How God Handles Your Curse

This past Wednesday night, for everybody that was there, we asked them to do something that’s really not—you almost kind of go, “Is that really Baptist?” It was called fasting and praying. And we want to pray, but adding fasting to it. And yet we talked about what was interesting was that whenever we see something major needs to happen in Scripture, they don’t just say pray about it. They say fast and pray, which is interesting. And what that means is basically, for those that weren’t there, that fasting is when you’re willing to give something up so that you can devote more time to pray. And so you’re giving up eating a meal. You’re sacrificing that so that you can spend that time in prayer with God.

And I got some interesting texts while we were doing it. I’m just thinking, you know, it hit, because what we asked them to do was, okay, from the time we were doing supper here at the church to supper the next day, be fasting and praying, especially for the search committee. People would go, “Finally, supper.” And you find yourself doing that. I mean, think about it. You know, it’s like two o’clock, man, three more hours. If I can just last three more hours, I can eat.

So, first of all, I just want to say thank you for doing that. And I know it was a new experience for some of you. Some of you it wasn’t, but some of you it was. But it’s just saying, you know, when we’re willing to give something up so we can spend more time with the Lord. How neat is that, huh? How neat is that?

So I want you to keep in mind, you know, our search committee, and they’re talking with a gentleman, and that it’s kind of going forward. So just keep them in your prayers. Keep them in your prayers. And so we just ask that you do that. And keep our church in your prayers.

So it’s good to see some folks back. And I know we’ve got some surgeries coming up and those kind of things. You’ve seen on the prayer list. Take that home and just kind of go through that during the day and just pray for those folks. And pray for what God’s put on your heart.

And we’re going to come to a time now where we’re going to go spend some time with the Lord. You know, worship is giving Him worth-ship. That’s where the word comes from. And so there’s no better time in a service and no better method of giving Him worth than spending time with Him. And so that’s what we’re going to do right now. So I want you to close your eyes. I want you to bow your heads. I want you to pray for our search committee. Maybe just look at the prayer list and say and pray for some of the folks there. And then I’m sure there’s something in your life right now that you’d like to talk to God about. There’s time to do that. But let’s take this to the Lord right now in prayer.

Father, thank you for being you. Thank you for never tiring of us coming to you with our needs and our wants, our desires. You’re always there. In fact, you know Him before we even ask. And you still listen. Thank you for loving us that much. Thank you for the fact that we don’t got to go through anybody else. We can go straight to the throne room. Thanks for wanting a relationship. Thanks for wanting to spend time with us. You’re never too busy to do that. We just appreciate you.

Lord, there are so many here, to include myself, that we have needs and we have things that we’re anxious about. Wondering what’s going to happen and all those things. Ease our hearts. Just remind us that nothing takes you by surprise. Remind us that you’ve got all the resources to take care of all of our needs. Just remind us how valuable we are to you. How much you love us. You know that you loved us so much that you went to a cross and you died for us. Thank you for doing that.

So, Lord, we now give this time to you. It’s about you. It’s not about us. So, open our minds and hearts to hear you clearly. Make us different. That when we leave this place, we’ll go into a lost and dying world that needs you so desperately. And we’ll be like what we shared with the children. When they see us, they’ll see you. Thank you for listening. In your son’s name.

We pray. Amen. If you’ve got your Bibles, I’d like you to turn with me to the book of Galatians as we continue our study through Galatians. We’re going to chapter 3 today. We’ve been through chapter 1 and 2. We’re now in 3. Paul gets frustrated. Why people want to go back to stuff.

I’ll never forget. I was in a church one time and we were helping a young man who had grown up in the church. He had played sports with the church. He had had a troubled and tough childhood. His parents weren’t around anymore. He was now older. And he was homeless. He had alcohol issues. Possibly some drug issues. But every once in a while on Wednesday nights or whatever, he’d show up and we’d feed him and be happy to do that. Some folks knew him. We had men in our church that had been his basketball coach. All those kind of things.

