Latest / Max Lucado Daily Sermons / A Greater Grace- Minister Max Lucado
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: That can become a thing of the past. I believe
- 0:04Speaker 1: that God is writing a new chapter in your life,
- 0:08Speaker 1: one that will be marked by diminishing anxiety and increasing peace.
- 0:15Speaker 1: That He has provided for us a prescription for anxiety.
- 0:21Speaker 1: And this prescription is found in some paragraphs in a
- 0:25Speaker 1: book called Philippians. The words are going to appear in
- 0:28Speaker 1: the screen. I invite you to say them out loud
- 0:31Speaker 1: with me. Let's read them together. Sit up straight, fill
- 0:34Speaker 1: your lungs with air, and say it like you mean it.
- 0:38Speaker 1: Rejoice in the Lord always Again, I will say, rejoice.
- 0:43Speaker 1: Let your gentleness be anxious for nothing but in everything
- 0:53Speaker 1: by prayer and the peace of God. Finally, Brethren, whatever
- 1:11Speaker 1: things are true, whatever things you're noble, whatever things are just,
- 1:16Speaker 1: whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things
- 1:21Speaker 1: are of good report, if there is any virtue, and
- 1:25Speaker 1: if there is anything praiseworthy, medifay on these things. I'm
- 1:30Speaker 1: so grateful you're here as we continue the study of
- 1:33Speaker 1: this passage. And if you're in the overflow rooms, we're
- 1:35Speaker 1: grateful that you're here too, and we're going to make
- 1:38Speaker 1: more room for you. We're so grateful to have this
- 1:42Speaker 1: passage to help us understand how God deals with anxiety
- 1:46Speaker 1: and helps us do the same. So let's pray together
- 1:49Speaker 1: and then we'll get to work. Heavenly Father, we bless
- 1:53Speaker 1: your name for all you've done and all you do.
- 1:55Speaker 1: We pray you'd forgive the sins of our speaker, they
- 1:58Speaker 1: are many, and help us to see Christ, just Christ
- 2:03Speaker 1: through Christ. We pray and all the church said. The
- 2:11Speaker 1: hangover was terrible, but I could handle that. The nausea
- 2:18Speaker 1: was palpable, but I knew it would pass. The discipline
- 2:24Speaker 1: was severe, but I knew I deserved it. What I
- 2:30Speaker 1: couldn't handle was the guilt. You've heard parts of my story.
- 2:39Speaker 1: Our family tree has suffered from a blight of alcoholism. Consequently,
- 2:45Speaker 1: my father made it very clear to my brother and
- 2:48Speaker 1: me that there would be no drunkenness permitted in his house.
- 2:54Speaker 1: To reinforce his point, he would take my brother and me,
- 2:58Speaker 1: when we were young nine ten years of age, to
- 3:02Speaker 1: rehab centers to visit his sister, his brothers, who had
- 3:08Speaker 1: lost their jobs, who had lost their marriages, who had
- 3:12Speaker 1: lost their lives as a result of alcohol abuse. And
- 3:18Speaker 1: we would promise him, oh, Dad, we'll never do that.
- 3:23Speaker 1: Then why did I Why did I, at the age
- 3:28Speaker 1: of sixteen, buddy up with another sixteen year old and
- 3:33Speaker 1: get so ragingly inebriated that we could not walk. And
- 3:39Speaker 1: why did we, in our state drive cars and cause
- 3:46Speaker 1: trouble and endanger the lives of others? Why did we
- 3:54Speaker 1: drink so much cores that our heads were spinning and
- 3:58Speaker 1: our stomachs were turning. Why did we get so commode
- 4:04Speaker 1: hugging drunk that we could not stand up? Did I
- 4:10Speaker 1: really think my father wouldn't hear me? Did I really
- 4:15Speaker 1: think he would believe me when I blamed it on
- 4:18Speaker 1: Mexican food? Did I have any idea? And when I
- 4:27Speaker 1: awoke the next morning, my head was pounding, my stomach
- 4:32Speaker 1: was upset. But what I felt, more than anything, and
- 4:38Speaker 1: more than any time I had ever felt it was
- 4:41Speaker 1: a sense of guilt. I had felt guilt before, but
- 4:50Speaker 1: never a guilt like this. There is a guilt that
- 4:53Speaker 1: sits in the soul like a concrete block. There is
- 4:59Speaker 1: a guilt that causes a person not to feel bad
- 5:03Speaker 1: just for doing something bad, But there is a guilt
- 5:06Speaker 1: that causes a person to feel bad for being alive.
