Romans | Week 2 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

with excuses. I wanna preach to you a message this morning of entitled, I'm done with excuses. I wanna ask you to turn to your neighbor and tell him, man, I'm done with excuses. Come on. Tell your neighbor. Now turn to the guy that you just ignored and tell the neighbor on the other side, I'm also done with excuses.

K? Would you join me in a quick word of prayer, father? Father, this morning, we give you permission, not that you need it, but, God, we give you permission to speak where you wanna speak, to go where you wanna go. Father, would you remind us right now that this is the thin place

where the realities of heaven will collide with the realities of earth. And God we're about to watch you reach into the hearts of humans and transform us from the inside out. So holy spirit, would you go before us? Would you speak to us this morning? In Jesus name, all God's people said,

amen and amen. I don't know if you guys had a friend like I did growing up. Just that friend that man, they just they just lie about like dumb stuff. You know what I mean? Like, they just like, oh, we're having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It's like, I make the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the world. You're like, what? Like, who cares? Like, why is this not a competition? You know? And then I my personality is like that of which where like, once I find out that you're just full of crap, I'm just gonna kinda put you to the test every time, and, you know, they make them it's like the I'm gonna throw this football over those mountains. You're like, well, I actually have a football, so here's a football. What do they do in those moments? They always have excuses. Right? It's like, well, I didn't sleep good last night. I woke up. My shoulder's kinda out of alignment. Normally, it'd be easy, but I just you're like, bro, just stop lying. You know? You're not fooling anybody. And I know you're thinking about specific people, but the truth is if we're if we're honest, we all have a little bit of that inside of us. Right? You you've been there before where you walked in late to a meeting and you tried to, you know, kinda hide into the back and come in quietly and everybody is looking at you. You're like, I'm sorry. Was in traffic. It's crazy out there. Was I was stuck in traffic. And the truth is that the traffic that you were stuck in, it looked a whole lot like this. You know? Like it was a it was a Starbucks drive through. Like, you just didn't really plan that well, but you're like, no. No. I was stuck in traffic. It was out of my control. You know? Here's one for you parents if you've never tried this one. This is one you learn when you're you're having kids. It's really helpful. Like when you have something and I don't why it is this way. Like your kids don't want anything until you have it and then they want the exact same thing that you have. You're like, bro, this is mine. Get your own. K? Ever If you have like a milkshake and your little kids walk in, they're like oh what is that? You're like you're not gonna like this, it's really spicy, it's gross, like trust me, I'm just doing this because I'm trying to be healthy. You won't like something like this. Like it's a great excuse to not have to share it with them. You've probably had it happen where like on a Friday or Saturday night you got a friend that texts you and like, hey we should go do something fun. Like we've got some plans and you send them a text back and you're like, oh man I

would love to but like I've already got plans but you just fail to mention that your plans, they they look a lot like like this. You know? Like it's just you sitting on the couch crushing a, you know, a whole thing of popcorn and eating pizza. Right? Like all of those things are are trivial and they're not that big of a deal. The truth is is we all we all do that. We we all use excuses to our benefit

in certain moments. Paul this morning is not pushing back against those type of excuses.

But what Paul is going to gently nudge us in this morning is this idea of when you when you truly understand the gospel and what Jesus has done for us, you and I have to at some point stop being people who live lives full of excuses. And I would venture to guess that maybe the reason that we stay stuck in patterns of sin, the reason that we stay stuck financially, the reason we stay stuck in really unhealthy habits when it comes to our health and our our marriages is because we've just become really accustomed

to making excuses. And and it's really easy to sit back and explain why nothing is my fault and I I can't control anything, and it's all outside of my ability to change things. And it's easy to have excuse have excuses, but but here's what Paul is gonna kinda gently

nudge us on this morning. He said, friends, there's it's only possible to have one of two of these. You can either have progress or you can have excuses, but you can't have both. And you've gotta make a decision. You've gotta make a decision if you wanna stay stuck in the rut of life that you've been in or

if you wanna just start to make progress. You know what? I'm done with excuses regardless of how I got here. Heck, it could have been a 100%

your spouse's fault and maybe it's true. Maybe you did nothing wrong and it's all their fault but but you're here now and I can't tell you how many times I have people sitting down meeting with me and I go, hey, at some point let me just lovingly tell you, you've gotta stop with the excuses. Right? The the gospel

the gospel if it's real and it is, if Jesus really did what he did, which he did, I'm telling you there's an invitation that's available for you that is beyond your wildest dreams but you've gotta make a decision. Excuses or progress?