I’ll never forget one Wednesday night. He shows up and he’s miserable. I mean, we’re kind of winding things up and everybody’s kind of leaving. And he had gone to sleep in the woods or something. I guess tried to go to sleep and actually lay down in a bed of ants. And so those ants had gotten on him and he was just miserable. So we wanted to clean him up. We put him in a, I’ll never forget, we put him in a hotel that night. He had been a long time since he’d been in a hotel. I remember they gave him the cards to get in the rooms. And he was going, well, what’s this? I mean, he used the keys and all those kind of things. He didn’t know how to use the phone in the room. All kind of crazy stuff.

We got up the next morning and took him to a rehab place where he was there for about five, six months. They got him clean. He was sober. He was starting to get his life together, his act together. He had probably, he’d gone to, you know, some habitats and some Goodwills. And he was able to purchase, get some clothes. And for the first time in his life, he seemed to have a direction for his life.

I’ll never forget, we brought him back into the city and we were going to get him a little apartment. We’re going to get him a job. He was going to be able to walk to where he worked. And he was about to start a new life. We got within one week of that. One little week. Next thing you know, you know what he was? Next thing you know, he was back homeless. He was back, started drinking again. And you go, why would he do that when he was so close? The reason was he hadn’t filled in what he used to do with something else. And so when he gets scared, this was so new to him. This was so scary. This was such a big step that instead of going in that direction, he went back to what he knew.

That’s the kind of attitude Paul has when he’s talking to these Galatian churches. Now to just kind of back it up a minute, remember Paul’s talking to a bunch of churches that probably around his second missionary journey, he had established these churches. This is what would be modern day Turkey. And so he’s writing them this letter and he’s talking about issues in the church and he’s talking about how it is to be in Christ and to remember where they’re going and what their future is with Christ. And he’s sitting there and they got a problem. They want to go back to the past. And there’s people in there, in these churches that want to take them back to the past.

And here’s what the past is. It’s not just Jesus. It’s Jesus plus. See, it’s Jesus plus if you do this. It’s Jesus plus if you get circumcised. It’s Jesus plus, you know, if you obey every little bit of the law and the Bible. It’s Jesus plus that you’ve got to, you know, have this done to you and you’ve got to act like this and you’ve got to eat these kind of meals and you’ve got to do all these things. And Paul is sitting there telling me that it’s not Jesus plus anything. It’s Jesus. And he is frustrated.

I mean, we talk about, remember, and I find myself doing, remember, we talk about the good old days. Remember them good old days? I look back and I wonder, really? Now there were some good times, but I’m wondering, were there Really, a lot of them that good? I’m thinking no air conditioning. Remember my first car? My first car, 1965 Dodge Dart. My air conditioning was rolling down the window. January. Okay. That was my air conditioning. My naugahyde seats that would stick to your back. My AM radio. I mean, just think of it. I remember the oscillating fans in the houses. If you had those, remember how hot it used to get? Good old days. How about let’s go before that and go back to, you know, when, when the bathrooms were outside the house, you know, but those were good old days, you know, and Sears book, you know, Sears and Roebuck catalogs in those bathrooms, good old days.

And so I’m just thinking, you know, sometimes I wonder about some of those quotes, and Paul is looking at these folks, and what Paul wants to give us through Christ. He wants to, I think, and as I read this this week, give us some pictures that we need to keep in our mind about our walk with the Lord. So if again, we’ve got your Bibles, just kind of follow with me as we talk about this.

Here’s the first picture. And that’s the picture of our salvation experience. Look what Paul says in verse one. He says, “You foolish Galatians.” Now, if that’s Ravenel interpretation, it would be a bunch of idiots, you stupid idiots. And that’s pretty much what the original language says. You idiots, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? And then he asked them a series of questions. He says, “This is the only thing I want to find out from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing it with your faith?” How’d you get here, pretty much? How’d you get saved? And what I think Paul wants to do in our lives, he wants us to ask the question, do you remember getting saved? Do you have a picture of your salvation experience? My question would be, yes, do you? I was 10 years old. Didn’t know much about Jesus. I mean, I’ve been in church all my life. I knew as much as a 10-year-old could know, but I knew this. I wanted Him there. Now, that’s a 10-year-old kid. 10-year-old kid that said, I want to commit my life to Jesus. And I remember walking down the aisle and doing that.