- 5:13Speaker 1: There is a guilt that causes a person to look
- 5:16Speaker 1: at the person in the mirror and say, who are you?
- 5:21Speaker 1: Who is this liar, this deceitful hypocrite? Who is this person?
- 5:27Speaker 1: Where did you come from? There is a guilt that
- 5:32Speaker 1: descends quickly into shame. Guilt says I did bad. Shame
- 5:39Speaker 1: says I am bad. And that day, that weekend, I
- 5:47Speaker 1: was dealing with this guilt. I'm not sure that's the
- 5:52Speaker 1: worst thing I've ever done in my life, but I
- 5:54Speaker 1: will say that's the first time I ever felt that
- 6:01Speaker 1: destructive guilt. And I did not know what to do
- 6:06Speaker 1: with it. I didn't know where to place it. Maybe
- 6:14Speaker 1: there's somebody on the planet who has never felt that guilt,
- 6:19Speaker 1: but I haven't met him, and I have a hunch
- 6:21Speaker 1: they're not in this room. Your guilt may have been
- 6:26Speaker 1: as a result of alcohol, or maybe it was a
- 6:29Speaker 1: result of inappropriate sex or embezzlement or dishonesty, or losing
- 6:38Speaker 1: your temper or losing your control or breaking your promise.
- 6:43Speaker 1: And maybe your guilt is not the consequence of a
- 6:46Speaker 1: moment in life, but maybe more a season of life.
- 6:50Speaker 1: You feel like a failure as a parent, You feel
- 6:53Speaker 1: like you've squandered your career, wasted your youth. Maybe you
- 6:59Speaker 1: inherited guilt. Maybe your parent or parents abused you, passing
- 7:07Speaker 1: on to you a sense of will you deserve this,
- 7:10Speaker 1: this ugly thing called guilt. I would suggest to you
- 7:16Speaker 1: that this guilt is one of the seeds out of
- 7:23Speaker 1: which grows the weed of anxiety. Please write this down
- 7:30Speaker 1: in your outline. Guilt creates anxiety. The emotion of guilt
- 7:40Speaker 1: creates anxiety. This may be a new thought for you.
- 7:45Speaker 1: Pick up most books on anxiety, and you read discussions
- 7:50Speaker 1: about overcrowded calendars and dealing with hard and harsh demands
- 7:56Speaker 1: or expectation, and all of those can bear anxiety as well.
- 8:00Speaker 1: Less discussed, but equally important, is the idea of guilt,
- 8:06Speaker 1: shame anxiety. In fact, I would suggest to you that
- 8:12Speaker 1: the very first documented case of anxiety in the history
- 8:17Speaker 1: of the world can be traced back to unresolved guilt.
- 8:25Speaker 1: You remember the story or the moment from the Garden
- 8:28Speaker 1: of Eden that evening Adam and Eve heard the sound
- 8:33Speaker 1: of the Lord God walking in the garden, and they
- 8:36Speaker 1: hid themselves among the trees. That's what anxious people do.
- 8:43Speaker 1: They ran and they hid. What has happened to the
- 8:47Speaker 1: first family? This is our first appearance of anything but
- 8:51Speaker 1: tranquility in the garden of Eden. Up until now, it's
- 8:56Speaker 1: just been peace, just been contentment, no fear, no trepidation.
