I Need You to Get This | Pastor Earl McClellan

and your sins are yapping and yapping and yapping and yapping the blood of Jesus said, look back at it. You can't beat me. You've never been able to beat me. I've always had more power than you. There's never been a time you could touch me. You're happy or dassy to think you can come against me. Why? [MUSIC PLAYING] OK, my friends, if you have your Bibles, I want you to open up wherever you want. Just pick a passage. No, we're going to go to the Book of Colossians. Again, we've been in what we're calling summer strong. Summer strong, not summer week, summer strong. And these last few months have been pushing me forward in my walk with God. I pray they've been doing the same for you. So we read through the Book of Joshua in June, and then the Book of Acts in July. And now in the month of August, we're walking through what we say. Giants enjoy protein and cardio, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. So we're going to be in Colossians chapter 1 today. If you did not bring your Bible, we're going to put the verses on the screen so that you can follow along with us, Colossians. Chapter 1, verse number 3. It says, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus

Christ, when we pray for you. Because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus." Quick little side note, theologians believe that this is not a church that Paul planted. This is a church that he heard about. He heard about their faith. He heard about their commitment to Christ. So he's writing this letter of encouragement to them through word of mouth. I've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. And the love you have for all God's people, the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven, and about which you have already heard in the true message. Everybody say true message. The true message of the gospel that has come to you in the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it, and truly understood God's grace. Go with me, say in chapter 1 to verse number 19. It says, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him in Christ. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross." You guys tired of verses yet? Can I keep going? OK, verse number 21. Look at this.

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. If you'd like to take notes, the title of today is, "I need you to get this." I need you to get this. Turn your neighbor and say, "I need you to get this." Come on, turn to your second choice. Tell him, "I need you to get this." Tell him it wasn't personal. They're breastfeeding, so you had to turn the other way. I need you to get this. I'm excited to jump into these verses as I was studying. I actually had so many different thoughts coming to me. And I thought maybe they were all these different messages. But as I sat there and praying for our church family, it became clear to me that all of this was really for one message. Honestly, I was like, man, is this message practical enough? Because I do like messages to be able to be lived out on Monday. I don't want you just coming to church on Sunday thinking, OK, I'm holy on Sunday. Then on Monday through Saturday, I'm ratchet. What I heard on Sunday doesn't impact my life at all. I don't want to. I want what we're sharing, what's being preached here to actually be able to help your marriage or help

you as a single person or help you as a student. I want you to help you in your business, your career. I really want that. But that's not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is I want you to look like Jesus. I want you to become the man or woman of God that he's called you to be. And so whether or not it impacts your Monday in that really practical way, I just have to trust the Holy Spirit that it'll say to you what you need to hear, that the right thing will drop into your heart, that your eyes will be open the way they need to be open as my eyes and my heart were open this week. So we're gonna dig into subscriptions today and I pray, I pray in Jesus' name that you're able to hear what God wants you to hear. Go back with me to Colossians chapter one, verse number six, real quick. I want you to see some things that I've underlined. I'm gonna show you some verses that I've underlined. Chapter one, verse number six. I underline this, truly understood God's grace. Truly understood God's grace. Now go with me over to verse number 20. I underline something else over there. Making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Verse number 22, here's something else I have underlined. Free from accusation.

Free from accusation. Okay, does anybody, remember Kmart? (congregation laughing) Okay, I'm dating myself here, I recognize that, okay? This is for all of us old heads. Kmart, kids, you all don't know, you don't know about Kmart, okay? Kmart is no other business, but it was Wal-Mart before Wal-Mart. And they had something at Kmart that was phenomenal. Lay away. (congregation laughing) Come on now, lay away. What is lay away, you might ask. This is when you're at the store with your arm, like, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom." I need that, I need that, I need that. She's like, "Boy, mom, mom, mom, I like that for you." I'm like, "Come on, mom, come on, mom, come on." I'm like, "I don't have the money for that." I go, "Come on, mom, come on, mom." And she's like, "Okay, I'll put it on layaway." Which means she goes to the counter with your jeans or the shoes or whatever. And she says, "I wanna put this on layaway." That means it's set aside for you, but you don't own it yet. What she starts to do is she makes payments on it. Weekly payments, monthly payments, whatever it is.

