Freedom | From the Law

What's up, good to be with you today. If you got your Bibles, we gotta go to work today, okay? So this is a note-taking day. I hope you brought a pen. If not, you're gonna wanna take pictures of things. Get your Bibles out. We're gonna go to Galatians chapter two. We're gonna pick it up in verse 11. With your journal, your keyword is the same as it was last week and it's gonna be for the next several weeks. It is freedom. So go ahead and write that down. Hopefully you had a good week. Let me tell you how my week began. I got to learn all about root canals. That's fun and games right there. I'd never had that experience before. It began actually on Easter weekend. I was here for one of our millions of services. I was in between services and I was chewing gum. And the reason I was chewing gum is because I am fueled by the Holy Spirit's power, but he works in tandem with copious amounts of coffee. And so I was trying to deal with my coffee breath between services by chewing gum. And then all of a sudden, just this shooting, like debilitating pain through the left side of my mouth. I'd never experienced anything quite like that. And it just kind of kept lingering. And it was one of those things where like,

I couldn't quite focus. I got super worried that I wasn't gonna be able to preach the next service very well, at least. But finally it subsided after about 10 or 15 minutes. And so I went home and told my wife about it at the end of the weekend. And then she did something for me because she knew I would never do this for myself. She made a dentist's appointment for me because I'm on like a bi-decade plan. I'll go about twice a decade. That's literally what I'll do. So she made the appointment and made me go. And so I went to the dentist and they, you know, hit it with mallets and did all kinds of weird stuff and then took some x-rays and then they're like, you gotta go to the endodontist. I'd never heard of something like that. I thought that was like a dinosaur or something. So they send me the endodontist and so I did what I do. I'd never heard of it before. So I did a word study on this. Endo is from the Greek. It means inside. So in case you didn't know, if they ever send you to the endodontist, they're gonna work on the inside of your teeth. Now, the way they get to the inside of your teeth is with all kinds of drills and bits and mallets and chisels and all kinds of things like that,

which means that they have to numb you up, which is awesome for me because I've been blessed with this gene that processes numbing medication way faster than normal people, which means that about 25% of the way through whatever procedure I'm having, I feel everything, all right? So on Monday earlier this week, they tried all kinds of things. They shot me up about 10,000 times and then I kept feeling what they were doing. And so they said, hey, you're gonna have to come back at a later date. So stay tuned for that whole fun and game thing that's gonna happen down the road. Now, I had heard of orthodontists before, even though I'd never had braces or anything like that. I've experienced seeing a lot of my friends have braces and things like that. If you do a word study on orthodontist, ortho simply means straight. So when you go to an orthodontist, they're trying to straighten your teeth. That makes total sense. So if you're keeping score at home, if you go to the endodontist, they wanna work on the inside of your teeth. If you go to the orthodontist, they're gonna work on the outside appearance of your teeth, which means if you go to an orthodontist

when what you need is an endodontist, it doesn't do any good to straighten rotten teeth. You gotta get to the root of that. Now, you may be going like, why are we talking about this in church? What does this have to do with Galatians? Here's the short answer, everything. Because if you were tracking with us last week, what you know is in this region called Galatia, Paul had planted all these churches and he had preached the gospel, but on the heels of that, these false teachers came in and they started saying, actually, it's Jesus plus the law that equals salvation, even though Paul had preached Jesus plus nothing equals everything. So what they were a proponent of was orthowork, just everybody straighten up, follow the law. What Paul had preached was the exact opposite, it was endowork, only the gospel can address the root of your issue and mine. So before we dive in today, here's what I wanna do, I wanna give you a little bit of a background. Last week, your homework assignment was to read Acts chapter 13 and 14. This week, your homework assignment is to go back and read Acts chapter 10. It's a wild story because in it, the apostle Peter has this crazy dream, there's like this sheep that gets let down from heaven,

