The Missing Piece

Oh, what is up? What is up, CBG? 10 o'clock edition. Anybody in the room didn't know you were coming to the 10 o'clock edition because time change got you, time change. If you're watching online right now on our website or our YouTube channel, this is time change weekend, but it's a good one for church because you got the extra hour of sleep last night in Jesus' name, which is a good thing. Back in the day, though, we used to have a classic style service at this campus, much like the one we have at First Baptist Fort Lauderdale at 10 o'clock there. It was nine o'clock. Had it for, gosh, 20 years until COVID. And always this weekend, this was like the biggest attendance, and people were shocked we had that service. They came by mistake, but now smartphones, you're here on time. Good to see you today. Glad you're with us. Your guest, my name is David. I want to jump right into it, but let me front load the talk this way. If you ever battle with anxiety, worry, phobias, fears, or how about this, insecurity, you're in the right place. I think God has a word for you, so please be attentive, be open. Listen, insecurity, we all battle at times with insecurity. Amen? Are you lying in church today? We all at times. I'm actually a fairly secure person. I'm a pretty balanced person. I'm a pretty steady person. But man, everybody deals with this. In fact, you know someone, and they're not just confident, they're cocky. That's probably a facade for their insecurity. They probably believe their own height, but a lot of insecure people present as overconfident people. So if I deal with insecurity, what is God's solve? Find your Bibles and find Ephesians chapter one, Ephesians chapter one. I am so excited to preach this message today. I think God's going to change someone's life today. Not that I'm anything special or my oratory is that unique, it's just I believe in the power of God's word to change God's people. I want to start the story this way. Back about 100 years ago when the richest man in the world was named William Randolph Hearst, he was an American and Californian. He put together what we would call today the first media empire in American history. Now today, if you have a media empire, you have streaming services and movie studios, I don't know, social media. But back in that day, it was newspapers. The vast majority of Americans, the way we consumed information was newspapers. And at the peak of his career, Hearst owned 50 of America's largest, most prominent newspapers and periodicals. He owned movie studios and radio stations. He made so much money. He decided at the apex of his career to build himself not just a house, but a castle on the California coastline. He bought a beautiful piece of property

overlooking the Pacific. He built a castle almost 70,000 square feet. That's huge. And had 115 rooms. On top of that, he was an art collector. He loved art and he put together an art collection. Unlike any private collection in the world at the time or perhaps since, he collected so many pieces, over a thousand pieces, and his taste was eclectic. He loved European masters. He collected medieval suits of armor, objects from Southeast Asia. No, he didn't really have the dogs playing poker, but my team put that up there just for fun. But he had all these pieces of artwork. He loved this collection. But in one of his magazines, probably his own magazine, one day reading an article, he saw a masterpiece. He saw a piece of artwork he had never seen before, and it captivated him. It fixated on this piece. He thought, I don't have this, but I got to have it. Now, the good news was he's very wealthy. He has a curator and a number of art buyers. He said, I don't know where this is in the world or who owns it, but it must be mine. He fixated on the masterpiece he didn't have, and they spent months scouring the world trying to find the missing piece. Maybe you have nice things and nice people in your life. Maybe God's blessed you with a good job. It's more than just a source of income. You derive a degree of satisfaction from your work. Your relationships, they're not perfect, but they're good people. You have some nice things. You live in a decent neighborhood. Your kids go to a good school, right? Or maybe you're a student, and you're making good grades. You're working really hard. You're an honor roll. Maybe you're an athlete. You just made the varsity. I don't know what it is. No matter what good things you have in your life already, there's always the missing piece. There's always that thing. It doesn't happen all the time, but at night, you're awake. See, for me, we talked about mind monsters in the last series. For me, those manageable problems become mind monsters about two o'clock at night, because I'm at the age I wake up now at two o'clock at night. Is this not fun? And the problem that I can manage during the day is magnified in the evening, and I start to worry and stress, and I just lack the personal peace I want to have. So, if you deal with anxiety or worry or insecurity, and you want more peace, if the missing piece in your life is P-E-A-C-E... I got it for you. You stay in Ephesians chapter? That was terrible. Are you sleepy? You're not, you shouldn't be sleepy.

