Pastor Gary Wilkerson - His Love, Your Breakthrough

It's wonderful to be here at Times Square Church and be with our friends. I remember so many Sundays sitting on the side of the stage, the pastors used to sit up here and I'd sit up there with my father and Pastor Carter and other pastors and teachers and leaders and just to see the history of what God's done here and to have you come tonight to hear what the Lord has put on my heart, you know how thrilled I am by that. It's just such a wonderful joy to be with you tonight. I asked the worship team, thank you Ricardo and team, I asked them to sing that last song Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. It just popped into my mind earlier today and I just wanted to sing it because I really believe it establishes through song what we want to accomplish here tonight. You did not invite a psychologist, although a psychologist or psychiatrist could possibly help you. You did not invite somebody to just lay hands on you and pray for you and instantaneously all your problems and all the breakthroughs that you need in your life will just go away. You called a preacher, a Bible teacher to come here tonight and that's who I am. And the good news about that is that I can tell you without hesitation, without doubt that the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword. I trust the Word of God. I believe it is the power to bring life and overcome death. I believe it is what sets the captives free. I believe the Word of God breaks yokes and bondages. And so we have something to trust tonight. We trust in the Word of God and the God of the Word. We trust in the sufficiency of Scripture. I've been to counseling. I've done counseling pastoral for others and I believe there's good things that happen in those situations. But nothing sets the captives free like trusting the Word of God. So I'm going to dig into the Word of God. I hope you love the Word of God.

Those of you who are here tonight listening, those of you who are watching online, university students, I know if you're watching on your phone you could be easily distracted and want to Google something, but I just pray you'd stay put. And if you'll just give me 30 minutes, I think you're going to see something transform your life that could help keep you, that you won't have to be 60 years old and come back and try to get a change. He can establish something in you right now. So hang in there. Let's turn in our Scriptures to Romans chapter 5. We're going to begin reading in verse 12 through 21. I want to pray for us first. Father, give me words to speak. Give us ears to hear. Give the Holy Spirit power to set us free. In Jesus' name. Amen. I want to talk to you tonight about why is, a question I have for you is why is the world the way it is? Why do we need to get together and ask the Lord for breakthroughs in our life, to change situations and circumstances that we are facing that are difficult in our life? And I believe this passage of Scripture surprisingly speaks to it. As we first read it, you will say, why in the world is he picking Romans chapter 5 on a night where we're coming for a breakthrough of things that are binding us, things that are strongholds in our life? And it's not exactly where most people would go. And scholars and Bible commentaries say this chapter is probably one of the most difficult chapters to translate, to interpret, to understand. Because Paul digs deep, and he goes fast, and he uses a lot of words, and nonetheless he is accomplishing something that if we understand what we're going to be talking about tonight, you will walk out of this building with a new authority of who you are in Christ, with

a new appreciation of what he's done for you, and a new hope for your future that he truly has already set us free. You came here tonight hoping you'd get set free. This truth is going to tell you, you've already been set free. You just have to understand it, and apply it, and walk in it. So let's read together. You got your Bible? Or your second best thing besides your Bible is your telephone? All right, verse 12, chapter 5, therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass, for if many die through one man's trespass, much more. or have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that, I love this next phrase, that one man Jesus Christ abounded to many, verse 16. And the free gift is not like the result of the one man's sin, for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification, for if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Can you say hallelujah? Hallelujah. Now the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through the righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. My friends, this is the word of the Lord that we're reading together, and I thank God for it. Here's the question I wanna first ask is, why is the world like it is? Have you ever asked that question? Why is America like it is? Why is New York City facing the situations that it's facing? Why is the world like it is? And we see what has happened since this chapter is describing Adam, the first man, Eve, the first woman. It's describing their fall into sin at the garden. Genesis chapter one, two, and three

