The Only Way to Win the Prize

Well, to celebrate our first year of marriage, my wife and I had planned a vacation to Southern California. We were gonna spend some time in L.A., and then after that, go down to San Diego. We had a blast in L.A., spent a good amount of time there, and closed it off by going to a Los Angeles Dodgers game. Had a blast at the game, we're about to exit the stadium, but as we got to the exit, there was like a booth set up inside the stadium, and someone was standing there, and he came up directly to Adley and I, and he said, hey, we are actually looking for attractive couples to give a gift to. And I just thought, L.A. is so vain, like this is awful. There's a lot of other okay-looking people here, they deserve the gift too, but I'll take it. Like, as an attractive guy, I will take it. And so I'm like, hey, what's the prize? And he said, it's a trip to Hawaii. I'm like, okay, it pays off, this is awesome. And I'm like, how do I get it? He's like, well, you just have to tour this resort. And I said, well, actually, it's not gonna work for us, we're headed to San Diego tomorrow. And he said, oh, it's essentially on the way to San Diego. And I'm like, okay, sure, I'll sign up if it's on the way. So he had a list with a bunch of time slots. I signed up for the next morning, and then he said, oh, and by the way, we do require a $50 deposit before that.

And I was like, well, okay, sure, fine. $50 for a trip to Hawaii is fine. Should have been the first red flag. Next red flag was, we left the stadium, got out our phone, and started typing in the resort. And we realized it was not essentially on the way to San Diego. It ended up being about an hour and a half out of the way. But we're like, okay, fine, it's a trip to Hawaii, let's go anyway. So we go, show up at this resort, go to the welcome desk. We say, hey, we're here for our quick tour of the resort. And they said, fantastic, just have a seat and wait, someone will be with you soon. We wait and wait and wait. Finally, a man walks down these stairs, and he goes, Mr. and Mrs. Hildenkamp? And we say, yes, this is us. Then he said, and I'm not saying this, I'm only saying this because this is what happened. He said, my name's Roland Blunt, and you're gonna be with me today? And I'm like, where am I? What is this place? And he took me to a ballroom, and I said, hey, I thought we were going on a tour. And he said, no, we're just gonna have a quick conversation. In this ballroom, there's all sorts of salespeople meeting with couples there. And he had us do this personality test

to show us what we like in vacations, and then he used that for the next two hours to give us a timeshare pitch. Over and over and over again, I said, I'm not interested, not interested, not interested. Spent two hours there. Then he took us on an hour-long tour where we saw every little detail of the resort. Finally got to the end of it. Wasted a whole half day on vacation. I'm like, it's fine because we're going to Hawaii because of this. And I just said, okay, how do I book my trip to Hawaii? He said, well, two days from now, you'll get a form, and if you fill out that form saying how we did, then you will get next steps. So two days later, get an email with the form, fill out the form, grade the whole experience. Then I get an email saying, okay, you have a time two weeks from now. It's a 15-minute window. You must call in this window, and then you'll be able to book your trip. So I put a reminder in my phone, make sure I call two weeks from then. I do just that, call them, and they say, okay, we're so glad that you have called. We're ready to book your trip. We just want to make sure that we're on the same page. The only flights that we book are out of Seattle.

And I'm like, you could have told me this before. So in my head, I'm trying to figure out, is it worth it to pay for a flight from DFW to Seattle? But then they say, and just so you know, the only flights that we book leave Monday night and come back Wednesday morning. So we would spend like 12 hours in Hawaii. So at this point, I'm realizing this whole thing was just a scam. They never desired to give this to me. So on the phone, I'm just like, so you're just telling me that this prize was never really possible. Like back at the Dodgers game, they just said, it's a really easy thing. You can go to Hawaii if you just do this. What I realized is they didn't just say just this, but it turned into this and this and this and this and this. And in the end, the prize wasn't ever really possible. And I start with that story this morning because Paul is gonna be writing to the church in Galatia, and he's saying, you have been deceived. There's been someone that stepped in and said, you just need to do this really easy thing, and then you'll be saved. What you need to know is they're gonna ask for more and more and more and more and more. And in the end, the prize isn't possible with them. So today, the subject of today's message is the only way to win the prize.