Ephesians chapter? I'm telling you, find your Bible, open up your Bible, turn on your Bible. Ephesians chapter one's amazing. And of course, I'll put the verse on the screen too. But if I could show you before that something Jesus said, the king said, a promise he made in John 14, 27. And by the way, when the king decrees, when he speaks in his law, when Jesus makes a promise, he keeps his promises every single time. Look at the promise the king made to his followers. Amen? Yeah, put your hands together for the way you can trust Jesus to authentically and holistically keep his word every single time. He said to his disciples then, and it applies to his disciples today, peace I leave with you, my, one more time, my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world, see in the world we have peace when things are smooth. When everything's working out, when the finances are smooth, and the marriage is smooth, and the kids are good, and the job is good, and the health is good.

You know, for those 15 minutes, all those things line up. And if that's your hope of peace, that all the cylinders are firing at the right time, guess what, good luck. Because in a broken world that doesn't last, there's always something messed up, right? He says it's not that. It's not your peace based on smooth circumstances. It's different. It's gone, but trust me. A supernatural peace. A God-given peace. A peace beyond comprehension. My peace I give to you. All right, so this is actually a theology message today. A theology message, and that doesn't translate to boring. Theology is the study of God and what God does. Most exciting topic in the universe, amen? All right, so what is to solve for my anxiety, my worry, my self-doubt, my self-criticism, or my insecurity? It's my sense of identity, identity. I need to understand who I am in Christ. My identity based on my relationship with the living God. Right, identity is a big deal. How do I know that? Because someone at some point tried to steal your identity. I mean, who here has suffered identity theft

in some small way, some big way? Probably everyone should raise your hand. Why? Because you've got that text on your smartphone at some point about some charge on your credit card, and when you explore it, it's someone bought two cases of Coors Light in Topeka, Kansas. And that wasn't you. That's someone pretending to be you. They're stealing your information. Happens all the time. Happens to senior adults. My mom has been hit a couple times really, really bad. And people are ripping off old people. Are you kidding me? That's so wicked, that's so evil. I'm a pastor, but I wanna punch him in the face in Jesus' name. Sorry, that's what you applaud, that's okay. Not sure you should be clapping there, but God knows my heart, God knows my heart. It's happened to me. Someone hacked into the IRS pretending to be me. Now, if they did it to pay my taxes, that'd be awesome. You wouldn't do that. They wanted to steal my tax return, and they did. Is that crazy? But I'll tell you, we think of identity theft as a modern crime, and it is a high-tech crime.

It often is, but I'll tell you this. It's old. It goes all the way back to the Bible. I think I can show you identity theft starts way back in Genesis chapter three, but I know for sure it goes to the three temptations of Christ. Remember, recording the gospels of the devil came to Jesus at the initiation of his ministry. Those three temptations are turn the rocks into bread, throw yourself off the temple, worship me. That's not just about pleasing the crowd or carbohydrates. It was tempting Jesus as far as his identity as what kind of Messiah he was gonna be. You wanna be a people pleaser? Wanna take the easy way out? I got you. But he chose to embrace the identity and description of Messiah his father had assigned to him. Our personal peace is based on embracing what God has defined us to be and to do. I'm gonna show you Ephesians one, Ephesians one, to be transparent, when I'm shaken in life, when something's going wrong, when I fail, when I feel guilt or shame, when I lack confidence, this is my go-to passage. And by the way, if you're a guest, I'll highlight some words on the screen right now from Ephesians chapter one. I ask you to read the highlighted words, but normally it's like two or three words.

There's so many good words in this, you're gonna read a bunch of words because it's so rich, it's so rich. So it's the start of this great letter written by the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to a church in Ephesus, ancient world. It says, Paul, the apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to the saints. Saints in Ephesus. Oh, this is a church full of saints. These people were flawless. Always loved each other, always unselfish, never. Some people are looking for a church like that, a church where everybody loves each other, and everybody's unselfish, and everybody's always godly, everyone's always polite. If you find that church, please don't join it. because you will mess it up. It doesn't exist. These are broken, flawed, beautiful people just like us. So, it continues, continues. To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace. Here's the peace we're looking for. Peace to you. Praise be to the God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons and daughters through Christ Jesus. In Him, we have redemption. You guys are crushing it. Redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. Text is so good. Now, before we do a deep dive on this text, where do most people derive their sense of self? The first one is kind of obvious.