Here's my encouragement to us. Here's why I would gently nudge every single person here to lean in and learn what Paul is going to teach us in the end of Romans chapter one and beginning of Romans chapter two because I believe that God has a life for you that is beyond your wildest dreams and that the life that we often settle into is far from the life that God wants us to have. But but you've gotta realize something that you will you will only step into your calling when you stop making excuses

and you start making some effort.

See, I'm not telling you to to earn your relationship with God. There's a famous theologian that says that the gospel is not opposed to effort. It's just opposed to earning. You can't earn a right standing with God. But you do gotta realize we've gotta participate in this thing and I wanna show you why

the gospel, the free news, the the free message of what Jesus did on the cross two thousand years ago, why it opens up the possibility for you and I to live a life beyond our our wildest imagination.

There's two groups of people in this room that I wanna speak to primarily. Just kinda put my cards on the table. First group of you here are people who have made excuses for years and years and years about why you don't have a relationship with God. You've made excuses as to why you can't understand the things of God. You've got all kinds of reasons. I'm here today to tell you the bible's gonna say that you have no excuse. K? We are without excuse

and whether you think your reasons are rational or not, it doesn't matter. Eventually, all of us are gonna stand before a holy God. The second group of us that are sitting here today are people that maybe we've we've started relationship with God but we got we got cul de sac at some point. We started kinda circling the drain and we've started to live a life that is far from what the Bible describes as God's abundant life for us. And we too at some point have to stop with the excuses

and allow the gospel, the power source of Jesus to begin to transform us from the inside out and to begin to live into the life that Jesus died for us to have. K. I got three reasons why this morning I wanna try to convince you that we should be done with the excuses

based on what Paul is gonna say in Romans chapter one and two. The first one, if you're taking notes, is that we're done with excuses because the wrath of God is serious.

And this is like point one jumping into the deep end of the water. K? First one is because the wrath of God is serious. We left off last week in Romans chapter 17.

We'll pick up reading today in verse 18. Paul says this in Romans chapter one verse 18, but God shows his anger. Some translations will say wrath there. If you got a bible, highlight underline circle that word anger or wrath. God shows his anger from heaven against all.

Again, highlight underline circle that word all. He shows his anger from heaven against all sinful wicked people who suppress the truth by their by their wickedness. Could you imagine if you somebody walked into your house and you've got like a little poster on the wall or a little pillow on your couch. It's like Romans one eighteen, the anger of God is being poured out on all wickedness of humanity. Right? Like that's not the verse that they share at at Hobby Lobby or HomeGoods. Right? Like this is this is talking about an attribute of God that we like to shy away from. We're like, oh, yeah. There's some bible verses in there, but I really focus on like love is patient and love is kind and love is know, like we love the love of God. We love the grace of God. We love the mercy of God, the compassion of God, the long suffering of God. Are all of those aspects of God true? Yes and amen. But there's an aspect to the nature and the character of God. If you never understand it, you will only settle for a very surface level cheap

version of love and grace. Friends, the bible talks a lot about this thing called the wrath of God, the anger of God, the justice

of God. Paul starts as he's again like a lawyer in court building his case. He's telling us when you understand the implications of the gospel that two thousand years ago Jesus stepped out of heaven. He lived a life we couldn't live. He died the death that we deserve. Then he freely has extended an offer to you and I to not earn salvation but to receive salvation by faith. When you realize what the implications of that are, you will like we talked about last week, you will be a person who is unashamed.

