The Gift of Grace

Well, hello everybody. Fantastic. Thank you guys for bearing with me on that video. Again, you know, it's hard when you have your legs exposed in front of thousands of people, you know. At the church, it's not something that normally happens here, you know. So I'm sorry you had to watch that, but we do hope that you grab your yard sign after church today. Because truly, you never know that what grabbing one of those signs and putting it out in your yard, what it can do for people. You know, the reason that we have those available every year is because we know that Christmas is the greatest time, Christmas and Easter, that people say yes to coming to church. So we would love for you to grab a yard sign as you leave today. Just put it out in front of your house and, you know, I don't know, grab a few for your neighbors, you know, put it out in front of their house. And we would love, love, love to see you and all of those that you know at Christmas as we come up. Here in just a few weeks, man, Christmas is coming up soon, huh? I feel like Thanksgiving is really late this year, but that's not why we're here to talk. Fantastic. I'm now rambling. It's 1145 service. I want to read to you James chapter 4, verses 6 through 8. We've been in a series called Faith Works. You know, the book of James is all about putting your faith into action. It's all about taking faith that can maybe feel in the clouds, right? Faith just being something that we can't see. And James takes it and he wants us to learn how to put some legs on it. He wants us to take it and he wants us to begin to apply it to our everyday life. And so we've been going chapter by chapter through the book of James. And I'm excited today to read to you James chapter 4, because I believe that if we can truly apply what it says in James chapter 4, then your life can be changed. And I also think that what we're about to read is something that it goes beyond anything that we can really truly understand. And that if we can try to understand it today, no matter what level of spiritual maturity you may be in, I want to tell you that you can grow in this and you can take a step of maturity. But this is what it says. It says, but he gives greater grace. I love that. It doesn't say he just gives grace. It says that he gives greater grace. And he's qualifying this grace for us, that it is great. And then it says, therefore, which there's two in this passage, which we're going to talk about both of them. It says, therefore God resists the proud and he gives grace, this great grace, to the humble. And then there's that word again. Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will

flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. And then it says, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded, which we're going to talk about at the end. But the title of my message today, if you are taking notes, which I hope you are, is simply the gift of grace. The gift of grace. I love getting gifts. I don't know about you. We're coming up to Christmas, and it's just a time of getting gifts. It's a time of giving gifts. You know, we start with Thanksgiving, and it's incredible. And who knows, once Friday starts, it's Christmas season, y'all. Y'all know what I'm saying? Or if you're at Celebration Church, it's before that. I mean, we've already got everything out in the concourse. Hopefully, you got experience, take some photos with that. But it's just a season where we're focusing on gifts, giving them, getting them. And I want to tell you, the most incredible gift that we could ever have is the gift of grace. And I want to unpack what that means for us today, and how we can receive that gift. But let's pray, let's invite God into his word, and we'll get going from there. But Lord, that is our prayer, God, that we would receive the gift of grace today. God, we're asking that you would make it real in our minds, in our hearts. God, give us a deeper and greater understanding of your grace. Convict our hearts, God, pierce us deeply, God, to know you more. And God, we pray that your word comes and does what only it can. Come and perform the miraculous in our midst today. In Jesus' name, amen. Awesome, so we're obviously talking about grace today, and grace is something that we all love to get, but we don't love to give. All right, everybody with me? Especially if you're married or in a relationship in this place, and you know, it's aggressive fellowship happens, things happen, arguments come up. And you know, I like to always pull the grace trump card. You know, if things are really not going my way, that's when you got to pull out, come on, you just got to give me a little grace here, all right? You just got to give me a little grace. And maybe you're here, you're like me, where it's like you're driving on the road, and you're like maybe not texting, I would say, but maybe you look down at your phone for some reason, and something happens, and you accidentally... they cut somebody off and then you come up to the red light beside them, and they're saying very worshipful, kind, amazing things

