it's in the Bible. It talks about it. Jonah was this prophet that was told to go to the people of Nineveh and to give them a message. And he said, God, I'm not going there. Those people are mean, nasty, ugly, evil. They don't even love you, God. Why would I go there? Exactly, that's why you go there. I want you to tell him about me. And he said, No. And he got on a boat. You know the story. He got swallowed up by a big fish. He got kicked up back on he said. Finally, he said, they kept asking him, why aren't you praying to your God? He goes because I know my God will answer that's why I'm not going to pray to him. Could you imagine not praying to God because we know he'll actually answer us? And so Jonah gets spit back up on the shores of Nineveh.

And so Jesus, or God tells him to go preach the gospel. Go tell him a.

God to go tell him about me. And he says, I don't want to, but I'll do it because I don't want to die. I don't want to go back in what I was doing. And that was his message, repent and turn to God or burn in hell,

amen.

And then he gets ticked off when they do it,

they actually start coming to God. The whole island, the whole nation, start getting saved, and asking God to be their God. And he's like, God, how can you save those nasty, ugly, dirty, evil people?

Jonah, why don't you look in the mirror?

Church, look in the mirror. That's us. We're the people of Nineveh, we need God more than we've ever needed. We're nasty and evil as well. We're, we're, we're not good. The Bible says, and there's not one person that's good, none. Only Jesus is so this is what he said in Jonah, chapter three, verse four, Jonah began by going on a day's journey into the city, proclaiming he's, this is what he said, 40 days more and then Nineveh will be overthrown.

And then in Malachi, one of the old, old prophets. He was actually a prophecy prophet, and he said this Malachi, chapter three, verses six through 12, I the Lord, do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed ever since the time of your ancestors and have turned away from my decrees and not kept them return to me, and I will return to you, says the Almight, the Lord Almighty. But you ask, how, how are we to return? Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me? But you ask, how are we robbing you? We talked about this morning, about giving. He says, In tithes and offerings, you're under a curse your whole nation because you're robbing me. And he says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it's ripe, says the Lord Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be delight the delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. So if you tell me that I don't have to tithe because that's an Old Testament law,

then you tell me when Jesus said he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. Why? How can we even say that

tithing is the minimum that God expects from us. As a believer, you see your checkbook shows the maturity of your walk with Jesus, and then we don't have a checkbooks now, okay, your bank account, whatever you use, your app. Us old people, man, we, we used to keep, you know, we should write down check number 101, went to grandma for you know, we used to write that stuff down and keep a balance, because those things didn't clear until later. So you had to know exactly how much you still had in your account. Now, thank God. Today, it kind of gets done quickly. You know, you can see all that stuff, but listening, your finances tell a big story about who you are. In Christ

we are having this conversation with my son yesterday as we were in the car and I said, you know, a lot of people, think, well, I can't do 10%

that's okay. Start with one. Start with something. Start with something saying how grateful you a god. You know, how good God has been to you give him something to show that you have a love relationship with him, and then eventually you go to 2% or 3%

that's how I did it, because I thought we was I thought there was a cult. When somebody told me about tithing, I was like, say, what? I don't have 10% man, I live not anything to my max. I live above my max. Y'all ever been there. You got all this income, and there's more out go. I've been there. And that was when I first got saved, when I first got saved when I was 25 and then I started somebody talk about giving 10. And I was

like, ain't, no way, bro, I don't have it.

I don't have I don't have it. And then my wife, God bless her, she says, Well, you can do which what you want with your paycheck, but you're going to tithe my paycheck. I did the finances in our house. And I was

like, Kukui, right?

And what did the guy say? Yes, ma'am.

