Everyday Faith | Week 3 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

amen and amen. So just quick show of hands because I'm always kind of shocked when I ask the question. But how many of you were raised Catholic? K. Where are my Catholic people at? Man, that's a lot of us that are still wrestling through some guilt together. You know what I mean? Like, it takes takes a while to undo some of that trauma. And it's kinda crazy. Like, I just didn't realize, like, how how prominent it was. If you if you have never been to a Catholic mass before, just just take my word for it. It's a little bit different than what we do here. Right? Like,

much more standing and kneeling and incense. And, again, please don't hear what I'm not saying. Like, I actually have a deep and, like, appreciation for the Catholic church. The older I get, I find myself almost missing some of the reverence and holiness that exists inside of a Catholic mass, but there's also some things that they do that I don't think are are super helpful and unintentionally create a culture of religion over, like, a true relationship with Jesus. But, again, it's funny thinking about

growing up Catholic how I did. Like, you know, when people say that you had, a drug problem growing up, like, that that was me. Like, my mom drug me to all the different Catholic services that I didn't I didn't wanna go to, and I had to do all the things. You know, I was the altar boy, but the the robes only came to, like, my knees because I was too tall, and the the priest has this big gold bible that they read out of. And again, I think I'm actually gonna get one of those because that's a pretty sweet flex to just have a big gold bible that they get a teach out of. And I would have to hold it, but I would have to like bend down because the the priest was too short and

it's funny just looking back on it.

I could do the whole thing. I knew when to sit. I knew when to kneel. I knew when to stand. I knew how to recite the prayers when they were coming. But the part that's funny because I've been out of it for a while, they've changed some of the things that they did when I was a kid. So if I go back now, I kinda have no idea what they were doing. But, again, I don't think it's as much an indictment against the Catholic church as much as just was a reflection of kinda where I was at at the time. But for me, growing up Catholic, doing the motions, though I could do them all, I could recite the prayer, I could go through all the steps. I I had zero relationship with Jesus. There was no connection

to the the god that I was there supposedly to worship. It was just a bunch of religious activity.

And here's the truth of what James is gonna go after today in James chapter two is that it's not just people who grew up Catholic that unintentionally can go through the motions of church and miss the heart of Jesus in the process, but it's all of us us regardless of our tradition and our denominational upbringing

that the natural tendency, the natural leaning of the human heart is to just religious activity. But the goal is not external religious activity. It's an internal transformation with the god of the universe, and we just have to realize that sometimes sometimes the most dangerous place that we can find ourselves

is being near the house of god but being far from the heart of god and what we have to just this morning kind of take a hard look at is just the condition and the nature of our our soul and our relationship with Jesus. The book of James,

it really is a tough look. It's a mirror that makes us take a tough look at ourselves. And here's why I think this is important for us to look at today because there there are tons of studies that are out there that have been done recently.

And though the numbers are lower than they used to be, they still say about 60% of Americans would raise their hand and say, yes. I'm a follower of Jesus. Now I know that that's not true because I drive on the freeway like you do. Right? Like, there's

zero chance that six out of 10 people that I'm on the freeway with have the spirit of God alive and active in them. Right? What James is saying is then, well, then what do we mean when we say that we're Christians? Sometimes there's just this cultural thing that we've settled into that potentially

isn't a saving and transformative relationship with Jesus. But we've also gotta be really careful because what I'm not saying today is that you and I have to work to gain the approval of god. K? Salvation,

a thing that we receive or we're made right with god, you can't earn, you can't achieve, you can't work for. It's a free gift that you receive and sometimes it can feel like James is preaching a different gospel But what James is going to say, the the totality of his whole book that crescendos

in James chapter two is is a pretty simple notion that I wanna try to convince you of over the next few minutes I have with you. K? If you're writing notes, write it down this way, that faith faith isn't a result of works, but faith always results in works. What James is saying is that works do not produce faith.

