Really...What's The Catch?

Good morning, family, would you stand with us? If you're joining us in the room or online, let's sing. Let's worship the Lord in this place, because He is worthy, He is faithful, and He is here. So let there be joy in this house, because His presence is here. Oh yeah, we worship you, Jesus. Come on, we worship the God. We worship the God who was. We worship the God who is. We worship the God who evermore will be. He opened the prison doors. He parted the raging sea. My God, He holds the victory. Come on, we believe it, sing, hey! There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. We won't be silent. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. Our God is surely in this place. We won't be quiet. Come on. We shout out your praise, oh yeah. We shout out your praise. Come on, we sing to the God. We sing to the God who heals. We sing to the God who saves. We sing to the God who always makes a way. Cause He hung upon that cross.

Then He rose up from that grave. Our God's still rolling stones away. There's joy in the house of the Lord. Come on, sing. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. We won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. Our God is surely in this place. We won't be quiet. Come on. We shout out your praise. Oh, we sing to Him today. Come on, sing it out. We were the beggars, now we're royalty. We were the prisoners, now we're running free. We are forgiven, accepted, redeemed by His grace. Let the house of the Lord sing. Come on, sing about your identity today. We were the beggars, now we're royalty. We were the prisoners, now we're running free. We are forgiven, accepted, redeemed by His grace. Let the house of the Lord sing. Come on, lift your voice. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. Come on. And we won't be quiet. Lift your voice. We shout out your praise.

There's joy in the house of the Lord. Our God is surely in this place. We won't be quiet. Come on. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. We won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There is joy in the house of the Lord. Our God is surely in this place. Cause you are here. We won't be quiet. We won't be quiet. We'll shout out your praise. Yes. We shout out your praise. Oh yes, we believe. We shout out your praise. There is joy here. There is joy. Oh yeah. We shout out your praise. Come on, we praise him today. Cause he is worthy. Cause he is good. And when we praise, that is our battle cry. That is our weapon today. So let's continue to praise him

whatever our circumstances, our situation, he's faithful. Come on. Oh yes. We praise you. Oh, that's how we fight our battles today. Lift your voice. Come on, sing it out. Let praise be a weapon that silences the enemy. Let praise be a weapon that conquers all anxiety. Oh, let it rise. Let praise arise. Let's sing, come on. We sing your name in the dark and it changes everything. Yes, it does. We sing with all we are. We claim your victory. Oh, let it rise. ♪ Ah, let praise, let praise arise ♪ Come on, we'll sing, hey! ♪ We'll see, break down every wall ♪ ♪ We'll watch the giants fall ♪ ♪ For fear cannot survive when we praise the God ♪ ♪ The God of preachers on our side ♪ ♪ Forever lift Him high with all creation cry, God we praise you ♪ ♪ Oh, we praise you oh, we praise you oh, we praise you oh ♪ Come on, sing it out, let faith be a song. ♪ Let faith be the song that overcomes the raging sea ♪ ♪ Let faith be the song that calms the storm inside of me ♪

♪ Oh let it rise, let faith arise ♪ Come on, sing that to Him, we'll see you, hey! ♪ We'll see you break down every wall ♪ ♪ We'll watch the giants fall ♪ ♪ For fear cannot survive when we pray to God ♪ ♪ The God of breakthroughs on our side ♪ ♪ Forever live divine with all creation cry God we praise you ♪ ♪ Oh, we praise you oh, we praise you oh, we praise you oh ♪ Come on, this is what's living. ♪ This is what living looks like ♪ ♪ This is what freedom feels like ♪ ♪ This is what heaven sounds like ♪ ♪ We praise you, we praise you ♪ ♪ This is what living looks like ♪ Come on, you sing, hey! This is what haven sounds like. Oh, he's praising him, declaring it. This is what living looks like This is what freedom feels like This is what heaven sounds like We praise you. Oh, come on. This is what living looks like This is what freedom feels like This is what heaven sounds like We praise you, we praise We'll see you break down every wall We'll watch the giants fall You cannot survive when we praise you The God of breakthrough's on our side