- 9:04Speaker 1: In fact, the scripture says they did not hide from
- 9:07Speaker 1: God because they had nothing to hide. Two and verse
- 9:11Speaker 1: twenty five. The man and his wife were both naked,
- 9:13Speaker 1: and they felt no shame. There was no shame, no guilt,
- 9:16Speaker 1: no shame in the garden of Eden. But then what happened.
- 9:23Speaker 1: Then came the serpent, Then came the forbidden fruit. They
- 9:26Speaker 1: said yes to temptation, they said no to God, and
- 9:30Speaker 1: in a moment, in a moment, everything changed. They covered
- 9:36Speaker 1: themselves with leaves, and they hid from God. They did
- 9:40Speaker 1: what anxious people do. They scurried. They entered into a
- 9:45Speaker 1: frenzy of cover ups and hideouts. Guilt came first, anxiety
- 9:53Speaker 1: came next. Guilt came anxiety followed guilt drove the truck.
- 10:00Speaker 1: Anxiety rode in the back, and they set out on
- 10:06Speaker 1: this effort to cover themselves or hide from God. We're
- 10:11Speaker 1: still doing the same. We're trying to figure out what
- 10:15Speaker 1: in the world will we do with this guilt? Make
- 10:19Speaker 1: a list of how we deal with guilt. It's pretty
- 10:22Speaker 1: exotic I have a list of ten ways that we
- 10:26Speaker 1: deal with guilt. Number one, we deny it. We pretend
- 10:30Speaker 1: that we never did anything bad. We concoct a plan
- 10:34Speaker 1: to cover up the bad choice, and one lie leads
- 10:37Speaker 1: to another lie. We just the second lie to move
- 10:40Speaker 1: to the third lie. Before long, our first thought to
- 10:44Speaker 1: any question is what did I say last? Or we
- 10:48Speaker 1: minimize it. We didn't sin, we just lost our way.
- 10:53Speaker 1: We didn't sin, We just caught up in the moment.
- 10:55Speaker 1: We didn't sin. We just do what everybody does. We
- 10:58Speaker 1: didn't sin, We just took the wrong path. We just
- 11:00Speaker 1: experienced the lapse in judgment. We minimize it, or we
- 11:05Speaker 1: denounce the very existence of it. There is no sin
- 11:08Speaker 1: because there is no standard. There is no ultimate truth,
- 11:12Speaker 1: and there is no ultimate truth or standard because really
- 11:15Speaker 1: there is no God. There is no sin because there
- 11:18Speaker 1: is no truth. There is no right and wrong unless
- 11:21Speaker 1: you offend me and then I think that's wrong. Or
- 11:27Speaker 1: we bury it, suppress the guilt beneath amount of work
- 11:30Speaker 1: and a calendar of appointments. The busier we stay, the
- 11:35Speaker 1: less time we have to spend with the person we
- 11:37Speaker 1: have come to dislike ourselves. Or we punish it, beat
- 11:44Speaker 1: ourselves up, cut ourselves, hurt ourselves. Priests used to flog
- 11:49Speaker 1: themselves with whips. We've exchanged whips for rules, more prayer,
- 11:56Speaker 1: more Bible study, more church attendance, more givings, Day up later,
- 12:00Speaker 1: get up earlier. We pay for our guilt painful penance,
- 12:06Speaker 1: or we numb it with a bottle of gray goose,
- 12:10Speaker 1: with an hour of pornography, with a joint of marijuana,
- 12:15Speaker 1: with a rendezvous at a hotel. Guilt disappears during happy hour.
- 12:20Speaker 1: Right funny how it reappears when happy hour ends. We
- 12:26Speaker 1: avoid the mention of it. Certain topics are just off limits.
