A Servant of Christ | Tyrone P Jones | No Other Gospel | Full Service

Good morning, good morning, third service. My name is Karina, I'm part of the team here, and I just want to welcome you and say that we are so glad that you came to church this morning. If you're joining us for the very first time, we want to get you connected. And yes, that means filling out an information card, but it's so much more than an information card. It's our way to get to know you and your family and how best we can serve you. You can fill out one of those cards by either tapping the disc in front of you or stopping at the connect table on your way out in the lobby. And if you're watching online, you can click the link that the host has sent in. As we prepare for worship, thank you guys for standing. You can stand to your feet. I want to encourage you with a word from Proverbs 30 verse 5, and it says, every word of God proves true. Not every other word, not half the words, but every word of God proves true. And then it goes on to say that he is a shield for all those who need protection. As we worship, I just want to encourage you to hold on to that truth. That's not just an invitation, but that is also a promise that we serve a faithful God who comes through with all of his promises. Can the church say amen to that? All right, let's pray together. Lord, we came here to have an encounter with you. Lord, we may not settle for anything less than that. Lord, tune our ear to hear your voice. And Lord, stir in our hearts that we have a desire to just want to be in your presence. In Jesus' mighty name, amen. All right, let's worship together. Your way is a lamp unto me, Father. Your way is the only way for me. It's a narrow road that leads to life, and I want to be with you.

It's a narrow road, but the mercy is wide, and I want you to know that I promise. Sing this out. I'll take you at your word. I'll show you how it is. I'll show you how good it is. I'll show you how good it is. I'll take you at your word. Sing this, Lord. Jesus, in the chaos, fill me in, Father. I know you've got me. Jesus, fill me in, Father. It's a narrow road that leads to life, and I want to be on it. It's a narrow road, but the tide is high. It's a part of the waters. I'll take you at your word. You said, did I believe it? I'll show you how good it was. You started your own business. I'll take you at your word. You said, did I believe it? I'll show you how good it was. You started your own business. I'll take you at your word. You put on the promise. Yeah, you put on the promise. Come on, let's be clear. Let's be set. You said you'd go. You said you'd go. You said you'd wait.

You said you'd wait. You said you'd wait. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ Hallelujah and I know it's not much ♪ ♪ I've nothing else before a king ♪ ♪ Except for a heart singing hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've no one else but you, I've got just you and me ♪ ♪ With my arms stretched wide, I will worship you ♪ ♪ So I'll clap my hands and praise you again and again ♪ ♪ Cause all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ And I know it's not much, I've nothing else before a king ♪ ♪ Except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Singing hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ And I know it's not much, I've nothing else before a king ♪ ♪ Except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Come on my soul, oh don't you get shy of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, cause you've got a light inside of us all ♪ ♪ Get up and praise the Lord ♪ Come on let's sing for God this morning. ♪ Come on my soul, oh don't you get shy of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, cause you've got a light inside of us all ♪ ♪ Get up and praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Come on my soul, oh don't you get shy of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, cause you've got a light inside of us all ♪ ♪ Get up and praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Praise you again and again ♪

♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ You know so much, I'm nothing else to you ♪ ♪ Except for our singing, hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ Now we sing hallelujah. ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ God, this praise is for you. Thank you, Jesus. Well, listen, we're singing a song about gratitude. We come to a time of our service called the Communion, the Lord's Supper, but some traditions it's called the Eucharist because it means a time of thanksgiving. And I think all of us obviously can, we got so much to be thankful for. Like we really should never have to be encouraged or pumped and primed to give gratitude to God. There's so much that he's done for us. The church I came out of, that I grew up in, we would sing the song, count your blessings, name them one by one, see what the Lord has done. If you was to count your blessings through that manner, you would never stop singing because there's so much that the Lord has done. But it begins with what we're representing right now. It begins with what you're holding in your hand that represents the body of the Lord and the blood of the Lord.

That's where it begins. All other things that God does for us is honestly like cherry on top. It really is. it's yeah it's it's like the cherry on top of the sundae but the dilly bar that's the death of jesus christ that's the body broken that's the blood being shed that's that's the real deal and so when we we come now and and sing song of gratitude we have an opportunity to give thanks unto god for what he's done by giving us his son jesus christ and so we're going to pray and we're going to celebrate the death burial and resurrection of jesus father we thank you for this opportunity to magnify and to glorify your name we're so thankful for what has been done through your son jesus christ let's eat together let's drink together shout hallelujah oh lord my god when i in awesome wonder consider all the world the hands have made and i see the star and i hear the rolling thunder thy power throughout the universe display then sings my soul my savior god to thee me how great thou are then sings my soul my savior god to thee how great thou are my is my to take away oh