it's got all these animals on it, crawling around and everything like that, and he's told to eat these animals, and that is all symbolic of him being a Jewish person who ate kosher. From that point on, he no longer, and they no longer had to eat kosher anymore. So if you think that your friend who's like gluten-free and kinda high-maintenance when you go to the restaurant with them was a big deal, this was a big, big deal. Now this wasn't only about what they were allowed to eat, it was more about who they were allowed to eat with. It wasn't only about what was allowed on your table, it was about who was allowed at your table. You see, Jewish people up until that point were not allowed to eat with Gentile people, and so when Peter has this dream, what this really means is because Jesus was for everyone, his followers must welcome anyone. And y'all, I just gotta tell you, that's the stories that are flooding in right now around here. who their first belief was, man, I don't know if I could belong in a place like that. I don't know if they would welcome me in. And people who've been welcomed in by your embrace have now experienced the life change that only Jesus can bring because this is a place that is for everyone

and welcoming to everyone because that's what Jesus has done for us. So on the heels of that dream that Peter has, he basically, he runs into some Gentile people. Like God orchestrates this whole thing. Some Gentile people and Peter, they cross roads and God saves the Gentile believers as well. They get the Holy Spirit just like Peter had experienced. And then he goes back and he reports to headquarters in Jerusalem. He's like, hey guys, got good news. Jesus has opened the floodgates to the Gentiles to be believers alongside of us. Now the reality is if you trace through the Old Testament, there was always a pathway for outsiders to become insiders but this is the first time that it starts happening at scale and it is a massive scale. Now the question you may be asking right now is simply why does that matter? And here's why it matters to us today 2,000 years later because most of us are not Jewish by heritage. So that dream that Peter had was about you. It was about me. It was about us being included in this gospel. So later Paul and his partner Barnabas that we talked about last week, they start traveling around the known world and they start planting these churches and a lot of these churches are overwhelmingly Gentile churches

that are just full of former outsiders that have now become insiders. And so that starts begging all these big questions for the first church. They're like, what do we do with these Gentile believers and what requirements do we put on them? Do they have to take on the Old Testament law and observe all the days that we observed? Do the men have to be circumcised? Are we allowed to associate with them? These were massive questions and because of that, they decided to have like a big old church meeting. So in Acts chapter 15, they have a big council meeting and it's the apostle Peter who basically speaks up and settles the debate and that's what I want you to see here. It says the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter, the matter I just walked you through. And after there had been much debate, now as somebody who's been in a lot of church meetings, I can tell you that's a thing. That's a thing that happens, much debate. So there's a back and forth going on, a bunch of opinions being shared and then Peter stands up, all right? This is one of those kind of like, uh-oh, we better listen to what he has to say kind of moments. Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days,

God made a choice among you that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe and God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us and he made no distinction between us and them. There is no us and them anymore. Having cleansed their hearts by faith, now therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor us have been able to bear? So basically, Peter's going, can we just all be honest here today? That doesn't always happen in church meetings. He's like, could we just own up to the fact that none of our forefathers ever did the law perfectly and certainly none of us ever did the law perfectly. Can we all just agree to that? And everybody's getting real quiet in the room with Peter right now. But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will. And all the assembly fell silent. I would have loved to have been there. And then Peter hands off the mic and they listen to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. Amazing stuff. And so they thought the matter was settled, but it wasn't. And what we're about to see Paul talk about,

you fast forward just a little bit, you're in a place called Antioch and there's this major confrontation that happens and that's where we're gonna pick it up in Galatians chapter two verse 11. So track with me in your Bibles. But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him, this is Paul talking, to his face because he stood condemned. Now Cephas is just the Aramaic version of Peter and they both mean rock. So here's what you got going on here right now. You got two big personalities, pillars of the faith in the church who are nose to nose in this moment. And these two dudes are known to throw hands, right, in their former life. I mean, you got Paul who used to drag men and women out of their homes and oversee executions and you got Peter who tried to chop a dude's head off once. So I imagine a bunch of people are kind of nervous watching this happen. Like, have you ever been in a room where two big personalities are butting heads? That's this on steroids right now. And so it begs the question, like, what could this be? What could this be that Paul is so upset about that he's gonna confront Peter? Well, he tells us. For before certain men came from James,

he was eating with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. Now this is for free. If you go to the ballot box here pretty soon and you see one of the parties being represented as circumcision party, I don't think you're gonna wanna vote for that one, that's a weird one right there. I don't know if you want that to be the party name, but here's what you got going on with Peter, all right? He's being two things, he's being a hypocrite, and man, he's being a coward. He's being both of those things. See, before James and his crew came from Jerusalem, Peter was living consistent with the speech he gave in Acts chapter 15. Everybody's welcome at the same table, and then as soon as they roll into town, he goes, let's just only start sitting with the Jewish believers and won't sit with the Gentile believers. Why is he doing that? Because he's afraid. And fear motivates hypocrisy all the time. He acted like he believed what he had said once, which is the definition of hypocrisy, to act and to wear a mask to pretend, but then when things got hard, fear drove him to back away from what he knew to be true. And so Paul decides, man,