But if you've met the resurrected Jesus and you've gone through the process that John chapter three says where you are born again, we were all born of the flesh and now we need to be born of the spirit. If you have been born again and you now have the spirit of god alive and active inside of you, that faith will always,

100% of the time, result in works out of your life. You will begin to live differently as a byproduct of the spirit of God living and active in you. And if you are not living different, what James is saying, what James is going to say is that there should be alarm bells going off inside of your heart saying something

something is wrong. Something is off. And sometimes we need to understand that what we've potentially given our life to, what we've surrendered to is not a a true saving faith in Jesus as much as it is just a cultural version of Christianity. K? So it's with that, we get to James chapter two

verse 14 is where we'll begin reading today. Remember, this is the half brother of Jesus who's writing this and he's trying to expand on Jesus' sermon on the mount that was recorded in Matthew chapter five, six, and seven. He says, James chapter two verse 14,

what good is it dear brothers and sisters if you say that you have faith but you don't show it by your actions? He says, what good is a faith that you just post about on social media but Monday through Friday, you don't live it out?

Now he's going to ask a really powerful pointed question that every single one of us, some two thousand years removed from the writing of the book of James, we all have to wrestle with. What his question is, what my question for you this morning is is can that kind of faith save anyone?

He says a faith that you just talk about but doesn't actually ever translate into living differently. Here's what you need to understand.

Can that faith actually save you? What is James talking about? He's saying that at the end of our lives, all of us, whether we're given forty years or a hundred and forty years. Right? All of us at some point are going to meet our natural end. And at that point, we are going to stand before a holy god, and he's gonna ask us two questions.

What did you do with my son Jesus? And secondly, what did you do with all that I entrusted to your management?

Your time, your talents, and your treasure. What did you do with all of that? What James is saying is that a lot of us are sitting here going, well, I know that I'm gonna get into heaven one day. And he says, why do you think you're so convinced you're gonna go to heaven? Like, well, because I sat in a chair and I sat in a church and I prayed a prayer one day.

But James is saying, if that prayer didn't translate to a life that was surrendered to the spirit of god that began to help you live differently

and your life isn't different on the other side of having met Jesus, you're potentially in a really dangerous place. Remember what Jesus says in Matthew chapter seven. He says, there's many people who are going to get to the end of their life and what they're going to hear is not well done my good and faithful servant. What they're going to hear is get away from me

for I never knew you. So, there's a lot of people who think because I sat in a church, I raised my hand one time and I prayed a prayer that that means that I'm going to heaven. Now, again,

the Bible does say that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is lord that you will be saved but you gotta understand that that's the invitation of the spirit of god into your life and what begins to happen is you begin to be made new. You begin to be changed from the inside out and what James is saying is that sometimes we need to look at our lives and go, is your life actually changing?

Are you gaining ground in this in the in the areas of sin in your life? Are are you winning the battles that are taking place? Are you growing in intimacy with God? Are you transforming into the person of Christ? If you gave your life to Jesus in 1985

and nothing has changed between then and now, James is saying is that potentially is a faith that cannot save you because the notion that you can give your life to Jesus and stay the same is a crazy concept. One that is I would say uniquely

programmed inside of westernized American churches where we've sold a gospel that says, hey, all you gotta do is pray a prayer and then you can get to heaven one day. And you can have enough Jesus to make sure when you get to heaven that you get in, but not so much of Jesus on this side of eternity that you like become that weird guy on Friday night that nobody wants to talk to.

You just want enough of Jesus to make sure you kinda stumble into heaven, but not so much that you become the the weird guy. And James is saying is that that is a premise that is a completely false premise. The idea of a halfway in relationship with Jesus is a crazy concept.

See, the invitation of faith in the beginning was an all or nothing thing, complete surrender. Jesus says that when you lose your life for the sake of the gospel,

then then you'll find your life. But like this dip your toe in the water, kinda try Christianity out, have enough of it to make sure I get to heaven one day, but not so much that I have to reorder how I structure my finances. James is saying that's really, really dangerous waters.