- 12:29Speaker 1: We don't talk about certain things, just live life on
- 12:33Speaker 1: the surface and pray that the lock nest monster of
- 12:36Speaker 1: guilt never wakes up. We redirect it, just take it
- 12:41Speaker 1: out on everybody. Lash out at the kids, take it
- 12:43Speaker 1: out on the wife, yell at the employees or the
- 12:46Speaker 1: driver in the next lane. We begin to so hate
- 12:49Speaker 1: ourselves that we don't let someone love us for fear
- 12:54Speaker 1: they will find out who we really are and then
- 12:58Speaker 1: hate us. We offset it. We resolve to never make
- 13:04Speaker 1: another mistake. We'll just be perfect from now on. Pursue perfection,
- 13:09Speaker 1: the perfect family, the perfect career score, the perfect grades,
- 13:15Speaker 1: be the perfect Christian. Everything must be perfect, hair, car,
- 13:21Speaker 1: tone of voice, ever in control, absolutely no fallops or
- 13:30Speaker 1: we embody it. We didn't screw up a screw up.
- 13:37Speaker 1: We didn't mess up. We're a walking mess up. We
- 13:40Speaker 1: didn't get drunk. We are a drunk. We are destined
- 13:45Speaker 1: to be bad, and in some weird way we start
- 13:48Speaker 1: taking joy and being bad. We're bad to the bone.
- 13:52Speaker 1: I'm just made to be bad. I'm just bad. It's weird.
- 14:02Speaker 1: Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves. We still hide,
- 14:08Speaker 1: don't we. So let's go back to that story of
- 14:12Speaker 1: sixteen year old Max. What's he gonna do? This kid
- 14:17Speaker 1: who wakes up not just with a hangover, but with
- 14:21Speaker 1: the guilt. What's he going to do with it? Well,
- 14:26Speaker 1: suppose he takes one or any combination of these ten options.
- 14:33Speaker 1: Suppose he denies it, suppresses it, numbs it, offsets it.
- 14:37Speaker 1: Suppose he kind of makes a route through all of them,
- 14:40Speaker 1: depending on what day of the week it is. What's
- 14:43Speaker 1: he going to be like in ten years, What's it
- 14:46Speaker 1: going to be like in twenty years, What's it going
- 14:49Speaker 1: to be like in forty years? What kind of person
- 14:53Speaker 1: does off. What kind of person does unresolved guilt create?
- 15:01Speaker 1: I think it creates an anxious one, a troubled one,
- 15:05Speaker 1: one who is always doing what Adam and Eve did,
- 15:08Speaker 1: running and hiding, running and hiding. As one man said,
- 15:12Speaker 1: I was always living a lie for fear someone might
- 15:15Speaker 1: see me for who I really was and then think
- 15:18Speaker 1: less of me, disapprove of me, reject or judge me.
- 15:22Speaker 1: So I hid behind my fig leaf of competence or
- 15:26Speaker 1: knowledge or super spirituality or a whole list of other options.
- 15:32Speaker 1: And living this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing. Doesn't
- 15:42Speaker 1: it make sense that if guilt causes anxiety, that to
- 15:49Speaker 1: deal with anxiety we must go upstream, upriver and deal
- 15:54Speaker 1: with guilt, and that this piece that passes understanding happens
- 16:01Speaker 1: once we discover this grace that is greater than our sin.
- 16:09Speaker 1: This was the opinion of the Apostle Paul. Last week
- 16:11Speaker 1: I mentioned to you that really the Apostle Paul built
- 16:15Speaker 1: all of his teachings around two truths. Test me on this.
- 16:20Speaker 1: Every epistle, every sermon of the Apostle Paul seems to
- 16:23Speaker 1: come back to one of two pillars of faith. This
- 16:26Speaker 1: was his belief system. Belief creates behavior. If you want
- 16:32Speaker 1: to change a person, you deal with belief. His belief
- 16:35Speaker 1: system had two pillars in it. One was the sovereignty
- 16:39Speaker 1: of God, that God is sovereign over circumstance. And the
- 16:43Speaker 1: second is the one we're looking at today, and that
- 16:46Speaker 1: is the grace of God. That God's grace is greater
- 16:50Speaker 1: than our sin. And this grace Erace's guilt. Now you
- 16:57Speaker 1: know the story of Paul. No one had more to
- 17:00Speaker 1: feel guilt than the Apostle Paul. Right, he was an
- 17:04Speaker 1: ancient version of Isis. He had blood on his hands.