with hand gestures and choreography to match. And I don't know about you, but if somebody's mad at me, I'm automatically mad at them. You know what I'm saying? I don't care if I was the one in the wrong, if you're mad at me, all right, you wanna go there, let's go there. You just need to learn to give a little grace. And I say that to say is because grace is something that is vitally important when it comes to the Christian walk. And I even wanna take it a step farther that your understanding of grace determines your understanding of God. If you do not have a proper understanding of grace, you do not have a proper understanding of God. If you don't truly in its fullness understand what grace is, it is impossible. I mean, I'm using big words on purpose. It's impossible for you to truly, fully understand what it means to be Christian. And I say that because most other world religions, especially the biggest ones, they operate with the system that is like a scale. The scale being all of your good deeds are on one side, all of your bad deeds are on the other side, and that one day after you die, there's gonna be a moment where the scales are weighed and you go this way or you go that way or it determines what type of life

that you'll have in the afterlife. And if we're not careful, that can sound a lot like Christianity. Like, oh, I just wanna do the good things. I just wanna be holy. I just wanna serve God and I wanna do this and I wanna do that. And you know, but these sins keep coming up and then I begin to add up my sin versus my good works. And we think that, you know, if I'm a good person and I quote unquote love God and go to church and I do all these things, then, you know, one day when I die, I'll go before God and he'll know my heart and who knows what's gonna happen at that time. But at its core principle, this flies in the face of what the Bible says Christianity is. See, that all has to do with what you do. But following Christ has nothing to do with what you do. It has everything to do with what he has done. Are you with me? Christianity is not about us ascending to some spiritual, you know, excellence, but it's about God in his holiness and his perfection descending into our mess and sin and choosing to give himself for us. This is what it says in Romans chapter five, verse eight. It says that God demonstrates his love for us. How? That while we were still sinners,

while all of the marbles were on the bad side, he decided to demonstrate his love for us not just by saying, you know, some proverbial like magical wand, making our sins go away, but no, he gave himself. He descended from glory and perfection into our humanity and he gives himself to us. And not only did he give himself to us, he gave himself to us unto death, choosing to die the death that we all deserve. And that's the gift of grace, is that we couldn't do it on our own, but Jesus did it for us. And this is what it says in Ephesians chapter two, verse eight. It says, for it is by grace that you have been saved. Through faith, right, that's our job. God did the grace giving. All we have to do is through faith we believe and accept. And then it says, this is not of yourself, it is the gift of God. Not by works so that no one can boast. Maybe you're in here and you're saying, you're now preaching a gospel where we don't have to do anything. No, that's not what I'm saying, but what I am saying is that you don't get it if your gospel is about what you do. The gospel is about what he has done. And there's a war that's gonna be

from the beginning of your faith journey to the end of your understanding and full maturity of this grace and that this gift has been freely offered to us. And the Bible tells us that it is our salvation, this grace. This is how we're saved. What happens when we die? The grace that was given to us was received through faith or it wasn't. It's the gift of God, received by faith through the believer. But then it gets better. It's that faith is not. not just our salvation, faith, or excuse me, grace is not just our salvation, but grace is the method in which we grow in Christ. So it's not just a transaction, it's not just a gift, it's a gift that keeps on giving. Come on, who knows, the best gifts are like when you open it up and you receive the gift, and then you're like, there's more in there, you know what I'm saying? And then you reach in and there's more, that's what grace is, is that you go in and you get to receive the gift of salvation, and then he gives you more grace, grace to overcome, grace to be who God has called you to be, grace to step into the call and the purpose of God. It's like the gift that keeps on giving,

and I wanna ask you today, are you willing to receive his gift? Are you willing to receive his gift? Because only the way that you answer that question will be and determine how you live your life and how you view God. I love this, St. Jerome, who was in the three and 400 AD, so this is an old quote, but it's the same grace. This is what it says, it is shallow enough for a baby to drink without fear of drowning, and it is deep enough to where the greatest theologian can't swim to the bottom. I'm gonna say that again, I can see the loading happening, the buffering happening there. It says, it is shallow enough for the baby to drink without fear of drowning, and it is deep enough to where the greatest theologian can't swim to the bottom. That's grace, this gift that is freely given to us, that keeps on giving and keeps on transforming us and keeps on changing us and showing us who we're meant to be in Christ. But there's one thing to be aware of, it's not just to be given a gift, it's another thing to receive it. And I think we would all say that we know that Jesus has freely given us this gift of grace, but the problem about it is that a lot of times we can't receive it,