I'm gonna call Peter out publicly, and it begs the question, so why does he do this publicly? Why doesn't he pull Peter aside and privately address this with him? That's a very good question. You're about to find out the answer. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. Hypocrisy and cowardice are contagious. And in the church, they're deadly. They're not willing to just live with the host. They want to spread to other people, and Paul knows that, so much so that Barnabas, his partner in ministry, is being led astray by this hypocrisy and this cowardly behavior of Peter, and it's not just him, it's a bunch of people, so what's happening publicly has to be addressed. And what we have to come to terms with is this. None of us are immune to being hypocrites and cowards, me included. Several years ago, I had to really come face-to-face with something that was going on in my life and leadership. I was doing this thing where when I should have stood up and spoken up, I was sitting down and being quiet. And it all came to a head one day. I was at this men's retreat thing, and the facilitators of this made these men in the room that I was one of get in these groups of four or five,

and they had to stand up and face each other, and then the facilitator said, hey, on the count of three, when you recognize that you're not the leader in that little group, just sit down. So they go, one, two, three, and I just sat down. And a whole bunch of dudes who knew me, like a few days later when the retreat was over, they were like, hey, man, what was up with that? You know you're a leader, why did you just sit down? And my answer was as telling as it was immature. I said, because I just didn't want to do your dumb exercise, that's why. And the reality is that showed up in a lot of places in my life during that season were either out of fear, because I just didn't want to deal with the repercussions that would come if I stood up and spoke up, or I was just being lazy. It was just easier to sit down and be quiet than it was to stand up and speak up. But here was the problem. Other people were paying the price because I wasn't being the leader that I was called to be. And so what I'm saying is this, if I'm not immune to this, and if Peter is not immune to this, then none of us are immune to this. So let me ask some really invasive, uncomfortable questions. This is the stuff you're gonna want to write down. Let me ask it this way. Is there any area of your life

where you're being hypocritical? Is there anything that comes to mind? And have you shared that with anyone? Here's the second question. Is there any area of your life where you're being cowardly? And for some of us, maybe right now you're going, man, I know exactly what it is. Or for some of us, we're going, I need some time to reflect on that. We'll take this week to reflect on that. And then who are you gonna tell once you know the answer? Now here's the next question this text is gonna bring up. How do you address not just hypocrisy in yourself, but how do you address hypocrisy in others? Now obviously Jesus talked a lot about this. Paul's actually gonna demonstrate for us how to do this because he does this differently from the way the world does this. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, if you though a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like a Jew? This phrase right here, not in step with, literally means ortho-walking. You're not walking straight. You're not walking consistent with something and that something is the truth of the gospel. You're not living in integrity with what you know to be true,

which means the temptation might be to say to someone like Peter, well, man, just straighten up, act right. But that's not what Paul is doing. He's not just laying a guilt trip on Peter and saying something like, well, how could you try harder? That's not what he's doing at all. Now, as a side note, as you're kind of wondering, like, again, why did this have to happen publicly? It happened, it had to happen publicly because Peter was a public person and the words of his mouth had public ramifications. So it is a biblical principle to speak up about people who have public words that have public implications. So if you ever wonder, like, Nichol, why do you do this on podcasts during your preaching every now and then? You'll say someone's name and you'll call them out. That's why. Because it has implications and it's contagious. So watch how he goes on. He doesn't stop talking. He says, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not, here's a very important word, justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ

and not by works of the law because by works of the law, no one will be justified. This is so important, this is vital. Paul is not reprimanding Peter. He's reminding him of the gospel. Massive difference. He's not laying a guilt trip on him. He's reminding Peter, he's going, this is who we are, bro. Remember who we are. We've been justified, not because we obeyed the law, but because of what Jesus did on our behalf. Later, Paul would write these famous words. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. That word justified means to be declared righteous legally. And the only way that we are legally and forensically declared righteous before the living God is not because of anything we do, it's because of what Jesus has done for us. And so what Paul is doing is he's reminding Peter of the reality and the implications of the gospel. He is not reprimanding him. And here's why this matters. Guilt is a very weak motivational tool. Do you know that? Guilt can get short-term compliance, but it will not get long-term change. It has no power to do it.

