Identity | Adoption

- Yeah. One of the things I love about our church, y'all, and there are many things I love about our church, but one of them is this is that adoption has been a part of the DNA and fabric of this place for so long. One day, we're all gonna be in heaven, and then and only then will we know how many children were adopted into godly homes just because of Southland Christian church. It's one of the things I'm most proud of about y'all. In fact, a couple weeks ago, I found myself sitting around a campfire with some other pastors from around the country, and it was a pretty cool opportunity for me to just get to brag on you all and brag on what God is doing around this place. I mean, those of you who know me well, you know that this place just hits different for me because this is my home church. Like literally like every significant event in my life outside of like the birth of my children happened within a few feet of where I'm standing right now at this Nicholasville campus, my baptism, my ordination, my wedding day, all that stuff happened here. And so this place just means more to me than I'm able to even express, but to be able to sit around that campfire with those men and just kind of brag on you guys, I'm so proud of you all and the way that you are leaning

into how the Holy Spirit is moving in us and among us. And so I'm just grateful to be a part of this church and to get to be your pastor. If you're grateful to be a part of this church, let's just kind of give it up for each other. Yeah. (congregation applauding) Let me do this, let me pray 'cause I need it right now. And so we're gonna dive into some pretty heavy stuff today. So why don't you pray with me and then we're gonna get to work. Father God, we're gonna turn our ear and our heart to your word now. And we trust that it's living and it's active, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, it'll divide us, it'll cut us deep. And Father, we pray, we invite you right now to convict us where we need to be convicted. Father, I pray that we'll be responsive and we'll move in the direction that you want us to move. Do what you want us to do. Receive what you want us to receive today as we open up your word. It's in Jesus' beautiful name, I pray, amen. Y'all got your Bibles and I hope you do. We're gonna be in Ephesians for a while. So go to Ephesians chapter one. We're gonna park there for the next several weeks to go ahead and put that little ribbon in there or dog ear it, whatever you need to do

'cause we're gonna be there for a while and we have a new keyword. If you got your journals, I know those things are getting ragged at this point. We're gonna press on to the end of the year, then we're gonna get some cool new journals next year. Our keyword is identity. And what you might've noticed is that we built a nice little bridge into Ephesians from last week when my guy Aaron Brockett preached on Ephesians and one of the most powerful texts in all of scripture that's found in Ephesians chapter two last week to build us a bridge into this study that we're gonna be in for a little while. And you guys may not have realized this, but we've actually been learning and studying a lot about Ephesus and Ephesians throughout the year. If you wanna do kind of a more deep dive of this, you can track back to some things we've already covered this year in Acts chapter 19 and 20. Go study those events this week because the Apostle Paul spent about three years in Ephesus before he really planted this church and then he turned over the church to a young man named Timothy. So every time you read first and second Timothy, you're getting more background on Ephesus. So there's a whole lot of writing plus you have Ephesians that we're gonna dive into today. So there's a lot that I could say about Ephesus, but probably the thing that describes Ephesus the most

would be this, it was a fatherless place. It was a place that was marked by fatherlessness. Another way that I often describe it is that if you took Las Vegas and New Orleans and those two cities had a baby, that'd be Ephesus. Like every dark, evil, vile, corrupt thing that you can imagine being put on display was being put on display in Ephesus on a daily basis. And one of the reasons I describe it as fatherless, let me articulate it for you this way. When I grew up, my mom and I, we used to go visit my great-grandparents down in London, Kentucky. They actually originated in a place called Horse Creek, Kentucky, the metropolis of Horse Creek. Find that one on a map. They moved to the big city, London, and we would go visit them. And we called them Mamaw and Patball. How many of y'all got a Mamaw? How many of y'all got a Patball? How many of y'all got a Mamaw and a Patball? Yeah, a whole bunch of us. We got Mamaw's and Patball's and Granny's and Patball's and all the things. And so this was Mamaw and Patball. And my Patball, man, he was like the loudest man on the planet, not because of his personality, necessarily, but because Mamaw just didn't hear so good.