I think most of us, the sense of who we are, our identity was framed very early in life by what people early on in life said about us or they thought about us. Right? If you grew up in a home where your parents were nurturing and encouraging, you probably have a pretty solid sense of self. Conversely, if your parents or mentors in your life when you were young told you you weren't smart, you wouldn't be successful, you wouldn't amount to anything, you know, coaches, teachers, whatever, why can't you be more like your sister? My sister was smart, I heard that sometime. Anyways, those things impact how we see ourselves. As a teenager, there's some teenagers in the room right now and you're about to do something that's stupid. And you know it's stupid. You know it's the wrong thing to do, but the cool kids are telling you they think you should do it. So, you're going to do something you know is stupid and probably toxic because you care what they think about you. Be better than that. Wait, wait, be stronger than that. Because the crazy thing, you're going to graduate high school in a couple of years and about 99% of those people in about six months are out of your life forever. And you made some consequential decision with a negative impact based on, what are they going to think about me? Get over that. We don't outgrow it, you know, there's grown-ups here. We care what the boss thinks or the supervisor says, or co-workers, or colleagues, or even the competition, what they say about us. That leads to the second one. A lot of us, we evaluate ourselves by what success says about us, you know. Are you in a job, you feel like you're winning? Are you racking up the Ws? Are you taking the Ls? Is everything in your life and career and finances moving up and to the right because that would be amazing? And that's great. But what if the market changes? What if the economy changes? You can work just as hard and just as smart. I think about businesses that were huge just a few decades ago, right? If you worked for Blockbuster back in the day, you were crushing it, but today you're out of luck. Things change. And if my sense of self is based on a perception of, am I succeeding? You should work hard and try to be successful. Here, give it your best.

Maximize all God-given opportunity and God-given talent. So, work hard. Try to be successful, but you're more than just your success. In fact, we should broaden the way we define a win. If you're here right now and you're pretty much broke, but you're a single mom working two jobs and you've got three kids to church on Sunday morning, dressed and with a semi-good attitude, you are winning, my sister. I don't care what CEO who's making us billions of dollars is doing compared to you. You are winning. You are winning. But if my sense of identity is tied to whether or not I'm winning, I can be exceptional, but if something changes. We've had the privilege of loving and leading and pastoring a number of professional athletes over the years. In fact, once upon a time, there were maybe a dozen to 15 NFL players that this was their home church and I was their pastor. Mainly Dolphins, the training center was in Davie, not in Dade. And I think we have like one backup tied in right now. But anyways, back in the day, we had like all these players and two things struck me. Number one, how young they were. I love football, by the way. I love sports. They're so young. These guys are in their early 20s. A few were like getting to 30. They're young, young guys. And then their careers are so brief. The average NFL career is three years. Now, here's the hard thing. These guys, all their accolade and praise, not just since they've been pro-athletes, but since the time they were six-year-old little boys, has been based on their athleticism. And they made it to the top. They won. But they're 26 and it's over. No wonder they struggle. No wonder they spend all their money. No wonder their marriages fail. No wonder they...you got to be more than just what the world says is successful. You must base your identity on a rock. solid place. It's what God and what God's word says is true about you. And if you're not a Christian, I'll just tell you this. If you're not a Christian, the Bible doesn't teach that God's mad at you. It teaches he's madly in love with you, that he made you for a purpose, that he adores you, he gave his son Jesus for you. You may not believe in God, but he believes in you, and you're in the right place. Keep an open