You're not a closet Christian. You stand boldly for the cause of Christ and

you gotta realize that the wrath of God is serious. The anger of God is real. The question this morning that we should be asking is what the heck is the wrath of God because we we we don't understand the wrath of God and I'm here this morning to tell you friends we've got to realize that the wrath of God is real and we're gonna talk a lot about the good news of the gospel and it it is good news and we get excited for it. Yes and amen. But friends you will never you will never understand how good the good news is until you understand how bad the bad news is and the bad news is is is very bad.

The news is is that you and I have all been born into this world in a position where we are hostile to God and because God is a God of justice, he's not passive to sin. He's a God of justice. He has to act in accordance to his character and his nature. He has to do something with the sin that is destroying us, the sin that is in us and Paul talks about the wrath of God that is coming for not not some people, not the people that you are thinking about like, yeah, those bad people, they deserve the wrath of God. No. It's coming for all of us. It is coming for all sinful people. The Bible says that all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glorious standard. We've gotta realize that that's the position that we're born into. And the good news is only as good as we understand how bad the bad news is. Again, the question is is what what is the wrath of God? What is the anger of God? Because you will be tempted

to think that God's anger is much like that of the relative that you saw as a kid get angry

or the teacher that lost their temper, the coach that couldn't control their anger. True story. I literally stopped playing baseball at one point because had a coach that was so crazy. He was spitting in our faces like losing his mind. We're like bro we're talking about freshman baseball. What is happening right now?

And sometimes you will be tempted to think because that's how you've seen anger that that's what you think God is. No no no. The human emotion of wrath, the human emotion of anger is is an emotional response that's irrational. It it's uncontrolled and it sometimes it teeters into being cruel.

Some of us have seen, we've been on the receiving end of that type of anger and that type of wrath. Friend, let me just tell you that is not the type of wrath of who our God is. That is not what Paul is talking about when he's talking about the anger of God. No. God's wrath as described in the bible, it is a righteous opposition to evil. It is a calculated

opposition to evil and to those who choose it. See see we're okay with the idea of God opposing evil but the bible also connects the evil to the evil doer and there's an aspect of God's righteousness and God's judgment that he hates. He hates sin. Just like a good doctor would hate a disease that is causing

havoc to a patient's body so God hates the sin that is destroying you and I. And much like a loving parent, at some point a loving parent whose child is running towards a busy street with cars that are going by fast, they're going to yell. They're gonna stop and try to get their kids attention,

but at some point out of love

at some point out of love, they are actually going to intervene and they're going to grab them and they're going to violently redirect their life because they because they love them. Friends, that's the that's the wrath of God. That's the anger of God. And I wanna show you again how Paul says the wrath of God is on display in humanity because we will think, again, spent a lot of time as a as a a new believer thinking that God was up in heaven and he was gonna like throw lightning bolts at me every time I made a mistake and that God was a just just a vengeful angry God, but that's not what the wrath of God looks like. Paul continues in Romans chapter one verse 21 and he starts to talk to us about what the wrath of God looks like practically.

He says, yes, they knew God but they wouldn't worship him as God. Now again, when we're saying they, you will be tempted to think about those people. He's talking about us. It'd be better to read this as yes, we knew God but we wouldn't worship him as God and we wouldn't even give him thanks and we began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. If you want to understand

why our culture is where it is today, look at these verses we're about to read. Paul predicted this is what's going to happen to culture. This letter was written thousands of years ago but it perfectly describes what is taking place in our culture in 2026. He says, As a result their minds became dark and confused.

They were claiming to be wise. I don't know if you've found some people that have claimed to be wise but they instead became utter fools. Instead of worshiping the glorious ever living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people. They called them politicians and birds and animals and reptiles.

Here's what Paul is saying that happens is you and I, we live into our sin and the sin begins to change us and we begin to distort

the ever living God that we should worship and we instead we settle for worshiping people. Why do think we have such a big deal with we make such a big deal out of celebrities in our world today? Because we were made to worship something. Again the question this morning is not do we worship? The question is is what do you worship?