And so he was shouting all the time at her and so he was shouting all the time at everybody else. And so when I would step foot into his home, he had two greetings for me, one that was really fun and funny, one that was not fun or funny, and the fun and funny one, this was just kind of an inside joke between us, is he would greet me and he would go, hello, Democrat. And the reason he would call me Democrat was because he was a big Reagan guy. And so back in the '80s, he was handing out those dare shirts. How many of you were children of the '80s? You were in the dare program. I'm like, "Papa, I'm five. "I'm not doing cocaine, I promise. "Like, I'm not, I've seen the commercials, "my brain will get fried, I'm, you know." But that was kind of the thing. So we had this friendly banter back and forth about that. But the other not so funny thing that it would say to me that was kind of unsettling is he would go, "There's that poor little orphan boy." And I would look up at my mom and I'd be like, "I think Papa has lost his mind." 'Cause you're standing right here with me. And so I think she finally told him to stop saying that, but she would pull me aside. I remember her pulling me aside one time and saying, "Yeah, well, listen. "In the framework that Papa grew up in, "if your father was not in your home full-time

"for any reason, you were just considered an orphan." That's what you were called. Now, politically incorrect, of course, entirely wrong, no. Because here's the role of a father. This is very important, write this down. A father is supposed to tell you who you are, whose you are, and what you have. It's the role of a father to tell you who you are, who you belong to, and what you got. And so you have a town full of orphans and ethicists because they have no idea what their identity is. A father is meant to speak life and identity and direction into their kids. Here's, check this out, this is so cool. Did you know that the word "encourage" literally just means to speak courage into? So a father is supposed to speak courage into their children, that's what they do. Now, the problem is no earthly father will do that perfectly. And sometimes earthly fathers don't do that at all. So what do we do? 'Cause we all got these questions. Who am I, who do I belong to, what do I got, what do I have? So what do we do? We start running off in all kinds of different directions, trying to get those answers to those questions and all the wrong places from all the wrong people. This is a tale as old as time. How many of you have had the experience

of seeing an old Disney movie much later in your life as an adult that you remember seeing as a kid and then having this realization, oh man, this thing's super creepy. This movie is really, really creepy. I'll give you a great example. Go watch Pinocchio on this rainy day today. Yeah, some of y'all know what I'm talking about, but there's this part where there's this dude, he's called the food barker, okay? He lures young boys onto his carriage and where does he take them? He takes them to, here's what it's called, pleasure island. And on pleasure island, what do they do? They live it up, they do what they want, they drink what they want, they smoke what they want, they break stuff, they do what boys do when there's no fathers around. There's no fathers on pleasure island. And so some of us, that's our story, man. We've rebelled, we've ran, we've put on display for the world to see what it looked like just to go try to find our identity and temporary things at the expense of the eternal. We lived it up and we lived really big. Some of us did it very differently though. We actually rebelled in a religious self-righteous way and we stayed in really close proximity to the things of God, even though we were really, really far from God.

And so Paul writes to the Ephesian church and he writes to Timothy who make, don't miss this, Timothy was an orphan and he's their pastor. You think that was on purpose? Paul literally calls Timothy my child in the faith. My son, Paul actually adopted Timothy in the faith. So he writes to a place full of fatherless people with a fatherless pastor, with a fatherly tone to tell them about their heavenly father. You tracking with me? All right, so here we go. We're going Ephesians chapter one, verse one. Get ready to highlight and underline some stuff. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you in peace from God our, give me the word, father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to notice what he does, this is so profound. He calls these fatherless people, these orphans who don't know who they are, he calls them saints. And depending on your background, this may totally wreck you, like saints. That's like you wear those people's picture on a charm around your necklace. And people pray to them. Don't you have to do like do a few miracles to be considered a saint and all that kind of stuff. Listen, none of that's in the Bible. You know what is in the Bible?