and we can't receive it because it doesn't make sense. It's hard to receive a gift that feels like it's so ridiculous. It's hard to receive a gift that feels, it feels like, what are you even doing here? Has anybody ever been given a gift like that in real life where even if it's just somebody paying for your meal or something, you're just like, hey, hey, hey, hey, stop, you don't have to do that. I feel like that's a lot of time how we view God. It's like, God is freely lavishing his grace on us, we're like, stop, God, God, you don't have to do all that. I can pray more, don't worry, I can do that. I can still do something, God. And a lot of times we can't receive his grace because there's something in our heart that wants to do it on our own. And we see this from the beginning of time to where Lucifer falling from heaven because of his choosing to Adam and Eve taking and eating of the fruit all the way to modern times to all of us just living our day-to-day lives is we want to take control, and I want to tell you, this is biblical. Let's go back to that verse, verse number six, it says, he gives greater grace, therefore, what happens with this grace? He resists the proud and gives this grace to the humble. Can I tell you something? If you can't resist, or excuse me,

if you can't receive the grace of God today, there's only one reason, it's pride, it's pride. And I want to tell you, pride is the poison of grace. Pride is the poison of grace. And I can say this very clearly, and I can say it very openly and directly to all of us today, because we're all prideful. We're all human beings. We're all sitting here, we all have breath in our lungs, and because we are human, we are innately prideful. There's something in us that wants to control, there's something in us that wants to be right, and wants to earn, and wants to deserve, and it's just something in us, in our humanity, and in our fallenness, that just feels like we want to be filled up with what we get, like we get what we deserve. But pride is a poison, and we have to understand that, because pride, what it does, is it can sneak in, and before you know it, you don't realize how much it has taken hold of your life, and the next thing you know, you can't receive the grace of God. And I want to say it to you in three ways. Number one is that pride rejects grace. How do you know if you have pride in your heart? First is that pride rejects grace, and the posture of that is this right here. Hmm. It can

be disguised as skepticism, or cynicism, or negativity. And maybe you're the happiest guy in the world and it's like the moment that you pull up onto the property and the worship starts, you're just like mm, like there's an arms folded, like a wall just comes up. And they play the video and you're like, I knew this church showed exposed legs. I just knew it. What kind of church is this? And there's just like a negativity and a cynicism and a wall that comes up into your heart. And I just wanna tell you today, like however you think is gonna happen with that, all that's happening is you're poisoning your own heart to reject the grace of God in worship and to reject his grace to the reading of the word and to reject what he's doing in the life of our church and in your life as an individual. You know, the Bible has a story about this, it's called the Rich Young Ruler, where there's a guy who came to Jesus and he says, I've been a good Jewish boy, I've followed all the law and I've done all the things, so what must I do to be saved? And he's hoping that Jesus says to him, you know what? Wait, you followed all the law? Come on, buddy, like he's expecting to be praised. But what Jesus says is he looks into his heart and he sees that there's pride. And he goes, for you, you need to sell all of your possessions and you need to follow me.

And all of a sudden, he has an opportunity. Is he gonna say yes or is he gonna reject? And so what he chooses is he chooses rejection. It says that he folds his arms and he walks away and he rejects grace. And you know, there is a theology that's called the irresistible grace. And I just wanna tell you today, this scripture flies in the face of irresistible grace. Because Jesus, who is grace, looked at this man and said, okay, you wanna follow me? Come on, and he chose to reject him. And I tell that to you today because there's so many people that ask questions like, can you lose your salvation and can you this or that? And I'm not gonna answer that for you today because I don't want the emails, all right? It's Thanksgiving week. But what I am gonna tell you is that we see very clearly in the scripture is that you can reject the grace of God. And that at some point, it is up to you in your mind and your heart what you do with this free gift that is given to you. And that it is very possible for you to reject it. I wanna tell you today, I wanna challenge you today that it's possible that the poison of pride has gotten into your heart. Next is that pride tries to earn grace. And I'll say this, this is the one that I struggle with if I'm just being completely vulnerable with you,