begins to tell us that story. And that speaks to why the world is like it is. Right now, there's wars going on all across the globe. Over the past 3,400 years, there have only been 268 years of peace. That's less than 1% of history's time where you could look across the globe and say there are no wars going on. There have been wars and rumors of wars, as Jesus predicted there would be, from times beginning. It is estimated that over the past few centuries, more than one billion deaths have been caused by wars taking place around the world. And that doesn't include all the widowed, the wounded. It doesn't include all those orphans. It doesn't really even speak. When you speak about a billion dead, you think of how many times a soldier knocked on a woman's door and said, ma'am, I'm afraid to tell you, or mother, I'm afraid to tell you that your son was shot and killed or was blown up or airplane crashed. And that tragic news, could you imagine that door opening? You're seeing two soldiers in their brass there. They're standing there, and all of a sudden, you already know what the news is gonna be. You've lost a son, you've lost a husband, you've lost a spouse, a wife. Millions upon millions have heard that story.

And just in this last century alone, there's been over 231 million deaths, one quarter of what has taken place in the last 3,400 years. So it tells me it's escalating. It's getting, as Jesus said, wars would get worse and worse. Evil men would grow more and more evil. And you can never diminish the horrors of war. And yet there is one other element of death in our culture, and that's abortion. 73 million children are aborted every single year. In the last 50 years, 3,650,000,000 children have been killed at the hands of an abortionist. That's three or four times more than have been killed in all the wars since history began. There's 200,000 abortions to take place around the world every day. 8,333 are taking place while this service is going. By the time I'm finished speaking to you, 8,000 more babies will have been killed. Why is the world like it is? Crime is something that affects many of us in the world. When I lived in, pastored in Detroit, Michigan, I lived in the inner city in a very poor neighborhood. My house was broken into five times in six months. One time, they had not only jimmied open the door, but they had actually knocked the whole door frame over, and it was laying in my hallway. And my Doberman pincher, my protective watch, dog was hiding in the closet crying, but, but, uh, and I know we talked tonight already

about not having any fear, but when your house is broken into five or six times, you kind of don't sleep quite as bad as well at night. Right. And I think many of you here in New York city know what it's like to wonder if it's safe to walk the streets or what time should you be home or when should your children come in before dark. 14 million reported crime, violent crimes took place in America last year. And only the police predict, uh, have estimated that only 40% of violent crimes are actually even reported. So that number escalates when you think of that. I'm not trying to make you feel negative here tonight, but let me just go on a little further because this is something that's dear to my heart is, is, is the desire to see children have a better future. And child abuse is a horrible thing that's happening in America and around the world today. One in seven children are physically or sexually abused by the time they're 12 years old that, and there's 2000 deaths every year in America of children that die at the hands of a father or a mother or a family member that take the life of a little one. Horrible, horrible, horrible situation. I asked myself, what kind of world are we living in? Sometimes I get discouraged. Sometimes I get anxious. I get like, you know, how long, oh Lord, right? How long, oh Lord, oh Lord, till you come back and, and end all this horror that's taking place. So asking ourselves the question, why is the world like it is, is very important for us to ask. We could try to hide our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist and just watch television at night and try to live a happy life and ignore it all. But it's happening whether you hide or, or realize that it's there. And I'm not asking you by any mean, stretch of means to spend your time just consumed with some of these statistics that I'm sharing with you tonight. But I, I just wanted to remind you that we're living in a fallen world. The, the, the text we read said sin came into the world. And it says it came to the world through one man. You know, probably everybody in this room has some regrets, regrets, but could you imagine the regrets that Adam has? Like, like how are you feeling today, Adam? I have a few regrets that because of that one sin, everybody in the world has fallen into sin ever since. Every war has started ever since. Every crime has been taking place ever since. Every abortion has taken place ever since. Every crime has taken place. Every child abuse has taken place because one man sinned. What heaviness it could be upon one man and his regrets. Secondly, there's a question, I think that's actually more important than