Forever lifted high With all creation cry God, I sing it again, we'll see you We'll see you break down every wall We'll watch the giants fall You cannot survive when we praise you The God of breakthrough's on our side Forever lifted high With all creation cry God, we praise you Oh, we praise you Oh, we praise you Oh, we praise you Oh, we praise you Come on, we believe that he is working in this place today Oh, we praise you, Lord Amen, that's such a good song of faith to declare to our Lord today reminding our souls, reminding our spirits that he is here with us and because of his presence there can be joy, there can be freedom there can be peace and so today as we are sitting in his presence as we are worshipping him with him in the room let's go before him, let's pray to him let's talk to him and give him our concerns give him our worries, give him our fears give him our doubts

and he is willing and able to take it so let's pray to him, Lord Lord, thank you so much for your faithfulness thank you for your goodness Lord, thank you that we can use praise as a weapon this morning that this is how we fight our battles declaring that you are good declaring that you are faithful declaring that you are with us and by our side and so we have nothing to fear because of that truth this morning but Lord, we release and surrender all of that fear and anxiety and doubt and worry Lord, we release and ask God that you would move and bring healing to depression to cancer Lord, to blood clots Lord, to anything that is hurting our familia, to anything that is hurting our spirit our mind, our body But Lord, we know that you are able, and so God, as your word says, to come before you and to ask, we are asking, Lord, that you bring healing, but Lord, we come from a place of knowing and remembering of who you are, God, that you are the king above all kings,

that you are lord above all lords, and so Lord, we worship from a place of victory, remembering that the battle is won, and so Lord, our response to you is a response in celebration, knowing that you've given us freedom, knowing that you have redeemed us, knowing that you have restored our souls, and so we give you our gratitude, Lord, we give you our worship, we pray all of this in the name of Jesus, amen, and amen. Amen, church. Come on, let's continue to sing, let's continue to worship the king above all kings in this darkness we were waiting without hope without light till from heaven you came running there was mercy in your eyes to fulfill the law and prophets to a virgin came the word from the throne of endless glory to a cradle in the dirt sing praise, praise the father, praise the son, praise the spirit, three in one God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the king of kings to reveal the kingdom coming and to reconcile the lost to redeem the whole creation you did not despise the cross for even in your suffering you saw to the other side knowing this was my salvation Jesus for our sake you died praise the father, praise the son, praise the spirit, three in one God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the king of kings all of heaven held its breath till that stone was moved for good for the lamb had conquered death and the dead rose from their tombs and the angels stood in awe for the souls of all who'd come to the father are restored and the church of christ was born and then the spirit lit the flame and now this gospel truth of all shall not kneel shall not for the love of jesus christ spirit of kings ♪ Praise forever to the King of kings ♪ Yes we praise you Jesus. Oh we praise you Jesus. You're worthy of it all. You're worthy of it all. You're the only holy hope.

It's the Lord God Almighty. Oh holy, holy, holy. It's the Lord God Almighty. Oh we praise you Jesus. Oh yes we praise you Jesus. Father we thank you. We thank you God. That we can stand before you approved, accepted, loved. Lord I know culture and our past mistakes, the world around us tries to beat us down and make us feel like there's no hope. But today God we can stand before you because you've won the victory and you're here with us that we can stand in victory today to our King of kings who holds us in his hands, who brings help to those who are in trouble, who raises the dead to new life Lord. Today we get to experience that and we're so grateful. Lord I pray for a spirit of freedom right now by your spirit to give us hope in this place, to encourage us, to give us everything that we need. That's the God that you are. You are provider Lord and some of us right now we're so desperately in need of a word from you today, of encouragement that we can make it tomorrow. God you're calling some of us today to go beyond ourselves. We know someone who's in need who may not be with us today, who may be watching online, who may feel so distant from you God, but the good work that you've done in us,

the good news that you have freely given to us, you've called us to carry that and to bring them hope Lord. And so in our next moments together, Holy Spirit have your way. Do what you wanna do inside of us. Refresh us, renew us, help us just continue to be amazed by your goodness that we get to be a part of. And at the conclusion of our time together Lord, we pray send us. Send us to make a difference, to carry this love that you have freely given to us. We're grateful. We love you Lord. We pray all of these things in thanksgiving and praise and all the people of God said, amen. Come on church. Let's give him some praise for how good he is. For what we believe he can do today, amen. Turn to someone say, there's good news today. Oh, there's good news today. I can't wait. You may have a seat. There's good news today. Church Familia online, everyone here in person. Welcome to the local church. The perfect place for imperfect people. I'm excited for what God is going to do today. What God has been doing and what God will continue to do. I'm Eric, I'm one of the pastors here.

And I wanna show you this picture of me and my family. This is not a recent picture. This is a picture about three mother's day ago here at the local church. And I love this picture. I put this picture on my desk. So every time I sit down in my office, I can see this picture. And I love this picture for several reasons. First of all, do you know how impossible it is to get a photo like that? If you have little kids, everyone's looking at the camera and smiling. That's a miracle. So that's a reminder of a miracle. But the other thing is, is all my kids are a little bit young in this photo. They're still a lot more innocent than they are today. They're still so precious in this picture. And so it's a reminder for me of how much I love my kids. My kids have no idea how much I love them in this picture. I'm smiling. That's not a forced smile. That's a natural smile because I love my children so much. And no matter what they do, no matter who they are, nothing will ever be able to change the love I have for my kids. I love them for who they are, good or bad.