All of us worship something. Some of us, our worship is our business, it's our success, it's our family, it's achievement, it's education, it's status, it's wealth. We're all worshiping something and Paul's push is to remember that all of that is just created

and if you're not careful, you will give yourself over to sin and God's wrath will begin to be poured out. Now he's gonna show you exactly what God's wrath looks like to a world that has abandoned God. Verse 24, it says, so God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired

and as a result they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. They worshipped and served the things that God created instead of creator himself who is worthy of eternal praise.

He continues and says that eventually the men began to abandon natural relationships and began to sleep with other men. He said that the women eventually got to a point where they abandoned natural relationships and they started to sleep with women.

What does the wrath of God poured out on humanity look like? It's not God up in heaven throwing lightning bolts. No, it's God just going, you know what? I'll just take my hand off the steering wheel and I'll let you have complete control of your life. And the judgment of God that should terrify us,

the wrath of God that should cause us to tremble is not that God is going to lash out at us, it's that God is gonna stop protecting us. And that God's going to allow you to have the full weight of this world at your disposal.

And for some of you I'm telling you the wrath and the judgment of God, it is disguised right now in this season as success. It looks like monetary achievement but it's coming at the cost of your soul. Some of you it looks like stepping into some sexual things and some sexual perversions

that again they literally are the wrath of God poured out because he knows what the enemy won't tell you that this thing that you think is going to satisfy you, this thing that you think is going to fulfill you, I'm telling you is going to rob you, it's gonna kill you, it's gonna destroy, it's gonna take from you and God out of love for you he has stepped away to allow you to go, you know what? If you think that you're a better controller,

if you think you're a better God of your life than I am, then have at it. And the judgment of God, the wrath of God that we should

be fearful of is God just completely stepping away. There's four things that Paul says are evidences that we've gotta look for in our lives to begin to go man is the wrath of God being poured out on me? Am I living in the judgment of God? The first thing that we just read, the first step in this progression

of sin is it starts with the deceived heart. It it starts by you and I feeling things that lead us further away from God. And you've gotta be really careful. The bible talks a lot about this. Do not be led by your feelings but instead lead your feelings by decision.

Your feelings will lie to you. You and I, the bible says that there's a way that makes sense to a man but in the end it's what leads to death. The deceived heart eventually will produce a depraved mind as scriptures say.

And eventually you will get to a place where you are so upside down that you don't know how to turn up. You don't know how to see up from down. We become so disoriented we don't even know how to get ourselves out of the mess that we ended up in. I'm telling you friends, that is literally the wrath of God that Paul says that we should be afraid of. Eventually it will lead to unnatural desires. You'll begin to crave things

that God never designed you to crave. You will begin to feel things that were never supposed to be there. And if you're not careful,

you will be tempted to do what culture is trying to do today. You will want everybody to just approve of your sin. The last step is the approval of sin. You stop calling evil evil and you start applauding it. And what is happening in our culture today is we're taking who we think we are in our depraved state, in our depraved mind, in our brokenness,

and we're wanting to draw a circle around it and we're trying to call it a bull's eye. And we're asking everybody around us, we need you accept and applaud who we are and I'm just here to tell you friends that is not the job of the church. The job of the church is to be a voice piece of truth and reason in the middle of a culture that is constantly losing their mind reminding people the wrath of God is real. Sin is going to steal. It's gonna kill. It's gonna destroy.

But there's a God in heaven that wants to, that has died for you to have a life beyond your wildest dreams, but you at some point, you gotta stop with the excuses. Paul continues in verse 32 and he says that they know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die yet they do them anyway.

Worse yet, they encourage others to do them too. Paul is reminding his friends at some point you gotta realize that the anger and the wrath of God is real and you gotta stop playing around with God.

The reason for us that again I think that the scriptures are clear where God when he says that when you don't trust God with your finances you're literally stealing from God and we sit back and we're like, oh man it's really not I don't feel

like God's punishing me and we will be tempted because of our naivety as humans in all areas of our life. We will be tempted to believe that the the patience of God,

the kindness of God is the approval of God. I'm here this morning to tell you God does not approve of the sin in your life just because he's not punishing you in this season. He's being gracious and he's being kind but I'm telling you there is a day, I don't know exactly when it will be for you, but there is a day where that judgment is going to come forth and God eventually will stop.