the question of why is the world like it is. You want to hear what that question is? No, you're already, you're already checked out. All right. That second question is why am I like I am? I believe it's a more important question because most of us don't have much of an ability to stop wars or crime or child abuse. We can do all that we can do. At World Challenge, we work very diligently to bring orphans and widows into a safe, loving home where they meet Jesus. So we can do a lot, but we can't change everything. But there is one thing that the Holy Spirit will allow us to change. You know what that is? Ourselves. So the question I think that is very important tonight is why am I like I am? Why am I battling with these things that I battle with? Why can I not overcome certain circumstances and situations in my life that grieve me and possibly even grieve the Holy Spirit? I read something years ago about a father who was, he came home from work, but he had a little extra work to do. He was very busy and he got his paperwork out of his briefcase and he was writing and he was stressing over a report he had to send in the next day. And his little boy, little four-year-old boy, kept coming up and tugging at his pant leg and said, Daddy, I want to play with you. And he said, not now, right now, I'm busy. And the little boy came back a few minutes later while the father was still busy. And he said, Daddy, let's just play for a few minutes. And the father said, I'm busy. The father noticed on his desk a piece of paper that had the world map on it. And he said, I have a good idea. He ripped the map into little pieces, just tore it apart. And he took it and he threw it on the ground. He said, son, put all the map back together. Here's some scotch tape. Put all the countries and the rivers and the oceans and put it back in its place. And when you're done doing that, then I'll play with you. So the father goes back to work. And about four minutes later, the little boy puts the map perfectly on his desk, every country, every state, every river in place. The father said, how did you do that? He said, Daddy, I turned it over and on the back was a picture of a man. And when I put the man together, the world fell. place. Jesus didn't come as a politician because he knew putting nations back together was not the solution to the world's problems. It was putting the heart of man back together. The Supreme Court, not long ago, outlawed the regulation of abortion in certain states and there was such joy and rejoicing over that. Finally, we're going to reduce the number.

You know this truth probably, it actually increased because legislation doesn't change the heart of men or women. It's the power of the gospel that changes people's lives. Jesus wants to put the man back together, the woman back together. As a result, then churches and cities and schools and communities begin to be transformed by the power of the gospel. In Romans chapter 7, if you just look ahead a little bit, Romans chapter 7, and I want to read verses 15 through 20 here. For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. So we're asking the question, why am I like I am? Why do I have these habits in my life? Why do I have these things that need to be, that I need a breakthrough in my life? Paul is very honest with us here. The Apostle Paul in Scripture there is saying, if I could just talk to you guys for a moment. Have you ever noticed, if you're like me, the very thing I want to do I end up not doing? And the thing I don't want to do I end up doing that? And he says in verse 16, now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but it's sin that dwells in me. Where did that sin come from? From one man, Adam. It's dwelling now centuries later in Paul. And he's saying this thing that came into me is causing me to do what I don't want to do, and what I want to do is causing me not to do. Verse 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Why am I like I am? Because there's a sin nature inside of me. Why am I like I am? Because chapter 5 verse 12 says, because sin came into the world. Are you with me so far church? Okay, I'm hoping you're loving the word because we're just getting started. Oscar Wilde the great writer said, I can resist everything except temptation. I feel that way a lot myself because sin came into the world. I do what I don't want to do because sin came into the world. I don't do what I want to do and I end up not doing what I should do and I just get all messed up and it's because sin came into the world and not just into the world. If we're asking the question why is the world like it is, the answer is sin. If we're asking the question why am I like I am, it's because sin has entered into my life. It's a plague. It's a virus. Shangzi Li was the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. She was researching viruses that come into bats and they were genetically modifying to see if they could create a virus that can jump from a bat to another species, maybe even from