- 17:08Speaker 1: He set out not just to hurt Christians, but to
- 17:11Speaker 1: destroy the whole Christian movement. The Bible says this about
- 17:16Speaker 1: the Apostle Paul. Paul was like a wild man, going
- 17:19Speaker 1: everywhere to devastate the believers, even entering private homes and
- 17:24Speaker 1: dragging out men and women alike and jailing them. He
- 17:28Speaker 1: was a persecutor. In addition, he was a legalist. That
- 17:33Speaker 1: is to say, he thought salvation was a legal transaction.
- 17:37Speaker 1: He does this, God has to do that. So he
- 17:41Speaker 1: elaborated this concoction of self salvation. He articulated this concoction
- 17:48Speaker 1: of self salvation in the book of Philippians. Have you
- 17:52Speaker 1: read it, It's in Philippians chapter three. He says, if
- 17:56Speaker 1: anyone had reason to hope that he could save himself,
- 17:59Speaker 1: it would be if others could be saved by what
- 18:02Speaker 1: they are. Certainly I could, for I went through the
- 18:06Speaker 1: Jewish initiation ceremony when I was eight days old, having
- 18:09Speaker 1: been born into a pure blooded Jewish home that was
- 18:13Speaker 1: a branch of the old original Benjamin family. I was
- 18:17Speaker 1: a real Jew, if ever there was one. What's more,
- 18:20Speaker 1: I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand strictest
- 18:24Speaker 1: obedience to every Jewish law and custom sincere yes, so
- 18:29Speaker 1: much that I greatly persecuted the Church. I tried to
- 18:32Speaker 1: obey every Jewish rule and regulation, right down to the
- 18:36Speaker 1: last point. So Paul had blood on his hands, he
- 18:43Speaker 1: had religious diplomas on his wall. But then came that
- 18:48Speaker 1: Damascus Road moment when Jesus came to Paul, and once
- 18:57Speaker 1: Paul saw Jesus, Paul couldn't see anymore. He couldn't see
- 19:06Speaker 1: any more merit in his merits. He couldn't see any
- 19:10Speaker 1: more worth in his accomplishments. He couldn't see any reason
- 19:15Speaker 1: to brag about what he had done. He couldn't see
- 19:18Speaker 1: any reason to do anything except cast himself upon the
- 19:23Speaker 1: grace of Christ. And he couldn't see any other course
- 19:27Speaker 1: for the rest of his life except to spend the
- 19:30Speaker 1: rest of his life talking more about Christ and less
- 19:34Speaker 1: about self. And he became the great poet of grace.
- 19:42Speaker 1: This grace changed his life. As he said in the
- 19:47Speaker 1: Book of Philippians, all these things that I once thought
- 19:52Speaker 1: very worthwhile, I've now thrown them all away so that
- 19:59Speaker 1: I can put my trust and hope where in Christ alone.
- 20:05Speaker 1: In exchange for that rubbish of self salvation, God gave
- 20:09Speaker 1: him righteousness. Now, Paul wrote, I am right with God,
- 20:14Speaker 1: not because I followed the law, but because I believed
- 20:19Speaker 1: in Christ. Paul found joy because he found grace, a great, unlimited,
- 20:27Speaker 1: life changing, unconditional grace. Paul gave his guilt to Christ.
- 20:33Speaker 1: He didn't hide it. He didn't suppress it. He didn't
- 20:39Speaker 1: he quit trying to offset it. He didn't numb it,
- 20:43Speaker 1: he didn't punish it. He simply surrendered it to Jesus Christ.