He will stop being patient. He will stop being kind and the wrath of God, it will be poured out on him. Why? Because he's a God of justice and he has to act in accordance with with who he is. Friends, you and I at some point have to realize you can live in the love of God or you can live in the wrath of God but you can't live in both at the same time. Choose whom this day who you will serve. The second reason we are done with excuses I know you're like, bro, this is getting spicy real quick. Just again, stay with me. The second reason that we're done with excuses is because what Paul is gonna say is the creation of God is significant.

The reason that all of us here have no excuses because the creation of God is significant. He continues in verse 19.

He says that they know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. Forever since the world was created, people have have seen the earth and the sky through everything God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities, the eternal power, the divine nature. So here it is again. They have no excuse for not knowing God. I'm telling you, one of the number one pushbacks I get from skeptics when they hear me make a claim or like the bible makes a claim that Jesus is the only path to eternity,

that nobody will get to the father except through Jesus. They'll go, well what about the people on remote islands that have never they've never heard about Jesus. They've never had a pastor come to them. They've never had the bible translated into their language. So you're just saying that God made all of those people and they're all just going to perish and they're gonna burn in hell because they never had a chance to hear about the message of Jesus. No. The bible says that there's not a single person in the earth today that is without excuse,

that even nature is displaying and crying out the the nature and the character

of God. Paul is reminding his friends, you will be tempted to make an excuse about you don't know God because of x y and z, but he's reminding us that the significance of the creation that we were born into, it cries out that there's a creator behind all of it. I don't know if you guys have seen this thing called the James Webb telescope. Again, it's like the it's like the Hubble telescope but it's like in four k. It's like made all these things just even better than we've seen before. This is the first picture that the James Webb telescope ever produced back in 2022.

Now again, this picture, they say what we're seeing here, the picture of the galaxies far away is the equivalent if you're standing on earth and you take a single piece of sand which again holding a grain of sand would be difficult to do. I can see the point but if you could, if you could hold it up to the sky,

what that grain of sand would be blocking is what we're seeing here And and the whole point is that the the solar system that we've understood, the universe that we've understood

is far grander and bigger now that we have technology than we've ever believed it to be. See, they used to think that there was about 200,000,000,000 galaxies in the world. Today, our best estimate, they think it's basically an infinite number, but they throw out the number 2,000,000,000,000.

They think that there's about 2,000,000,000,000 galaxies out there. Now again, just for a moment, stay with me. The galaxy that we exist in is called the Milky Way. This is a picture of the Milky Way. This is the galaxy that we understand the best because it's closest to us and we can we can see it. Inside

the Milky Way, there's 200,000,000,000 stars. Think about that number for just a second. 200,000,000,000 stars inside the galaxy, inside the Milky Way galaxy. The sun that protects us, the sun that heats us is one of those 200,000,000,000 stars.

One of the planets that is in the Milky Way galaxy is this rock that is called Earth that we live on today. Again, just for some context, the Milky Way has 200,000,000,000 stars. The Earth that we exist on today is 25,000 miles around. It weighs 6.85

tons. I don't know if you're allowed to say sextillion in church but I did. It's just a big number. Earth that we are on, it hangs at the perfect distance from the sun, little bit closer. You know it. It

would fry us a little bit further away that we would freeze. The earth is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour. It hurls around the sun at 66,000 miles an hour. The entire solar system that we are in is racing through the milky way at 400,000 miles an hour. The milky way is moving through the universe at 2,200,000

miles an hour and yet still not a single hair on your head is out of place. It is held perfectly

together. Just again, stay with me for a second, the Artemis two, the fastest manned vehicle that we've ever created is what we just sent the astronauts up to orbit the moon on. On the fastest vehicle that we've ever created, to get to the moon takes four days.