But that was my first understanding of how important it was to somebody that gave their life to Christ. We want to give to the mission. We want to give to the kingdom. We give our money away to foolish things on this earth, things that don't even matter, things that are just taking your money and they're throwing it away for you. And yet we complain about trying to give God His Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill the law. Message of grace. Jesus came to fulfill all the prophecies of the Old Testament. Well meaning Christians today are living under a curse because they have been fed to lie that they're under the New Testament, law of grace and not the Old Testament. Never did it get done away with it still matters in your life today, nowhere in Scripture Can you proclaim that Jesus.

Said, you don't have to do that anymore because of me.

He says, you get to do it now because of me. You see, no longer is that I have to or I've been told to do it. He says, you get to because you love me. You see how the narrative changes.

Tithing will not save you. Only Jesus can do that. So if you're here trying to earn your way to heaven, you can't even do that.

Honoring Your mom and dad can't save you. Only Jesus can do that. Keeping the Sabbath holy can't save you. Only Jesus can do that, you see. So what purpose is the Old Testament, law of prophets. I believe that once we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, the law becomes something of a law of grace and love and mercy, because it gives us structure and order on how to relate to our God in a kingdom mindset and a loving relationship with Jesus, we get to tithe. We get to love our mom and dad. We get to take a Sabbath. Jesus says two times he has not come to abolish or do away with the law of Prophets. He came to give us hope. You got hope this morning he came to give us hope. He said, listen,

that's not the way you get to heaven. You get to heaven because of me, but now because you got me, you get to do those things to have a better relationship with Christ.

I know I flipped the script on you, didn't I? He thought she was going to gotta get out of giving because of Jesus. Now, huh? Now?

Verse 18, he says, not even the smallest pen stroke or crossing of a T or dotting of an i in the Hebrew language. It's called a jot, if you have the King James, old, old version that says jot and tittle, and he says, not even that will be wasted in the Word of God, you see, All scripture is God breathed in first second, Timothy, 316, and 17. All scripture is God breathing useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. You get to carry your Bible with you and go to work. You get to carry your Bible and serve God because you have your instruction book with you. You get to carry it with you. Jesus makes these two until statements, until heaven and earth disappear, and until all things are accomplished, that's when the law will be abolished then, because we won't need it when we're in the kingdom. I know that we're living for the kingdom now, but we live on Earth. We live in a human sense. We need it until our lives are fulfilled, finishing everything that Jesus has done with us, Hebrews 1011, and through 16. This is what happened in the Old Testament,

day after day, priests stand and perform religious duties again and again, he would offer the same sacrifices which could never take away sins, but when the priest had offered a one time sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time, he waits for his enemies to be made his foot still

for by that One sacrifice, he was made perfect for those who are being made holy, the Holy Spirit also testifies about this. First he says, this is the covenant I will make with them. After that time, says the Lord, I will put my law in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds. The sacrifices of days gone by are now fulfilled in the true sacrifice of Jesus the Christ. Amen,

I have an old desk in my bedroom that I use sometimes I have a desktop computer, and it's if you're in the military, or been in the military, they may used to make these really cool oak desks. Made a solid oak, you know, you had needed three privates to move those things. Man, they were heavy. I had to move those things around a lot. So we're at an estate sale. My wife says, I want to buy that desk. Man, it reminds me of the old army desk. I said, Well, who's going to carry that thing and put it in the car? It was like, 40 bucks, you know? And I was like, and she's just like, oh, yeah, yeah. And I was like, okay, so we got it. I tried to give it away. I tried to resell it. I was like, Man, this is just too heavy and a lot of work. So when we started City Church Del Rio, in my house, my office became in my house, became my office, and so I had that desk, so I took it out to the garage and I refurbished it.

I sanded it down. I got all the goop off of it. I did it, you know, just they had brass handles on it. So I took Brasso out, you know, man, these people got coated things now, they never use Brasso in the military. We used to have to sit there and spit shine our boots and Brasso our our rank, you know, and put them on our you know, you don't want to talk about old school timer. And I was like, they don't even have to do that. No more. They got these really shiny things. You don't have to do that. But I took Brasso and shined up those handles, and I brought the desk in, and it looked like a brand new desk. Listen, it was the same desk,

just like Jesus said, I've come to fulfill the law, not about.