a bat to a human. They were modifying the virus in the bat so that they could get it into another thing. Now, I'm sure their motives were right. If we can create the virus, then we can work on the infection and maybe the remedy before it mutates on its own through history into the future. Nonetheless, they started doing this thing. Fauci, if you know Fauci, he funded a work that was done in the Wuhan laboratories there and it was called Gain of Function. Do you know what Gain of Function is? Gain of Function is a technology that advances the potency and the contagiousness of viruses. They were actually creating viruses that could jump from one species to the next and jump with more potency and with more contagiousness in that. She was recently speaking at an event and she was saying, we are now preparing for the next pandemic. So there's this sense that through this one experiment, we can create The coronavirus came probably, how many of you had, well I guess we're not supposed to ask that, as it's politically incorrect. How many of you have it right now? Could you just wait? But through that one laboratory, it spread across how fast, how rapidly, how fear-inducing, how traumatic it was for so many people. And it was just from one woman, one group of people that were doing a study. That's not a political statement if you don't believe it started in the lab. That's not my point tonight. My point tonight is, just as this, if we say it started there, that's an illustration of what started in the Garden of Eden. And it jumped from Adam and Eve to their children and children's children. And it's in us.

It's not something we do, it's something we are. Sin is not something that deceives us into some form of action. The action is done because it's who we are. I don't get angry because I'm angry at something. I don't get angry because I'm angry at something. I get angry because I'm an angry person. And my anger comes out of being angry. Does that make sense? It starts with not the behavior. I'm addicted to this substance, not just because I have an addictive personality, but it's my sin nature. Everybody in this room has a sin nature. Everyone struggles with this very thing. Sin came into the world, verse 12. 1 John 3, 8, I'll just, you don't have to turn there, but it says, for the devil has been sinning since the beginning. That was his laboratory. I'm gonna sin and then I'm gonna put it in Adam and Eve and then it's gonna spread through the whole world. Everybody is born in sin now. We don't just commit a sin, we're born in sin. If you've had children, I have four children and I have 13 grandchildren. Children are born in sin. You don't have to teach them how to sin. You don't have to teach them to yell at you. You don't have to teach them to steal

from their brother or sister. It just comes naturally, it's the nature. It's something has to disrupt that nature and that's what we're gonna talk about in just a moment. But it came originally not from Adam and Eve, not from the garden, it came from the devil. The Bible says he's been sinning since the beginning. Even before the Garden of Eden, he was already sinning and he wanted the world to fall into his sinful nature. The reason, and this is the reason the Son of God appeared, it was to destroy the works of the devil, amen? So now we see a conflict taking place. There's wars and there's abortion and there's all types of struggles going on in the world today and there's child abuse. And the devil set this in motion and he got his first victims, Adam and Eve, and they began to spread that throughout the whole world but now all of a sudden, Christ says, there's a remedy coming to this situation. There's a solution that I have for all these wars, for all these things going on in your heart, for the war that you struggle with the flesh in your own life, for the war you have against addictions, for the war you have against fear, for the war you're struggling with, with self-doubt, with 100 different maladies that you might have. The problem with our nature is, not only is it a sinful nature but we are sin deniers.

We are sin deniers. Many people are climate change deniers. Some people deny that we actually landed on the moon. Some people deny that the earth is round. They say it's flat. There's all kinds of deniers. But I think the most prevalent denier of all of us is those who deny sin. We call it a problem, a battle we're dealing with, a situation we're struggling with. I'm struggling with this thing. You're not just, you're not struggling with it. You got it. I don't struggle with sin. It comes so easy. And we use all of these different words. There's moral failures. There's difficulties, stresses. I'm messed up. I have some bad habits. I have hangups. And we even put scientific names on them now. Disorders, syndromes, and diseases. We wanna call them everything but what God calls them, sin. He says every one of us has been born in sin. We're wrapped up in sin. And sin came through this one man. And we can't deny it. We can't dismiss it.