my soul Cuán grande ser Cuán grande ser Cuán grande ser When Christ shall come With shouts of acclamation And with songs of praise lead me home. What joy shall fill my heart whenever voice we sing. Then shall I bow with humble adoration, and then proclaim, my God, how great Thou art when Christ shall come. This shall surround me, and lead me home. What joy shall fill my heart whenever voice we sing. Then shall I bow with humble adoration, and then proclaim, my God, how great Thou art This is my song, I say goodbye to you. How great Thou art. How great Thou art. This is my song, I say goodbye to you. How great Thou art. How great Thou art. This is my song, I say goodbye to you. How great Thou art. How great Thou art. All right, come on. Let's give God a hand. Praise for His greatness, His might, His power, His strength, His faithfulness. It's so, so good to be in the house of the Lord. Welcome to Church for the City, where we'll teach the Word of God. We'll spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, we want to help people that are far from God find life in Christ. And I want to thank you for being part of that journey. A couple of weeks ago, we had eight people baptized at the prison because of the ministry that's going here locally. And Terrence Bonner is actually the minister at the jail that goes to church here. He used to get like maybe one call a month to visit someone, but since our services have been streamed in, he's getting five and six calls a week of people that want to know more about Jesus. So we're just so grateful and so thankful. Let's give a shout out to the online campus, prison campus, those in jail. We're so thankful for what God is doing. All right, take a moment, if you would, to greet someone if you don't know them, and let's get ready for the Word of God. Let me go over, just walk through a few things, and then we're going to jump right in into the Word of the Lord. This Thursday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., we'll be having prayer and worship here in the sanctuary, first Thursday of the month. So we'll be here gathering for worship and for prayer this Thursday. So I want to note that the two Sundays away, August 17th, we'll be doing a life group fair. And what that is, there'll be people,

there'll be teachers groups set up in the sanctuary, some maybe even in the lobby. Our desire, of course, is for everyone to be in a small group. And for those of you that are, thank you for doing that. We certainly believe it's better to do church in a circle. Than it is in the rows. This is great for corporate gatherings, but for us to grow together, it's being in community with other people, teachers who are appointed and trained to teach, where you can develop some good relationships with them and find people that you can, that will help mentor you and grow you in the faith. And we have small groups for every arena. We have thin line for those who have either served in the military, still do, or served in law enforcement. We got men's groups, we got women's groups, youth groups, couples, all kinds of different various groups. And so for you to be part of that a couple of times a year, if you're not, we like to have those displayed where you can see them and join one of those groups. So that'll be on the 17th. Also, the Bible college begins on the 18th. Monday night, the 18th is the first class. We'll be doing classes Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night. It's a great opportunity to grow in particular areas of your faith. You can do the classes for credit,

or you can also just audit the classes, get the material and learn. I'll be doing the book of Acts. There's someone doing, I think, either Old Testament, New Testament survey, the epistles of Paul. But it's a great time actually to be in a setting, a small group setting, a classroom, also where you get to learn more about the word and engage with people in that setting. So you can still sign up for the Bible college, also Kids Academy. We still have room for children, primarily three and four-year-olds, but our Kids Academy is for three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds. And a great place to bring your kids to start on the road of their education. And it's done from, obviously, a Christian perspective, which sets the trajectory of their life. And so if you have a child that's in that category and you're either considering or praying for where you wanna place them, CTC Kids Academy is a great place, a great pre-K program. So all of that, again, is on the website and also with the TapDisc. Everything that you need to know, you can get through the TapDisc or on the website. And if you haven't signed up to get the weekly, everything that we're projecting also comes out every week

in the form of an email, and so that you'll always know what's happening. Now, I do wanna thank you for your generosity. Every time you come into the building, there's opportunity to give, and we're thankful for that. And what you have given that's allowed us to do the things that we do. This morning, I'm gonna pray over a team here in this service that'll be heading to Indonesia this afternoon. They're gonna be doing some island hopping, doing some crusade-type stuff, working with some church planners there. And so we wanna pray over them. If that team will come, we're gonna pray over them right now. I wanna thank you for your generosity that allows us to send people to where the Lord is calling us to be and invest. We had a team leave earlier that went to lead a youth camp in Iowa. That was Pastor Ty and the team of those. Again, your generosity allows us to continue to work, impart, and spread the gospel. So we got Ryan, we got Jacob, we got Jordan, we got Denise. We are so thankful for them and their commitment. It's a team that's gonna, we have never sent a team to Indonesia before. So our first prayer is that they come back, right?