A faith that doesn't change how you date, doesn't faith doesn't change the way that you look at your finances, doesn't change the way that you make decisions with your business, doesn't change the way that you raise your kids, A faith that doesn't impact how you live. James says, the question is is can that faith save us? Again, don't hear what I'm not saying. James is already making the assumption that we've all stacked hands that salvation is something that we're given through the the resurrection of Jesus. It's not something that we earn,

but what he's now building on is that once you are given that faith, once you are given this new relationship with Jesus, it begins to produce good works out of you. But we all need to remember. We gotta make sure we're walking out of here today remembering

James is not arguing for a different gospel than what we see preached in the rest of the bible. K. Paul tells us in Romans chapter three verse 25

that we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.

This is the tension of Christianity is that you don't work to earn faith, you receive it. It is imputed to you by the righteousness of Jesus that when God looks at us, he sees the finished work of what Jesus did. We receive that. We don't earn it. But once you receive it, what the holy spirit begins to do is produce works out of you and through you. Okay? The order matters a ton. Here's how James continues on this idea

of can that faith save anyone. He says verse 15, suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing and you say, goodbye, have a good day, stay warm, and eat well but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? He says, you see faith by itself, it isn't enough.

Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and it is useless And see, what is spoken in the Western church is that it's all grace and that you just can stumble your way to heaven one day. It doesn't matter how you live. You can do whatever you want. And what James is saying is that that is partially true.

That, yes, it is all grace. You cannot earn your way into salvation. But when you've met the resurrected Jesus and you go through the process that was prophesied prophesied in the book of Ezekiel,

where removed from you is a heart of stone and put in you is a heart of flesh, where all of a sudden the things that you used to not feel, the sin that you used to just be so comfortable with, if you don't start waging war with it because of how God has transformed you and how you see it differently,

you need to ask a bigger question of what did I give my life to? Because the notion that you can surrender your life to Jesus and nothing changes about who you are is something that is a faith that you just don't find in the Bible. It's a faith that is unknown to the people of scripture. And James is talking to a culture that has just settled into going through the motions and patting themselves on the back because they they go to church on Sunday and what he's trying to say is that if you don't begin to see the world the way that god sees the world, you don't begin to see hurting and broken people the way that god sees hurting the broken people. I'm telling you, you've gotta have some alarm bells going off saying, well, maybe

maybe I haven't actually surrendered my life to Jesus. And what I've been playing out is some some cultural version of Christianity, but it isn't a true saving faith in Jesus and Jesus alone. And I don't think it's a coincidence. The first thing that he goes after is our our resources.

He says, for you and I to look at the needs in this world and do nothing about it, think that it's somebody else's problems, you begin to see that, like, you're you're missing the heart of god completely.

That we are Christ's ambassadors, the scripture say. That the world is supposed to know about the hope that can be found in Christ based on our lives.

That the scripture say we're supposed to be a living epistles. We're supposed to be living books of the New Testament. The people are supposed to look at our lives and go, man, I see the transformation happening. It doesn't mean that you're perfect. It doesn't mean you don't make mistakes

but are you changing? Do you see progression in your life? See, I I'm so grateful that we serve a god that is gracious and patient and kind with us. For years, man, after giving my life to Jesus, I was serving in student ministries.

There was times where I would literally teach a group of high school kids and five minutes before I was teaching, I was out back smoking a cigarette, blowing it out, and walking on stage, and teaching a bunch of high schoolers because I was still figuring life out. The holy spirit was still working on me. What James is not saying is that you have to be perfect but what he is saying is if I was standing here twenty years later and I still smelled like cigarettes,

some of you should ask some questions, right? Like at some point, you have to go, well, what is the spirit of God doing in you? And I think the sad reality is for so many people who find themselves in in churches on Sundays,

we can't even remember the last thing that God challenged us to give up. We can't remember the last place that we gained victory over something in our life and what James is saying is that you've gotta wake up. Nobody's promised tomorrow. You could be standing before god tomorrow

after a a crazy car accident or something and you gotta understand that the stakes could not be higher.