- 20:49Speaker 1: As a result, he could write again still in Philippians,
- 20:53Speaker 1: I am still not all I should be, but I
- 20:56Speaker 1: am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing,
- 20:59Speaker 1: look at the forgetting the past, and looking forward to
- 21:03Speaker 1: Elisa ahead. I strained to reach the end of the
- 21:06Speaker 1: race and receive the prize for which God is calling
- 21:09Speaker 1: us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did
- 21:16Speaker 1: for me. So what would Paul say to a guilt
- 21:21Speaker 1: laden teenager? I believe he would say, give your guilt
- 21:26Speaker 1: to Christ. Cast yourself entirely upon his mercy, trust in
- 21:32Speaker 1: his ability to forgive, because unresolved guilt will turn you
- 21:37Speaker 1: into a miserable, weary, angry, stressed out, fretful soul. Church,
- 21:48Speaker 1: guilt sucks the life out of our souls. It sucks
- 21:55Speaker 1: the life out of our souls. But grace restores the joy,
- 22:03Speaker 1: restores the joy in our innermost being. That's why we
- 22:07Speaker 1: can say grace calms the anxious soul. Grace is the
- 22:15Speaker 1: word the Bible uses to describe the undeserved favor of God.
- 22:21Speaker 1: He knows we cannot live with our guilt. So he
- 22:23Speaker 1: took our guilt and he put it on his son.
- 22:27Speaker 1: And when Jesus died on the cross, he received upon
- 22:30Speaker 1: him our punishment for our sins. Consequently, our sins, though
- 22:35Speaker 1: they be severe, are adequately paid for in the sacrifice
- 22:40Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ, and he does what only he can do.
- 22:44Speaker 1: And when Paul discovered this, he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
- 22:49Speaker 1: He told Titus, God's readiness to give and forgive is
- 22:55Speaker 1: now public. Salvation's available for everyone. Now look at this,
- 23:00Speaker 1: Tell them all this and build up there what Anxiety
- 23:06Speaker 1: is a result of guilt, But courage is a result
- 23:11Speaker 1: of grace. Grace creates confidence. A perfect love is discovered
- 23:18Speaker 1: that casts out all what fear, and there's a sense
- 23:23Speaker 1: of confidence that comes to the saint. The happy saint
- 23:28Speaker 1: is one who is at once aware of the severity
- 23:32Speaker 1: of sin yet the immensity of grace. He does not
- 23:35Speaker 1: compromise and pretend that he has never sinned, but nor
- 23:39Speaker 1: does he denounce for one second God's ability to forgive
- 23:43Speaker 1: those sins. This is the happy, peace filled, tranquil saint.
- 23:49Speaker 1: And I can bear witness to this church. I could
- 23:53Speaker 1: take you to the city, I could take you to
- 23:55Speaker 1: the church. I could take you to the auditorium. I
- 23:59Speaker 1: could take you to the section of chairs in that auditorium.
- 24:05Speaker 1: I think I could even find the very chair in
- 24:08Speaker 1: which I was sitting when as a twenty year old
- 24:12Speaker 1: I heard someone do for me what I'm attempting to
- 24:16Speaker 1: do for you. And that is explained this wonder of
- 24:20Speaker 1: God's grace. I had spent three and a half years
- 24:27Speaker 1: just spiraling through that list of inappropriate attempts to cope
- 24:33Speaker 1: with that guilt, numbing it one weekend, suppressing it the next,
- 24:38Speaker 1: denying it, offsetting it. I was just a mess, and
- 24:42Speaker 1: I was headed toward a lifetime of misery. And when
- 24:46Speaker 1: that preacher Lynn Anderson began talking about this grace that
- 24:50Speaker 1: is greater than sin. And when he, at the end
- 24:54Speaker 1: of the message said, does anybody want this grace? You
- 24:58Speaker 1: couldn't have held me down with chains. Truth of the
- 25:02Speaker 1: matter is I had been held down with chains, and
- 25:05Speaker 1: I was finally set free. I've had anxiety in my life.