Because we don't really know everything that's awaiting them, and neither do they. But we're believing the Lord is going to indeed help them and give them grace and strength. Yeah, stretch your hands this way if you wanna come and lay hands on them also. Feel free to do so. Father, I wanna thank you for this team, Lord God, that's heading out today. Lord, this is our first time sending a team to Indonesia. Lord, they're gonna go to undeveloped areas. They're gonna go to islands. They're gonna be on boat to boat, island to island, discovering and engaging with people whose language they don't know and they don't speak. But Lord, they're coming in the language of the Lord. And Lord, they're declaring through music. And through the word, Lord, what you can do in the life of those who are submitted to you. So we pray that you protect them, that you watch over them, that you give them grace and give them strength. And Lord, may they go in faith and not fear. May they go, Lord God, in courage. May they go with bravery. May they go with your anointing. May they go with your hand of blessing. And Lord, realize that this is a called, appointed time and season for them. Lord, I pray you use Ryan in leadership and also in the preaching of the word. Lord, may the team members continue to support one another, work together with one another, uphold one another.

Keep them free from all injury. Keep them safe on the waters. Keep them safe in the air. Lord, don't allow any food to mess them up. Lord, let them just be filled with the presence of you. And Lord, if they, yeah, whatever they got to do to get through without getting sick, give them visions of In-N-Out Burger when they get home, in Jesus' name, that they may stay healthy and stay well and come back strengthened in you, in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, amen. All right. It's going to be good, going to be amazing. Looking forward to it. Thank you, guys. I know this is huge. Denise, thank you, guys. Jordan, Jacob, Ryan, thank you. All right. We're going to pray. Why don't you stand with me, take your Bible, let's stand. We're going to look at the book of Galatians. In the book of Galatians, we're going to look at verses 3 through 10 of Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1, verses 3 through 10. I'm going to ask during this time, as I'm reading the scriptures or praying, if you would take off your caps as we read the word of the Lord and go before our God. Galatians 1, 3 through 10. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ

and turning to another, a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we are an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we've said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you receive, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. So far, the reading of the word. Father, we ask for your help today as we declare what we believe you have given us. I do, Lord, trust your anointing. I pray that I will decrease, that you might increase. Lord, I'm just thanking you for the opportunity we can be in the house. We're in community. We're ready to hear the word. We're open to what you're saying. And Lord, we trust you to fill us, fill our hearts, fill us with your word, that each one of us can embrace it, learn from it, and be more conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray for, there's individuals, Lord God, that's heavy on our heart. I pray for Jesus and his family and the recovery, Lord God, from the surgery, but also the provision for his family, for Luis, Lord, that he would get better and better and be able to come back home and be with his family, and for Debbie as she fights through this with cancer. Lord, you're a healer. We pray for the Pritchett family. Lord, we pray that you would surround them and comfort them also during this time. And Lord, as we prayed for the team for Indonesia, you pray that you'd be with them and Pastor Ty and the team.

And Lord, I want to pray for our community, that people in our community will find a good church, a church where they can walk into and hear the gospel, that every church that's gathered in this county will grow and increase, will be a safe place where people can know that Jesus Christ loves them and is indeed postured himself by the death of the cross to be the Lord of their life. So Lord, we ask for your help and your grace, that you may be glorified in all things. In Christ's name we pray, amen, amen. You may be seated. Now, this is week two of what will probably be about 19 weeks in the book of Galatians. It will be multiple from the preaching team that will be speaking during these 19 weeks. weeks or so that leads us up to Advent. And these letters, the letter of Galatia is very much like the letter to the Philippians, very much like the letter to the Romans or Thessalonians. It's written to a group of people that are in a certain place. People of Galatia are located in southern Turkey, what we knew of as Asia Minor, but southern Turkey area now. And Paul is writing to them, and there may be a large gathering similar to ours, but more than likely there were probably a multitude of groups that met in various places in that region. And Paul is writing this letter, and this one really does have kind of a personal nuance to it. This letter does not have a lot of theology in it, although we'll see some in chapter 3 and chapter 4. And there's not a whole lot of necessarily principles of Christian living, though we will see some in chapter 5 and chapter 6. What really fueled this letter is this angst that Paul has that here's a church that he preached out, went to as a missionary, as an apostle, preached the church out, the people came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, he taught them the gospel, they received the gospel, and now they are starting to listen to other people that are giving them a different message than what they had heard, received, and was saved by. And they're starting to go down a destructive course of action. They've slipped from what they knew and what they embraced. And Paul really, though most of the time he's a little bit more tenderhearted when he addresses things, in this one he kind of goes pretty heavy-handed. He hits it pretty strong. He's using words like I'm astonished, like I'm alarmed, like I'm amazed. I cannot believe that this is what you have become. With everything that I taught you, everything that you learned,