The only way to win the prize. There's only one. Paul even goes so far to say in the text, he's gonna say, the only thing that counts in your life is if you do this one thing because there's only one way to win. Church in Galatia had heard a lot of different ways of how to win this prize of salvation, and Paul's gonna step in with clarity and say, no, here is the one way. And we're also gonna read one of the most graphic and even shocking verses in Scripture, so that's gonna come a little bit later, so buckle up, get ready. We're gonna be in Galatians chapter five, verses two through 15 today. So Galatians chapter five, verses two through 15. Starting in verse two, Paul writes this. Mark my words, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourself be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. So some of you this morning are in trouble. Sorry about that. Not what he's saying here. He's not saying if you get circumcised. He's talking about the heart behind it. I'll explain more in just a second. Give me some time. Verse three. Again, I declared every man who lets himself

be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts, big claim, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. So to set this up, if you haven't been following with us in this sermon series, Paul had gone to Galatia and had preached the gospel to the Gentile believers there. He said, the only way to be saved is through faith in Jesus Christ, and they put their faith in him. But then, after Paul left, Judaizers had stepped in and said, yeah, yeah, Jesus is great. We like Jesus too, but that's not how you're saved. You must take another step, and you must prove you are saved by being circumcised, because in the Old Testament, this is what distinguished the people of God, and we believe that's still the way to distinguish the people of God. You must do this thing in order to be saved. Now, where Paul and the Judaizers agreed is they agreed that the people needed to be saved. They agreed that we had sinned, and because of our sin,

there was now a chasm in our relationship with God. There was something that was broken. The Judaizers and Paul both agreed on this. Romans chapter three, verse 23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So we've fallen short of God's glory, and we need to figure out how to get back to him. Or to put it another way, there is now a debt between us and God because of our sin. We need to figure out how it's gonna get repaid. So the Judaizers and Paul agreed that we were in need of saving. They disagreed with who would do the saving. Paul was saying Jesus does the saving. The Judaizers was saying, no, you can do the saving. If you do this one thing, if you get circumcised, then you are saved, but Paul's also telling them, I just wanna be clear, their ask will not just be that, but more and more and more and more. He said in verse three, again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. They'll start by saying it's easy, just do this one thing, but Paul's saying, no, they're gonna say you must follow this law and this law and this law and this law. They're just gonna give you more hoops and more hoops and more hoops to jump through. And you just need to know that in the end, if you follow them, the prize isn't actually possible.

And this is point number one. First thing we must understand is that there is only one way to pay for freedom. There is only one way to pay for freedom. And I use that word pay here intentionally because Paul uses financial type language here in this text. Because again, because of our sin, there's a debt between us and God that needs to be paid off. And the most important thing in my life and your life is for us to figure out how is that debt gonna be paid off? In this text, Paul gives two options. Either you and I can pay off our debt or Jesus can pay off our debt. And just seeing how he describes it in the text, verse two, he writes, mark my words, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. He's saying Christ will be of no value for salvation because you are choosing for your works to be valuable. You're choosing for those to be the things that pay off the debt. But on the other hand, verse six, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. What he's saying here is your works will not have value for salvation because you've chosen Christ to be the one who provides value.

So we need to decide and they needed to decide what's more valuable? My works or his? Who can actually pay off the debt? Me or Jesus? And just so we're on the same page, the debt requires a person. perfect payment. We need to figure it out. Is it gonna be us or Jesus who pays the debt? It's like a receipt at the table at the end of a meal. You need to decide who's paying for it. Is it gonna be you or Jesus? I would just add the only catch is you can't afford it. You and I can't actually afford the payment. And to illustrate it, let me take you back to last week. Last week, JP mentioned that in our Save a Seat campaign, we are now halfway there through current giving and pledge giving, which is awesome. I mean, that is something to celebrate. Many of you have already made sacrificial decisions to invest in what God is doing in our church. So we are halfway there, which is good news. And the bad news is there's still another half to go, which means that we are still millions of dollars short so that we can build a new auditorium. That's the bad news, but I have decided to pay the rest. Pay the rest and then some. Yeah, I have what it takes and I've decided to pay the rest.