If you're found in Christ, you are in fact a saint. In fact, the way I would say to you is this, if you've exchanged your sin for Jesus' righteousness, guess what you are, you're a saint. If you've made that exchange, if you've made that trade, trade, here's my sin, here's my shame, here's all of it. And you received the righteousness of Christ, then what you are is you are a saint. And the word saint, don't miss how profound this is, it means you're a holy, perfect set apart and pure. That's what you are. How in the world can that be? Only because of Jesus, only through Jesus, by grace through faith in Jesus, that's how. "For our sake, he, God the Father, made him Jesus the Son to be sin." He didn't just take on our sin, he literally became our sin. And he, by the way, knew no sin, he never sinned. Why do you do that? So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. So that means that when God the Father looks at you, he sees the righteousness of his Son objectively, that's his reality. And you may be sitting there going, "Well, that ain't my reality." 'Cause when I look in the mirror, I do not see a saint. And I totally get it. Many of you, you've had to endure my tales of all my challenges with my real ID and driver's licenses and the DMV and all those things over the years. And as it turns out, if you stand on stage and tell these stories enough, the people in Frankfurt

will fix that problem for you to make you be quiet about it. So I have, I've got a functioning real ID that works real good in the airport now. I got it, yeah, there you go, thank you. Thank you, my high school buddy, Eric, thank you. I appreciate that, he works in Frankfurt. Now, so when we first moved here, back in 2017, one of the things that happened was I did, we're moving four babies and dogs and stuff like that across the country. I didn't pay attention to the fact that my driver's license, my Colorado-issued driver's license, had expired. Fun fact, if you allow that to happen in order to get a new driver's license in a different state, at least back in 2017 in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, that I know and love so much, guess what you gotta do? Take the written driver's test, that's right. Guess what, this guy hadn't studied forever. Not when I was 16, certainly not when I was 37, right? So I'm like, I gotta do what? And they usher me in in downtown Nicholasville into this little concrete block room that feels like a jail cell. And they got this very mean lady who's administering the test in there who just loves this role. And it's me and a bunch of 16-year-olds and their parents. And they pass out the test. And I'm watching these kids nervously take the test and turn it in. They run it through a little Scantron thing.

And this lady loved it when someone failed. She would go, you failed. She would announce it to the whole room. She would shame them. She'd be like, you can come back in two weeks, but not until then, study harder next time. And I'm sitting there going, I'm totally as a grown man. Gotta fail this thing. Right here in front of everybody in downtown Nicholasville, everybody goes to the south and this is gonna be terrible. And I just need to confess this to you. I took out my phone under my desk. Hey, don't be so judgy, all right? It was not the Holy Spirit that kept me from cheating. It was the bad service because of the brick walls. I could not Google it, but I was gonna cheat. And so I just had to take it. I passed, gave it a little Scantron thing. I'm shaking them like, I'm a grown man. I'm standing here shaking. She looks at me, she's like, you passed. She was so disappointed. And she sent me off to get my picture taken across the street at the courthouse. So I walk across the street to the courthouse, I walk into this little cubicle and the lady who's working in there, I'm not joking. She had been married. Her first marriage was to Methuselah. She was the oldest person I've ever seen in my life.

Then she's in there and I walk in and she doesn't say, one, two, three, she doesn't say smile. She doesn't say, look at the camera. She just takes the picture and this is the result. This is what my driver's license looks like for years. I don't think you're supposed to wear a hat. She didn't care. She didn't have enough time to worry about that, you know? And here's the deal, that looks more like a mug shot, doesn't it, than anything else. And some of us, when we look in the mirror, that's what we see. We see sin, we see mistakes, we see the fact that we're a mess up, we've screwed everything up in our life, but that is not who you are. If you are in Christ, do you understand? Not only is he telling you who you are, he's telling you who you are. If you are a follower of Jesus, you need to understand that the living God, Alpha and Omega, the creator of heaven and earth, look right at me, calls you his daughter, calls you his son, you belong to him. And you might be thinking, how in the world does that happen? That's a great question, let's keep going in Ephesians. Just so you know, this whole passage is the longest run-on sentence in the New Testament. It is, we added all the commas and periods in English, but in Greek, none of them are there. It's like Paul couldn't contain himself