And how many of us know little kids can be bad sometimes, right? Oh my gosh. When they disobey me, when they don't listen to me, when they do their own thing, when I tell them, hey, dad knows best. Don't do that. Don't do it. You're gonna hurt yourself. You're gonna break something. Don't do it. And then they do it. It's like, I told you, you're gonna hurt yourself. You're gonna break the thing. It doesn't matter. How often they disobey me. I love them and nothing's ever gonna change that love The reason I showed you this picture today is because I wonder how many of us when we think of our relationship with God We have a picture like this in mind Where he's smiling at us Where he's embracing us where he's holding us in his arms, and he's so full of love See, I'm an imperfect father. I'm the world's okay's father But we have a Heavenly Father who's perfect in every way and he chooses to love us with an unending love I pray today that that you would understand this that you would see your Heavenly Father as someone who smiles upon you who loves You who cares for you John 3 16 It says for God So loved the world

That's you He so loved the world that he gave his only son Jesus That whoever believes in Jesus should not perish But have eternal life for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world But in order that the world might be saved through him And for imperfect sinners like us, this is good news In fact, this is the good news and in the series where we're talking about this good news called the gospel and our hope and our prayer is that that we would be able to Communicate to to the people of God the church on how we can communicate this how we can share this good news With people around us who need this hope so we're talking about communicating the good news But we're also creating some good news One of the things we want to do is every week we want to celebrate some good news And so I have some today. Can we celebrate some good news today? The first good news I want to share about is my daughter Emma Gamero. She lost her tooth and she's celebrating the hat Hey real quick. That's not me. Okay. I know some of you think you look different Eric. Listen to all of us We don't look the same. That's my that's my brother. That's her uncle. He's right here today He was braver than I was he's just like, oh so disgusting can't even think about but she's like daddy Can we celebrate that? I lost my tooth. Absolute baby girl. I love you. So we're celebrating Emma Gamero She lost her tooth this week Crystal Santiago Can we celebrate her? She wants to celebrate that God bless her with a new laptop for her new business. I wonder how you got that Hey, we're so grateful to come alongside and to bless someone in our church for me like Kathleen Porter Kathleen Porter She was nominated for Rookie Teacher of the Year. Can we celebrate that? I Mean and and then post pandemic that that you dealt with our kids and loved them and now you'd nominate but Congratulations to that Austin and Maria Ranton this week Celebrating their nine-year anniversary. We're celebrating with you guys Liz Escar she's been praying for an opportunity praying for the perfect job took a step of faith and left her old job because she knew It wasn't what God had called her to and we're celebrating with Liz today that God just opened up the door last week She started this new opportunity. We're celebrating with you Liz. Come on. Let's do that The

Other ones for our own pastor buddy Johnson I wanted to celebrate because I'm just so thankful for what God has allowed us to be a part of Several months ago pastor buddy started a Bible study at Everglades Correctional facility and that has grown and it's turned into a midweek service where where they join with us and they watch these Sunday services So to all of our church family over at Everglades correctional facility Hey, we love you We're so grateful that you're watching with us that you're growing with us and and not only that but we we were able to connect With this this app called Panda which every single inmate all across the United States are able to to watch Content and grow in their spiritual life from other churches and and since we've been on Panda for the past two weeks We've seen ten people Give their life to Jesus through that We're Celebrating ten lives Forever transformed ten people now having the hope of Jesus in their life, and that's good news And so we want to celebrate that good news But the other thing we've wanted you we want to communicate the good news and and and teach us how we can Boldly share this without any sort of burden fit. They're not thinking it's like something that we're forced to do We want to communicate the goodness We want to celebrate good news, and we've also wanted to create some good news And we've been able to do that over the past several weeks in fact if you were here last Sunday And you were here in person we did a reverse offering and and instead of getting money. We gave away money We gave away $20,000 to every single person so that they could be a part of building a bridge and Loving and caring people and having an opportunity to point them to the God who loves them through his son Jesus And we've heard so many stories And I want to continue to encourage you to share those stories go to the local church.com Slash good news we want to Hear what God is doing, how God is using you. There's nothing too small, there's nothing too big.