We have the same laws, but in the new way, it's been refurbished by Jesus. Amen. He said, Have you been living in the past or in the present when you became made real? Jesus wants to fulfill and pursue you

make the old the old. You new. You still want to be you, but better. Amen, that's me. I still have that desk in my room today. I gotta redo the handles, because, you know, you get your fingers on them and it dulls the the brass on it, but you still have sins, but now you have real forgiveness with Jesus. My second point is the new covenant, law of grace, verses 19 and 20, says, Therefore anyone who sets a light a least of these commands teaches others according will be called least in the kingdom of God, but whoever practiced them and keeps their commands will be called great in the kingdom of God. For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you'll certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven

when we teach the Bible to those that are listening audience, church congregants, Bible study groups, some of you are teaching life groups right now, or even our own family,

they deserve the truth of the gospel.

Do you hear me? Church?

You don't ever want somebody coming up here and standing in your pulpit not able to teach the truth of the gospel and actually basically feed you lies and a TED Talk. We don't need that in the pulpit. We need to know what is the word of God says and explain it to me. I want that in my life. And the same thing goes when you're teaching your family, your kids Bible study groups, say the truth with love and grace, amen. And I know sometimes man, it's like

there's some scripture that stings,

just hurts. The Bible, we have is a word of grace. Jesus said, all of it has to be taught, all of it has to be processed, all of it needs to be understood. All of it needs to be placed in practical, fulfilled living that reflects grace.

I can be a hard dude in the pulpit. I know I ain't afraid to preach the truth. You guys have figured that out by now, right?

I tell people I I'm like a storm. I blow in, I blow up, and then I blow out, because one day I'm leaving here. So on the time that I was here, I didn't want, I didn't want to, I wanted to be truthful about the, you know, the gospel. I wanted you guys to hear the truth of the gospel. I'm not saying Brent didn't do that. I know he did it. Brent was a good friend of mine, and I know just watching a couple videos, Pastor Derek's going to do the same thing. But we have to be careful with who we let teach us the Word of God, because we need the truth. You see, you can have all the theology and no grace. I know a lot of people have a lot of theology, and all they do is argue with people about theology, Calvinism, Arminianism, all this kind of crazy stuff. And it's like I got a message for you. John Calvin is not Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith is not Jesus Christ. Nobody is Jesus. Only Jesus is Jesus. And even though he came and he threw over tables and was ticked off, sometimes he ended up showing so much grace and love when he went to the cross and he said, This is why I came. And we have to show that that same grace, you see, if we have that theology, we're no different than the Pharisees. The Pharisees were ticked off at everybody because you were never as good as them.

Don't be a Pharisee Dad.

Don't make your feel your kids feel like they can never amount to anything. Moms, don't be a Pharisee to your babies.

Oh, you never do anything, right?

You know that my wife and I do marriage counseling and marriage ministry.

The first things we to tell people is, don't ever use the word never and always. You always do that, and you never do that, because both of those are false lies. It's not always, and it's not never. They may do it a lot, but it's not never. There are times that they do fulfill what they're supposed to fulfill. You see,

the Pharisees were so mean and ugly, they created laws to protect them from breaking the law as to walk around like,

I don't ever break the law.

Check the laws we just made for that law. So in case I do that, I have another law to fall back on. You know, people that argue their way out of everything. They ain't never wrong.

The Bible's gotta

just shake the dust off your feet and move on. Sometimes we just gotta move on. They're They're never gonna get you. They're never gonna they're never gonna be wrong. They're not gonna say they're sorry, they're not gonna ask for forgiveness. Sometimes we just have.

Move on.

You see,

I don't know if you know any of those law followers that don't have any grace in their Christian life. Do you know some of those? You may be one of them sitting here this morning.