There's three questions that I would encourage you. I would challenge you this morning to wrestle through that we find here in the book of James. Again, these questions, they're not for your mother-in-law. They're not for your spouse. These are for you. They they these are for me.

What James is saying is that our natural propensity when it comes to this faith journey is to settle into just like a lip service type faith. The question I have for you this morning is is your faith, is it lip service or is it a lifestyle?

Is it something that you just talk about, you post about on social media, but you don't actually live it out? See, Jesus says before you begin to worry about the speck in other people's eyes, deal with the two by four in your own.

Deal with that one. Why? So then you can see clearly and you can begin to help your brother who's struggling with the speck in his eye. He doesn't say don't ever address the speck that your friend has. He says, just deal with your issues first.

And the truth is the reason I think we settle in to just lip service Christianity is because lip service is cheap and it's easy. It costs you nothing.

It's funny when I sit with couples who are getting ready to get married, have to kinda remind them sometimes, like, guys, you're about to stand up and you're going to read these vows to each other that are you can spend a lot of time with. They're they're eloquent. They're they're powerful words, and they are impactful. But when you stand up there and you say them at the altar at the beginning of your marriage,

they're cheap. Not for the bride's dad, but like for you two, it's cheap to be standing up there. Right? Why? Because to vow to stay with somebody through better or for worse, through sickness and in health, it's one thing when you're saying it's standing there on day one of your marriage.

It's a whole another thing when you're sitting there year five and somebody's deeply betrayed the other one. When somebody's actually walking through major health crisises, that's where your marriage goes from. Is this thing lip service or is it lifestyle? There's lifestyle. There comes cost

with it. If you wanna start to live out the biblical values of forgiveness, it's gonna cost you something. If you want to walk out the biblical values of generosity, I'm telling you, it's gonna cost you something.

Yet I have so many people who will reach out and they'll do the lip service thing. Go, I just don't believe that tithing is a New Testament command, and I think that you're getting up there and you're asking people to tithe, and it's not a New Testament. I'm like, well, just give something then. Right? The New Testament is incredibly clear that generosity is supposed to be a part of who we are.

You wanna throw out the tithing idea? Great. What does generosity look like for you? Is it lifestyle or is it lip service? James is warning us that our natural tendency, we will gravitationally be pulled

to just lip service Christianity and it's a dangerous place to be. Look how he continues in verse 18. He says, now some of you may argue. Yeah. Well, some people have faith and others have good deeds but I say, how can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by

my good deeds. Then he says in verse 19, you say that you have faith for you believe that there is one God.

Good for you. Even the demons believe this and they tremble and tear. I I love James. Like, he just wastes no verses. He's just like, boom. K. You think you're awesome? You're not. You're a devil. Alright?

He he goes after a couple things here. Says, know for some of you, you go, well, I'm just more of like a faith person. I'm more of just like a grace person. He goes, yeah. I don't buy it because your grace and your faith, it should be proven by your by your works. And then he goes after something specifically that the early Jewish church was dealing with. Again, remember who James is writing to. He's writing to the persecuted churches that is spread around the the the known world, And he's writing to them who are living in the middle of a culture that has lost its ever living mind. They're doing all types of crazy things,

and they were the only ones that were like, no. No. No. Like, God is real. You should live in fear of him. Like, this is this is who god is. They lived in a culture that worshiped the the plurality of gods. All these different polytheistic beings

and the early church, the Jews, prided themselves on the fact that they were the only ones that held to the true one nature of god, that he's three in one, but it's one god. His name is Yahweh. He's the creator. There are no other gods before him. There's no other gods after him. He is god.

And and right here, James quotes from Deuteronomy chapter six, And he goes after the Jews that go, you make it a big deal that you are the only ones that know about the one nature of God. He goes, you know who else knows about the one nature of God? The devil and all of his demons.