We wanna celebrate that God uses imperfect people like us to be a part of sharing this good news to this imperfect and lost and hurting and dying world. And so there's three stories I wanna share from that. I wanna continue to share them as we continue in this series. But the first one's from Amber White. She was at the grocery store praying about who to give that red envelope to. And when a mom pulled behind her at the gas station and her card got declined for trying to get some gas. And so Amber heard the commotion, went up to her, and said, I don't know if you believe in God, but he told me that I need to give this to you. And built the bridge and gave her that red envelope and invited her to come to the food distribution, gave her all the rest of the money in her wallet and prayed with her. And if you have been a recipient of that good news blessing this past week here or online, we've been praying for you. We believe that this is the perfect place for imperfect people, but we want you to connect in any church so you can know the love and the grace of Jesus in your life. We're celebrating what God did through Amber. And we also wanna celebrate Gail and her family. When they got that good news offering, they remembered their neighbor

who has been having a difficult time recovering after a pretty significant surgery. And so they put all their good news blessings together and they had enough money to buy a walker and they gave that to him to let him know that he matters to God and he matters to us. I wanna celebrate what God did in Janet Faye's life. When she got that envelope and she began to pray for it, she knew exactly who to give it to. The Holy Spirit put on her heart. She'd been building a relationship with a cashier at Walgreens over the past several months and communicating with her every time that she went to the store. And she heard the story that she lost her daughter, tragic accident, lost her daughter. And then after that, her husband of so many years couldn't take the pressure and he moved away and left her all to herself. And so she had been working so hard just to make ends meet. And when we prayed about that, God put that on Janet's heart to go and to bless her and to let her know that she matters to God and she matters to us. And that's the beauty of what God does. His spirit is with us and he allows us to be a part of sharing this good news. And he puts on our hearts. So I wanna encourage you,

if you still have that red envelope in your Bible or in your car, ask God, Lord, what do you want me to do with this this week? And I'm just believing he's gonna point you in the right direction. So you can be a part of sharing this good news, this hope of salvation in Jesus to someone who desperately needs it. Now, after sharing those stories and after doing everything we've done, I've heard this question quite a few times over the past several weeks. Why? Why is our church doing this? Like, what's the catch? Really, what's the catch? Okay, you gave us money. Was that some reverse way of manipulating us to say, okay, now we've gotten, so now we have to give. And people are saying, I'm waiting for the week during the Good News series where you say, okay, now we have to give back. People are wondering, what is the catch, really? Because people aren't that good for goodness sake. Like, people just don't do simple things like that, expecting nothing in return. Really, what's the catch? And that's what I've titled today's teaching. Really, what's the catch?

Because so many of us, because we're just skeptical in our nature, when we think of something like this, we say, there has to be some sort of string attachment. Really, underneath, what is the point of this? And unfortunately, a lot of people, when it comes to the gospel of Jesus, the free gift of salvation, the relationship that we get with God forever, because we're skeptical by nature, a lot of us think, really, what's the catch, though? Do we really get all of God forever? What's the catch? What do I have to give? What do I have to contribute to be a part of this, to receive this? I wanna talk about that today. No, because I know that if we listen, sometimes, to religious people, they seem to have a whole list of things that they say God requires. You want to be part of God's family? You want to be set free? Then here's what you have to do. First of all, you gotta be really good. You gotta be really spiritual. You gotta come to church every single Sunday. There's a list of things that you have to accomplish, and you have to give. Like, that's a big one.

Anyone ever felt guilted to give in church by show of hands? Let me see, all the crowd, come on. Perfect place for, none of you have ever felt guilt. Okay, all right, we have some honest people here. When I was growing up in church, like, that's kind of what I felt every single time. The pastor would say, he had a good heart, but he would say, if you love Jesus, you better give. You can't love someone without giving to them. So as the offering basket goes along, if you love Jesus, you're gonna put something in there. I'm like, I love Jesus, but I don't. have anything to give and so I would actually and I don't recommend doing you don't have to do this here there's no requirement for you to give to be loved by God but I used to take the offering envelope and I just seal it empty and I put it in there and it wasn't so much because I felt bad it's because I wanted people to think I was good like oh yeah I got my offering today there it is a pass it down there's nothing in there I wanted people to think I was a good Christian and that's another thing religious people like to say you got to be good a good Christian doesn't drink smoke or chew or hang with those who do right a good Christian doesn't listen to that music doesn't watch that television doesn't wear that doesn't hang out with those people and we have this this list of things that we feel like is required of us that if I'm going to be a good Christian I have to do these good things or else I am NOT good I'm a sinner and I'm going to hell and it gets crazy I have a friend who's a pastor now who who told me that when he was growing up he was not allowed to watch He-Man in his house you guys remember that show He-Man by the power of grace school do you know why he was not allowed to watch He-Man because He-Man claimed to be the master of the universe and in his house Jesus was there's only one master of the universe and it's not that cartoon character is that really how simple it