as he was writing these profound realities, when he says, blessed be the Godfather of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us in Christ, this is such an important word, with every, not some, not a few, not a limited amount, every spiritual blessing and blameless before him, your saints. In love he predestined us, here's our word, for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he's blessed us in the beloved. You were adopted. You were brought into the home of your heavenly Father. That's why those of you in our church who've adopted kids, y'all are my heroes because you have put on display the most profound doctrine that can be found in the pages of Scripture by bringing a child into your home that desperately needed a home. Our God, the creator of the universe, before the foundation of the world decided and determined. This is so important for you to understand. The cross was not plan B. Do you understand? So he created all this knowing this is how he was going to go down. So before Adam and Eve took that bite of that fruit and rebellion and before we followed suit with our own sinful rebellion, he determined ahead of time what he was going to do. He was going to send his son on a rescue mission. Why? To get the rest of his kids back because he knew that we would rebel. He knew that we would run and so he decided ahead of time to do something about it. The cross was plan A, it was not plan B. Now here's the challenge. Some of us, maybe in fact many of us, we're sitting here right now amending this sermon, not out loud, you know, because you like to keep things chill, but in your heart you're amending because you're like this is really good news for people like that. There's really good news for those rebels. Like this is really good news for people who, yeah, their picture kind of looks like you're Scott. Those mess ups, you know. And so you are, you're in a place that makes me really, really nervous. I get so profoundly nervous I lose sleep over this. Some of us, we can come into these worship services across these campuses and we can sing songs like we sing and be unmoved. And I have to ask you this question today, where is your AWE? We sing these beautiful realities and some of us stand here stoically and we are unmoved by the reality of what we're singing about and what we're talking about. Some of us, we hear the, we hear the scriptures unpacked and we're just,

it doesn't do anything. It doesn't affect us in any way shape or form. That's why we get to the end of our worship services and while other people are praising his name and planting their faces on rugs and partaking in communion, we're thinking about the parking lot and what's for brunch. And that makes me really, really nervous for anyone under the sound of my voice who has no awe of the living God, of this father that would adopt rebellious kids back into his home. But I have good news for you. He told, Jesus told a story not only for you, but literally like directly to you. You can do this. You can flip over to Luke chapter 15 and hold your place in Ephesians 1. This is really important. Flip on over there. We're going to be here for a minute. All right, now as you get there to Luke chapter 15, here's what you're going to notice. There is a heading over this very famous story that will be very familiar to most of us and your Bible probably says one of two things. It says either the parable of the prodigal son or it says the parable of the lost son. And what I want you to understand is that heading is totally wrong. Now don't get nervous, okay? I am as 1000% committed to biblical infallibility and inerrancy as I've ever been, you just need to know those little headings were just added later by man to help us navigate the scriptures just like the numbers of chapters and verses. And this is wrong on at least two levels and Jesus and Luke 15, 11 gives us an example of why it's wrong when it says this and he, this is Jesus talking, he said there was a man who had how many sons? Two sons. What's your heading say? Parable of the prodigal son. Parable of the lost son. But Jesus is telling a story about a man who had two sons. Look back at verse one and we'll see another problem. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, this is what they always did, saying this man received sinners and eats with them. So Jesus told them this parable. Who's the them that this is addressed to? It's not the tax collectors and the sinners, although they're leaning in and listening, they're certainly under the sound of his voice. This is directly addressed to the self-righteous religious this famous story that you all know so well, so much so. Some of us are like, oh, we're gonna talk about this again? Yeah, we're gonna talk about this again. You know how it goes down. This younger son, he's like, man, life at Pleasure Island looks and sounds like it would be way more fun