To get to Mars would take seven months. To get to Pluto, shout out Pluto, RIP Pluto, It would take almost ten years to circle our own galaxy, the Milky Way and the fastest vehicle we've ever created would take two hundred million years and friends that is one of 2,000,000,000,000

galaxies out there. Here's the point that I belabor this morning. God is bigger than anything you could ever possibly comprehend. The universe is just a microcosm of the majesty and the holiness and the magnitude of who he is. That's why the psalmist says in Psalm 19 that the heavens proclaim the glory of God.

The skies if you'll allow it, they display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak. Night after night they, the stars, the universe make him known. They speak without a sound or a word. Their voice is never heard yet their message has gone throughout the earth and their words to all the world. Here it is.

Creation, the design of it, it proves that there's a designer behind all of it. And Paul says that even if it's just creation, we are all without excuse that God has made himself known to us. And here's the point,

that the God that could in in just a breath utter a universe so complex that it would take us two thousand years to even begin to get our minds slightly wrapped around it. We're not even talking about the complexity to which our bodies have been made, that we've got two lungs and two kidneys and we've been intricately designed, that all of that, again,

just consider for a second, that the God that made all of that by just speaking is the same God that holds your life, your plans, your purposes in perfect balance and the point that I belabor this morning

is if he's big enough to create all of that, why do you think he's not big enough to trust him with your life as well? Doesn't matter how bad the problem is. Doesn't matter how dark your life is. Doesn't matter how how deep the addiction is. Doesn't matter how far gone the relationship is. Our God is in the business of turning around the impossible

because what is impossible with man is possible with God. Can we give him some praise this morning? Come on somebody. Here's the third reason. The third reason that we are done with excuses Paul is going to continue and say because the sacrifice of Jesus

is sufficient. The sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient. Romans chapter two verse one says, you may think that you can condemn such people. Again, here's why I love Paul. He's such a brilliant thinker. He gives an argument and then he knows the counterargument that's coming. He knows the skeptics are gonna go, yeah, but those are just bad people, but we're good people. He goes, no. No. No. I know you think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse. When you say that they are wicked and they should be punished, you are condemning yourself for you who judge others do the very same things and we know that God in his justice will punish anyone who does such things. Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God's judgment when you do the same things? Don't you see? Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does it mean nothing to you? Can't you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

Friends, lean in. This whole message matters this morning because of these next two verses here. Verse five, but because you are stubborn and you refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. The wrath of God is real

for a day of anger is coming when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Verse six is what I think should be one of the most sobering verses in the entire Bible. He will judge everyone according to what they have done.

Not according to what they wanted to do. Not according to what they swear they were gonna do someday. That there's a day that's coming where you and I will be judged by everything that we've done and Paul is saying that every day you make a decision to live in excuses

and just continue to circle the drain, what you're doing is you are storing up judgment on yourself that at some point you are going to have to give an account for. Now again to illustrate this point, I need my helpful Vanna White to come out. Everybody give Dylan

a round of applause as he makes his way to the stage here quickly.

Here's the visual that I was thinking of that Paul's talking about, this idea of storing up punishment for ourselves. He's saying that you and I, we're stubborn and we refuse to turn from our sin, that we're storing up judgment, that all of us were born into this life and we think that the decisions that we make are of no consequence, that it's just a little bit of over drinking.

It's just a little bit of a pornography problem. It's not that big of a deal but what Paul is saying is that literally what you are doing is you are making a daily decision. I stole my wife's workout weights, don't judge me. They're three pounds, they're hers, not mine okay?

That you're making a decision that at first is pretty insignificant. You're like okay, it's not that big of a deal. I can carry this. It doesn't feel insurmountable but here's the problem with sin is that this sin only grows if you don't deal with it. Eventually you will go back to it and what used to be insignificant

all of a sudden will slowly over time, it will slowly get heavier. It will slowly get worse and you will start to go back to the thing that used to go, okay I used to get some joy from this. I used to find temporary satisfaction in this. There was some relief that was there

but when I walk away, when I wake up the next day, all I feel is the burden and the weight of this and Paul is saying is you're storing up punishment. Come on, a kettlebell, come on, that's heavy right there right?