is for us to be canceled by God is that the requirement that if we watch He-Man we're going to hell John 5 39 Jesus says you search the scriptures because you think you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me we do have eternal life through the message of Jesus but verse 40 he says yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life and I think some of us we've come today with some preconceived notions of what it means to be a Christ follower what is required of us and unfortunately a lot of religious people they've they've they've over complicated the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus and added so much to receive God's love maybe unintentionally but what has happened is a lot of us believe that that that following Jesus and the good news is about rules and rituals when it's about relationship so I want you to write this down the good news is not about knowing rules and rituals and routines it's about knowing Jesus's love not knowing about Jesus's love but actually knowing Jesus's love listen what Matthew 23 says Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples the scribes say scribes and the Pharisees say Pharisees the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat so practice and observe what they tell you but not what they do why for they preach but do not practice verse 4 they tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders but they themselves are not willing to move them with a finger scribes in ancient Israel were very well educated men and their primary objective was to was to take the scriptures and to transcribe them so that other priests and other temples would have these scrolls where where they can recite the scriptures but they went far beyond simply transcribing they went far beyond interpretation and they added many man-made traditions on top of what God said and the scribes became professionals at spelling out the letter of the law here's what it says but not the spirit of the law they focused far more on what you need to do not why and not who Pharisees were very similar they were middle-class educated people a lot of them were priests and like the scribes they put an inordinate amount of attention on what needed to be done rather than why and with whom and they focused far more on the works and on the

doing and they missed out on the relationship behind it and here's what Jesus had to say about the scribes and Pharisees Matthew 23 13 but woe to you and a modern definition of woe is like I just can't like really woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across a sea and land to make one single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." Well, that's the Son of God is telling the religious leaders, you're children of hell. Matthew 23, 23. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. You make sure that you give a tenth of every single thing that you have, but you've neglected the weightier things. Justice, mercy, faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Verse 25. Woe to you, I can't with you. What's wrong with you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside are full of greed and dead indulgence. Verse 27. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. I don't know about you, but whoa. I don't want to be identified as a hypocrite. These scribes and Pharisees, these religious leaders, they focus far more on being good, on doing good, on speaking good, on acting good. But the good news is not about being good. The good news is about being in relationship with God. And so he called them hypocrites. That simply means actors. That's what they were doing. They were acting. They were pretending. They were playing a role. And instead of their good works on the outside leading people to a love of God, their good works, their hypocrisy, look at me, do what I do, it led people to death. They're hypocrites, pretenders. Do you see everything on the outside? Do you see my social media? I look so good everywhere. My kids are smiling in every single picture. Do you see what I've done? And it led people to a love of religion, not a love of God. And I should know because I was a hypocrite.

At the age of 16, I surrendered my life to Jesus wholly. And I trusted him. And being in a relationship with him, he gave me new desires. He gave me a new identity. The things that I used to I no longer wanted to do because I had what I needed most, the spirit of God living inside of me, his name written on my heart, a friend in Jesus forever, a home called heaven. But something strange happened over two years. As my pastor gave me an opportunity to serve and to lead other people, what started off as this childlike desire and this childlike faith, a love and to serve my God became a desire to be loved and accepted by their people. And I was a hypocrite. And I did everything that was good. On the outside, I was good. I made it my mission to out holy every single person. At the age of 18, I gave 50% of what I made back to the church. And everyone knew because I told everyone, oh, I don't tithe, man. I go above that. I give 50% because I trust God with everything. I read 22 chapters of the Bible a day, every day. That's reading the entire Bible every two months. I read the Bible six times from cover to cover in one year. What have you done? Every morning I'd wake up at 5.30 a.m. and I'd pray for at least an hour. You guys praying over your meals. Oh, Jesus, bless my food. I'm on my knees for an hour talking to God before you're even awake. Every Wednesday I fasted. And I didn't fast a meal. I didn't fast social meal. We didn't social media back then. But it's like, I'm not going to fast one meal. I'm going to fast 24 hours because I want to be close to God. I didn't watch a movie in the movie theater or anything on television for nine months. Have you seen that new Star Wars movie? No, I haven't because I don't watch that sinful stuff. And did people think I was awesome? Absolutely. Everyone thought, man, Eric is so spiritual. I worked so hard because I was half Korean in the Korean church and I had to impress everybody. So I out-holied everybody. And all the children and students that I mentored, I challenged them to be more like... Me But I was a hypocrite I Wasn't doing those things to draw closer to God. I was doing those things to be a better Christian and I missed what was most important With all of my trying to look good and talk good and be good. I missed the relationship that God wanted to have with me. I And all my religious behavior And so maybe this is just for me today, but if this for you write this down The good news is not about doing things to become more godly. It's about being in a relationship with God