Now, it's set aside for you. If she stops making the payments, it goes back on the rack. It's not yours any longer. But if she keeps making the payments, one day, you're wearing those new, we used to call them skippies. You know, there's raggedy shoes from Kmart. There were no jays there back in the day. That's layaway. Nowadays, we don't really use layaway. We use credit a lot. Credit is when you go and you swipe your card and you got your Bank of America or your Chase card or whatever else Fargo, whatever. You have your credit card and you say, "Oh, I like those shoes, but I don't have any money for it." You know what? Let me go ahead. I'll put it on credit. And then you swipe, some of y'all got really tense run. I just said that right there. Okay. So a lot of us live, right? I mean, I don't really have the money for it. I'll pay it later. So you swipe it and you now have it and you technically own it, but really you're still making payments on it. There'll be a day that you won't have that debt anymore

if you keep making the payments. That's credit. Now, there's another thing that's even better for a lot of us and Dave Ramsey would tell you it is. That's that debit card. Now, when you swipe your debit card, the money automatically comes out of your account and you own the thing immediately. You're not making any payments on that, but if you have $1,000 and you buy something for $200, you now have $800. We get this. So this is, you got layaway, you got credit and you also have debit. Now, I feel like going off verse number six, when he says, "I need you to truly understand God's grace." Some of us are thinking God's grace is layaway. I make payments on this. I don't own it just yet. And if I can make enough payments and be consistent enough in my payments, then I'll own it and then it'll be mine. But it's mine because I paid for it. You don't truly understand God's grace. It's not layaway. Some of us think it's credit. It's like, okay, now, now, I'm in debt. It's mine, but man, I still gotta pay on it. It's just kind of hovering over my head. No, no, you didn't pay for God's grace.

You don't truly understand God's grace. It's not a credit card. And it's not a debit card either. Where you think now that you now have less because you earned it, you cannot have less. Matter of fact, I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this, God in his infinite power and wisdom and grace, he does not do layaway. He does not do credit. He does not do debit. What God did is he gave you a gift. This is what God did. And God said, I purchased this. And when I purchased it, I do not have any less of me because I purchased this. God cannot go down in his account because he's God, no matter what. So when he gives grace, he does not have less grace because he is immutable. He cannot change. So I need you to truly understand the gospel of grace that you're not making payments on this. You're not in debt per se, and you're not the one that now has lost something in your account. You need to understand that God said, I purchased this for you of my own free will. And I'm bringing it to you and I'm offering you this gift. Open it. Open it. Open it.

It's for you. Open it. And don't just open it and go, oh man, that's too nice for me. And put it back in the box and then live your life outside of God's grace. No. Open it. And put it on. What he has given you, as a free gift. You cannot make enough payments. And God's account does not go down. I've heard some erroneous theology like, no, I don't need God's forgiveness. He can give that to somebody else. As if the forgiveness that God has can be exhausted. Once he gives it to you, he still has enough from me. And when he gives it to me, he still has enough from my kids and your kids and my friends and your friends, his account can never go down. I need you to truly understand God's grace. 'Cause there's some lies out here in our world today. I mean, I can't spend all the time with you that I'd like to when you're scrolling through Instagram or TikTok or YouTube and there's this short and somebody says something and they've got a book or they've got this platform or they've got this thing or that thing, you think, well, since all these people are following them, they must be right. And I'm telling you, there's a lot of people

with a lot of followers, but they're still not right. I'm trying to make sure we are always getting back to this glorious book right here, centered on the person of Jesus Christ. And this is the final authority. I need us to truly understand God's grace. And as we do, I pray that our eyes continue to be open. Now, keep on going with me up to this next verse, this next verse on verse number 20. It says, "By making peace through his blood "shed on the cross, by making peace "through his blood shed on the cross." The words here in the NIV are, you know, making peace. And this really captures the Greek word here because it's not just that Jesus brought peace. It's that Jesus made peace. Like, there was a disconnection between God and humanity. And Jesus reconciled. He made peace. There was not a way between us and God. And Jesus came and made a way for us. I looked up the Golden Gate Bridge. My wife is born in San Francisco, raised in Sacramento. So I looked up the Golden Gate Bridge, it popped into my head. And I was like, when was that made? And it was made in 1937 or something like that. I think it opened. But there was this massive chasm between one side of San Francisco and this other side.