- 25:10Speaker 1: That's been forty years. I've had anxiety, but I will
- 25:13Speaker 1: say I have never ever had an anxious moment due
- 25:17Speaker 1: to a fear of no salvation. Ever. Maybe I'm just
- 25:22Speaker 1: such a sinner that I don't have another alternative. But
- 25:26Speaker 1: I have had to throw myself entirely upon the grace
- 25:31Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. I do not believe I have ever
- 25:34Speaker 1: been saved more or less than I was when I
- 25:38Speaker 1: was first saved. I do not believe that any bad
- 25:42Speaker 1: deed has deducted from my salvation. I do not believe
- 25:45Speaker 1: that any good deed, if there are any, has contributed
- 25:49Speaker 1: to my salvation, because my salvation has nothing to do
- 25:53Speaker 1: with me and everything to do with Christ. Because when
- 25:56Speaker 1: Jesus Christ said it is finished, and it was absolute,
- 26:02Speaker 1: and it was complete, and it was the greatest discovery
- 26:05Speaker 1: in the history of the world. That what separates the
- 26:09Speaker 1: Christian faith from any other philosophy, dogma, or religion is
- 26:15Speaker 1: that we believe that God saves sinners. Religion says God
- 26:21Speaker 1: saves saints, and you've got to become a saint before
- 26:25Speaker 1: you can be saved. I was not a saint, but
- 26:29Speaker 1: I believe I'm saved because of the grace of Jesus Christ.
- 26:35Speaker 1: This grace, my friend, will set you free from some
- 26:41Speaker 1: anxiety that maybe you've always wondered why you're a troubled soul,
- 26:49Speaker 1: why you have these sudden outbursts of anger, why you
- 26:55Speaker 1: can't really be at peace when down deep you wonder,
- 26:59Speaker 1: have I done enough? And if I've done enough, have
- 27:01Speaker 1: I really done enough? Maybe somebody all your life has
- 27:05Speaker 1: told you that salvation is up to you. Then my
- 27:08Speaker 1: job today is to stand in bold defiance to that
- 27:12Speaker 1: lie and tell you that salvation is the work of
- 27:14Speaker 1: a savior. That's why we call him a savior, and
- 27:17Speaker 1: redemption is not the work of the redeemed. Is the
- 27:20Speaker 1: work of the redeemer. That's why we're calling the redeemer.
- 27:24Speaker 1: And you don't need rules and regulations. You need a messiah.
- 27:27Speaker 1: He need someone to save you. Henry now On, Great
- 27:35Speaker 1: Catholic theologian, spent part of his early life traveling, of
- 27:42Speaker 1: all things, with a circus, and during those years he
- 27:48Speaker 1: came to be friends with the acrobats, the people who
- 27:52Speaker 1: manned the trapeze artist, and he asked one of them once,
- 27:57Speaker 1: what's the secret of flying from trapeze to trap piece
- 28:01Speaker 1: up in the middle of the circus tent, And the
- 28:05Speaker 1: acrobat gave him this response. He said, the secret is
- 28:09Speaker 1: that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything.
- 28:14Speaker 1: When I fly, I simply have to stretch out my
- 28:17Speaker 1: arms and wait for the catcher to catch me and
- 28:22Speaker 1: pull me safely over the apron. The worst thing the
- 28:25Speaker 1: flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher.
- 28:30Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to catch the catcher. It's the catcher's
- 28:34Speaker 1: job to catch me. If I catch him, I might
- 28:39Speaker 1: break his wrists or he might break mine, and that
- 28:42Speaker 1: would be the end for both of us. A flyer
- 28:45Speaker 1: must fly, a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust,
- 28:53Speaker 1: without stretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.
- 29:02Speaker 1: In the great trapeze act of salvation, we are the
- 29:07Speaker 1: flyer and God is the catcher, and we throw ourselves
- 29:12Speaker 1: upon him, not because of any good that we have done,
- 29:17Speaker 1: but because we believe He is good and he alone.