is pride tries to say, if I do all of the things, I should be closer to God. If I just prayed more, if I just evangelized more, if I just went to church more, if I just did more, more, more, more, more, maybe God would love me more. Or maybe God would show me and bring me closer. Maybe God, by all of what I do, maybe then finally God will do something that I want him to do. And I just wanna tell you today, if you're in here today and you said that you tried to earn grace, I wanna tell you it's great for a short season because it gets you practicing the things of God. But what ends up happening is you burn out. Because trying to earn the gift of grace is great motivation for a short time until the tank runs out. Until the motivation goes away. Until you realize that by disappointment and things of life that God maybe had different plans and because you feel like you're trying to earn it, you feel like it's your fault and then you end up rejecting it. I just wanna tell you today, there's nothing that you can do to earn the grace of God. It is freely given to you. The Bible calls this self-righteousness. Okay?

And all self-righteousness is, is pride disguised as holiness. How do you know if you're being self-righteous? Let me give you an example out of my personal life. Like, the past couple weeks, I've been really trying to dial in my nutrition and I've been trying to like track everything that I eat. Using track, using chat GPT, I'm like telling it, you know, give me all the macros and calories and all that stuff. And so I'm doing it all. And like the first day I was doing it, a puppy like reaches over and grabs like a mint out of like a jar. And I'm like, how dare you eat all that sugar? I can't believe how unhealthy you are. It's like this automatic, like judgment, right? Like she's, all she's doing is eating a mint. And because of something. that I have done, right? I rejected mints for an hour. And next thing you know, I'm on my high horse saying like, you unhealthy person. How many of us do that in our faith though, right? It's like you stop cussing or you stop drinking or you pray or you get up early and you set the alarm early and you got up for one day and then it's like you go to work or you find somebody in your small group. So what time were you up this morning?

Oh, seven o'clock? I've been seeking the Lord for 15 minutes by then. Just self-righteousness, it's just you become the greatest judge. And I wanna tell you that it's pride, it's pride. It's poison and that we'll have to receive the gift of grace. We can't earn it, it's freely given to us. And then lastly, pride cheapens grace. I wanna read to you a quote, great early 2000s theologian named Michael Scott. Okay, do we have any Office fans in the house? If you have watched The Office, I haven't, but I assume if you do watch it, you have a great sense of humor. But this is what he says about gifts. He says, presence are the best way to show someone how much you care. He says, it is like the tangible thing that you can point to and say, hey man, I love you this many dollars worth. So I'm gonna send that as a text reminder to Abby later, Christmas is coming up. Because I do love a good gift. Come on, I do love costly gifts, you know what I'm saying? Like a trip or like something like that where you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you would do that. Oh my, thank you.

And you can get like the same watch that costs $30 and then it costs $1,000 and you're like, oh, thank you. Because it's so costly, like I can't believe how much that costs. Or maybe you got a piece of jewelry or maybe there's something that you've received that has value and cost to you. What ends up happening inevitably when we get those gifts? They go in the same drawer as the whole of the other cheap stuff that we've had off Amazon and Target, right? Like the same watches, the same earrings, the same, all of those things, they end up in the same drawers and then what inevitably happens, right, is we forget and then one day you're cleaning up or you're rummaging, oh, I forgot about that. And what happens is that this is what we do with the grace of God, right? Like when we first receive the grace of God, we're like, this is so costly. And you understand that Jesus died for you and we sang this song, right, like I cast my mind to Calvary where he bled and died for me. I see his wounds, his hands, his feet. There's like this moment where it's like the Spirit of God arrests our heart and we understand the cost of what he did for us.

Like we understand the gift. But what ends up happening, right, is that in that moment we truly get it but then we walk out of these four walls, or four, you have walls here, and we go back into our normal life. And what was so emotional and what was so, like we were so full of gratitude, the kids get busy and life happens and our schedules get, you know, filled up by all of these other things and the next thing you know, what was once so valuable to you kind of just becomes normal. And life cheapens grace. And but what we don't realize is it's actually pride disguised as normalcy. Because then what happens is we come into the house of God where once we understood the cost, now it's normal. And it ends up callousing our hearts to the things and the ways of God. And we become negative and cynical, and maybe you're in here today and you're like, you used to be so on fire for God and you long to be that way again. Could be years or decades. You long to be that way again. What I want to do is I want to take some time at the end of our service today, I want to pray for you that we would really and truly come back