We have to, we can't blame it on our environment. We can't blame it on our parents, or our upbringing, or our circumstances, or our culture, or our race, or our economic situation. All of those that I just mentioned have the same problem. It's a sin problem. Every single one of us is struggling with sin. Sin came into the world. And the results of Adam's sin, look at this in verse 12 still, sin came into the world through that one man, and death through sin. Sin in this one chapter, Romans chapter five, sin is mentioned nine different times. I guess I'm kind of a Bible nerd. I don't know if many people count how many times a word is said in one chapter, but I like to do that. And the more it's said in one chapter, the more prevalent the idea that is trying to be portrayed in that chapter. Nine times it says sin. Eight more times it uses a sister-brother word to sin called trespasses. So sin together, 17 times, sin and trespasses. He's trying to tell us. He's trying to say in here that sin came into the world and through this one man. And now look what it's causing in our life. I don't have the time to pick out.

I would love to just go to a Bible study and pick out word after word after word to you. But let me run through a list of certain words that Paul mentions in the scripture. Number one, because of sin and trespass and because of disobedience, there's condemnation. You feel condemned. Oh man, you ever feel condemned? I shouldn't have done that. I can't believe I did that again. I promised I would never do that again and I did it again. I swore to the Lord. I prayed to the Lord that I would never do it again. Or I would say, I'm gonna do it one more time, but that'll be my last time. And then you do it again. And say, oh, that was my last time, except man, and I heard Theo Vaughn, a comedian. I heard him recently. He talked about a prayer he's praying. He's not a Christian believer, but he said, here's a prayer I've been praying because my life is messed up and I'm hurting other people and I'm hurting myself. And I started praying and I said, God, God, please change my behavioral patterns. I don't wanna, and he didn't mention what it was. I don't wanna do this anymore.

And he said, as I was praying that, I was saying to myself, but I know I'm gonna do it again. So he changed his prayer. God, help me to not wanna do it again. This is not a theologian, a Christian scholar. This is a guy that doesn't know the Lord, but he has that heart cry. I'm bound in sin. And even if I'm praying, help me not to sin. Even as I'm praying it, I pray, but I wanna sin again. It's the struggle we have with the results of Adam's sin comes this condemnation. And when you have that sense of, I can't stop doing that, then it brings condemnation. You start feeling like a failure. A hundred times I've promised I would stop. This was my last time. I told my wife I would never drink again. I told my children I would never lose my temper with them again. And you do it again and again and again. And it brings this word, the condemnation. Another word is that that condemnation results then in judgment, that you are rightly judged as a sinner. And a sinner is separated from God. And a sinner has no hope in this world. And a sinner has no power over sin. And a sinner has no strength. It has no ability. Like Paul said here, I was unable.

I was unable to do what I wanted to do and not do what I wanted to do. And from judgment then came death. And then death comes in Romans chapter five, verse nine, talks about the wrath of God. It's a little bit of a hard message, isn't it? It's like, I don't hear a lot of hand clapping. No, no, no, please, no, no, no, no. I wasn't asking for it. I was just, I was addressing the reality. And it's not a bad thing to come to church and hear this. Matter of fact, I think it needs to be preached a whole lot more. I think we need some good old fashioned preaching against sin. We need to quit tiptoeing around this issue. We need to address it head on. We need to call people out of this world that causes condemnation, judgment, death, and the wrath of God. And it says, sin spread. The same verse says, death came through sin and death spread to all men because all men sinned. This was a result of physical death. Everybody is going through physical death. If what I've said tonight is not bad news enough, let me just pour a little bit more coal on fire, okay? You're going to die, okay? Unless Jesus comes back and you're ready to meet him. You're going to die.