- 29:21Speaker 1: Dear friend, it is time for you to put the
- 29:24Speaker 1: past in the past. Maybe your anxiety has been dogging
- 29:30Speaker 1: you all these years, and today God is telling you,
- 29:33Speaker 1: why would you please, once and for all receive absolute
- 29:38Speaker 1: forgiveness for those mistakes. Just receive it, Just receive it.
- 29:45Speaker 1: Just let his grace go deeper than you'd ever gone before.
- 29:49Speaker 1: What you did wasn't good. I'm not saying it was.
- 29:52Speaker 1: But I am saying is that you serve a good God.
- 29:55Speaker 1: And when Jesus died on the cross, he died for
- 29:58Speaker 1: every single sin, and it's time for you to put
- 30:02Speaker 1: it in the past. There's a reason that the windshield
- 30:04Speaker 1: is larger than the rear view mirror. And that is
- 30:07Speaker 1: because what lies ahead is much more important than what
- 30:10Speaker 1: lies behind. You are not who you were, You are
- 30:15Speaker 1: not what you did. You are a child of God.
- 30:19Speaker 1: Receive the grace of Christ. And if you do, and
- 30:22Speaker 1: when you do, you will discover that you really can
- 30:26Speaker 1: be anxious.
- 31:11Speaker 2: And I'll be all right. You don't have to stay
- 33:04Speaker 2: if you've already chosen. I won't stand in your way.
- 33:12Speaker 3: I can feel it in your distance, in the way
- 33:16Speaker 3: you barely speak, like your heart is somewhere else now,
- 33:23Speaker 3: somewhere I can't reach.
- 33:26Speaker 4: I was trying to just do hold us.
- 33:30Speaker 3: Why are you slowly slipped away?
- 33:34Speaker 4: Now I'm left with all the silence you didn't want
- 33:39Speaker 4: to say. Maybe I just held long to something.
- 33:51Speaker 1: Already gone. Now I'll be fire. You can leave. You
- 33:59Speaker 1: don't don't me anything.
- 34:03Speaker 3: If your heart is found Only how do what we
- 34:08Speaker 3: used to be? Howby fine? Don't look back?
- 34:14Speaker 4: How survived this empty space? Not tonight, maybe not soon,
- 34:21Speaker 4: but howler.
- 34:24Speaker 3: To be okay?
- 34:29Speaker 1: We don't need to fake the feeling I can see
- 34:34Speaker 1: in your eyes.
- 34:36Speaker 4: There's no reason left the stand when the love already died.
- 34:45Speaker 4: Through the quieting your voice, How can.
- 34:54Speaker 3: Hear your choice?
- 34:58Speaker 1: How be fine? You Kelly, you don't know me anything?
- 35:06Speaker 4: If your hearts spun?
- 35:09Speaker 1: How do what we used to be?
- 35:13Speaker 2: Be fine?
- 35:15Speaker 1: Don't look back? How survived this empty space?
- 35:21Speaker 3: Not tonight?
- 35:22Speaker 4: Maybe not so much, but I'll learned to be okay.
- 35:29Speaker 4: I don't need a reason why.
- 35:33Speaker 1: I can see anything goodbye.
- 35:36Speaker 4: And it breaks me in Dutch, but I won't ask
- 35:40Speaker 4: you to stay.
- 35:46Speaker 1: I'll be fine.
- 35:48Speaker 4: You Kelly, you don't know me anything. Give your heartiest
- 35:55Speaker 4: spound oil.
- 35:57Speaker 3: How do what we to be?
- 36:01Speaker 1: How be fine? Don't look that? How survi have this
- 36:06Speaker 1: simpty space?
- 36:09Speaker 3: Not to lie?
- 36:10Speaker 4: Maybe not so, but I'll learn to be okay.
- 36:23Speaker 1: I'll be all right.