You know who knows this best? Good parents and good teachers. Good parents and good teachers know that you can use guilt to do behavior modification with your kids, but if you don't get outside of that and get to the deep level of heart-level motivation, you'll just be stuck in this endless cycle of behavior modification, and you might get some compliance, but what you will not get is heart change. That does not happen through guilt, which is why the world's methods don't work and never will. See, the world's prescription when people are out of line is to simply reprimand and smack people on the hand and say, do better. Remember 2020 to about 2022? The refrain everywhere, especially on social media, was simply, do better. Everybody said it all the time. That doesn't work for anyone. Like, do you really think the phrase do better deals with the deep levels of sin inside our heart, things like racism? No, man, that's ortho work. If you wanna deal with that kind of stuff, you gotta do endo work. You gotta get to the root of the infection. You see, here's what guilt can do. Guilt can get you while you're sitting on your sofa, you watch a sad puppy commercial,

you'll send a $5 donation somewhere, but what the gospel will do is take a militant atheist and turn him into a missionary. You see the difference? I mean, seriously, does anyone really think that a sin, again, as insidious as racism is dealt with by slogans and NFL end zones? Like, has anyone ever sat on their sofa watching a football game and gone, you know what? I really should stop being a racist. I think I'll do that today. Of course not. You don't solve problems like the sin of misogyny by giving women the month of March. That's not even a good month, right? Like, I mean, we'd give you a better month, ladies, couldn't we? And it's March Madness, so men aren't even paying attention, right? It's powerless. It's cultural scolding and school marming. That's what it is, and it loses its juice because you know what people stop doing? Paying attention to hall monitors at the threat of cancellation, they just stop caring anymore. And what I call this is secular self-righteousness. It's when, shockingly, people who don't follow God or follow Jesus arbitrarily, out of thin air, pick a standard which begs the question,

how's there any standard for morality if there's not a God, and then take that standard based on their own feelings and intuitions, apply it to everyone else for all time universally, and then point the finger when everyone falls short but fail to point the finger at themselves when they fall short of their own standard. As an example, I give you COVID. Do you remember all the lawmakers who loved nothing more than to lock people down at the threat of law, and how many of them were later found to be breaking their own rules? By going to fancy restaurants. and getting their hair done, and going clubbing. Meanwhile, your kid didn't get to have a prom. That's secular self-righteousness at its worst. And it's nauseating, but you wanna know what the only thing more nauseating than secular self-righteousness is? Christian self-righteousness. That'll make you puke. Because it hurts people. And it keeps people out. And it's the very thing that we should be the most immune to. Because the fundamental of our faith is that we are wicked, depraved sinners in desperate need of a savior. So we have no room for self-righteousness, and yet it shows up.

You see, the gospel's prescription is not a reprimand. It's a reminder. It's a retelling of the greatest story that's ever been told. It's a remembrance of amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. We sang a song earlier with the word wretch in it. Did you know there was a movement about 25 years ago to take the word wretch out of the song amazing grace? How dare we? It's anti-gospel. All the problems the world wants to solve through spending money, creating programs, social media campaigns in government are downstream of the human heart, and those are all the things that none of those things can fix. Only the gospel changes the hearts of men and women, and does the deep work that's necessary to deal with these issues that we face. Now, why does this all matter to us today? Because the sin of hypocrisy and the sin of cowardice is so contagious in the church, and it has massive ramifications. You see, hypocrisy keeps people out of the church, and cowardice allows false teaching in. You see how that's so dangerous and lethal to have both of those things happening at the same time? You got hypocrisy that stiff-arms people. You don't belong here.