I was expecting applause, maybe a statue out front, the Hilgan Camp Auditorium, I'll take that. I'm gonna pay the rest because today at the end of our 4 p.m. service, I'm going to give, in one of those giving boxes, $100 trillion to Harris Creek. Yeah, yeah, okay. No one believed me. I brought it with me. I didn't think you'd believe me. $100 trillion. Can you read this? What does it say? Just to prove it. $100 trillion. I've got a picture of it. This is what I have in my possession right now. $100 trillion. The sanctuary's being built and then, I don't know, another one, another one, another one, another one. Like, that's what I have with me. What's the obvious issue? It's the wrong currency. It's from the Bank of Zimbabwe. So you might be thinking, what is this actually worth? Well, in 2008, Zimbabwe suffered hyperinflation. My life has been difficult since 2019 because bowls at Chipotle have been doubled. Theirs is a lot more difficult because in 2008, they had, this doesn't even make sense to me, 96 trillion percent inflation year over year.

At that time, a $100 trillion bill couldn't even pay for a bus fare. This was essentially worthless. So while it might be, it might feel cool to say, I have $100 trillion, this doesn't get me very far because it's worthless. It's worthless. It can't pay off what we need for the auditorium. And what Paul's saying here in this text is he's saying, you need to make sure that you are saving the right currency. You need to make sure that you are choosing the thing that actually has value. And he's telling the church in Galatia, you guys are trusting in your works. You're saying, what's valuable is what I've done. So you're just gonna try to store up good work after good work after good work. And you're gonna give to the church. You're gonna serve to the church. You're gonna be nice to your neighbor. You're gonna walk little old ladies across the street so that at the end of your life, you can say, God, look at what I've done. And for the church in Galatia, and for some of us here today, you are gonna be storing up good works. You're gonna get to the end of your life, meet with Jesus and say, look, I've paid off the debt. And he's gonna say, you haven't even come close.

You are still in debt because your good works have stored up the wrong currency. If this is not worth what needs to be paid. That's the bad news. Here's the good news. There is a currency that has paid off your debt already. And it's the blood of Jesus. Because God, when he saw us in debt, he didn't say, man, I sure hope they figure out a way to pay it off. He said, I'm going to pay the debt. And this debt required a perfect payment. So since God so loved you, he sent his one and only son to leave heaven to enter into earth. And he lived a perfect life for 33 years, obeying every single part of the law perfectly, only to be handed over to the authorities, brutally beaten, mocked, abused and crucified. And as he was dying on the cross, does anyone know what the last word he said was? Tetelestai, which means it is finished, can also be an accounting word that means paid in full. He came to pay your debt and mine, and his blood paid your last penny. And this is why we don't sing, Jesus paid some of it, because Jesus paid. paid it all. There's not a penny left for you and I to pay.

So Paul's writing and saying, trust his value. Trust the payment of his blood. You can't afford the payment, but the good news is he's already paid. His payment is far more valuable. This is why he says in verse six, he emphasizes the only thing in your life that counts, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. That's how you get the prize. So my question to you is, do you have that? Do you have faith in Jesus or do you have faith in yourself? And if your faith is in yourself, the prize will never be possible. But with him, the prize is guaranteed. So point number one, first thing we need to understand is that there is only one way to pay for freedom. Now, Satan and his demons know that there's only one way to pay. So he's gonna do all he can to confuse us. And we see this happen next in the text. Verse seven, you were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. He's saying this teaching does not come from Jesus. It actually comes from someone else. It comes from the enemy. He is sowing this belief in your midst so that you might be turned away from Jesus.

This is from the enemy. And then verse nine, a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. I'm confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be will have to pay the penalty. Brothers and sisters, if I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they'd go the whole way and emasculate themselves. Welcome to church. Now, let's have some fun. Let me explain that last part. Because what's happening here is Paul's incredibly frustrated with these people that have deceived these Gentile believers. He's saying, you guys were headed in the right direction. You were headed towards Jesus, but then someone stepped in and they taught something that confused you. And he's incredibly frustrated with these people that have confused the Gentile believers. So he says, I wish they'd just go the whole way and emasculate themselves. In other words, what he's saying is, I hope they'd go the whole way and castrate themselves. I didn't really think I'd ever say that on stage here, but this is what the text is saying. What he's saying is,