mind. But I want to talk to the Christians what in this great text says about you. There's so many things. All I'm going to do is the simplest kind of way to preach, just a Bible study based on the key words we read together quickly, just a survey. It says in verse 7 that we are redeemed and forgiven, redeemed and forgiven. Listen, if you grew up in a church, grew up in a church where the message from the preacher made you feel bad every Sunday, you were told how bad you were all the time. It probably went like this. If you knew how God saw you, if you knew how God viewed you, if you knew how wicked, if you knew the reprobate, the wretch you were, you walked out just feeling like trash. Now, I don't like to rip on my colleagues. What they're trying to do is express what the Bible says in places like Romans chapter 3 where it says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. I'm a saved sinner, but I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. We're all guilty. And sin's a big deal. It's spiritual cosmic treason in God's eyes. And by the way, but Dave, I'm a pretty good person. You're probably a better person than me. But the Bible says there are none who are righteous, no not one. In fact, it says in Isaiah chapter 64 that our best deeds are like filthy rags in the eyes of God. Filthy rag. In the ancient Hebrew, that's a tissue that's been used. Gross verse. But it says your best, most unselfish, generous moments are like boogers in God's eyes, right? That's the best we got, right? So, they're trying to emphasize the fact that we are sinners. We are sinners saved by grace. But I don't think God sees us any more that way. And quickly, I'm going to throw the slide girl off. I apologize, Natalie. There's so many ways to take in the truth of God's word right now. I love this high-tech world because on your phone can be the Bible. In fact, if you don't have the Bible on your smartphone, you are not smart enough to own a smartphone. YouVersion is the best app going. The Bible in multiple translations for free. You can just tune me out for two minutes and download it right now. But you have more than that. You have podcasts. You have a YouTube channel. Our church has a YouTube channel. Everything we preach, we archive, share it with someone. There's so many ways to take in the word of God. But as a young Christian, for me, I didn't have all those things. I had cassette tapes. Gen Z, Google, cassette tapes. Cassette tapes. And I had Christian radio. And I found these two guys on Christian radio back decades ago, Dr. Tony Evans. That's Anthony's dad. One of the best Bible teachers of a generation. And then Dr. Charles Stanley out of Atlanta. He went to heaven about a year ago. And these guys were so important to me, I scheduled my college classes around their ministry so I could be at home and listen on a

radio to what God had to say through these men. And Dr. Stanley was the first one who ever took me to Ephesians chapter one. And he challenged what those preachers said when you go to church and you just feel like this shame game all the time. How bad you were, how wicked you were, you were just garbage. And he said, well, I don't think Ephesians one says that. That's not how God sees you anymore if you're a Christ follower. If you're not a Christ follower, we can fix that in about nine minutes. As prayer partners, we'll man the edge of the stage. We'd love to help you navigate. You can become a Christ follower, a saved person today. So it begins, forgiven and redeemed, forgiven and redeemed. This acknowledges, yes, I'm a sinner, but it shows the power of the cross. Oh my gosh, my mistakes, my selfishness, my sin is now under the power of the, I'm a forgiven person because what Jesus did for me plus nothing. Everything required to forgive all the bad things we've done. No matter how big, how much, how many, Christ accomplished a Calvary in the story. He died to pay for my sin, but God demonstrates his great love for us. This, the Bible says, why we're still sinners, Christ died for us. And then redeemed, redeemed is a technical term Paul uses for a purchase, but it's not a purchase of something, it's a purchase of someone. About half of the population of the city of Rome were slaves. If you were a slave in the ancient world, your life was terrible and marginalized, you can imagine. And what was your only possibility of freedom? Run away, run away, but good luck with that. With the Romans and their legions and their authorities, they would catch you for sure. And they would torture you to death. So your only real shot was this, that someone, that someone might care enough for you to purchase your freedom. That's the word in this passage. It implies I had no, I hope I'm a slave to sin and death and hell, but Jesus paid for my freedom. I have been redeemed. I've been redeemed. In verse four, it says chosen, chosen. And I say three, you shall be. We're chosen. One, two, three. Chosen. Chosen. We have been chosen, and we understand this. Now, we tend to choose or pick people, like, for a job, who has the best resume. I look at the resume or the recommendations. Oh, they seem to have talent. They seem to have potential.

So, based on your performance, we choose people. Again, I'll go back to sports, not NFL this time, but the lowest sport, Sandlot football. When I was a kid, I grew up in Hollywood Hills and Park Road, which runs east and west, had two lanes in either direction, had a big grassy median, but had these giant ficus trees in the median, but we had a tropical storm come through and blew over the big trees. They took the trees out, which left the kids a football field right there on Park Road. So, we'd gather up in my neighborhood and play football every single Saturday, but I had, like, 15, 20 kids in my neighborhood. But it just worked out like I was the youngest one, but, like, three years. And when you're playing sports against kids, when you're nine and they're, like, you know, 12, 13, that's a difference. So, every time they're picking captains, they're choosing captains, they choose what? The two biggest, best kids. Then they start picking other. I was just hoping not to be the last pick. It came down to me and Tonya Duke every single time. Just pick me before Tonya Duke, right? But it says in this passage, you were chosen before the foundations of the earth were laid. It's not based on your performance. It's not God choosing the good people, or the smart people, or the rich people, or the popular people. It's God choosing you, not because of who you are, but because of who He is. And then it says, adopted, in verse 5. Adopted. Shout the word adopted.