everything you knew, this is what you're now becoming. You believe this? You behave this way? You think this way? Yeah, I can probably honestly say that I probably got to that point as a father with all of my children, right? It's like you believe what? You think what? Who are you? It's got to be your mama's fault, right? I mean, it's like how did you become what you have become after all of these years of being taught and instructed, and now this is what you think and how you behave. And so he re-educates them on the gospel. Only after he establishes his authority and establishes his call, he does remind them that I am an apostle called by the Lord Jesus Christ. The other folks that was coming in teaching them this nonsense, they were trying to discredit Paul and say Paul didn't have the authority to teach the things that he was teaching. And Paul says, no, no, I've been called and sent out by God. I am an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn't volunteer for it. I didn't go to some booth and sign up for it. I've been called by God through Jesus Christ. And there's five offices in the church that has been called out for the development of the church so that the church would be taught, that the church would be instructed, that people will grow into maturity. In Ephesians chapter 4, it tells us that the offices of the church is apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists, all called offices called out by God that people in the body of Christ may mature and be edified. Paul is certainly informing them, remember that I'm a called apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he's unique in the sense that an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ was qualified by two things. They had to see Jesus and they had to hear Jesus call them out personally. Paul is saying just like the 12 disciples that we read about in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in Acts chapter 9, Paul saw Jesus and was called out by him. So he's letting them know I'm a called apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, it's a unique post. We read about Isaiah and Jeremiah who were called prophets of the Lord and we read their writings because they were called by God and the things they wrote was given to us to keep reading. It's the same with the apostles like Paul, Peter, James, John, we can go on. We read their writings because... has called out apostles, the word of the Lord that was spoken to them is the word of the Lord that we continue to read.

So he said, I have all authority to declare to you what is true and what is right. Now, he says this to affirm it once again and let them know this is again, not something that I just simply volunteered for. Here it is in Galatians chapter one, verse 15 and 16. He says, but even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his son to me that I would proclaim the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles. So Paul is saying, even before I was born, the Lord knew me. He called me, he made a place for me in the body of Christ even before I was born. Now, I just wanna say this to you. You don't become known when you come through your mother's womb, you're known before you come through your mother's womb. This God that we serve is a God that always, always knows everything. So he knew you before you knew yourself. He knew you before your mama gave birth. He knew you before your mom and your daddy did what they did for you to become birth. He knew you before it even became a thought that they wanted to do what they did so you would become, you get it, God knew you. He knew you before all of that. And Paul says, he knew me.

And even though Paul lived his life the way that he did, God's call upon him became a reality to him when he saw Jesus Christ, recognized that this was the Lord and Savior, and surrendered his life unto him. So Paul says, I was called by him to proclaim the good news. And then he uses what I think are really some transformative words because he greets them by saying, grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are transformative words. Now we have the tendency, oftentimes, when somebody sneezes, we'll say, God bless you, or bless you, even if we don't know him, right? We can be standing in a line or in a movie theater and hear somebody sneeze and we'll look over and say, God bless you, bless you. Don't have to know him. Sometimes people say that, they don't even have a life with God, right? And we just do it out of, I don't know, culturally. Maybe we think we're saying something to him. If you're sick, oh, I hope the Lord bless you. Or maybe we're saying, you know, God bless you. So if you sneeze again, you ain't shooting no demons out. Whatever, I don't know. But we do that and it really doesn't have a whole lot of meaning. It actually comes from a bunch of superstition. But grace and peace has real meaning. Whenever you proclaim grace and peace to someone,

you're praying that they will experience that. Paul wasn't just saying that like saying hello. He's saying to them, I want grace and peace to be with you. Grace is that word where we want people to have the goodness of God. Grace is that word of favor. Grace is that word of goodness. Grace is that word, the word charis, actually is the word that can lead to and reveal eternal life. We want people to have grace. And we want people to have peace. Peace where obviously there's a serene feeling. They come to a peaceful place. But even this word peace means wholeness. In the midst of chaos that you would be at whole. That you would be, the divisions would be resolved. That you would be in a peaceful condition in the midst of chaos and disruption. It's actually a wonderful thing to pray for people when you don't know what to pray for. If you just think about folks when you're on your way to work or you're taking a walk and you don't know why you're thinking about them, it's a good thing to say Lord, give them grace and peace. Give them grace and peace to proclaim that prayer over their life. And then Paul does, he gets to the point of what it is that he needs to address. And he does so in verse number four and five