I don't want them to procreate anymore, spiritually procreate. I don't want them to be able to reproduce themselves because they are creating other followers that are not pursuing Jesus, but pursuing a lie. So I don't want them to be able to have people following in their midst because they are not headed towards Jesus, but towards a lie. Now that's really, really harsh, but Jesus actually has a similar tone towards people who would deceive believers in Jesus. Matthew 18, verse six. If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Why? Because with them, the prize is not possible. Eternal life with Jesus is not possible if you are following a deceiver. So the takeaway from this text that we need to understand for our life is this, point number two, there are many distractions to keep us enslaved. There are many distractions to keep us enslaved because if there is one way to eternal life, and that's faith in Jesus Christ, Satan is going to send you many ways

to be distracted from that truth. In verse 10, Paul's writing here and he says, there is someone who has thrown you into confusion. Now, what you need to understand is this is the enemy's goal for your life and mine. Confusion is the goal. There's a book that I think is one of the most amazing books outside of scripture written by C.S. Lewis. It's called The Screwtape Letters and it's a fictional story about two demons talking to each other about how to deceive people on earth from following God. And they had a whole list of things that they do to deceive people, but this was one of their plans. This was from the demon Screwtape. He said, we will make the whole universe a noise in the end. Is that not our life right now? Like we are just inundated with noise. Everywhere you go, you're just surrounded by noise. You pull out your phone and you're covered by opinions. You turn on the TV, you're covered by opinions. And sometimes they're like the exact opposite thing. They're saying, no, this is true. No, this is true. And it can be hard to be like, man, what's up from down? What's actually true? What's actually false? And Satan is just covering this world with noise.

Why? so that we might be thrown into confusion. And we're seeing the impacts of this in the church today. This year, 2025, Lifeway did a survey of evangelicals about what they believe. Now these are people who say that they believe in Jesus, say they attend church, like these are people who claim to be Christians. And the results of their study were confusing. I could give you a number of examples, but here's a small snapshot of this study. They asked evangelicals these types of questions. The first one was about the Trinity. They said there is one true God in three persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. 98% of evangelicals said they agree. But then they asked another question right below it. The Holy Spirit is a force, but not a personal being. 53% said yes. After they just said that they believe the Holy Spirit was a person. But right after they said, no, we believe in like a Star Wars type of faith. It's just a force, not a person. That's confusing. The church is confused. It's not just there, but look at what they said about Jesus. Can we go back to it? Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive eternal salvation.

100% agree. But those in the church, evangelicals, 28% agreed with Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. It's confusing. It's because the church is confused. Because you're hearing voices from social media. You're hearing voices from your family and your friends. And sometimes it's like, man, I don't know which way's up from down. And you end up following deceit. And this is what's happening in this text. Verse seven, Paul says, you were running a good race. Who caught in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? You were headed in the right direction, but then someone stood in your path and you listened to them and you turned away. Well, to illustrate this, this week I was going on a walk and I was praying through this message. I was on a trail here in Waco and I was headed back to my car. I'm just praying about this text, asking God to show me how to communicate this. And as I'm walking, I just all of a sudden looked down and see something right in front of me. And I just take a huge step back because this is what I saw.

Yeah, right there on that path was just this like massive snake. And so since I saw the snake in my path, I just, I turned around and I hid and I pitched a tent and camped out that night. No, no, no. Maybe I wanted to, but I see the snake. Here's what happened. Jump back, analyze the situation, see there's a snake in my path and just walk around it. Because I'm like, that snake's not gonna keep me from going home. That snake's not gonna keep me from where I want to go. It's not going to misdirect me. All I have to do is walk around it and keep going where I'm headed. And what we need to understand is this will happen tens of times throughout your day. Like there'll be a thought that pops up in your head, maybe something you see on social media or in a podcast or a TV show or something your friend tells you. And it's like standing in your path and you just have to analyze, is this from the snake or is this from the Savior? Is this from, is this a lie from Satan or is this a truth from Jesus? And if it's from the snake, like if the snake is just in your path, here's what you do. You just walk around it and keep going home

because you need to make sure that that snake's not keeping you from where you're headed. We're headed towards Jesus and we can't let these little lies get in our way and turn us around. Our issue is we don't know what's truth from lie. And that's because many people in the church don't know the word of God. The only way to know what's false is by knowing what's true. So we must love the word. We must spend time in the word. We must cover ourself with the truth so that when a lie cuts in, we just go around it. So my question to you is, are you listening to the right voices? Are the podcasts you're listening, making you go towards Jesus or away from him? Is the music you're listening to making you go towards Jesus or away from him? Are the shows you watch making you go towards Jesus or away from him? Are the friends that you're with, are they making you go towards Jesus or away from him? Verse nine, he says, a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. So even a little lie that you've taken in can be incredibly dangerous. Because point number two, second thing we need to understand is there are many distractions to keep you enslaved.