to the heart of God today and that you could feel that passion again. But you know, it's, right, one thing to get a gift, one thing to receive a gift. It's pride that becomes the poison, but the word also tells us in this same verse how to fix this. And it says this, it says that God gives grace, or excuse me, God resists the proud, but then he gives grace to who? The humble. God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. Let me tell it to you like this. If pride is the poison, humility is the cure. Humility is the cure. Humility is simply this. That's right, there's a million ways that you could divine it, but for our purposes today, this is how I want to define humility. Humility is simply the recognization of your need. We'll say it like this. You understand who God is, you understand who you are, and then you understand your need for him. Let me say it like this. What would happen if you woke up tomorrow morning and the first thing that you said was, God, I understand who you are, I understand who I am, and I need you today. What would change about your life that when all the kids are going crazy in the backseat and you want to throw

something at them, you just took a moment. I understand who you are, I understand who I am, and I need you. But then let's take it a little bit deeper, okay? What's gonna happen that day when something happens inevitably that sends you over the edge? Maybe it's a diagnosis, or maybe it's a loss of a job, or maybe it's the surprising death of a loved one. What would change about that if you just took that to God and you said, God, I know who you are, and I know who I am, and I need you. You know, that simple prayer is the cure to pride. And there are some of us where you have gone through so much in your life, and your heart has become hard, and your heart has become callous, you haven't realized that the poison of pride come in your life. I want to tell you today that no matter what has happened to you, that the simple prayer of God, I know who you are, I know who I am, and I recognize my need can cure the poison of pride. And that if we want to, I want to be a church where we just always have open arms that say, God, I recognize my need for you, because when we do this, then and only then can you truly receive in its fullness and depth, the gift of grace. Are you with me? So I want to finish my time with us together today talking about what do we do with this gift of grace? Excuse me, what do we do with this gift of grace? It says that in verse number seven,

let's put up verse number seven of James chapter four. There's that word again, right, therefore, right? He gives greater grace, and then it says he resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble. Therefore, what do we do now that we have received this grace in humility? We submit to God, we resist the devil, and it says he will flee from you, and then it says draw near to God, and he will draw near to you, and then it has some kind of a weird caveat on the end that says cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded, which I want to talk about at the end, because I think when we filter that through everything else, it allows us to see it clearly. But the first thing that we get to do, right, is that we get to open up and receive this gift of grace. You've been wondering why this is here. And we open it up, and what ends up happening is we get to reach into the gift of grace, and we get to submit to God. See, submission is a cuss word in our culture. None of us like to submit to anything, right? Like, we don't like to submit to the IRS. We don't like to submit to the speed limit. Like, I don't know if anybody, I don't like to submit to how much time Apple Maps says it's gonna take me to go somewhere. You know, it's like, that's not, like, information that's a challenge.

Like, in our human nature, we just don't like to submit. Come on, especially us guys. Like, I don't even want my calendar to tell me what to do. You know, like, I wanna be in charge of my own life. I wanna be in control. I wanna be able to know and control my future, what is happening. Okay, that's enough, because I see all the nodding of the heads. I think we're clear. But here's the thing, is that submission to God is different than submission to God. It's different, because all of those things are great, but when you submit to God, it becomes a covering for you. It becomes a covering for you. The Bible says it like this. It says that the thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus says, I have come to give you life and life more abundant, an abundant life. And when we live unsubmitted and uncovered, we aren't living in the abundant life of God. But when we live submitted in all of our ways to what God wants us to do and who he has called us to be, we live underneath this covering. That's important for us to know, because let me ask you this, how would your life change if every part of your life lived submitted to God under his covering? covering, what would change? What has he been asking you to submit