I don't know about that church. They just don't do this, or they don't do that, or that person doesn't do that. And you may have to start looking at on the inside and go, am I just a law follower? Do I have grace? The best, greatest thing we can do as believers is Grace people with love,

even when they are unlovable.

You know any unlovable people? They're tough man.

God wanted all people to know him in an intimate way. And the way we do that is that we allow God to follow. We follow God in a certain standard. It was always to be loved and forgiven. He created those laws so we could be forgiven and for loving all well, good intentions come to an end. Intentions don't make things happen. Actions do

you see? You could be sitting here today and say, Man, this is the most boring sermon I've ever heard in my life. I get it. I was trying to go over and over, and I'm like, do I have to go through this one Lord and God wanted me to do it. I think people need to understand that we still have to follow what God has created for is his plan, but we can do it with love. We get to do it, and when we fail, we get to ask for forgiveness,

but we have to have action. We have a Savior that fulfills all things,

but he couldn't do we couldn't do that by following the law. That's what grace is all about. You see, there are still people trying to follow the law. There are still people trying to buy their way into heaven, work their way into heaven, talk their way into heaven.

But I if you haven't read through the all of the Sermon on the Mount, it goes all the way through chapter seven.

There's some pretty spicy words in verse seven, verses 21 through 23

because on the day that Jesus comes back, there's going to be a lot of people saying,

but Jesus, I did this in your name. I did this for you. I was healing people. Demons were cast out. People were saved, and

Jesus is going to look at them plainly and says, I never knew you.

And I think Jesus allows his name to be used in this world, even by those that are not believers of him, because it's all become about them. They are the ones that want to have the stage and the podium and this and everything they want to be lifted up. Listen, if your pastor comes and only lifts up Jesus, keep him for a long time. But when pastors come and they start lifting up themselves, we have to watch them. It's not about the pastor, it's about Jesus. And Jesus wanted us to know that. You see, no one can keep all the law. It's impossible, because we'll fail and break all of them when we break one of them, James, chapter two. This is Jesus's brother. If you really James chapter two, eight through eight through 13, if you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing right, but if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the laws as law breakers. Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles just at one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said You shall not commit adultery also said you shall not commit murder. If you do not commit murder but adultery, but you do commit murder, you become a law breaker. Speak and act as those who are being judged by the law that gives them freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment,

and that isn't that beautiful. We need to be merciful to people. We need grace, even when it's hard to do and the kingdom of grace.

Jesus explained this in verse 20. He says, our life must reflect His righteousness. Our life has to be righteous. The righteousness is to be in right, standing with God.

That's what that means.

We can look at our life and go, Wow, that's a tall order, right? That's a tough one.

No amount of law will ever keep that you can't keep enough laws to be in right, standing with God see when we break the law, we now have a king who has already forgiven us, because he's the ultimate sacrifice. He came to fulfill the law. He never came to abolish it. No more sacrificing over and over. We don't need to come and bring our sacrifices every week. He's already sacrificed at one time on the cross, and He said, I'll take your sin on your behalf.

Do you hear me? Church? I didn't come here to to abolish the law. I came here to fulfill.

Law by giving my life a ransom for many so that those who believe would come and have a kingdom mentality when they have Jesus in their life, and that they would not be just following the law, but they would be following Jesus the law would be become simple when you have Jesus in your life, no more sacrificing just Kingdom grace, which allows us to be forgiven and forgive others. You see forgiven, people are forgiving people.

If you're forgiven, you gotta be forgiving.

Righteousness is found only in Jesus. I'm gonna leave you with this. This is Romans, six, eight through 14.