So the question is, how’d you get saved? Do you remember the day? I don’t remember the exact day, but I remember when it was, 1965. I can tell you where it was, Holmes Avenue Baptist Church. I can tell you who the pastor was, a guy named Norman Gillespie. And he baptized a 10-year-old guy. At that point, God started a process. So my question is, do you remember? Do you remember how it happened? Do you remember what was going on? Some people are, you know, they’re not 10. They’re 55 or 56 or 60 or whatever. I’ve had baptized 70, 70-year-olds and 80-year-olds. But it was a special time. It was a time that brings us back.

See, it’s all I always find it kind of interesting when a child walks up, especially, and I talked to a few during vacation Bible school, and here’s what they say to me. “Pastor, I want to be baptized.” Now, I know in their little hearts and in their little language what that means. Now, you know that baptism doesn’t save you. Does everybody know that? Okay, I just want you to know that. Now, it is important. Jesus gives us two ordinances that He says we’re to observe till He comes back. One is the Lord’s Supper, communion, where we remember His death. And that’s why we do it, to remember what He did on the cross for us. The other is baptism. Why? To remember again what He did for us. And then to show the world, let it be a picture of what He did for us. See, that’s why baptism to me is so important. It’s the first act of obedience we do as a Christian. And baptism always comes after salvation. Does that make sense? You know why? Because it’s a picture of what happened. You know, we talk about baptizing as infants. Well, to me, that’s nothing more than a baby dedication. That’s what that is. Because ain’t nothing happened yet. That baby hadn’t made any kind of decision. When you get in a little pool behind me, or you’re in a river or wherever, what you’re showing to someone is basically, it’s basically Romans 6, where it says, I’m dead to my old way of life.

I have died with Christ. I am buried in the likeness of His death. You come up out of the water. You’re now different. You’re clean. And now you’re saying, I am now in the likeness of what? His resurrection. I have come back to life. I am a new person, a new creature in Jesus. You are publicly, and to me, look, you can do the sprinkling. I’m not going to argue about that. But I think the best picture of that is immersion. I mean, that’s how Baptists believe, okay? We die to the old way. You go under the water. You come up out of the water. You’re a new person. You’re clean. And like, in the likeness of His death, in the likeness of His resurrection. Perfect picture. That’s why Christ got buried that way. That’s why John the Baptist, that’s how he did in the Jordan. That’s why that’s important.

But when a child comes to me and says, I want to be baptized, he’s pretty much saying, I want to commit my life to Christ. It’s important. Again, but it comes after salvation. And he’s sitting there talking to me. Do you remember how this happened, folks? It’s nothing you did. It’s not about, here’s what you’re saying. Tell me if this is not right. Look, I’m tired of trying to do it my way. I’m tired of the curse. I want a better way that I can accomplish my own, you know, that I can accomplish on my own. There’s got to be a better way out there. So I’ll tell you what I’m doing, Lord. I’m making an eternal commitment to Christ, who has revealed Himself to me. You know what happens when we do that? Jesus comes into our life. He commits Himself to us. He commits His resources to us and He does it for eternity. Does that sound about right? Does that sound about right to you?

Baptism is a public picture and Paul wants them to remember the picture. How did this happen? Was it something you did or was it something supernatural? Paul reminds them in chapter one, what happened to him was supernatural. What happens to you every day is supernatural? Does that make sense? Every day when you go out with Christ, when He’s in your mind, in your heart, when His Holy Spirit’s entered, He said, how did that Holy Spirit enter you? You think it just happened? Happened at the point you got saved. And now when you go out, you don’t go by yourself. But what He’s telling these folks is this. I mean, look at what He says. He says, He said, the only thing I want to find out from you, did you receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the law, which he didn’t do, or by hearing with faith. Are you foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected in the flesh? He’s pretty much saying this. Maybe you think you got saved by something supernatural, but now you’re working out everything else on your own in life by yourself. And you’ll call on God when you think you need Him. No, everything that we do as a Christian now is with the Lord. It’s not what you do.