One, two, three. Now, in our culture, we think about adopting, we think of this, right? We think of, oh, by the way, it's a beautiful family in this picture. I don't know who they are. But anyways, we think of some nice couple, and they adopt, typically, a baby. Not always. Some people adopt, you know, an elementary-aged kid or a teenager, which is amazing. But typically, we think of adoption, people choosing, adopting a baby. In the Roman culture, that was not the way it worked. Roman adoption was always a full-grown man adopting another younger, full-grown man. That's weird. Let me explain what happened. It'd be like me, where I have two sons, where I have two sons. I have Charlie and Zane, but they were in the legions, and both got killed in battle. And I'm a rich, powerful person. Well, I have no one to inherit my title, or my lands, or my riches. So, I'd find some worthy... I'd find Michael. Michael said, Michael, I want to adopt you. He's my brother-in-law, but I want you to be my son. That's kind of weird, I know. But guess what? When I die, everything I have becomes yours. Mic's in. All right. That's what God says. All the riches of Jesus, all the authority of Jesus, all the power of Jesus,

he shares with us. I mean, this is so cool. This is amazing. This would be like choosing and adopting. It's kind of like when the dolphins picked Tua a couple of years ago in the first round, I think fifth overall, right? He was chosen. He was chosen. But then Stephen Ross, the owner of the dolphins, who's a billionaire, saying, Tua, I like you so much. I'd like to not just choose you, but adopt you as my son. Tag of the low is a hard name. Now, you're Tua Ross, and the stadium and the team now belongs to you. Is that crazy? That's what God's done. Crazier, verse 4, it says, we're holy and blameless. Say it with me. One, two, three. Holy and... Blameless. So, holy, blameless. God wasn't paying attention to last night, was he? As I went to the club, wow, you know, he wasn't paying attention to the thing I said about the boss behind your back, right? I probably shouldn't have, but I felt it. Holy and blameless. This is how God sees us. It's just amazing. This is your identity. This is our little pep talk in Jesus' name.

This is God's authoritative, trustworthy word. Holy and blameless. You're like, okay, I understand because I'm so messed up. I have these bad habits. I have these terrible attitudes. I wrestle with addiction. Okay, so, I mentioned heavenly realms. Heavenly realms. See, this is not about your performance. This is about your position. Because here in chapter 1 and four other times in this brief book, Paul uses the term heavenly realms. In chapter 2, verse 6, it says, once you're saved, the moment you're saved, God seats you. He places you in the heavenly realm. This is not about my performance. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don't. This is about how God has identified me. This is God's supernatural, accurate definition in his eyes. So, it's not about my performance. Performance matters. I should always try my best and try to obey and try to flesh out the word of God. The blessing of the word of God is done in the doing of the word of God. And God hates my sin. But God does not see me as a wicked sinner. Dr. Stanley was right. Doesn't see me as a wicked, low-down, trash sinner anymore. He now sees me as holy and blameless and chosen and adopted as a saint. Are you kidding me? Says predestined.

I don't even know what that means, but it's good. It's your position. You can see yourself from your heavenly perspective. If you can see yourself the way God sees you. already. What makes it so hard is, this is contrary to everything else we do in life. See, everything we teach our kids is this, you start at the bottom, you work hard. You start at the bottom, right? And then you climb the ladder. You start at the bottom and you bring value, right? Be the first one in, be the last one out, right? Extra practice, you work, you grind. Great advice. That's the right advice to tell our kids. It works in almost everything with one exception. But let's explore that for a moment. So, okay, let's go to business, business. So my daughter, Victoria, got a job in Nashville. She loves the music industry and she got her foot in the door by being an intern. Intern, I said, honey, you may get a job, but be the best intern they've ever had. Work your tail off, anticipate needs, be the first one in, last one out. And sure enough, they offered just one intern a job and she got it. They made her the president of the corporation. No, the lowest rung on the ladder, they made her an assistant. She's working really hard. Hopefully the next promotion is, I think, a coordinator. After a coordinator, she becomes assistant team leader, then team leader, then if she keeps working her way up and doing well and grinding, she'll become a manager after manager. Someday, someday she might become executive vice president of creative. I mean, she might get all the way to the top rung of life. That's the way business works. You work hard. What else? What else? Let's go academics, academics. Make some noise, my students. Where are my students? All right, that's pretty good. I'll take it. I'll host a weekend. Let's go to some subject. Let's go to, let's go to mathematics. Mathematics, not a strength for me, mathematics. So, where's the bottom rung of the ladder? Your mom and dad taught you to count. Like as a little kid, they work getting you to 10, then after you get to 10, you're working double digits, and then you're working triple digits, and then it's finite math, and you're learning about multiplication and division, the long division, then what's next? Pre-algebra, pre-algebra, that's, again, not a strength, that's why I tapped out right here, pre-algebra, and after that is algebra, and then I don't know, is it calculus, trigonometry, you keep going, right? Woo, it's the way it works. You work hard, you study, you grind, do your homework, maximize your talent. Sports, sports, you start with Pop Warner,