So here the Judaizers had told the Gentile believers that a mark of a God follower was circumcision. And Paul is gonna step in here and say, no, that's not the mark of the true believer, this is. What we'll see here next in verse. 13, you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, serve one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. So Paul's saying, my teaching to you is that in Christ Jesus, you are free. He's the only way to the prize of freedom. And this is a freedom from striving, a freedom from punishment, a freedom from death, but this is not a freedom. That's like in high school when you find out that your parents are gone from the weekend and you're like, freedom, throw the party, get the keg, let's trash the house. That's not the type of freedom here. He's not saying this is not a freedom to do whatever you want, but instead, this is a freedom that is displayed by you following this command, which is to love one another. And here, the Judaizers are saying, you must follow all the law. Paul says, okay, fine, we will follow the command

that summarizes the whole law, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself. Now, just to be clear, loving others doesn't make you saved, but loving others shows that you're saved. Reading again, verse six, what he says here is the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. If you have faith, then you will love, because in Christ Jesus, you don't have to perform for love anymore, you get to live from love. And this is point number three, third thing we need to understand is that love is the only way we respond to freedom. Love is the one way we respond to freedom. And Paul's communicating here, since Jesus has paid your debt, since he has saved you, a result of that should be saying, I will do whatever you want. Like, I am at your service because you served me. I'll do whatever you need me to do. Here's what it looked like for me recently. Two weeks ago, my parents were in town for a celebration, and they were in town that Saturday, and you may or may not remember, but two weeks ago on that Saturday, there was just like this massive downpour storm for like hours on that Saturday. Now, my parents had gone to a Baylor Women's Exhibition basketball game with me, my two oldest daughters, my parents were there,

I had driven us to the game, we had walked in, there was no rain, we get to the game, and there's just this like massive storm, like only in Texas type of storm, where there's just so much rain, puddles everywhere on the ground, but not just that, there's like lightning bolts every few minutes. So we decided that we were gonna leave the game, but then the question was, how do we get to our car? What do we do? Like we got these two little girls, there's this lightning storm out there, what do we do? And my dad just said, hey, give me the keys. Give me the keys. So I handed him the keys, and he just took off. He opened the door out of foster and started running to our car. Now, he's in good shape, but he's not a spring chicken anymore, but he's just going. And we didn't park close, but I'm just seeing him getting covered in rain. But not just that, like my concern, it wasn't just that he was going to get wet, my concern was truly that he was putting himself in harm's way, that he was risking death, because there was lightning all over the place. So as I'm watching him run, I'm going, man, I sure hope he's okay. Eventually, he gets the car

and pulls up right in front of foster. We walk out under these like overhangs, get to the car, barely have even a drop of rain on us. He gets out of the car, throws me the keys. I get in the front seat. We all pile in and my response is just, okay, dad, what's for dinner? Where are you taking us? No, my response is, dad, what can I do for you? How can I serve you? Like you just put your life on the line for your family. What can I do in response? And if I would have asked my dad that, I think this is what his response would be. His response would be, love your kids like I've loved you. Serve your kids like I have served you. I've shown you love, now love your kids. Now I tell that because what we need to understand is that you and I were in a storm, not by chance, but by choice. You and I had chosen to sin and that had resulted in a storm coming our way. Not one that might take us out, but one that would take us out. We were in tremendous danger and God saw us in that position and he sent his one and only son to run into the storm on our behalf. And he didn't just risk death, he took on death. And Jesus came, lived perfectly for you,

only to. be tortured, abused, crucified on the cross. He died and then three days later rose again and tossed you the keys to death and we didn't even have a drop of rain hit us because he took the penalty for us. Now, if you understand that, your response cannot be, okay, God, what else are you gonna do? But instead, God, what can I do? Like you have served me. You took on my death. What can I do for you? And his teaching in scripture is, love my kids like I've loved you. I've served you so you can go serve them. I've shown you what love feels like. You go show them what it feels like. And if you understand the gospel, then you will serve with joy. My question is, do you? Do you? Like, is there anyone in your life that you are serving? Is there anyone in your life where you are showing them love? Every single day of your life, there is an opportunity to serve. The question is, do you take God up on those opportunities? For example, maybe something happens in life group