Some of you are my age, so it's going to be a little sooner than others, right? And yeah, sin came into the world because of the death of Jesus. And it's not a bad thing to come to church because of... that death came into the world. Everyone has been affected by this. The death rate is a hundred percent. The mortality rate because of the fall of man is death. But the problem with that is not just a physical death. A bigger problem is the spiritual death. The inability to have the empowering work of the Holy Spirit in our life to set us free, to heal us, to deliver us, to transform us, to renew us, to cleanse us, to wash us, to make us right with God, to make us holy, to make us pure, to give us power over the powers of darkness, to rebuke the devil who comes and tries to kill, steal, and destroy. Where does that come from? It comes from the opposite of spiritual death. It's the power to have life. Jesus said, I came to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly, that we would have the abundance of life. And this is through this one man, Adam. And I think church, if you're like me, you're probably ready for a little good news here now. I've been talking about through this one man what spread, all these different things spread, but there's another one man mentioned in here. This gets super exciting.

Never, ever, ever has there been one man who has accomplished near what Jesus has accomplished. He didn't just help you and I. He took the fall of man, and all that was happening because of that fall, and he reversed the curse. He set captives free. He shone light in the darkness. He delivered people who were under the yoke of bondage. He saved the lost. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. One man, one man, Christ Jesus, did it all. No politician could do this. No writer could write a book that would transform the world like this. No religious leader could do this. No social leader could do this. One man, Christ Jesus, said, I will come from heaven, God of gods, king of kings, Lord of lords, the divine one, I will come from heaven, and I will do the opposite of Adam. By doing the opposite of Adam, I will redeem Adam's race. What he did is the opposite. He was not born of dust. He was born of the Holy Spirit. The importance of the virgin birth is not just like, wow, that's cool, some miracle. The importance of that is it's the opposite of Adam. Jesus is saying, there's going to be a contrast come. I'm coming from heaven, but I'm going to come not with dust, but the divine spark of life, and into a virgin without a father being involved in the process, a fully God, fully man, but without the DNA of the fallen nature, because Joseph had no part of it. Mary was the womb that the Holy Spirit used to put the DNA of a perfect son of God into her womb. Secondly, if that's not good enough, Jesus did the opposite of Adam. Satan came one time to Adam

and his wife, and they fell into sin. Satan came to Jesus and said, do this, jump off the thing. No. Change the bread. No. I rebuke you. Man doesn't live by bread alone. He just, bam, bam, bam, just constantly came against the powers of darkness, and won the victory. It wasn't, now this is going to sound strange when I first say it. The cross of Jesus Christ is the finishing touch, but it's not the complete story, because Jesus had to live a perfect life for the cross to be the sufficiency that it was. If he had sinned when he was put upon the cross, he would have had to die for his own sin. Hebrews tells us that a priest, even the high priest that goes into the temple, the holy of holies, has to first sacrifice for their own sin, and they can't sacrifice. It's not sufficient to sacrifice for the sins of many. So Jesus said, because I am perfect, sinless, holy, pure, spotless, without guile, with never falling into temptation, I have lived righteously. I have obeyed my father. I've never fallen into any snare or trap of sin, and because of that now, when I lay my life down on the cross, it's going to be a perfect man. You're going to crucify a perfect man, and that perfect man then is going to do this for you on the cross. It's going to absorb the fallen nature, not just the sins that you've committed. Oh, I drank too much. I yelled at my wife. I looked at pornography. Not just that, but the very nature of the kind a person that wants to do those kind of things. He's gonna take not just the sins you've committed, but the sinner that you are, and he's gonna absorb that onto the cross and say, I'm gonna drink that cup. And that cup, oh, my friends, that cup when he was in the garden,

and it wasn't on the cross, he sweat drops of blood, it was in the garden when he was holding that cup, because inside that cup, every single sin, every of the one billion soldiers that were shot, every time some army general had to knock at the door and tell a wife her husband's died, every aborted child, every sin ever committed was in that cup. And the father says to his perfect son, drink this cup. And he looks into this cup and says, God, please let this pass. This is, what are you asking me? You're asking your perfect spotless son to drink the dregs of the sins of the world, and he says, but not my will, but thine. I will continue my obedience even to the last day, even to tell my friends, let's go to where Judas is gonna meet me, I'm gonna go there. I'm not gonna get caught by Judas, I'm gonna go there. He's laying his life down for us. And so he drank the dregs of your sin and mine. So the struggle and the breakthrough you need is not just to get some kind of psychotherapy. It's not to read a new self-help book. Those things can be helpful to some degree. It's not to have some slick preacher standing up here telling you everything's gonna be fine and good and dandy if you just smile a lot and confess good things. It's far more than that.