Only people like us belong here, but meanwhile, you're ushering in false teaching that's absolutely lethal, and so Paul, no wonder he's so frustrated and angry as he writes this letter to the Galatians. He's like, man, I went nose-to-nose with Peter for this. I spilled my blood for this, and the second some false teachers creep into your mix, y'all are just ushering these wolves into your church. John Stott said it so well. He said this, when the issue between us is trivial, we must be as pliable as possible. When the truth of the gospel is at stake, we must stand our ground. And see, this is why this matters for us personally as Southern Christian Church, because we are growing in resilience, and to grow in resilience, you have to grow in two things, strength and flexibility. And some of this is personality-based. We have a bias toward one or the other. For example, I love to lift weights. I don't like to stretch. I ain't into stretching. I have to force myself to stretch, even though that's the thing I need to work on the most, is I need to work on my flexibility and mobility and all those kinds of things. Some of us are the exact opposite. You don't wanna pick up anything heavy,

but you're like Gumby, man. You can do all kinds of crazy stuff. That plays itself out in the church. Those of us who are strength-biased, there ain't no false teaching getting past our radar. That's not gonna happen. That's not the big danger. The problem we have is sometimes we turn our preferences into primary issues, and we wanna divide a church over it, which is one of the reasons I'm so thankful for the heritage of Southern Christian Church that has for a long time said, man, we're not gonna divide over dumb things. How many of y'all know churches will divide over dumb things? Carpet color comes to mind. We're not even gonna divide over secondary things. What we're gonna do is we're gonna unite over essential things. That's what we're gonna do. And so where the Bible speaks, we speak boldly, but we don't mistake our preferences for primary issues. The flip side, though, is some of us, we're so flexible because we wanna be welcoming and accommodating and nice and kind that we will welcome wolves right into the sheep pen. You wanna know who it's not nice to welcome wolves into? The sheep, because wolves will eat the sheep. And so we, as a community and as individuals,

we gotta grow in strength and resilience. So the point is, if we wanna be a resilient church, we have to pursue being resilient individual disciples. So my question for you is simply this. Do you need to grow in strength or flexibility? And if you're like, well, I don't know the answer, nudge the person next to you and ask them. They'll tell you. Your friend, your family member, they know if you need to grow in strength or flexibility. And once you know the answer to that, then the question is, if you wanna grow in those areas, how do you do it? Well, if you need to grow in strength, you need more time with God's word. You need to study. Every week, I have tons and tons of people who are telling me, hey, I'm starting to read the Bible for the first time, where should I start? So every time I get that question, I just say, start where we are. So about seven weeks ago, I would've said the Gospel of John. Today, I would tell you Galatians, because we're in Galatians and we're doing this together. And we're gonna cover a bunch of this, but I'm not gonna be able to cover every verse. So you can study every verse in your personal. And so here's the way this can work for you. You can come in here every Sunday

with your Bible and your journal. You can lean in and take notes and mark up the scriptures, and then our team provides daily resources for you to continue your study. Not a week goes by that my wife doesn't text me from home and say, so-and-so on your team is a great writer. Did you read today's devotional? We got a great team of great writers. Every day of the week you can study. Then there is a group study that you can do with your group. If you're not in a group, you are missing out. And so this is as robust as it comes, which basically means if you're not studying God's word, listen, it's not because you're not resourced. And it's not because you don't have the opportunity. Let's just be honest, it's just because you just don't want to. It's real quiet, I'll keep going. If you need to grow in flexibility, if you need to grow in flexibility like me, you need more time with God's people, so serve. I jumped on the website and noticed there's at least 14 different ways that you can serve within this church. So again, there's plenty of needs, there's plenty of opportunities. So if you're not doing it, it's just because you just don't want to. But listen, there are kids that need to be invested in, there are students who need mentoring,

there are parking lots who desperately need people who can assist with going different directions with a very thick skin, because y'all get a little rowdy out there sometimes. There's instruments that need playing, knobs that need to be turned, cameras that need to be operated, coffee that needs to be brewed. Here's what comes with all of that, people. People that you would not otherwise rub shoulders with, that you wouldn't hang out with otherwise, and that's gonna help you grow in flexibility and patience and kindness. So if you struggle with strength, you need to saturate your mind with truth. If you struggle with flexibility, you need to saturate your heart with grace, which means this for all of us. You know who we need more time with? Jesus. Because last I checked, he came from the Father full of grace and truth, which means that we each as individuals, we need our personal and private time of prayer and study and worship with Jesus, but we also need our corporate time together to defiantly worship him. That's so important for us. Like we can't give up gathering together. That's why the Bible commands the Christians