And the reason that so many of us, man we walk into the places of church and we we think that we're just gonna sing some songs and pray a prayer and everything's gonna be changed. We think we're gonna we're we're gonna go serve the homeless for a day and fix everything. No. No. There's something about the judgment that we've stored up against ourselves that's just weighing us down. I even stole her weighted vest. I mean, come on some weighted vest. But they're like, this is the picture that I think so many of us need to see that a lot of us walking in the door this morning to church,

this is what we come in carrying because of the choices that we made, because of the sin that so easily ensnares. We we walk in

burdened and and heavy and we've gotta do something with it. We we've gotta try to figure out how do we get out of the weight of this because our best attempt, the Bible says, the best attempt that we can do to become good people. We we can pray a little bit. We can read the Bible once, but I'm telling you all we're doing is we're like we're relieving a piece of paper that's it's nothing significant.

All we're doing is temporarily relieving a fraction of the weight that is ensnaring us and we've got to at some point go how do we deal with this? Friends here's what we do. Here's what the answer is. Paul tells us Romans chapter three verse 23. Here's the good news. Here's the great equalizer. For every single person,

this is the beautiful news of the gospel is that every one of us in this room, we all stand condemned together before God because we all have sinned. We all have fallen short of God's glorious standard yet God in his grace he freely makes us right in his sight. How?

How does God relieve us of this? He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sin for God presented Jesus as the sacrifice. If you got a bible, highlight underline circle that word sacrifice.

Jesus is the sacrifice for our sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life shedding

his blood. See, here's the dilemma if you're God because God is a God of justice and sin, the bible says the penalty of it is death. In our sin that weighs us down, God has to deal with it. And so the justice of God demands a response. We should

we should be be murdered. We should be killed. The wrath of God should be poured out on us but what did Jesus what did God do? Through Jesus he sent a substitute, a sacrifice. Some of your translations literally use the word propitiation. It's a person that stands in place of what should have been ours.

Here's what Paul is saying. How does God free us from the sin that so deeply burdens us? Two thousand years ago Jesus stepped into this earth. He lived a life that we couldn't live and he ultimately would die the death that we deserve. And on the cross the cross of Calvary, what Jesus took was not it was not his sin.

Was not his shame. Jesus actually took, he took Dylan's shame primarily because he has a lot that's heavy but he also took mine and he took yours. And here's what's amazing to think about for a second, that is a heavy backpack. Here's what's amazing to think about for just a second. If he took the entire weight

of all of humanity's sin and for just a moment while hanging on the cross, the perfect relationship that existed between God and his son, it was severed. And for just a moment Jesus, the unblemished lamb, he felt the weight of the judgment and the wrath of God. It's why at one point Jesus cries out, my God,

my God, why have you forsaken me? He was feeling all of the wrath, all of the judgment of God. I did that to him. You did that to him. But this is what's beautiful is if you understand that the sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient,

it gives us the ability to not be burdened by this any longer and we can by faith at the invitation of Jesus. We can actually walk in here burdened but we can walk out of here free.

How? You've got to at some point confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord so that you can be set free and you don't have to carry your shame any longer. But friends, it starts with you being done with excuses. You've got to at some point realize

this is the gospel in one sentence that Jesus took what I deserved so that I could get what he deserved. You and I deserved wrath. We deserved judgment. We deserved punishment.

What did Jesus deserve? Mercy and grace and forgiveness but because he got what I deserved, I can get what he deserves. Friends at some point you gotta make a decision of what are you gonna do with the sacrifice of Jesus

because you have no excuse. I I got three things. How do we practically be people who live lives without excuse? The first one is that we take the wrath of God seriously. We stop playing around with sin. We realize that it is a big deal. Obedience to God matters

because the wrath of God is real. Stop playing games with him. Secondly, we live in awe of God's creation.

When you find yourself looking at a sunset, if you go to the mountains, if you go to the beach this summer, just stop and remember. Let the beauty of God's creation remind you of the majesty and the magnitude of the creator behind it all and we are people who live in confidence of God's sacrifice.