And yet there were people in the church, in these Galatian church that were saying, no, you got to do this. And I want to tell you, I’m not saying that the law is bad. The thing about the law is the law doesn’t save anybody. The law just condemns us. The law shows us where we can’t keep up with it. And then Jesus comes in and says, but I’m going to take anyway, and I’m going to change it. But we don’t like that. See, that’s not the American way. That’s not the John way. That’s not the, I’ll put myself up by my own bootstraps way. These Judaizers, these leaders were saying this, when they say, well, Jesus plus, they’re pointing back to Moses. And so you know what Paul does in this situation? He said, let me go a little bit farther back than Moses, but we go back to Abraham. And that’s what He does here. Look what He says in verse six. Even so Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. The scripture for seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preaching the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. And so then those who are of the faith and are blessed with Abraham, the believer. Now, where do you got to go for that? Well, you go to all the way back to Genesis chapter 15.

In Genesis chapter 15, God comes and gives Abraham a promise. Now He’s already talked to him. He’s already talked to him while he was in Ur of the Chaldees. And He says, “I’m going to choose you.” Who was Moses? I mean, Abraham before God got ahold of him. He was nobody. He wasn’t Jewish. He wasn’t Hebrew. He was just a guy, but God picks him. God chooses him to be what He wants him to be.

He says in chapter 15, verse 1, “After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you, and your reward shall be very great.’” And Abraham, what do you mean reward? See, the biggest thing to a Jewish person or anybody of those days would have been having children, because then your line would continue. In fact, Abraham had no line. Sarah was bare. At this point, Abraham is about 86 years old, and he’s going, “We’re past that time.” In fact, it’s going to go probably some slave in my family, everything I own. The guy says, “No, it isn’t. Go outside. Look at the sky. See the stars? Start counting them. And when you get tired of counting them because you can’t count that high, it’s going to be more than that that’s going to come from your descendants.” Going, “What do you mean?” And now I want you to leave, and I want you to go. And He tells him, He says, “In every place you set your foot, it’s going to become, I’m going to give that to you.”

Now, if God did that to you, what would you think? You’re 86. Your wife’s a little younger, not much, but she’s older. Past childbearing years. And then God goes, and then you hear that God says, and see, everywhere you’re going to go now. See, He never said, you know, Abraham never settled down. He just kept going and going. God goes, “That’s going to be your descendants. That’s going to belong to your descendants. That’s going to belong.” He says, “I don’t even have a descendant.” How would you feel? You know what Abraham does? The Bible says he believes. In fact, the Bible says this, that he not only believed, but God counted it as righteousness.

Well, why is that significant? Well, number one, it’s 14 years before he would even be circumcised, which was a sign, the covenant with the Lord. So that’s not even in the picture yet. It’s 430 years before the law would even be written by God and given to Moses. 430 years. So what Paul’s telling these Galatians is he’s saying, he says, “Let’s go back to the guy that started our family. Let’s go back to the guy where it all originated.” 430 years before there was even a law. 14 years before we ever had anything that would be like a physical proof, kind of like baptism, circumcision.

And the neat thing is what God asked him to do. He sits there and He looks at him and He says, verse 8, he said, he said, “Oh Lord, how may I know that I will possess it?” And He said to him, “Well, bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon.” Then he brought all these to him and cut them in two and laid them each opposite each other. But he did not cut the birds and the birds of prey came down and Abraham drives them away. Basically what He says, you get these animals, cut them in half, put them on two sides. Now, this was basically an old kind of Jewish custom of when you made an agreement, when you made a covenant with somebody else. And here’s what, if you made it, you would cut the animals up and you would walk through these animals. And here’s what you were saying. If I break this oath that I’m giving you, may what happened to me, what happened to these animals.