because he wants to remind them of who it is that they're now strained from. Verse number four says this. Jesus gave his life for our sins. Just as God our father planned in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. All glory to God forever and ever, amen. We shouldn't, Paul certainly didn't want them to just think about Jesus and what Jesus did on the cross without any effect upon them. him. Anytime you talk about the death of Christ, anytime you read the death of Christ, anytime we sing about the death of Christ, there should be some things that come to mind. And one of them is the fact that Christ willingly died for us. He volunteered his life. And I don't want that to be such a light statement because as it is right now, I don't know any of you here that can tell me somebody died for you. But I can tell you one that did. And that one died for you for eternity. And that was the Lord Jesus Christ. He did that willingly. He did that voluntarily. Not only did he do that, but Jesus is such, Jesus is such a bad dude. He said, not only am I gonna lay my life down, but I'm gonna take my life back again. I'm gonna lay it down and I'm gonna pick it up. You may know some tough customers in your life, but you don't know nobody like Jesus. Jesus is saying, I am going to die and watch me. I'm gonna take my life and rise up again with all authority and power. Only Jesus, only Jesus can do that. Only Jesus. He reveals to us the purpose of the cross. That is, it's for our sins. He was a substitute for us because of our sinfulness. The Scriptures is very clear that the wages of sin is death. So I want you to translate it this way. The end result of Tyrone's life in the manner that Tyrone was going is death. That's the end result. The wages of sin is death. There's not one of us in here that was not born into sin. There's not one of us in here who has not sinned. There's not one of us in here who was not a sinner. The end result of that is death.

But the cross reveals to us that Jesus died so our sins would be forgiven and that the justice of God would be satisfied because, again, the wages of sin is death. But it also tells us the effects of the cross, the effects of the cross. And oftentimes, when we talk about the cross, we talk about atonement, which is true. Because Jesus died on the cross and we surrender or submit to Him as our crucified Lord, we are brought at one with God. But beyond that, beyond that, the Scripture says that He is delivering us from this evil age, which for all of us should always be a source of hope. That no matter what you see on TV, no matter how chaotic things may get, no matter how bad the world may be, no matter how evil people will become, this is not the end of our story. We get delivered from this evil age because of the work of the cross. And finally, it reveals to us the origin of the cross, that this was God the Father's idea. It really is true that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He loves the world that much. He loves the people that He created that much, that God's plan for sinners is that His Son would give His life. And the cross reveals the absolute sinfulness of our sin, the absolute sinfulness of our sin, but it also shows the undeserved love of God. The cross reveals that. This is what really got Paul upset. If you know all of that about Jesus, if you know all of that is true regarding what Christ has done on the cross, why would you listen to anybody else? Why would you turn to another gospel? Why would you look for anything else to bring you salvation? Why would you drift to any other religion or any other guru or any other book or any other TV personality that's telling you anything other than what you already know to be true? Why would you drift into something else? He says, again, I'm amazed. You've done this so quickly. But then Paul steps in to that striking mode and he says, I need you to hear this. Anybody that's told you anything else other than what was received from Jesus Christ as the gospel, I don't care if it was an angel from heaven, let them be accursed.

Strong language. So he says it, when we got in verse number 8, he said, but just like CTC, you probably missed it. So let me tell you again. So he says it again in verse number 9. If anybody teaches you anything else other than what is taught by Jesus Christ concerning the salvation... our soul, let them be accursed. It's a strong word. Anathema is a strong word. It basically means let them be damned forever. That they would absolutely teach something against the word of the risen Savior. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying, but don't miss what I'm saying. I don't care if it's an elder from the Mormon Church, I don't care if it's an imam from the Muslim faith, I don't care if it's a Pope over Catholicism. If they teach and preach anything other than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul said no, no, no, no. Let them be accursed. Only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything else is a reversal. Anything else is a reversal of what the gospel has done. We were called by the grace of Christ. God called us into this. We didn't call him, he called us. And the beauty of this is that God accepts us, even in our junk, as jacked up as we are. He accepts us. He doesn't look at you and say, now get yourself together and then you come to me. When I was young in the ministry, I don't even know if I was in the ministry yet, being raised by my grandfather, of course, I always had a zeal to tell people about the Lord. But of course, I had, you know, I had friends. I'm not gonna say the things I used to do, but they was pretty bad. They were. And when I would tell them about the Lord, I would tell them things like, you know, you ought to come to Jesus and stop doing this and stop doing that and get yourself together and give yourself to Jesus. My grandfather heard me telling my friends, one of them, telling my friend that one time, he said, hold on, boy. You're trying to skin the fish and you ain't even got it out the water yet. You're trying to skin it before. God accepts us as we are. And then we follow him. Are y'all following me? He calls us, accepts us, and then we follow him. Religious systems have it the other way around. You got to do something for God to be pleased with you and then he accepts you.