And people were just going through on ferries all the time. And then when automobiles, more people started having automobiles, there was not really a way to get across. They had to put their cars on the ferry. And it was just taking forever and ever and ever. If somebody wanted to get to the other side, they had to drive hundreds of miles all the way around. So they had the idea, let's build this Golden Gate Bridge. And when they built the bridge, it cut down the time. I need you to understand that Jesus is that Golden Gate Bridge, if you will. And what he did on the cross, now what took forever for you to get to God, it doesn't take forever anymore. It's by grace through faith in Jesus that you are made new. He made a way. He made it. So now this bridge has happened, but there's something else happening on the cross. There is making peace with God, through his, what's the Bible say here? Through his blood shed on the cross. I wanna show you another verse in chapter two. Go with me to verse number 13 of Colossians chapter two, verse number 13. It says this, it says when you were dead in your sins, when you were dead in your sins, not like just a bad person, when you were dead in your sins,

'cause Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He couldn't make dead people alive. When you were dead in your sins and the circumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. Okay, let me have my papers real quick, please. Thank you. Okay, so on the cross, he's nailed our sins to the cross, is what's being communicated here. So I got some sins that some of y'all dealing with. Here's the first one. Yeah. This is Frisco. (congregation laughing) Last, last, last, last, last, last, last, last, last. (laughing) Let me see. Great, oh, Dallas, this is us. (congregation laughing) So I'm going through, kidding. I mean, we were all battling, you know, different things. I got some other ones, see, what's my other one? Oh, worry. Worry. So the Bible here tells us that he took the things that stood opposed to us and God.

And he nailed them to the cross, okay? So follow me here. See, nailed them to the cross. He took our lust, nailed it to the cross. Took our greed, nailed it to the cross. Took our pride, pride. Nailed it. Nailed it to the cross. Took our worry. Took our worry, you're like, worries are sitting? Yeah, Jesus was like, hey, look at these lilies. You see how God takes care of them? He's gonna take care of you. Seek first this kingdom and his righteousness, everything else will be added to you. You don't need to worry about tomorrow, tomorrow has enough problems of his own. You don't even need to worry, you don't even need to worry. This is what Jesus is teaching us. (congregation clapping) Jesus is teaching, I got you, I got you. The birds, they're not worried. You shouldn't be worried, because your words more than birds is what Jesus actually teaches. Let's see, here we are still, worry, worry. Oh, last one, selfishness. Man, this for the newlyweds. Remember when you were single, you were single, and you thought, I think I'm really gonna bless somebody

when they marry me. (congregation laughing) I mean, wow God, what you have done with me is gonna bless somebody's life, like they've never been blessed before. And now you're gonna fighting with each other 'cause you didn't realize how selfish you actually were. All these things, all these things. And there's a whole 'nother list. This is why here at Charlotte City, we're not trying to point at other people's sins. Like, because you're dealing with that, you know God, it must be really, really mad at you. No, we all got stuff. There's not one person on the side of my voice that doesn't have something. This week, something. This week didn't honor God the way we wanted to. This week did not say what we should have said, didn't do what we should have done, or we did something we wish we wouldn't have done. I mean, all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. So we're not a church that's pointing at people, saying you're the worst of the worst. We're instead saying we're pointing at Jesus, saying he's the best of the best. That's what we're doing here. (congregation applauding) And if a relationship is broken and fractured and things need to be dealt with, they definitely need to be dealt with.

But we're not judging people like we're looking down on other people. We are all at the foot of the cross in need of God's grace and truly understanding His grace. So now everything that we have done wrong has been nailed to the cross. So go back to Colossians chapter 1 verse number 20. What else is on the cross, making peace through His blood that's been shed on the cross? So now you have two things on the cross. You've got your sins and my sins and we also have the blood of Jesus on the cross. Both of these things meet at the cross. And for many of us, we are believing the lie that when our sins met the blood of Jesus on the cross, our sins are somehow more powerful than the blood of Jesus. But I need you to understand and truly understand God's grace that when your sins and my sins met the blood of Jesus Christ on that cross, it wasn't even a fight. The blood of Jesus every single time defeats and overcomes every single sin that I commit and that you commit. There is not a thing that you have battled in your life. There is not a problem that you have had. There is not something you have done or someone has done to you that once it gets on the cross, the blood of Jesus runs the other way. As a matter of fact, the blood of Jesus runs right towards it and says you bow your knee at the authority of who I am and where I'm from. Every single one of us are free because of the blood of Jesus. It wasn't even a fight. Now I want to tell you a quick little story. This week something happened at church with two guys on staff. One guy's name is Chris. The other guy's name is Kimmywell. Chris, I've known for a man, gosh, number of years now, maybe seven years or so, something like that. Kimmywell, I've known since he was a little kid.