Your sin is serious, and it's a struggle, but the remedy is greater than the sin. And I close with this. It's a free gift. It says it's not like the transgression. It's more than five times. I'm using a lot of numbers here. Five times in this chapter it says more than. What Jesus has done is more strong than the negative that was done at the fall of man. Jesus' grace is greater than the sin. Jesus' future for us is greater than the past we've been living in. You see, do you know you serve a Jesus who's more than? He's more than your problem. I may never be invited back here, but you don't need a breakthrough. You need Jesus. You can come for the next four weeks. My son's coming in two weeks. He's gonna tell his testimony. It'll knock your socks off, man. It's a powerful word of God. You gotta be here for my son, Evan. But it's not a breakthrough, or it's not getting free from drugs or alcohol or anger. It's getting a hold of the work that Jesus has finished on the cross for you, and his resurrection. And lastly, the good news is not only did he absorb all,

drink that cup and absorb all of your sin, he did one other thing. Excuse me, the first of it is just half the gospel. I'll take your sin. The other part is just as good. I'm going to impute. I'm gonna put my water in my hand. Thank you. I'm going to, excuse me. I'm going to do something that, I'll take your sin from me, from you to me, and then I'm going to, my perfect obedience, my perfect righteousness, God's perfect acceptance of me, my holiness, my purity, my living without guile, I'm gonna put that in you. This is the gospel. This is the exciting part of the gospel. And you know what that means? That as you have confessed your sins and your brokenness and your propensity to do the things you don't want to do, as you confess those, Jesus took them and nailed them to the cross, but he didn't leave you just empty, saying like, okay, that's gone now. Okay, don't do it again. No, but he empowered you with something. He gave you his grace. He gave you his sufficiency. His power. He gave you an ability to do things

that you could not do in your own strength. Worship team, if you'd come back. Adam brought disobedience. Jesus brings us to perfect obedience. Adam brought sin. Jesus brought sinless perfection. Adam brought alienation. Jesus brought reconciliation. Adam brought condemnation. In Jesus, he says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. All those accusations against you are nailed to the cross. Adam brought judgment to the world. Jesus was found faultless in the world. Adam brought death. Jesus conquered the grave. Jesus conquered death. Jesus brought us to the place that says, death wears your sting. He's brought us both eternal life and Jesus. Here's the good news. He brought us not just eternal life. You can live a long time and not be happy or free. So eternal life in itself is not necessarily the greatest thing unless it's a good life. So Jesus says it's not just eternal, but it's abundant. Abundant. I don't want you to leave here today just with a breakthrough. That's just part of it. But I want you to leave here with an abundance like I know who I am in Christ. I know I'm redeemed. I know I'm set free. I know I'm the child of God. I know I'm washed. I know I'm cleansed. I know I'm holy. I know I'm pure. I know I'm empowered by the Holy Spirit. I know I can overcome the powers of darkness. I know no demon in hell can defeat what Christ has done in me because it is what Jesus said on that cross. It's finished. It's over. You've won. You've had the victory.