That's not Christianity. Christianity is we respond to God. We surrender our life to him. We trust him in the middle of our mess and follow him and he does the work. If you add anything to the work of Christ to be accepted, you've completely reversed the order of the gospel. You make it null, you make it void. Any revision of the gospel reverses this. I noted this last week that anything that's taught outside of what we know is true from Jesus passed on to the disciples, on to us, to the apostles, it should be condemned. We are absolutely too sinful to contribute to our salvation. We're too sinful. We have nothing to offer. No matter how great you are, no matter how good you are, it doesn't matter. You can think of yourself as good as Lay's chips or good as Breyer's ice cream. It ain't going to matter. You ain't got nothing to offer to the Lord. He came to rescue us, and that's good news for me. It's good news that the Lord came to rescue me from myself, rescue me from my sin, rescue me from my twisted thinking and jacked up emotions. He came to rescue us from that, not because I could offer him anything or do anything to please him. We're saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else. Now, you'll hear it. You'll hear people, you'll hear going to churches, you'll hear pastors, they'll tell you it doesn't really matter what you believe. As long as you're loving and as long as you're a good person, then you can go to heaven. They'll tell you no matter what the religion is, no matter what the doctrine is, if you're good, you'll be with God. My brother-in-law, I was so proud of him, Esteban, who passes the church down in Somerton, Cocopah Assembly. We were at a funeral. It was a family funeral. His uncle passed. And, you know, people come up and say... say things. This one dude comes up, and he talks about the uncle and says different things, and then he goes into this statement saying, and he knew, I mean, in Lady V's, there's, I don't know, five pastors, there's a host of ministers, he knew what he was doing. He went up there and said, I don't care what your doctrine is, don't care what your religion is, don't care what you say, what the Bible says, I know this man is going to heaven because he was good to me. Now, I looked at Virginia, we looked at each other and thought, this ain't good. Well, Esteban got up, and normally you would expect the minister at a funeral, right? You know how

they do, they want to comfort everybody, want to make everybody feel good, say a lot of things, and you should, I guess to some degree. But I'm telling you what I was grateful for, he didn't even go to his notes, he jumped right into what was just said. That statement that it don't matter about doctrine, don't matter about the Bible, don't matter about what you teach, as long as you're good going, he jumped right in there and said, that's a bunch of bull hockey. Actually, he said in Spanish, he said, esta caca. You know what that is, I see the word going across your head, Kenny, you know what you're thinking, that's what he said. And here is the fact, because if you believe that, that only good people go to heaven, or people who have been good go to heaven, then the death of the cross is not even necessary. It's not even necessary for Jesus to die on the cross if only good people go to heaven. But what's even worse, if only good people and loving people go to heaven, then bad people like me don't stand a chance. I got no hope. But the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is not about good people or bad people, it's dead people who need to be brought to life. That's the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He ain't looking to save good people, he ain't looking to save bad people, but people who are dead that need to be brought alive. Now, since I threw it out at the first service, I'll throw it out at you. I just wrote it down this morning on my way back from Florida. I listened to parts of a podcast with Joe Rogan. It was two days ago. Joe Rogan, I listened to it yesterday, but it was two days ago. Joe Rogan was interviewing a guy named Chad Wright, who is a solid Christian. Two hours of him clearly laying out the gospel to Joe Rogan. It was outstanding. But the part that I just was thrilled at is when he got to the part of discussing, Rogan had all of these questions and blah, blah, blah, and finally he says, you mean to tell me, this is Rogan, you mean to tell me something has to come into me for me to even have a chance to have a relationship with God? And Chad Wright says, listen, Joe, you are dead in your sin. You need the spirit of God to come in you and give you new life. When the spirit of God comes in you, then everything about you that's dead now becomes alive, and now you can live the life that Christ wants you to live. What thrilled me is Joe Rogan says, now that's why I know Christianity makes sense, because it ain't for good people, it ain't for bad people, it's for dead people who can come alive in Christ Jesus. Now, Paul, he knows that this message that he's now preaching is not going to be the most popular thing among the the Jews that he grew up