I've known Kimmy since he was five years old. Well, Chris, I found out from his wife, he likes to yap about how he can beat everybody in a race. This is like his thing. I didn't know this was his thing. I've known him for a long time. He's never said to me, "Hey, Earl, you want a race." He's never said that to me. But I found out from his wife, he does this all the time. Somehow he'll take a conversation, I don't know, about whatever, and bring it and make it about, "Hey, I'll beat you in a race." So he is yapping. Kimmywell, I'll beat you in a race. Now, these two guys who are on staff at this church, I love these guys a whole bunch. I know Kimmywell, he's five years old, his mom and dad are campus pastors at our Frisco campus, Kimmywell, is at the Oakland campus, he's the campus coordinator there. But Tuesday of this week, during work hours, okay, we're supposed to be saving souls. I get a video, I get a video of these two guys in the parking lot, racing, okay? So I get this video, I see Kim and Chris racing. I want to show you this video, okay? I'm gonna show you what happened this Tuesday at our Dallas location in the parking lot this past week. Go ahead and play that video, play that video, play that video, play that video. Watch this, okay? You're gonna know who is who, real quick, you're gonna know who is who. Did you see that? Watch how, watch how Kim looks back at Chris, you're gonna see what we put in the slow-mo. He looks back. [APPLAUSE] Full, yappin', you're over here yappin'.

Kimmyo was wearing loafers, okay? He did not even put on tennis shoes. Your boy was wearing loafers and absolutely demolished him. When your sins met the blood of Jesus on the cross and your sins are yappin', and yappin', and yappin', and yappin'. The blood of Jesus said, look back at it, you can't beat me. You've never been able to beat me. I've always had more power than you. There's never been a time you could touch me. You have the audacity to think you can come against me. Watch. (congregation laughing) I need this picture in your head when you have made a mistake or fallen or done something you wish you wouldn't have done and you are thinking some lie that the blood of Jesus has somehow lost its power. This is the blood that gives me strength from day to day and it will never, ever lose its power. It reaches from the highest mountain. It flows to the lowest valley. You and I are part of this battle and we're just watching Jesus do what Jesus does. You don't even have to be the one to win the fight 'cause Jesus wanted for you, but you do have to be the one that puts your faith in Jesus to say, "Lord, I believe what you did for me." It's true. Thank you.

I know there's some dark things that we have done. I know there's some dark things that have been done to us and every one of those things have been nailed to this cross and the blood of Jesus met every one of those things and it always wins the race. Every time, every time, every time, every time. Earl, what if I did it on purpose? Every time. What if I sent the text and I knew where it was leading? Every time. Every time. I need us to truly understand God's grace. Peace made by Jesus through his blood that was shed on the cross. Okay, go with me to this next verse. Go with me to this next verse. Y'all start with me? Come on, so with me, here we go. Look at this, look at this now. Look at this verse number 23, verse number 23. Free from accusation. Free from accusation. When you're in the Bible, you can, and you're reading it, you'll see, and we talked about this some last week with the full armor of God, how the devil is scheming to try to get you to try to knock you off course. And sometimes it's not what we might call big sins, whatever that means. But it can even be the little things that he just sees.

Remember we talked about the scouting report of the devil could have on you to try to figure out your tendencies. He's looking at your tendencies and going, oh, okay, I can get him here. I can get hurt there. And there's some tendencies that I have that you don't have and some tendencies that you have that I don't have, but the devil in his scheming is trying to figure out how do I get this son and daughter of God to not trust the Lord anymore, to not follow hard after Jesus, to maybe even just live a lukewarm, mundane Christian life rather than going all in for the glorious Savior, scheming, scheming, scheming. The word devil in the Greek, it means accuser. Same thing in Hebrew, it means accuser. It can also connect with like slander. Look with me in the book of Revelation. Last book of the Bible. Revelation chapter 12, verse number 10, I believe. Let me see if I got that right. Yeah, yeah, Revelation chapter 12, verse number 12. heaven say, "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Messiah, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them, accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down." The picture here is if in God's courtroom there's the prosecutor. And the prosecutor is the devil, the accuser, day and night, walking up to God going. You see what he did. You see how they said that they're a Christian, but they're not living life one. You see it. You see how they had that chance to share your light and your love with somebody, but they didn't. They got scared. You see how they're intimidated to talk about you. You see it. You see that they keep falling into that same sin over and over and over again. You see