The reason I can stand up here today when I am tempted to run back to the thing that used to burden me down, the thing that I think still identifies me, the reason that I can go no no that's not who I am because I know that the sacrifice of Jesus was sufficient

and what Jesus did on the cross is what the author of Hebrews spends the entire book arguing that the penalty that he paid on the cross is more than sufficient. And I don't know what it is you walked in here this morning carrying. I don't know what weight has been burdening you down.

I don't know what it is that you feel like dis qualifies you from God being able to redeem you, but I'm here this morning to tell you that the grace of God is available to all of us.

And there's some of you that are here. Again, I don't know who it is. I don't know exactly what you're walking through, but then some of you caught you walked in here today, and you are you are heavy. There there's a weight to whatever it is you've been carrying.

I just wanna tell you today that I think God brought you in this room so that you could hear this message, so you could feel

the love and the grace of God. So you could make a decision today to trust him with your life. So I'm gonna ask if you would, just everybody in this room, close your eyes and bow your heads. I wanna give some of you an opportunity this morning to respond to what I believe is the Holy Spirit's nudging on our hearts.

Again, the Bible says that all we have to do is confess with our mouth and believe in our believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord and we will be saved.

And we can lay down our weight. We can lay down our shame and we can walk out of here free and saved. Not because we did it but because Jesus did it. If you're here today and you wanna make a decision to trust Jesus with your life,

to lay down whatever it is that is that is making you heavy laden this morning, I wanna give you an I wanna give you a moment to do that. Again, an atmosphere of faith, all eyes closed, heads bowed. This is just a private moment between you and God. I'm gonna ask you on the count of three, right where you are, just throw your hand up in your seat. One, this is your moment. Two, you know who you are. Three, throw your hand up right where you are. No shame. Hands going up all over this room. Father, I see your hands. I see the hands going up. God, the hearts reaching out to you.

The people that are saying by faith, God, I'm reaching out to you. Don't be ashamed. Put your hands up high. Elbows to ears. God, we're reaching out to you. I'm telling you there's dozens of hands going up all over this room. This is us, father, reaching out to you for forgiveness, for grace, for restoration.

You can put your hands down. I wanna invite you to pray a prayer like this with me in the quietness of your heart. Even if you know this was supposed to be you but you didn't raise your hand, I would still wanna invite you to pray this prayer with me. Just say Jesus with all the faith that I have,

right now I give you my life. I hand you the reins of this thing that I've kinda made a mess of. Father I'm asking that you would right now, that you would step into my heart. You would become my king, my lord, and my savior. God, I give you all of my brokenness. I give you all of my shame,

and I put on your grace. I put on your mercy. By faith,

I acknowledge you as savior and king. Would you come into my heart right now and set me free? In Jesus name, all God's people said, come on. Can we just give it up for all the people who say yes to Jesus in this room today?

As we close our services this morning, you should have gotten one of these on your way in. This is our communion cups. If you don't have one, our ushers are walking down the aisle. Just throw your hand up. They'll get you a communion cup. Here's why we do this because it's a reminder

that the freedom that we get to live into, the grace that we've been freely given is something that cost Jesus everything. Paul says this in first Corinthians chapter 11, for I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself.

On the night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread. He gave thanks to God for it. He broke it into pieces and said, this is my body which is given for you. Do this to remember me. And in the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant between God and his people. In agreement confirmed by my blood, do this to remember me as often as you drink it. For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes again.

So together today, we take the bread remembering the body broken for us. So take and eat. Together, we take and we drink the juice remembering the blood that was spilled for us. So together we take, we drink. Father, we thank you. We thank you this morning

that what you did on the cross two thousand years ago is still sufficient for our sin today. Father, would you show us in our lives where we've settled into excuses? Would you show us where we need to start putting in some effort?

Because God, we know that you are coming back soon. You are coming for your bride. And God, you came the first time as a lamb that was gonna be led to the slaughter,

but father you are coming back as a conquering king. And father, we look forward to that day. Would you prepare your bride to meet you? God, would you would you wage war? Would you help us wage war with the sin that is in us so that we would be prepared to meet you on that day? It is in the mighty holy name of Jesus all God's people said, amen and amen. You guys are incredible.