The good news the gospel that we're talking about. It's not about doing things to become more godly It's about being in relationship with God. We are human beings We're not human doings. God did not create us to do do do do do again. Like I said last week, that's do-do It's to be it's to be known to be in relationship with him And if what you do for God is more for yourself, you are far off that's called religion and God didn't send his one and only son to give us a rule book that we have to follow God did not send Jesus. Jesus did not live and die and rise again so that we can all call ourselves religious He died and rose again So we could be made right with God and have relationship with him forever Now I want to make this clear God did give us commands He gave us ten specifically and These commands were not meant to to beat us down But but to lift us up these commands are good for us if we put them into practice these ten commandments They really revolve around two things to to focus on the main thing to love God and to love people more And so yes, God has given us commands that if we obey them they bless us But what the religious hypocrites fail to understand is that none of us No matter how good we are or how hard we try we'll ever be able to keep all of those ten commandments perfectly We can't not on our own And if you think you can if you said I've never broken any of the ten commandments I'm good because I've never committed a crime and I've never broken any You're a liar and You just broke one so there you go James 2 10 for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for it all We can't We're imperfect people We're prone to fail and to falter we can't do it on our own I want you to turn to someone next to you look in the eyes deeply all right

It's gonna be kind of strange if you don't know them and still do it look in the eyes and and tell this to them You are not perfect You are not perfect, but you know who is Jesus Jesus perfect And this is the difference between the law and the gospel the good news of Jesus the Old Testament Shows us the law the New Testament gives us the Gospels of Jesus the good news of Jesus the Old Testament Says that we are a sinner We cannot save ourselves But then in the Gospels in the New Testament we see but God made a way He sent a Savior and a friend his name is Jesus the Old Testament the law says you're guilty No matter what you do you are guilty and you deserve the punishment Which is death? But the good news of Jesus in the Gospels We see that God gives us grace Say grace Grace is what God has given to us grace is not giving us The punishment that we deserve but giving us the good of God's Grace is God choosing not to curse us for what our sin demands But to save us through a son Jesus Ephesians 2 way that says for by grace Grace you have been saved through faith. It's not of your own doing You didn't do it. You can't do it. It's by grace through faith, and this is the gift of God Grace is a constant theme throughout the Bible grace Grace is getting the goodness of God when we deserve punishment. And grace is not a principle. Grace is a person. His name is Jesus.

No matter what you think you can earn or how good you can become, none of us could ever do something to get this grace. God freely gives it to us. He loves us so much that he extends grace to imperfect people like us. So here's the big idea. Here's what God requires. Really? What's the catch? Here it is. And I'm going to say this twice, and I want you to hear it first and then write it down because it's going to sound really strange coming from a pastor at church. Here's the big idea of this good news. God doesn't require you to gather here every week, give money, or get your act straight first. What? He doesn't. God doesn't require you to gather here every week. It's good that we gather together. Don't forsake the assembling of the people of God where we can come into his presence and be in community and worship him and serve one another. But God doesn't require that you gather every Sunday at church. He doesn't require that you give money. Now it's good, it's better to give than it is to receive. And for those of us who have given generously, we can attest to that. There's so much joy when we trust God with what he's freely given to us. But for you to be part of his family forever, for you to belong, you don't need to give or get your act straight first. We're imperfect people. For you to be part of his family, you don't have to go and right every wrong and fix yourself and stop doing what you've done.

He'll grow you, he'll sanctify you, he'll give you new desires, but that doesn't come on your own work. That comes when you are in relationship with him. His spirit transforms us from the inside out. All he requires is that you get connected to Jesus, the way, the truth, the life, and to one another. And these are his words, Matthew 22, 34, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, the Sadducees were a lot like the Pharisees and the scribes, except they didn't believe in the resurrection after death. So they were sad, you see. Haha, Johnny, that joke did not work, sorry. When he heard that the, sorry, that was dumb. When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked a question to test Jesus. He said, teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it. The second is equally as important. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and all the prophets. You want to summarize the 10 commands? You want to summarize the 528 plus commandments that the scribes and Pharisees then implemented? It boils down to these two things. That you would love your God and live out that love by how you serve him. And that you would love your neighbor. You would love people, but real love does something. So you would love your neighbor and live that out by the way that you serve people around you.