Listen to this. Listen to these words. If

you're here this morning and you have been struggling about this, I don't have to really follow the law anymore because I have Jesus. I hope this gives you a new perspective. I think we gotta do both. I know we have to do both. And we're here this morning and you've been trying to follow the law and follow God without Jesus, or trying to do it on your own. I

think this will give you perspective too. It says, Listen, now, if we died with Christ, we believe that that we will also live with Him, for we know that since Christ was risen from the dead, from raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over Him. Amen, the death he died. He died once and for all. He died to sin, once and for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive in God, in Christ, Jesus, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness, For sin shall no longer be your master because you are no longer under the law, but under grace.

Are you under the New Covenant

law of grace? Are you still trying to please God by following a set of rules? You see, those laws were never meant to save you. They were always meant to point you to a savior.

They are there to remind you for your need for grace. Amen, don't we need grace? This morning,

we're going to come to a time what we call an invitation.

And I know I would have

to say it's probably not one of the most exciting sermons that I've had to preach on, but I believe that we preach all of the scripture, and I think it's important to understand who Jesus said He is, amen. And I think as as people that live in a land of rules and laws, sometimes we we get that way with God too. We just, I'm going to do this, this, this for God, and we do it in our own strength. Listen, Jesus wants to set you free from that so that when you look at the law, it becomes something that you get to do and not have to do. It's such a different perspective with Christ's lens. So this morning, I want to ask you, if you've never asked Jesus to be the Lord of your life, if you've said, Pastor, how do I do that? It's simple,

ask Him with all your heart to come into your life and save you from your life of sins. Ask him to forgive you of all the things that you've done wrong. Ask him to be the Lord of your life. And being Lord means that he's in charge of your life. He no longer is on the sidelines, but he's the driver. You see, we like to make Jesus the co pilot when we drive, but really he needs to be the pilot. He needs to steer our lives towards him, and we can only do that when we surrender all of ourselves to Him. And so this morning, if you've never done that,

you may have participated in the Lord's Supper this morning, and truly never had a relationship with Jesus,

do it today. Stop living by the law and start living by grace, so that when you start back, when you go back to the law, you'll look at it with grace, and you go, man, Jesus, now I see why I gotta do these things. Because you want us to have a great relationship. It's kind of like when you have your kids in your home, you have a set of rules for your home, and if they just break those rules, it breaks our trust and it breaks our relationship. So don't start looking at the Old Testament as Wow. It was really tough back then your dog gone, right? It was tough. They had a hard time having to fulfill what it meant to be a people of God. That's why they were always wandering around in the wilderness, because they kept breaking God's laws. Finally, a Savior came to save us, and his name is Jesus. So this morning, if you need Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior, confess Him as your Lord. Profess him in your life.

You can do that by coming forward, kneeling here at the altar, and then stopping by the prayer room when we're done, and say, Pastor, this is what happened to me today.

In the midst of

all the plans that I was going to do today, Jesus stopped me in my tracks and said, We gotta get this right first. Maybe you're here today and you've been away from God for a long time. Would you come back to him today, reconnect to him, and you might be here today, and we have this thing called baptism in a couple weeks. You say, Well, Pastor, I want to get baptized. Have you been saved first? Because baptism doesn't save you either. You see, that's the great thing about Jesus. He's all we need.

Everything else we do is just in fulfillment of the law that he provided for us as He proclaimed his kingdom mindset in our hearts, in our churches and in our land. We don't need all the other things. We do those things because we can, and we get to we're going to dedicate our kids in a few weeks. I mean,

we're gonna do a lot of good things, but if we don't have Jesus through those things, they're just things.

So get it right today. Come back to Jesus, or come to Jesus for the first time. And you may be here today, and God is calling you to something bigger than you could ever imagine. Maybe God is calling you to be a pastor, a children's worker, a youth minister, a music person who knows what God wants to do in your life. If you never surrender fully to him, you'll never know.

Did you know that only 10 to 15% of the church does 100% of the work in church?

We're waiting for the other 80 to 85%

to come and say, I want to be used by God. Amen, whatever God wants to do in your life this morning, don't be afraid to come and offer yourselves to him. Let's stand and let's sing you.