What is James saying? He's saying that our our our our other natural tendency if it's not just lip service is to just become the people that get a bunch of head knowledge about God. And sometimes, what we'll do is we'll fill our head with a bunch of information

thinking that information about god is the goal when information was never the goal. Information that leads to transformation has always been the goal But the problem is is when transformation is not happening, what you begin to do is you become really, really puffed up. And the truth is is if I'm honest,

over the almost twenty years that I've been deeply involved in the church, some of the most hurtful,

some of the most hateful, harmful people that I've ever come across in my life are people who are sitting in pews of churches every Sunday that have a lot of head knowledge about who God is, but they refuse to go through the process of allowing that information to transform them and make them into the person of Christ.

Sitting in church, it doesn't make you anymore a Christian than me standing in your garage jumping up and down saying that I'm a car, right? Like,

just because you're here, just because you go through the motions, it doesn't mean that when you get to heaven one day that you're gonna spend eternity with god, and that is a word that the church in America needs to hear. What Jesus is after is transformation. You can't earn it. You can't work towards it, but

true surrender living to Jesus, man, I'm telling you, you can produce some incredible, incredible things. Here's the second question that I think James is forcing us this morning to wrestle through is our faith. Is our faith what James would say is dynamic, or is it is it demonic?

The crazy part is if you read in the New Testament, there's all types of accounts where Satan is tempting Jesus or Jesus comes across somebody who is filled and he's possessed by a demon. In every single time where you see Jesus interact with a demon, you know what happens?

The demon will intellectually acknowledge the person of Jesus. They will acknowledge his authority. They will acknowledge his power. They will acknowledge his ability,

but what they refuse to do every single time is to bend the knee to the lordship of Jesus. And every time they just run and they flee. But what James is saying is that if you and I are in a bible quiz against the devil and his demons, we're gonna lose every single time because they have a lot of information about god, but they don't have any actual transformation

from having met the resurrected Jesus. But here's the good news. Good news of the gospel is that Jesus didn't come to save the demons. He came to save and seek you and I who are lost. But what it requires of us to do is to bend the knee to the lordship of Jesus. At some point, you've gotta get enough information

and this is the hard part for people who are highly analytical is you will never be able to get to the point of accepting Jesus as the savior of the world based purely on information.

You can get pretty dang close. There's a lot of evidence that supports the fact that Jesus actually was who he claimed to be, but you'll never be able to get there based on information alone. Eventually, there will be a chasm between what you can understand and what God is saying. That bridge

that bridge can only be bridged by actually taking a step of faith. At some point, you have to take the jump and say, okay. I'm trusting Jesus based based on logic. Right? I'm running a ramp of logic before I take this jump,

but at some point, I've gotta take a jump and believe that Jesus actually is who he says that he is. And that's the moment where the Bible says that the holy spirit,

the same spirit that rose Jesus from the grave begins to take residence inside of you. And that holy spirit begins to work things out, and you begin to change, and you become made more into the image of Jesus.

You should see progress in your life. If not, if your faith is not dynamic, then maybe maybe we have a faith that James would say is is demonic. K? Here's how he kinda starts to

starts to wrap up. He's a brilliant communicator, so now he's gonna get into a couple illustrations to kind of prove his point here. He says in verse 20, how foolish are you? Can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless?

Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see his faith and his actions, here it is, they worked together. His actions made his faith complete.

And so it happened just as the scripture say, Abraham believed God and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. He was called a friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God. Here it is, by what we do, not by faith alone. Then verse 25, he says, Rahab the prostitute is another example.

She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid these messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.

The book of James crescendo is James chapter two verse 26. Just like your body and eyes, it is dead if it doesn't have breath, so is our faith dead if it doesn't have works. At some point, your life has to begin to produce good works. He uses two examples, two brilliant examples.

Speaking to first century cultural Jews, he talks about Abraham. If you're new to the Bible, Abraham would be like me saying, you remember Michael Jordan? Everybody's like, yes. Obviously, greatest of all time. No debate. It's definitely not LeBron James. Like, it's Michael Jordan. Right?