That's how we get connected. And I love this. I love that we can come together every single Sunday, corporately, to get connected. To gather together and to sing our songs of praise to a God who's given us everything. That we can serve him by working in the parking lot or teaching little children. That we can serve him by getting in community and serving other people and growing in relationships so we can be all that God has called us to be. That we can get connected here to Jesus and one another and live out the greatest commands. Every single Sunday, 240 people, serve team members, give of their time, their talent, their treasure, their testimony to come and to help make this the perfect place for imperfect people. To come and to serve people so that we can... Freely worship God and we can grow in relationship with him and with others 240 active serve team members that make this a perfect place for imperfect people every Sunday Can I let you know of a little secret about these 240 serve team members? We don't pay them They get paid nothing Why do they do it then Why do people Come early and leave late and sweat through their clothes in the parking lot and deal with our little demon children sometimes But just give me candy and sugar. I don't want Jesus. We love you What would cause someone to do that? What would cause a church to freely give? First John 4 19 Really? What's the catch? We love because he first loved us We love and we serve And we do whatever God puts on our heart to do for him because he first loved us See again my kids There's nothing that they could do to earn my love

They can't they can't pay my my insurance bills. They can't drive me to the store They can't do my honey-do list that I need to do at home. There's nothing they can do to earn that love I love them for who they are and when they receive that love and they Experience that love even though they disobey me even though they turn their back they come back to dad Dad pours out grace because I love them And if they do something for me because of that love If they draw a little picture and say dad here you go If they make me breakfast in bed on my birthday, even though it's smushed bananas and cold waffles Just put in the toaster for two minutes, even though It may not be what I can do for myself when they do something for me. It brings me great joy That's what it means to be in a relationship with God that's what it means To receive and Experience this good news But for God so loved the world that he gave his son that I can be in relationship with him I could be forgiven of my sins Because he first loved us We can love others I Know a lot of us we came in here today Thinking that I gotta come to church. I gotta spend time with God or else I'm not gonna be good this week for whatever reason or however degree you think of that What what if we thought differently about this? What if we knew that? He wants to spend time with us How would that change the way that we live in relationship with him, I'll tell you one thing We wouldn't care about other people's opinions very much But we would actually care more about their souls And and we wouldn't feel forced to Invite people to church and to share this good news with them on the church giving when I got no you wouldn't feel guilty about You wouldn't feel like it's something forced or pressured to do why because you've experienced it for yourself first We love because he first loved us and my prayer

Throughout the series has been that we would be a church that understands that that he loves us That he wants to be in relationship with us and that all that will grow naturally as we are in relationship with him That we would be a church That's free to love all people Because God so loved the world that he gave his son That we would be a church that would freely give Because God has freely given to us everything that we need And we've gotten to do that over the past several weeks We've gotten to give away at this point $45,000 to meet needs and bless people here Now listen, but stop your applause because I Want to I want to give some context of that the reason we've done we've done that is not because we are a rich church That's overflowing with abundance far from the truth You know the past 18 months have been very difficult for a lot of people here in our church familia a Lot of people have been out of work or now taking care of someone who's sick in the family Lowered wages and and because people are hurting here. It affects everything right? It affects the generosity In fact before we started this series We were already a hundred thousand dollars under what our projected budget was compared to 2020 Remember that dumpster fire of a year 2020 So we we came together as a Leadership team's like, wow, we're already $100,000 under. What do we do? People are hurting, we understand it. It's affecting, and so here's what I love about our leadership team. I'm grateful for our board of directors, our executive team.

Instead of coming and saying, okay, $100,000 deficit, what do we cut? How can we do less to reach people with the gospel of Jesus? How can we do less to connect people to Jesus and one another? That wasn't the conversation. The conversation was people are hurting. God has given us an opportunity. Instead of holding on to what we have, we're gonna try to outgive God, knowing we will fail, but we're gonna take what he's given to us and to help hurting people in this time. So $100,000 in deficit, let's give away $100,000. So what that means today is that we've already given away 45,000. Today, over the course of three services, we have the opportunity to bless some more people in our church familial with another $55,000. So we're gonna create some good news today. Kamala Hidalgo. Hey, we know it's been difficult. Can you come up here? We know you had that house fire a few years ago and it's been hard to recover. And you and your mom, you've been doing so much and I know it's difficult, but God sees, God knows, and God cares so much about you. And so we wanna take that burden off. And so for the next six months,

we have taken care of six months of your groceries for you and your mom, so that you guys don't have to worry about that burden anymore. Natalie Pabon, can you come up here, please? It's so good to see you. You used to be a smiling face in the front row every single week, but we know that you had that car accident. And we know that your car has not been fully repaired. And it's kept you from doing what you love and being a prayer warrior here and giving your smile away. Out of the generosity of the people of God and the goodness of our God, he sees, he knows, he cares. We have an offering of $2,500 to help you with the car repair or whatever else you need to do. We also want to give a scholarship today. Hey, Nalia, can you come up? Nalia, the way that you serve the kids here, that you give of who you are, when we know your family situation isn't perfect and we're coming alongside praying with you and your mom for everything that's going on, but we also want to help lift the burden. So we have a scholarship for $1,500 to you. Whatever you want to do with that, you matter to God, you matter to us, Nalia.