with and the people in Judaism. As a matter of fact, the ones who was causing trouble in Galatia was people that Paul was with before. Paul lived a life that was very pleasing to the Jews. He was high up there, and it was a great zeal for Judaism. And anybody who wasn't practicing Judaism and would teach any other thing, Paul was a leader of a group of people that would go from place to place. And if they found anyone preaching about Jesus or the cross or about Christ, he would either oversee their death or oversee them getting put in prison. That's what Paul did. But then his life got completely upended, completely upended. I mean turned upside down, because now he's going this direction, he hears about Jesus. Jesus presents himself, he hears the call of Christ, and now he's following Christ who was the very one that they were fighting against earlier, completely turned his life around. Now the people that he grew up with, all of a sudden they want to ostracize him. Now the people in his family, people in his community rejecting him, mocking him, ridiculing him, because this guy has completely changed his life around. He knew the results of preaching the gospel and following after Jesus, but verse number 10 really surmises where Paul said, he says, for am I now trying to persuade people or God? Am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. He knew what was going to happen. He knew that there was going to be people who was friends with him that wasn't going to be friends with him anymore. He knew he wasn't just going to be invited to teach in the Jewish synagogue. He knew that his life was going to be completely changed. He ain't going to be the spokesman at the bar mitzvahs anymore. That's not going to be him. He knew that his life would change, but he makes the decision, because I'm following after Jesus Christ, I am no longer trying to please man. It's a great statement for all of us to make. Now I'm not at all saying that we don't do anything for people's approval or admiration, but I will tell you this, that every one of us when we give our life to Christ, you got to consider the cost of that. There's going to be people who used to hang around you that don't want to hang around you anymore, and either you can give in to them and drift back to that, or you can take a stand and say, I'm not trying to please people. I'm living for Christ. There's only one person that's going to stand before the Lord. When you stand before the Lord, your family ain't standing with you. When I stand before the Lord, all the people in CTC, listen, and I believe if y'all was standing with me, y'all

would go up there and tell the Lord, oh Lord, man, he's probably the best pastor in America that you have ever gave birth to. He's just fantastic. But y'all ain't coming with me. There's only one person standing before the Lord, and that's me and Him. It's an audience of one. We live now to please one. At the end of the day, it's only Him who we want to say, well done, my good and faithful servant. Well done, my good and faithful servant. He says in 2 Corinthians 5.15, He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life, listen to this, will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ who died and was raised for them. We now become servants of the Lord. Christ accepts us how we are. He fills us with His Spirit, transforms us, changes us. We start to think differently, walk differently, embrace the Word of God, gathering community and fellowship. You start to see your life change over a period of time. You become more and more like Jesus and come to the place that He is your master, that you're a slave of the Lord, that you are servant of Christ, that your life is no longer in your own hands. You're not mastered by your own self. You have a master. 1 Corinthians 6.19 and 20 says it like this, you do not belong to yourself for God bought you with the price. He bought you. He paid the price for you. You can't even fathom the price that Jesus paid. You can read about the crucifixion. You can read about it. You can talk about it. You can sing about it. But you can't even fathom what it cost Jesus for your life. I asked the second service, I said, here's a bottle of olive oil. How much would you say this olive oil cost? One guy in the front row said $1.47. So I just said, OK, well, price is right here. I don't know. But how much do you say this olive oil costs? You don't know the answer to that. And you can't find the answer to that. The only one that can tell you how much this cost is the olive because it was the olive that was crushed that it might get into this bottle. You can't say how much your life cost because it was Christ that was crushed for your life. It was Christ who was crushed that the blood was shed. It was Christ whose body was broken that you can't say how much it cost because it was Him and Him alone. that died on that cross that you may have a life with him. We don't own ourselves. We were bought with the price. And so let me just close out with a couple of things

and the team will come, we'll pray. Just a couple of things I want you to get out of this. Whatever your call in this life, no matter how hard, stick with it. That's what Paul had to do. He knew what his call was. He knew that he was called to be an apostle. He knew it was gonna be tough. He knew that there was gonna be people that came against him. He wanted to be an apostle of freedom and of faith and of love. He wanted to help people that are far from God find life in Christ. But he knew people would question his motives and question his integrity. But he was sticking with it. He knew that the price of this was too heavy. People's lives was at stake. He was gonna do everything he could, even in the face of what he may have to receive from others to stand in the call. And I'm telling you, father's gotta do that. Mother's gotta do that. Husband's gotta do that. Community leaders, you gotta do that. No matter what people may say, how they may come against you, when your life gets upended for Jesus and you accept the call of God in the place that you're in,

your children will see you going from a father who lived one kind of life and then give your life to Jesus and absolutely change how you live and how you teach them at home. And they may question you and challenge you. And daddy, you ain't the same. And why do we gotta do this? You gotta stand in the call that God has given you. You gotta be a father that's still a leader that leads them into Christ. You gotta be a husband that loves your wife and projects that and not be somebody that goes along with all kind of social mores and don't matter about your fidelity and don't matter how you live your life. No, you gotta stick with who you are in Christ Jesus. Even if people turn against us. Community leaders, there's been many times, there's boards I've been asked to step off of, boards that I won't be put on. There's places I've spoken in this community and soon as I finished speaking, they told me, we'll never ask you to come back again. I don't give a flip. I'm standing strong in who I am in Christ Jesus. Standing strong. I know attorneys that have left their firms because they asked them to do things that they couldn't do. I know doctors who wouldn't do things