and then you play in middle school. Maybe you have aptitude and ability, maybe you play high school and do a travel sport, and then you get the D1 scholarship, but you're not in the pros yet. You still gotta go another rung, that's the way almost everything works. Learn a new language, it's Spanish 1, then Spanish 2, then Spanish 3, that's the way everything works. So, you would assume as a Christian, I guess, okay, I'm gonna get saved, in a few minutes, I'll come to a prayer park, and I'll pray that prayer, give myself by faith to Christ, because I am a sinful person, Jesus died to pay for my sin, that's amazing, but I guess when I'm saved, I start here. And then I work, and I obey, and I serve, that I can earn God's love, that I can earn God's favor. So, God, I'm gonna start praying, I'm gonna start reading my Bible, I'm gonna download that app, I'll be faithful in church, I don't wanna miss, I'll volunteer, I'm gonna volunteer, I'm gonna tithe, I'm gonna tithe, wow, that's probably two rungs right there, I'm gonna tithe, I'm gonna tithe, and I'm gonna serve, and someday, I'm gonna earn His grace. Someday, I'll earn God's love. Someday, I'll be a really — that's not what Ephesians 1 says. It says the moment you give yourself by faith to Jesus, God transfers the righteousness of Christ to you. I think it says, to paraphrase the great theologian, Drake, we start from the bottom, right? No, no. We start here. The moment you're saved, no matter how much dysfunction, or sin, or addiction, the moment you fall upon your knees and say, God, save me, yes, I want everything Jesus has done. Right here in this moment, God sees me as a saint. God sees me as chosen, as adopted, as forgiven, as redeemed, as holy and blameless. David, that can't be, it's not the way it works, OK? Most famous passage in Ephesians, not in chapter one, it's in chapter two. It's chapter two, verse eight and following. Look what it says, ready? It's so powerful. It says, for by — for by grace. That's God's love, we don't — grace you've been saved through faith, and it's not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not a result of works, and no one can — we're saved by grace. So, I'm here. I'm here already. Now, there's some smart person, you're probably like a lawyer, you're looking for a loophole. You're like, well, David, if God sees me here already, this is my position in Christ, why don't I go ahead and just sin all I want? Party all I want? Sleep around all I want? Because God sees me here. It's not your identity anymore. God's made you new. It says in verse 10, same chapter, that we are God's. So yeah, I still face temptation, but what? Why would I climb down from my high position in the heavenly realms to give in to that

old temptation? Why would I lower myself to give in to that craving, that, that urge to gratify my sin and that terrible? Why would I lower? You're like, hey, David, let's go out and let's party. Let's get high. Get high. I'm high already? Who says doctrine is boring? See, if you understand who you are, you might start to live out your identity in Christ. You might start to believe that you are God's masterpiece. You're saying, God, I need love, I need joy, I need acceptance, I need peace. So William Randolph Hearst commissioned his bite agents, find the masterpiece, I gotta possess it. Everything else I have will not be complete until I have the masterpiece. It took several months, and he got a correspondence, he said, sir, we found the missing masterpiece, but the bad news is you can't buy it. He was angry. He said, I have such wealth, I can buy anything I want, so you cannot buy it. You already own it. It's in your warehouse already. What did Jesus promise you? Peace. You're stressed out. You're worried. You're insecure. Say, God, give me peace. Jesus is like, what did you do with the peace I gave you? It's yours already. It is your birthright.

The Word of God says you are forgiven, live like it. It says you are redeemed, live like it. The Bible says you are chosen, live like it. You're adopted. That means you're a son or daughter of Almighty God. Young lady, that means you're royalty. Don't let that guy treat you like trash and use you like you're a disposable. You are royalty. Holy and blameless, saved through Christ Jesus. Live like it. Father, God, help us to flush out our birthright in Jesus' name, amen.