than life at home with my father. But since my father won't hurry up and die so that I can get my share of the inheritance, he has the audacity to go to his father and say, can I just go ahead and get that now? And his father lets him. He puts it for sale sign and the part of the property that would have been his inheritance. He sells it and as soon as that money hits his hand, he takes off to a foreign land where he just lives it up, man, he squanders his wealth and it's so fun. It's so fun, whatever he wants to taste, he tastes, whatever he wants to touch, he touch, whoever he wants to sleep with, he sleeps with, he just lives it up. It's awesome, it's so fun until one day it's not. And some of us, this is our story. And like that son, you woke up in the middle of a mess and a place you never dreamed you would be with people you never thought you would be with, doing things you never dreamed you would do. And it tells, Jesus tells us in this instance, this younger son, he literally came to his senses and what brought him sanity was remembrance of his father and his father's house. And he remembers, man, even the servants lived better than this, and so he comes to his senses and what does he do? The biblical word for this is simply he repents. He leaves his life of sin and he heads home to his father, he goes home, that's what repentance means.

But he keeps his expectations low. He's like, there's no way that my father would ever receive me back as a son. And so he begins to rehearse his speech. He starts going through it, he's limping home in the middle of his filth, in the middle of his mess, but he's rehearsing his speech that he's gonna deliver to his father. Father, I've sinned against heaven and I've sinned against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your what, son. But if you'll just let me serve you, if you'll just let me slave for you, I'd be really, really grateful. And so he limps home. And what Jesus tells us is that while that man was still a long way off, the father saw him and in a very undignified way, the father runs to the son. Now stop, we know how the story goes, but everybody listening to Jesus would've been like, well, he's about to get what he's got coming to him. Because in an honor culture, in a shame and honor culture, the expectation would've been at the least that this father was running toward the son to beat the son, to put condemnation on the son, to shame the son because the son had brought shame on the father, this is the expectation. And so everybody is floored when they hear that the father runs to the son and he wraps his arms around him in love. And he puts a ring on his finger,

reinstating him as his son, puts a robe around him. You're not a slave. He puts sandals on his feet. You are mine. And he tells the servants, go kill the fat and calf. We are having a party tonight. And everybody is dumbfounded and everybody is awestruck at the lavish and excessive things that the father is doing for the son. Do you see? This is why we try to out-celebrate heaven around here. Every time we see someone get baptized. Last week, this was an awesome moment for me. My buddy Aaron had gotten done preaching. We were responding, we were praying. I was on my knees down front here at the Nicholasville campus. And I was just praying and all of a sudden, my prayers were interrupted by your celebration. And as I looked up, I saw that someone was being baptized. You may have noticed this, that over our baptistaries, we have the phrase one more, but we also have a scripture reference from this chapter in the Bible, where Jesus says, just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over how many? One sinner who repents in over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. And so often, we just stop telling the story right there. I mean, that's an awesome part of the story. It's just not where Jesus stopped telling the story.

Because remember, this is a parable about two sons. And so we pick up the story in verse 25, where the smell of the grill is going, the music has begun and dancing has commenced. The party is rocking and the wine is flowing. And that's where we pick it up, check it out. Now his older son, he's off in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked them, "What's going on, man?" And he said to him, "Well, your brothers come, "and your father, man, he killed the fat and calf, "because he's received him back safe and sound, "but he was what? "Angry, what do you do?" And this is what makes me so nervous for some of us who are so stoic that we could stand outside the party and look like we're out of funeral. What are we doing? We're here to celebrate the most awe-inspiring realities in the universe, and some of us, again, we're just unmoved. And here's the thing. It's not because we're irreligious people. I went to a huge worship service last night. There were over 50,000 people at it. I saw many of you. It was that Commonwealth stadium. Do you hear what I'm saying to you?