Michael Jordan, the greatest of all of us. Everybody immediately knew. Okay. He's talking about Abraham. Right? Every Jewish person traced their lineage to them. Three world religions all traced their lineage back to Abraham,

the father of the faith, the one guy that God came to and said, through you, I'm gonna birth a nation. The one that every Jewish boy would grow up going, maybe one day god could use my life as powerfully as he used Abraham. James says, remember Abraham. He didn't work to gain god's approval.

All the way back in the book of Genesis, god actually gave Abraham an invitation to receive by faith and that's what made him right with god. He didn't earn it. It's not a New Testament thing where we receive faith through grace. This was something that's been there the whole time but just like all of us,

Abraham after having surrendered his life to god, he now had to go through the process of journeying with god and it was his it was his deeds and his work that proved his faith. He says, remember Isaac?

Now, if you again, you don't know Abraham's story, Abraham was a guy that was a 100 years old when god came to him and said, you, I'm gonna birth a nation. That's a wild promise to give a 100 year old man who's not had a single kid up until this point. But God says, if you trust me, if you'll follow me, if you'll listen to me when it makes no sense, I will use your life beyond your wildest dreams. And eventually, him and his wife give birth to a son named Isaac, the son the son of promise. Right? When we talk about God, we talk about the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We talk about the sons that God gave this man and all of us sitting here today, the New Testament says even us Gentiles, we've been grafted into the lineage

of Abraham. He says that guy at some point was asked to take his son Isaac and to take him on a mountain and sacrifice him.

And you're like, wait, wait, the son of promise, the son that he waited for years and years and years to get, God wanted him to take him up to a mountain and sacrifice him like that. That doesn't make any sense. And if I had three hours, I would walk through all of the implications and what I think it means, but here here's all of it boiled down.

What God will often do for you and I is he will ask us to do things in following him that make zero sense logically. And God asked Abraham, will you take the thing that you love the most and believe in the most, and will you will you sacrifice it to me?

And I have to imagine, inside of Abraham's heart, there was all types of emotions racing through, but he knew at his core of core. God is good, and he would never actually kill my son. And so even though I don't understand why he's asking me to do this,

here's the position that I've learned to live in. When I don't understand what God is asking me to do, I just say yes in obedience, trusting that God has a better plan than I do.

And maybe the scriptures are real that it says that there's a way that makes sense to a man, but in the end, that's what leads to death. So Abraham took his son, his only son, and said, we're going up on this altar. He took the knife. He took all the preparations. And if you know the story, God provided a ram, and he never had to sacrifice his son.

What is James saying? James is saying is that all of us are going to hit junctions in the road where God is gonna ask you to do something that makes no sense to you logically. That, friends, is where faith gets put into action, where you get to walk not by sight, but by by faith. James says, Abraham,

he proved to us what a life surrendered to God looks like. And then he goes to the four the far other end of the spectrum, and he talks about Rahab. Now if you don't know Rahab's story, she was a Canaanite prostitute. Based on her gender, her occupation, and her cultural standing,

this was a person unlike Abraham that she would have been seen as like the worst amongst us. And what James is doing is he's showing you the two ends of the spectrum. The best amongst us and the least amongst us have gone through the same process.

They received a relationship with god based on something that they didn't earn,

but that relationship with god was proven based on what god asked them to do, and she had to actually hide some spies that were in the land, if you know the story. She had to take a risk and do something that was crazy as well. What's James saying? What James is saying is that all of us sitting in this room, here's the great equalizer. It doesn't matter how good and holy you think you are. You are not beyond the need of God's grace. For the others of you who are sitting here today who are like, man, I barely walked in the door, and you're more like me when I walked in the door at 19. The good news of the gospel is even for Rahab,

you are never beyond the reaches of God's grace as well. You can't out sin the goodness of who God is. But what he's saying is it doesn't matter if you come in on the spectrum of going, man, I I barely got in here or you're like, man, I'm kind of the man and Jesus is gonna be pumped to have me on his team. It doesn't matter which one you are. Either way, after receiving the free gift of salvation that can be found in only the person of Jesus, you will now go on a process in a journey

of your life changing. And you have to be wrestling through the question in every single season of your life is what what is your life producing today?