that you have been withholding from him? I wanna read to you a great quote by Charles Spurgeon. This is what it says, a person who is really saved by grace does not need to be told that he is under solemn obligation to serve Christ. The new life within him tells him that. And instead of regarding it as a burden, he gladly surrenders himself, body, soul, and spirit to the Lord. Come on, who knows that when we receive the gift of grace, we gladly submit ourselves to the Lord. Why? Because we know who he is, we know who we are, and we recognize our need, and we understand that we cannot live the abundant life on our own no matter how much we try. Come on, has anybody been walking with somebody, you have an umbrella and you gotta choose who gets the umbrella, and it's like the other person gets it and you're just standing there in the rain? There's so many Christians that there's nobody over there, you're just standing there with the umbrella in your hand, letting the rain hit you, and God is saying, if you could just take a moment and submit your life to me, that I could allow you to live under the protection and covering of the grace that I have for you. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, what do we do with this gift of grace number two? It's we resist the devil. It says resist the devil and he will flee from you. I got a resistance band here, all right, fantastic. I'm gonna step on it like this, and you know, that's about as good as we're gonna get because I don't wanna embarrass myself here. But lifting weights, whether it be with a band or dumbbells or whatever, is called resistance training. And there's things about resistance training that you can't get if you don't add any resistance, right? Like running and things are great, but the moment that you add resistance, you begin to build strength. And the Bible tells us, right, that we need to resist the devil. And what happens under resistance training is a couple things. First thing is that it's hard. It's hard to go into the gym and to try to lift up weights that are heavier than you can carry. It's hard to continue to push yourself even when it hurts. It's hard to put your muscles underneath the stress that it takes to be in resistance training to build strength. And then not only is it hard, it also makes you sore the next day. Anybody been there?

It makes you sore. You're like, man, I can't believe I did that. It's hard to walk up these stairs. I can't bend over. I can't lift my arms. I can't grab the steering wheel. I wanna tell you, it's the same thing as when it comes to resisting the devil. Is that a lot of us, right, we never darken the doors of the gym because we don't wanna feel the pain. And a lot of us, we never resist the devil because we never wanna make hard choices. And we never wanna go into the gym of resisting the devil. Why? Because it's hard. It's hard to say no to the same temptation that you've said yes to over and over and over again. It's hard to make that decision. It's hard to change the habit. And not only that, it's gonna leave you a little sore. You're gonna have to change some things about your life. Your weekends might have to look a little bit different. Your friend group might have to change just a little bit. There's gonna be some things in your life that aren't gonna feel the same. But here's the power of resistance training. It's something called progressive overload. And I don't know if you could tell, but this is a thicker band, okay?

So you go to do some on this, right? It's gonna be a little bit harder. And what progressive overload does is that as you begin to resist longer and longer and longer, the easier it becomes and the more you're able to resist. And it's the same way with the kingdom of God is that the more you begin to resist the devil, the more spiritual weight you will begin to carry. The more you begin to resist the temptations that you have now, the greater you'll be able to resist in the future. And this is the process of sanctification that we say, God, come on, we can clap our hands and thank God because that is our ability to say, God, it's not in my strength, it's by your grace. God, and that it is by your grace that I can say no to the things that once held me bound. It is by your grace that a year from now, my life can look completely different than it does now. And the sin that has plagued me for decades stops today. But it's only by the grace of God and our willingness to resist the devil. And then lastly, it says that we have the ability to draw near. And for so many of us, We feel far away from God. And because we've believed the poison of pride, we believe our closeness to God

is dictated on what we can do. And we believe that if we are in sin and if we don't think about God and we ignore him, that he is somehow moving far away from us. And I wanna tell you today that God is like this candle. His presence being this flame. He came in Christ through the gift of grace and he gave himself to us. That cannot and will not ever change. It is what he has done and it is the gift that he offers us today. And it's like this candle. But what happens is because of the poison of pride, we are the ones that make decisions on whether or not we're close to him. We chase after the things of the world. And we chase after the pleasures that make us feel good and the life that we think that we should live and what we want to do. And then we blame God. We say, God, I can't believe how far you are away from me. I wanna tell you today, God is not saying I am far from you. All God is asking you to do is draw near. He's saying, I'm not the one that has changed. Draw near again to me. Draw near again, no matter how far you are. You have the ability today to draw near no matter how far you feel from God. He changes not. His presence is here waiting for you.