I'm with you. I was there. What do I do when someone runs? The Kentucky runs back a pump return for a touchdown. What do I do? My arms go up. Why? Because something cool happened. But listen, here's the thing that I'm deeply convicted by. I don't ever want to be found celebrating more enthusiastically for what a 19-year-old does on a field than I would for the creator of the universe, bringing dead people to life, y'all. You with me? And some of you, like right now, you're like, please stop saying this. I get it, because here's what I'm attacking. Like I'm coming right at our religious pride. I totally get it. But we have to recognize that we are deeply religious people who have affections for things that are temporary and we will allow those affections to terminate on the temporary at the expense of the eternal. And so what do we have to do with our pride? We have to lay it down. So for some of us, what that simply means is it's changed in our posture from here to here. Cool, do it today. For some of us is here to here, okay? For some of us, it's here to here.

Some of us is here to here. But our posture has to change. This is how we do battle with pride. This is how we fight this spiritual battle as we look at ourselves in the mirror and we go, I know there is pride there. And we forget about what other people are thinking because let me just remind you. Like listen, when my arms went up at the football game last night, when we scored a touchdown, nobody looked at me and went, what are you doing, bro? Not one person was like, settle, chill, we're not that kind of a place. 'Cause we are. It's a cathedral devoted to the worship of something that happens, we have a liturgy. Like have you ever noticed? Like we have a call and response thing. If I say first down, y'all know to yell, Kentucky. If I say, everybody, clap your hands. Everybody does it, everybody knows it. We've got a liturgy around these things and that's why I'm so frightened for so many of us. This is the way I describe it when I travel away from the Bible belt. I go, here's what's happening in the Bible belt. People are inoculated to Jesus. They've had just enough exposure to Him to be immune to Him. And that terrifies me

because that's what the issue was with the older brother. And here's what I want you to notice. The father, what he does, his father came out just as you notice, the father moved towards both rebellious sons and he intruded, he pleaded with them. But he answered his father, look, these many years, what? I've served you, he's forgotten who he is. And this is ridiculous. And I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never even gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who's devoured your property with prostitutes, what do you do? You killed the fat and calf for Him. That's what you did, Dad. Why did you do that? He makes two crazy statements. He's forgotten who he is. He calls himself, he references himself as a servant, as a slave. Some translations literally say all these years I've slaved for you, bro, that's not who you are. You're a child, you're his child. And then what does he say? He has the audacity to go, and I've never disobeyed you. Come on, man. What child has never disobeyed their parents? He's living in a delusion. And so what does the father do? Like let me tell you, listen, as an earthly father,

you know what I would wanna do to a son like that? Smack him right upside his dumb head. That's what I would wanna do. Watch what this father does. He said to him, what's he calling? Son. And you're always with me. And all that is mine is yours. Why are you worried about one goat? The whole thing is yours. It was fitting to celebrate me glad for this brother. Don't forget he's your brother was dead and is alive. We've called it the prodigal son. It should be called the prodigal father because here's what the word prodigal means. Excessive and lavish. Now ask yourself this question. Who's the most excessive and lavish person in the story? The father. Who's lavish and excessive grace far outpaces the lavish, excessive sins of his two sons. This is a story of a prodigal God. See, we always think this is about the lavish, excessive sins of one son, but no, no, no, no. This is about the lavish and excessive grace of the father. And this is what is available to you. If you don't know Jesus today, you need to track with this and know that you could have this before you leave today. And if you are in Christ, you need to be reminded that this is what you have in him. Not only do you know who you are, who you are, but this is what you have. Look at it back in Ephesians chapter 7. In him we have redemption through his blood. That's like the storyline of the Bible, redemption through the blood.