where someone says, hey, our car's gonna be in the shop this weekend so it's taking longer than expected and we're not exactly sure what we're gonna do. There's two different ways to respond. The first is, oh man, that's gonna be really hard. I'm so sorry. The second is, here's my keys. You take my car. I'm good, I'll figure it out. You take my car, because I wanna serve you as Christ has served me. Or let's say you go to a church that announced that over the holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas, there are hundreds of spots open to serve in the kids' ministry. There are two different ways of hearing that announcement. One is, I sure hope someone does that. The second is, pick me. I wanna be there. I wanna serve those kids because I wanna make sure that those kids love church even from an early age because they feel loved at church even from an early age. And I wanna disciple the next generation, raise them up to love Jesus so that they can help invest in my kids or my grandkids and they can help more and more people come to know Jesus. I want to be involved in the mission of God.

Those are the two options. It isn't, man, somebody else will or I will, not to be applauded, not to be approved, but because Christ has served you. And since he has served, then we serve. And since he has loved us, then we love. And just to be clear, a lack of a desire to serve comes from a lack of understanding of how you have been served. Just to say it again so you understand it, a lack of a desire to serve comes from a lack of understanding of how you have been served. Jesus saved you and set you free so that you and I can go and gladly serve others. So in summary, point number one, there's only one way to pay for freedom. Point number two, there are many distractions to keep us enslaved. And point number three, love is the one way to respond to freedom. Well, you know, I started this message by talking about that timeshare pitch, that trip to Hawaii that was promised to me that wasn't ever really possible. I just had to do more and more and more and more and could never actually achieve it. Let me tell you about another vacation that my family actually took.

This was two summers ago, and we went to Orange Beach, Alabama. Here's a picture of us on the beach. And yeah, at the time my daughters were three and one. Do you know how they got there on that vacation? Their daddy paid for it. All of it. Their plane ticket, their food bill, the gas in the car, I paid for all of it. They didn't have to jump through hoops. They didn't have to sit through a presentation. They didn't have to organize some phone call. They didn't do anything but trust their dad when I said, hey, just get in the car, I'm taking you somewhere fun. That's how they got there. Their dad paid for it. For the rest of your life, you have two options. The church in Galatia had two options. You can follow the deceiver that says, oh, you can make it. Just do this and this and this and this and this. You can earn this trip. You can earn this salvation by doing more and more and more and more. Some of you have been there. Some of you are there, and you're trying to do more and more and more, and right now you are exhausted. So let me just offer you option B.

The other option is trusting that your dad has paid for it. Oh, and his message to you is not perform, perform, perform, but instead, hey, get in the car. Let me take you there. Maybe some of you have never actually trusted in him before. There's no better time than today to say, Heavenly Father, I trust you that you have paid my way so that I can go free forever and ever and ever. And when you get to that point, the good news is there's no longer any hoops to jump through, but just a Savior to trust in. Let me pray you'd believe in him today. Father, thank you so much for the good news of the gospel. That although we did not choose you, although we chose sin, you still pursued us. And although we had a tremendous debt to be paid, you didn't make us pay for it. But instead, you sent your one and only son, and he paid for it all. Every drop of blood was payment for us. God, I pray for any of us in this room who've been fallen into a lie, believing a lie about us needing to perform for you, that if we just did more, if we just gave more, if we just served more, then you'd approve of us. I just pray that you would brush that aside and through the power of your Holy Spirit, the people in this room would feel your love for them, a love for them that is high and wide and long and deep. And it doesn't come from anything that we've done, but everything that you've done. And for anyone who has not placed their faith in you, God, I pray that they would do that now, that they would renounce the lie that they can trust in themselves for payment and believe the truth that you have paid it all on our behalf. And because of that, we have reason to rejoice. And as experiencing that gospel, I pray that we'd go out and serve and love the people around us. Father, we are grateful for you, and we're grateful for the fact that Jesus is alive and with us and for us. It's in his name we pray. Amen.