If you look at your life right now, what what is coming out of you? What are you producing?

As sometimes our faith journey is as simple as that. If I brought you to my house and said, hey, man. Look at all these amazing trees in my backyard. Like, one's an apple tree. And you're like, well, there's lemons on it. You're like, no. It's an apple tree. Right? Like, I know better. You're like, no, man. In nature, we know that something is what it produces.

Yet somehow, we think our process is so much more like spiritual than that. And sometimes, I think the question that James is forcing us to wrestle through is, is it just lip service? Do we have a demonic faith? And sometimes it's as simple as going, man, what is your life producing? Is it producing good fruit or is it producing bad fruit?

Because the Bible says that there's fruit that the Holy Spirit is supposed to produce out of us. Gentleness and patience and kindness and self control. Are those the things your life is producing, or instead, are you just producing the things that you are doing through your own power and your own ability?

Here's my hope today. Here's my goal this morning is to kinda just shake all of us a little bit

and to remind all of us that we we are Christ's ambassadors, and my goal is not to start a church and to lead a church of a bunch of people who are just going through the motions and checking the boxes, but we're just doing it in a different room. Now my my hope and my belief is that we can start a movement that would change the trajectory of the entire East Valley,

that I believe we are getting ready to walk into unprecedented times where we are going to see a harvest of souls like we've never seen before. But it's going to require us, you and I sitting here today as the church, to take a hard look at ourselves and go where? Where have we settled into just lip service Christianity?

Where have we settled into just information transfer versus actual transformative living? See, the danger is is the enemy. The enemy is totally fine with you coming to church on Sundays. As long as the totality of your faith experience is relegated to this room,

and it doesn't actually change how you live Monday through Friday. He will tell you that Christianity is mostly just a it's a sideline sport, and I'm here to remind you that from the very beginning, it was never a sport that you can just watch from the sidelines. Christianity

is an invitation to get on the field, to have a contact sport,

but it requires us to push our chips to the middle of the table to say, I'm going all in. And, here's the tension of this message because it isn't that the so what, so what do we do? It's not okay. So go work harder. Go figure out your life. White knuckle it, figure it out, and come back next week better. That's not it. We'll see next week that we actually in James three, James was on to say that you can't change your heart. You need Jesus to do that. The so what?

Is you need to surrender.

You need to say the areas of your life that you're struggling to trust god in. Okay, I'm willing to trust you here. I'm willing to surrender these things things to you. I I close by just sharing a silly story to hopefully illustrate this for you. In the eighteen hundreds, there was this French kinda crazy guy that would do a bunch of different tricks. And in the early eighteen fifties, he came to The US, and he partnered with this multimillionaire,

and they strung a tightrope across the Niagara Falls. K? The guy's name is the great Blondine.

And he would do this thing where they would get crowds of people, sometimes twenty, thirty thousand people to come watch him. And he would walk across this tightrope, and everybody would just be mind blown that he would do it. Like, it just was so risky.

And then he would get across to the other side. He would then blindfold himself. He would chain himself up, and then he would walk across. And every time, he would up the antes, sometimes he would take a stove out onto the middle of the tightrope, he would cook an omelet and eat it just to mess with people. Right? And all of it was a buildup to this moment in his show. It was all a buildup where he would then get a he would get a wheelbarrow, and he would ask the crowd that at this point had watched him do this dozens of times, and he would ask the crowd, do you guys think that I can get across the tightrope with the wheelbarrow? And the whole crowd would erupt and go, of course, you can. You're the great blond dean. And so he would do it, and people would erupt and celebrate,

and this was the moment that he built to. This was the crescendo

of his whole show. He would then ask the crowd, do you think that I can do it with a person in the wheelbarrow? And every time the crowd would erupt, of course, you can. You're the great blondie, and we've seen you do it a ton of times. And then you go, okay. I just need somebody

to come into the get out of the crowd and come get in the wheelbarrow with me. And what's amazing is is you'll never find a picture of a person in the wheelbarrow with him across the tightrope. Why?