The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace with which he lavished upon us. And then all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite. Notice not some things, not a few things, but all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth in him. We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Why? So that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory in him. You also, that's us, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him. You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who's the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Do you feel the power of the Word of God today? I hope that the Holy Spirit is doing what only he can do right now, and he's impressing upon you the reality of your adoption, if you're a follower of Jesus, and the reality of conviction of your sin, if you're not, and so that you can receive all of that in so much more today, because you have the opportunity, if you don't know him, to buy the time you leave here today, be able to look at somebody and go, "I'm a child of God." I'll never forget. A day my oldest was born. And my wife, she, Ali, she labored all night. We got all the way into the next morning, into the early hours. She had worked so hard, and I remember they started pulling out like all these contraptions to help deliver my daughter, Landry, and I remember having this moment where I was like, "I feel like modern medicine should have advanced beyond a plunger or a vacuum, but that seems like what y'all are using right now." And so when Landry was born, she had this knot on her head. She was red and greasy, and she is beautiful today. She's beautiful today, trust me. Not so much on that day, if I'm being super honest. But man, when she was born, she was looking right at me, and I just never will forget. Don't forget looking right at her and going, "Hey, like in my mind, I'm going, "Hey, nice to meet you.

I'd kill for you, and I would gladly die for you." And here's the thing about that. She was the most passive participant in the room. She didn't do nothing. She had just been born. Ali did a lot of work. I tried to coach. I got hit by nurses. They didn't like that. But I tried. I did some things. Landry was just born. I didn't look at her and go, "Because you did such a good job being born, I guess I'll allow you into my home and I'll feed you for a while if you can keep up the good work." Now, man, I loved her with an intensity that cannot be described with words, and so many of you know exactly what I'm talking about and look right at me. I'm telling you that level of intensity is the love with which the Father has for you times 10 billion. That's how much he loves you. And in case you ever doubt that, all you have to do is look to a day in human history to know that's how much he loves you. It's when Jesus went to the cross and another day on the third day when he emptied that grave and because that grave is empty, anything is possible. And so here is the challenge today. Some of us have been rebellious in a very religious kind of way. You've been in proximity to the things of God, but you don't know God because you don't have a relationship with Jesus through which you can have a relationship with God, the Father. Read it twice tomorrow by Tim Keller. It's literally called the Prodigal God. And in it, one of the most important things he says is this, the main barrier between Pharisees and God is their damnable good works. To truly become a Christian, we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right.

All our righteous works when we're trying to present them before God is reason to accept us in a relationship with him. They're like filthy rags. Matt Chandler says it like this. You can rebel against God with sex drugs and rock and roll, or you can rebel against God with church attendance and go into Sunday school. Either way, you are far from God. So you may have lived your life in religious rebellion, or you may have lived your life in outright rebellion. Either way, the call is the same. Come on home today. Come on home to the Father today. It is time to come home because the tomb of Jesus is empty. Anything is possible, which means that you today can be adopted as one of his kids. I'm gonna pray for you right now, let's pray. Father God, I pray for anyone right now under the sound of my voice, under the conviction of your Holy Spirit, who doesn't know your son Jesus, who's not received this lavish gift of grace. Father, I pray that you would compel them by the power of your Holy Spirit to come receive that gift today. I pray across all of our campuses. Anyone who is unsure of their salvation will not leave our campuses today

until they have come forward and they have at least talked to somebody and taken whatever steps they need to take because you already took all the steps towards us. All we have to do is receive your amazing grace. And Father, for those of us who have received this amazing grace, may we always live in all of that reality. It's in Jesus name, I pray, amen. Y'all, this is why we respond around here. This is why we don't just fold up, shop, and head for the parking lot. This is why we praise His holy name because if this is all true, this demands that we respond. And so we're gonna praise His name right now. We're gonna give you 10 minutes to praise His name. This is why we pray. This is why we come down front and pour out our soul before God and do business with Him. This is why we change our posture. Whatever you need to bring with you today, bring it down front across our campuses, hit these rugs, and pour out your soul before your Father. And this is why we take so much time to partake of communion. You have all this time right now to remember the body of our Savior broken for you, the blood poured out for you, and payment for your sins. So let's praise, let's pray, and let's partake.

Let's respond.