And I love this promise. It says not only is he running from you that when you draw near, it actually beckons him to draw nearer to you. There's a story in the New Testament in Luke chapter 15 about what's called the prodigal son. And the prodigal son took his inheritance and he ran and he spent it all on wild living. And so there was a moment that he had in his mind where the lights turned on and it said, wow, the servants in my father's house live better than how I'm living right now. And all he did was turn around and begin to make his way back to his father's house. But here's the powerful nature of the father is that his father was standing in the same place as when he left. That the prodigal's father was standing in the same exact place as when his son rejected him and cheapened his love for him and just went out and lived and went his own way. And I'm here to tell you today that in that story, it says that he saw his son from a long way off and he just didn't wait for his son to come all the way to him. It says that he picked up his clothes and he began to run. And I will tell you today, all you have to do is turn to Jesus. And it says that when you begin to draw near to him, come on, Jesus runs to you.

His grace runs to you and he will come and his nearness and his presence is available for you today. No matter how far you've been, when you draw near, he draws near to you. So how do we do this? It's simple. It says, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart. What does that mean? This was a ritual that they would do before they went into the temple. And it's pretty much a confession of sin in a solely devoted heart towards God. So he's saying to you today, all right, you wanna draw near today? All you have to do is out of your mouth, say, God, I confess, I've believed the poison of pride. I've tried to do this on my own. I've tried to earn my salvation. I've gone my own way. I've rejected your grace. God, I just confess that to you today. And that's cleansing your hands through the act of confession but then it says, purify your hearts, you double-minded. All that is is soul devotion to God. So after you say, God, I confess to you, you get to say, God, my eyes are on you. No longer am I gonna go to the left or to the right, but God, I commit my heart to you today,

solely devoted to following Jesus, to receiving the gift of grace, to say, God, I know who you are. I know who I am and I'm in need. I wanna tell you today, no matter how far you've gone, whether you've been saved for a long time or barely saved, that we can all come back to the gift of grace and confess that we've lived a life of pride and re-devote our hearts to him today, amen. Can we stand together? Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. I'm gonna ask you not to leave, but to just put your stuff down and open your hands before the Lord. You can close your eyes. Just open your hands, just as a sign of receiving. And why don't you ask God right where you are and say, God, where have I believed the poison of pride? Where have I allowed pride to come into my heart? What have I not submitted to you? Just ask God to speak to you. He loves you. Draw near to him today. Don't leave this place till you touch the heart of God. He loves you. Maybe you're in here today and you were once passionate for God and now you're not and you long for those days again. Just confess it to him. Confess it.

God, I feel far from you. I wanna feel you again. I wanna know you deeper. I wanna know you more. Maybe you had a moment at a youth camp or something that changed your life and now it just feels like Jesus is in the drawer with everything else. Come on, just confess to him. God, I'm sorry. He hasn't changed, it's us. It's us. Maybe you're in here today and you've been rejecting the grace of God. I feel that strongly in my heart, this service. There are some of us that are in here today where it's just you have had a hardness of heart. When the worship leader says to raise your hands, it's like you can't do it. When you see everybody else and you're just like, I can't be like them. And today, but you just feel God calling you. You feel him calling you. I wanna tell you, receive his gift of grace today. You don't have to reject him any longer. He loves you. Submit your life to him. And for some of us in here today, you have never submitted your life to him. You've never received the gift of grace.

And maybe you've never heard it said like that. Maybe you heard about Jesus and you have head knowledge of Jesus, but you thought it was all about what you did. And today you're having a heart knowledge of, no, Jesus died for you. And all you have to do is receive it. Come on, today, if you don't know Jesus and you wanna receive him, what I'm asking you to do right now is just put your hand up in the sky, lift your hand up just to say as a sign to God, God, I am giving my life to you. I'm receiving your gift of grace today. Some of you are, you're getting saved right now. God is saving your heart. He's transforming your life. And I wanna pray a prayer together as a church. And for some of us, it's gonna be the moment that we dedicate our lives to the Lord. And for some of us, it's gonna be just a re-receiving of the grace of God. But all I ask you to do is to mean it with your whole heart. And this is what we're gonna say together. Say, Jesus, I am a sinner, but you are my savior. I receive your grace today. Let it transform me from the inside out. I wanna know the depths of your grace. I'm sorry, Lord, that I've been prideful,

but I receive you today. Help me to live a life that receives your grace every day. In Jesus' name, amen. Come on, can we just clap our hands and thank God, church? We thank you, Lord. Amen.