Because in almost every single arena of our life, our default is to just talk about it until we realize the implication of what it would mean for us to really live it out.

I'm here this morning to remind you that the invitation, not of the great blond dean, but the one who referred to himself as the great I am, his invitation to truly understanding who you are, to truly living on this side of eternity, a life that the Bible says is full and abundant,

it comes on the other side of surrender. It comes with you saying, you know what? I'm willing to because Jesus proved his love for me. With arms stretched wide on a cross, he died for me. While I was still a mess, he died a brutal death so that I so that I could live.

And I don't know where it is you're struggling this morning. I don't know what it is that you're wrestling through, what you're what you're refusing to turn over to God, but I'm here this morning just to remind you, man, God God knows what he's doing. Trust him in that area and watch watch what he will do. I'm gonna ask everybody if you would. Just stand to your feet as we close this morning.

Stand to your feet, and here's what we're gonna do. We're going to live into the tension of the already not yet. What does this mean? There are so many realities in the scripture that we are supposed to live into that are gonna be true one day. And what worship is is us making a decision

to praise God as if what we want to be true in our life today is gonna be true right now. And I know that there's areas in your life that you are broken, that you are struggling, there's things that you are refusing to turn over to god but I just wonder what would happen if we collectively in a faith filled environment

stood together and we worship god believing that he can change some things and that faith is not just something we have to talk about. It's something that we can truly live out and begin to watch what god can do with a life fully submitted to him. So, let's worship him together.

We would we would be remiss this morning to not give some of you an opportunity to surrender your life to Jesus for the very first time. That I believe that there are people who are here that when I'm talking about kind of just going through the motions, man, that that honestly just feels like I'm describing

I'm describing your life. And this whole thing, this whole journey with god, it starts with a singular moment of surrender. The scripture say, the spirit of god from the moment you were born, he's been in pursuit of you. That the god that made you, the god that knows you better than you know yourself.

The scripture say that he knows when you stand and when you sit up. He knows every hair on your head. That god has been in pursuit of so many of you, and I believe that this morning,

that some of you, today's the day that you are going to, for the first time, surrender your life to Jesus. And so I just wanna give you an opportunity to do that. That. I don't wanna miss this moment. So I'm gonna ask everybody in this room, if you would, just close your eyes, bow your heads,

and what I wanna do is lean into what this place is supposed to be because it's disguised. It looks like it's a high school performing arts center. But what this really is is it's a tabernacle where the spirit of god will meet with us, and god's presence will dwell amongst

us, and the realities of heaven will collide with the realities of earth. And there are some of you right now who are desperate for the hope of heaven. And if you are here today and you know,

you know today is your day. Today is the day that you say yes to Jesus. You say yes to change, to stepping into who you were always created created to be. I want you to know that the angels in heaven are celebrating your faith, community, your family is celebrating with you. If you are here and you know, man, I need to be made right with God. I need to say yes to him for the first time. I'm gonna ask you right now,

just so I know who I'm praying with, everybody's eyes closed, heads bowed, faith filled room. If that's you, on the count of three, just throw your hand up right where you are. One, don't be ashamed. There's already hands going up. Two, you know this is you. Three, right where you are, throw your hand up in the air. We see hands going up all over the room. Don't be ashamed. Don't let the enemy say, no. It's not you. Today's your day. Don't walk out of here without acknowledging and doing

what you feel the spirit of god moving in your heart. I thank you for every hand, every heart represented here. You can put your hands down. If you would, just pray a prayer like this with me in the quietness of your heart. Say, Jesus, with all the faith that I have,

I believe that you are who you say that you are. I believe that two thousand years ago, you stepped into my mess. You lived the perfect life. You died the death that I deserve. Jesus, I believe you conquered death, and right now, you are seated at the right hand of the father. You are smiling upon me.

Jesus, I ask with all my faith that you would right now come into my heart and set me free. In the mighty name of Jesus, all god's people said, amen and amen.