that the hospital said that they had to do. I know people who've left lucrative jobs to become missionaries and give their life to serve in the Lord because they're standing strong in who they have become. There's a fellow by the name of Mosab Hassan Youssef. His father was one of the founders of Hamas. And so he was raised in that. Lived in Palestine, was raised in that. Saw what Hamas did all the years of his life. And he came to a point, he was an adult, he came to a point to recognize that some of the things that I'm seeing is just not right. It's not right to humanity. Some of the violence and some of the abuse and some of the things that we do. And it wasn't even congruent with some of the things we were taught in Islam. So he began to ponder that and he began to speak about the hypocrisy. Just happened, I say just happened, but by the sovereign work of God, he happened to be in a place where there was a British missionary and they just got to talking. Neither one of them knew who each other was and the missionary just got to started talking to him about things that he does and about his life and began to talk to him about Jesus,

that Jesus changed my life and forgave me of my sins and I just have a great relationship with the Lord and talked about forgiveness. And he said the stuff he was saying just affected him. So much so that he couldn't get it off his mind. He only met the guy one time and that was that. But he ended up getting a hold of a New Testament and started reading through the Gospels and Christ was revealed to him and he realized that this Jesus, the one who really does love like we're taught to love and the one who really does prove a life of sacrifice, this Jesus is the real deal. He ends up giving his life to Christ. Immediately, of course, he's got to deal with his family. He tells his family, he tells his father that he's given his life to Christ. His father threatened him, I'll break every bone in your body, et cetera, et cetera. Well, he follows it, he stands with it and he gets baptized. Soon as he gets baptized, his family. His father put a hit out on him to kill him. He's in the U.S. now under asylum, but he made a statement that I am sticking with who I know I am in Christ Jesus in spite of it. It's the call of Christ, knowing that there's only one to please. And the end goal of your discipleship is actually slavery to Jesus. And I don't want you to get that word slavery all messed up.

And, you know, we can talk about it historically slavery still goes on in a lot of places. And I get that there's a bad picture of slavery. The word doulos in the New Testament though, it just simply means that I'm no longer a master of my own life. I have a master, that I'm a servant of his, I'm a slave of his. And that's the end work of discipleship. We are to be Christ followers. We are to be disciples of Christ. And we come to the place to realize that I am a servant of the Lord. Ultimately, it's him that I serve. It's interesting. When you read the New Testament, all the way through the New Testament again, and I know you're a great church and you read through the New Testament every year. So when you start again, reading through the New Testament, when you read through Matthew, read through Mark, read through Luke and read through John and the book of Acts, you write down the number of times you see the word disciple. It'll be a lot of them. But when you start with Romans, and you go all the way to Revelation, through the writings of Paul, the writers of Peter, the writer of James, the writings of John and the writings of Jude,

you tell me how many times you see the word disciple. I'll help you. Zero. Not one time did any of them use the word disciple. But they all use servant of Christ. Servant of Christ. The end of our discipleship is being a servant of the Lord, that we got one master and we're committed to that one master alone. And that is the Lord. Matthew 6, 24 says this, "'No one can serve two masters, "'for either he will hate the one and love the other, "'or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.'" We all are to be servants of Christ. Everybody stand, if you would. Prayer team, you'll come. I'm gonna pray for you. We're gonna, the worship team is gonna take us into the doxology, where we'll magnify our God. Father, I pray, Lord God, with all of the words that's been said and the message that's been preached, I pray that every one of us embrace the heart of Paul and the teaching of Paul. That none of us, Lord God, drift away from this gospel. None of us drift away from the truth. But even further, that every one of us, Lord, become servants of Christ. That we stand as Paul stood and said,

"'I'm not living my life to please anybody else. "'I'm not even living my life to please myself, "'but I'm living my life to please the Lord and him only.'" In Christ's name we pray, amen. God bless you. Have a great day. Thank you. ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ ♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪ ♪ Praise him above ye heavenly host ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ ♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪ ♪ Praise him above ye heavenly host ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ Church, what a great reminder of just the magnitude of the cross, that despite how bad we are, how corrupt we are, no matter what we do or what we've ever done, Jesus loves us and he died on the cross for every single person in this room. If you've never given your life to Jesus, we have a prayer team up here who would love to walk through that with you. Or if you have any other prayer request, our team will even be here after service. We also have a team in the lobby at the connect table who would love to just walk you through your next steps. You heard Pastor mention missions, teams, life groups,

all of those things. You saw somebody get baptized today. Those are all what we call next steps. If you need help walking through those next steps, we're happy to do that with you again at the Connect table, or if you're watching online, you can click that link that your host has sent in. We hope we see all of you next week at Sunday service, but also Thursday at Awakening Prayer. Have a blessed week.