Thank you. Ah, man, this one. Hey, Sherilyn, can you come up? Sherilyn, come on. Now, I'm gonna give it away already, but when you pulled up today, you saw two cars out there. Sheryl, well done, mom. You have raised up four amazing men and women of God who love the Lord, who are so faithful and generous. They all have jobs and they're working so hard and I love seeing them and give away that smile. And it just blows our mind that you are being this incredible super mom to these four wonderful young men and women of God with one car. So, because of the goodness of God and the generosity of Church Amelia, we want to give you another car to help ease our burden. Next service, we're gonna give away another car. We've given away a guitar and help pay for... surgery and some other scholarships are going to be taking care of some more single moms, but this last one, this last one has been something in the making for several weeks, and it's been hard for us to keep it close, but we wanted to celebrate together with our church family. And none of this is because we're a good church. It's because we want to be a church that does what Jesus calls to do, to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus and to tangibly help people and point them to God while they're here on earth. And throughout the pandemic, more specifically in the past two months, as we've been having our eight at eight Wednesday prayers, we've been seeing this prayer request pop up and pop up and pop up. And, um, it's just someone in our, in our church family that we love dearly,

two people specifically, one of them, she's one of my good friends, 94 year old Betty. We love Betty so much. And then her daughter, Kathy, and they've been putting up this prayer request during an eight at eight prayers for a significant need that they have in their family. And as we've been praying for that, uh, the Holy spirit put on our leadership team's heart. Don't just pray, answer the prayer. And so would you turn your attention to the screen? For whatever reason, the insurance company is saying she needs a new roof because of the age of the roof. Not because, I mean, like I know she's got a couple of spots on the very edge that need to be fixed, you know, but they said no band-aids. It has to be a complete new roof or we're not going to insure her. Okay. And if they don't insure her, she has a reverse mortgage on it. If she doesn't get insurance, she's going to lose the house in January. Okay. Yeah. They built this house 67 years ago. They built it. My parents did. Yeah. And how many generations is that? You get one, two. Yeah. There's my mom, there's me, there's my kids. And then there's my grandkids. Four generations. So was this something that you've known was coming or did they just spring this on? No. They literally sprang it on us and they gave us, at first they gave us like two weeks to, yeah, to have something done and a permit in the process or whatever. And you know, everything rolling before they would even like look at giving us insurance. So before we pray, you know, we've been praying as a church to, you know, for needs and places where we can step in and stand in faith with people and partner with them for what they're believing. So we definitely do want to pray for you and your family and all of this. But before that, we do have something for you that we wanted to show you. So feel free, if you're comfortable. It's not from the insurance company. It is not. They're not allowed here. They're not allowed here at all. Kids are not allowed here. So we've begun the process of submitting the permits. We have already contracted the roofers and this is something that we want to step in and meet this need for you and for your family. So on behalf of the local church, this is something that we would love to be able to do for you guys. She's going to get a new room. We want to also, this house has never had AC, right? No. So we want to also, and it's in the works. Contractor is already ready to go for central heat and air.

Central air conditioning. So it's going to be cool. She's going to have a new roof and she's going to be as cold as you want her to be. It's a little warm here. That's something that we should have as well. Every day when I come home from work, I always make sure I do everything in the kitchen beforehand because the only rooms that has AC is my bedroom and my office and they're just window units. Yeah, that's wonderful. We love you. You know that. Yeah. More importantly, God loves you. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. Betty, Kathy, you matter to God. You matter to us. Yesterday, the AC was turned on for the first time. But this is the goodness of God for us, and not only can we point people to an eternal relationship with Him, but while we are here, we can be a part of helping people with their tangible needs as we point them to a God who loves them. And this is not just about the local church. This is primarily about the people of God who make up the church. The church is not brick and mortar. It's not an eagle or a logo. It's flesh and blood, it's people. And so I want to encourage you to know that God can use you, to take what He's put on your heart when you ask those two questions, God, what do you teach to me? What do you want to do about it? And let Him allow you to be used, to point people to a God who is love, who is help, who is hope, who brings family, who grows faith right here through the people of God. Would you stand to your feet right now? Allow the Holy Spirit to use you this week as we continue to share this good news, and let's celebrate. Let's celebrate who He is. Come on, respond to His goodness, praise Him in this moment. Oh yes. Oh yes, we praise you God. Sing it one more time. We praise you, we praise. Come on, sing it again, we'll see you break.

Come on. Come on. Come on, we praise His mighty name of Jesus today. Oh yes, be glorified.