not to give up gathering together, because we need one another. And one of the ways that we grow in resilience is by being here together and studying God's word and singing together, which means that, listen, when we talk about minimizing distractions around here, that's not just about screaming babies in cell phones. It means during the last two songs, we don't just have a mass exodus that leaves through the parking lot. This is really only an issue at a couple of our bigger campuses, and it only happens every now and then, so please don't receive this as a reprimand. This is simply a reminder that you being here rubbing shoulders with us matters, because we grow with each other, linked arm and arm. By the way, you missed the best part, because we get to respond to God's word and we get to celebrate new life and baptism. We got a whole bunch of them that are about to happen, and I just don't know why you would want to miss that. Let me give you a pro tip. Hang out for about 10 extra minutes. The place kind of thins out. You'll get to know other people, and then when you get to the parking lot, you'll be able to get out of here

without your blood pressure going through the roof. Honestly, if I were to design a worship service, almost all the singing would be after I was done preaching, because I believe that our singing should be our response to God's word landing on our hearts. And again, our value. Jesus is authority, so we worship defiantly around here. Did you know that there are people around you right now that are here today to worship Jesus in spite of the fact that they've had the worst week of their life? They're going through the deepest pain that they've ever gone through, and they need you to stay in here and link arms with them and sing two more songs. Ramses can wait. Okay? Finally, what Paul was saying to the Galatians and to us is simply this. The truth of the gospel is unchanging, so remember it, man. Don't forget it. Preach it to yourself day after day after day. The same gospel that Paul preached and gave his life for is the one that we stake our lives on. It doesn't need updating. It doesn't need changing. It doesn't need to progress. It doesn't need an upgrade.

It is timeless. It doesn't need to be apologized for, and needs to be delivered unashamedly. It's the heartbeat of an unchanging God who never gets tired, and his love never fails for you, and you need to be reminded of it. Second, the truth of the gospel is always under attack, so fight for it. Every generation, every time, every place. It's always under attack. Satan hates the good news of who Jesus is and what he's done, and he will leverage corrupt governments and false religions to attack it, subvert it, undermine it, and ultimately destroy it if he could, but he can't because Jesus made us a promise at the very gates of hell. Can't overcome it. This is why the good news about who Jesus is and what he's done always needs defending in every generation, every time, every place. The power of the gospel is the only thing that can change human hearts. Look at how Paul lands this whole thing. It's a very famous passage, beautiful passage. You're gonna wanna underline this whole thing. He says, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh,

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Tim Keller commented on this, and he said it perfectly. He said, only when I see myself as completely loved and holy in Christ will I have the power to repent with joy, conquer my fears, and obey the one who did all this for me. Repent with joy, conquer your fears, and obey the one who sacrificed so much for you. Doesn't that sound good? Doesn't that sound like good news, that that's even possible for you and possible for me? It certainly sounded like good news to the Galatians, who I'm gonna tell you about next week. You talk about a rough crowd. They were as rough as it gets. But finally today, Southern Christian Church, here's your reminder again. For freedom, Christ has set us free. So stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Let's pray. Father God, we stand before you, our hearts exposed. Father, we've been hypocrites, and we've been cowards, all of us, and so much more than that, too. And yet, you sent your one and only Son, Jesus, for us while we were absolutely at our worst to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. And Father, we could never pay you back for that.

But what we can do is, by your Holy Spirit's power, walk in the freedom that you wanted us to have. So Father, I pray for anyone here today who would just be thinking right now, man, I'm not free. I'm stuck in old patterns, living under the weight of accusation, addiction, whatever it may be that someone across our campuses today is not free from. Father, I pray that they'll come forward today. They'll come see one of our prayer team people, and they'll reveal what that thing is. And Father, I pray that as those prayer team people go to war for them, that they'll be redeemed and restored, and that they'll find new life that's available to them today. Father, as we celebrate that new life in baptism across our services today, Father, for anybody right now who's thinking, I need to respond by being baptized, having my old life be buried so that I could be raised to a new life in your Son, Jesus. I pray that that'll happen. Father, today, would your Holy Spirit move right now as we lay down all of our thoughts, all of our feelings, all the contrary things going on in our soul right now, all the good, the bad, and the ugly.

We wanna lay all that down at your feet because you are holy, in Jesus' name, amen.