it. You see it. They keep saying, "I'm never grabbing that bottle again, but they always go back to it." You see it, God. Accusing. Accusing. These are some of the things that are running through our minds sometimes. Some of the reasons, some of us are like, "I'm not even coming to church anymore. I'm going to get things right with God before I come back. I'll get everything right, and then I'll come back to church, and then I'll be good to go. God, let me clean myself up first, and then I'll come back. I can't show my face again. I don't want anybody to know what I've been navigating, what I've been walking through. I was once on the top of the mountain, but now things are not where they used to be anymore. I've lost some battles. I've lost some opportunities. My life is kind of falling apart all in front of me. Let me just go ahead and get myself right. Then I'll come back, and this is the enemy. Accusing. Accusing. Accusing. Something wants to take us so much effort and energy. It's to go to a connect group or ask somebody for prayer because the accusations are real. You look at that ex-boyfriend or ex-girl friend or look at your kids and feel like I wasn't there for them the way I wanted to be. Look at your spouse and go, "Man, I messed up on my last marriage and I want to mess up in this one. It's still carrying so much weight. I am shocked how much guilt is weighing on the shoulders of God's sons and daughters. I'm shocked." I also get it because sometimes I'm like, "Earl, you know better. You know better." Since I know better, I feel like I should do better. When I don't do better, there's an accuser going, "You don't deserve anything that God has given you." So we begin to live way down. And we're like, "Hey, God, your Father, He loves you." And we're like, "No." We're like, "Hey, pray prayers of faith. God's on your side." No. Because this accuser, "Man, best prosecuting attorney that there's ever been." But the text here tells us even though the accuser is going day and night, that there's a day that's coming, that this accuser is snatched by the back of the neck. Like a coach would grab a middle linebacker and be like, "Hey, what do you get over here?" And he takes him and there's a day that's coming where this liar and this accuser, his mouth will be shut forever and he will be hurled down. And First Thessalonians tells us that the sky is going to break open and there's going to be the voice of the archangel in a trumpet sound and the dead in Christ will rise first and those of us who are alive will be caught up to meet him in the air. Now, the victory is already secure, but the devil's still yapping, but there's a day that his mouth will be shut forever. But until that day comes,

no longer a cage of I don't measure up you never measured up I never measured up it was never by our works anyway it was always by the grace of Almighty God I need you to truly understand God's grace but I got a warning for you got a warning it's found in Colossians go back with me to chapter one chapter one this is a warning the Apostle Paul gives again verse 22 but now he has reconciled you by Christ physical body through death to present you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation verse number 23 if you continue in your faith established and firm and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel there's a warning you can move away from this you can move away from this hope it's not about losing salvation I believe you're fully secure once you give your heart and your life to Jesus you didn't get your salvation by works you don't lose your salvation by works you're fully secure in Christ but there's a lot of followers of Jesus who are fully saved but have drifted from the hope that is found in the finished work of Jesus Christ and I don't want us drifting church I want us established and firm last verse here I'm reading it in the message version to more thought for thought translation it says you don't walk away from a gift like that you stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust constantly tuned into the message careful not to be distracted or diverted there is no other message just this one it's by grace through faith in Jesus that you're saved and you and I are free from accusation that's the word of the Lord for every single one of us do me a favor family bow your heads for a moment if you would not mind friends in the additional seating online in this room bow your head for just a moment if you're under the sound of my voice you've never given your heart and your life to Christ you never made them first you never made them number one but you're under the sound of my voice right now you're saying I don't want to go my own way I want to go the way of Jesus on the count of three I want you to do something simple but something bold you've never given your heart to Christ at one point in time you did and you've turned another direction and today you're saying I want to rededicate my life to serving Jesus it's not about were you baptized or do you have a Bible I'm asking do you want to follow the path and the person of Jesus Christ forgiveness of your sins turning from your own direction the Bible uses the word repent that's you you've never given your heart to Christ at one point in time you didn't you slipped away today you're saying I want to give my heart my life to him on the count of three just throw your hand in the air ready one two three just lift your hand up you're saying yup that's me I want to give my heart and my life to Christ this is beautiful come on friends in the balcony and additional seating you're saying yeah that's me I want to give my heart my life to Christ right now I'm going to stop running today's the day for me today's the day everyone do me a favor put your hand over your heart if you would not mind I want everyone to repeat this prayer out loud after me say dear Jesus I ask you to forgive me of all my sins I admit I've made mistakes and today I give you my heart I give you my life give me the power to live for you in Jesus name amen amen [BLANK_AUDIO]