You're already forgiven. You're already washed. You're already cleansed. You're already made new. The truth sets you free. And I believe I went a long way to get there. But I believe I have accomplished the task, the assignment God's given me is to proclaim the truth to you of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That he has set you free. That he's redeemed you. And here's what it'll do to you. I promise this will do this to you. It will make you grateful. I mean, wow, I'm grateful. Well, I'm out of time, but I got to say this one last thing. I picture two lists in my life or two buckets. In one bucket is all my afflictions, physical things that are going wrong, family crisis situations, habits and hangups and problems that I have, sin I'm fighting with, persecution, problems with friends, with neighbors. Just all that stuff's in the bucket. There's afflictions that come in our life and sometimes that bucket gets pretty high. But you know what else Jesus has done? He gave you a bucket full of mercies. Like, like, so, so there's an old song goes, count your blessings, name them one by one. And so every morning I wake up now and I go, I'm breathing. And then I look to my left. My wife always sleeps on my left for some reason. I say, she's there. We're still together. 47 years has been amazing. And then I just count, he's washed me, he's cleansed me, he's renewed me. He was patient with me when I was such a knucklehead, stuck in my habits and patterns of sin. And his patience endured. And so that mercy is in that bucket. But here's the problem we have sometimes. This mercy bucket could be filled. And then all of a sudden, one new affliction comes along and I go, oh, life is so bad. I've got it so hard. I'm so troubled. Where are you, God? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you left me? You're not counting all the mercies. You're counting the one affliction.

And the devil loves to highlight the afflictions that we have in our life. Yeah, look at that. Why didn't God help you with that? Why are you still struggling with sin? That's an affliction. And it's in that bucket. And I want to say to you, my greatest thanks for the mercy bucket is this. Not that I get to preach, not that I get to travel, not that I have a beautiful home to live in. Not that I have a great marriage. Those are all great mercies. But if I had none of those mercies and I was sick and I was dying and I couldn't travel and I couldn't walk and I was having trouble breathing and all those afflictions were there, if I had one mercy and a billion afflictions, if I had one mercy and that mercy was I was dead in my trespasses and sin and the God of gods, king of kings came from heaven to earth and he died for my sin. And now I'm washed. Now I'm cleansed. Now I'm made new. If that's the only thing that you have in your bucket, you can wake up every single morning and say, Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for what you've done for me. All those afflictions are light. Paul says they're light and temporary. Oh, we think about that bucket too much. Take some time tonight. See, because if you think about that bucket too much, what's it going to do? It's going to drive you to your addiction. I need something to soothe me. I need something to comfort me. I need to forget about this for a moment. So I'll drink that or I'll watch that. And that's because we're not grateful. And I want you to be grateful. Father, I pray now in the name of Jesus that you would give us grateful hearts, that you would do supernatural miracles within us. Thank you, Jesus. Lord, later tonight, we're going to be praying for people who are.

are not just having some difficult habits or needing a breakthrough with discouragement or depression or fear or difficulty in their marriage. Lord, we're starting this whole series off with facing head on the biggest problem of all, bigger than a marriage problem, bigger than a health problem, and even bigger than an addiction problem. It's we have a sin problem. And Lord, forgive us, forgive us. Forgive me, Jesus, when I have not been grateful. All that you've done for me, and sometimes I murmur and complain just like the children of Israel. Forgive me, God. I wanna be free of that. I wanna be a man filled with contentment and joy and delight for what you've done for me. And I pray over my brothers and sisters here that you would fill that bucket with the knowledge that there's one thing you've done for me, and if it's the only thing you've ever done, you've saved me. When I was dead in my sin, and I'm not headed for an eternal hell, I'm not gonna live my whole life being outcast from God. I will forever cling to the work that you've done for me, Jesus. And I give thanks.

Would you mind standing with me, please? And later tonight, we wanna invite you. Later tonight, we wanna invite you to receive prayer. It's one thing to, it's one thing to hear a message and go like, yeah, I'll think about that. But the body of Christ was built, the Bible says, pray for one another. Pray for one another, and we're gonna pray for you tonight. And that agreement is going to do something supernatural here in this room tonight. Do you believe that? Amen. Amen, let's put our hands together and thank Jesus for what he's done for us. That one man, one man, Christ Jesus. One man, Christ Jesus. Thank you all. God bless you.