You know what happens in the middle of the night? Abraham has a vision. Verse is following. In the middle of the night, he sees a lamp go through. How is the Lord always portrayed in the Old Testament? By fire and light. He sees kind of a smoking cauldron. I mean, he sees these kind of go through the middle. You know who’s going through the middle? God’s going through the middle. And as God goes through the middle, you know what God’s saying? Abraham. If I don’t keep my word, it may be to me like these animals. You know, it’s not Abraham going through, it’s God going through. Who’s making the promise? God’s making the promise. Who’s making the covenant? God’s making the covenant. God’s the one doing it, not Abraham. Folks, do you not realize when Jesus makes these covenants with us, when we come to Christ and we commit our lives to Him, God looks down and He’s sitting there saying, you now have all the resources of heaven, but not just heaven. You get Me in your life. Picture. See, we not only got to get a picture of our salvation, we’re getting a picture here of our religious heritage. Abraham was a nobody, yet God chooses him. He believes before there’s a law or circumcision. And what’s important to God is not the fact that he’s doing stuff. What’s important to God is that he believes. You know, belief in the original Greek language, it’s a word that means trust. When you see the word belief, just put trust in the thing. I not only believe in you, God, but I trust in you. I trust you so much that I give everything to you. He’s already given everything to us. Paul’s telling these Galatian Christians, why are you putting your requirements on these people and even yourselves? It don’t matter. It’s not about knowing of Jesus. It’s not about coming to church. It’s not just about reading and obeying the Bible. And these things aren’t bad. In fact, they’re good. It’s not about doing a bunch of good things. It’s not organ and piano, praise band, stained glass or warehouse building, pews or chairs, Sunday school or home studies. It’s not about that. It’s about having Me in your heart and trusting Me with your life. It’s not about the what’s is what Paul is telling them here. He said it’s all about the why’s. It’s not what you do. It’s why you do it. You can do a bunch of stuff and God never know you. Jesus tells the story of that there are going to be people to get to heaven and go, you know, Lord, I showed up for this and I did this and I gave this and look at all the things I did and God’s going to go, depart from Me. I never knew you. It’s not about knowing of Jesus. It’s about knowing Jesus. Not the what, but the why.

It’s not about us feeling comfortable. You know, one word I never see in the Bible is the word comfortable. In fact, as I look at all the great people and saints of scripture, there are a lot of things, but comfortable is not one of them. I don’t know if you know much about philosophy. Well, there’s a Danish philosopher called Soren Kierkegaard. He’s got an interesting perspective of how we do worship sometimes. Goes all the way back to the medieval times. Problem is, it still is prevalent today. Here’s how it goes. We look at God as the prompter of worship. The congregation is the audience of worship. And the worship leaders like me as a pastor or Donnie as the one who’s kind of leading the music. Well, you know, they’re the actor. We’re the actors. So you get it? Okay. We’re the ones acting. Holy Spirit and God, they’re prompting us. And you’re the audience. And Kierkegaard said, that’s not how it is in the Bible. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Know how it’s supposed to be? You’re the actors. Donnie and I, we’re the prompters. You know who the audience is in worship? God’s the audience. How will that not change worship? If you came here to say, I’m coming here to meet God today. And I don’t know what Al’s going to say. I don’t know what Donnie’s going to have us sing. I don’t know what, you know, how we’re going to do the other when we read scripture, when we pray, but God’s the audience. And it’s not about pleasing me. It’s about pleasing Him. How does that change us?

So Paul goes all the way back to Abraham, past Moses. And you know what’s interesting is what the Bible says about Abraham. Abraham has a very unique name in scripture. He is called the what? The friend of God. Nobody else in scripture is called it. Have you ever been called God’s friend? Well, we know we probably are. But when God says it, not me or a friend of yours or you say it, when God says it, Abraham was My friend. You know why he was His friend? Because he believed. God credited him as righteousness. See, God doesn’t work just on our conditions. You know, God, I’m going to believe in you if you save a family member or a friend. God, if You take my sickness away, I’ll believe in You. God, if You get me this job. Or God, if You take care of these requirements in my life, I’ll believe in You. Abraham didn’t do any of that. He just believed and went. See, God’s will is going to be accomplished with or without us.

So then Paul brings us back to the present in this passage. Verse 10, he says, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse.” Do you realize we’re under a curse? Started in a place called the garden. Yeah. Then it became generational. A curse was put on us called sin. And God, it says, it says, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all these things written in the book of the law to perform them.” That’s what the law shows us. You can’t do all these things. God knows you can’t do that.

It’s like a bridge. I don’t know how, if you go back to 1989, those of you that were here, remember there was a bridge? Remember the bridge that went over to Sullivan’s Island? Remember what that thing looked like? And everybody was trying to get back. You know, they didn’t have the cause where they go on the IOP back then and all that kind of stuff. They just had that one bridge. And people who lived on those islands couldn’t get back to their homes. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t, the bridge was out. Curses told us that the bridge to God’s out. It’s out. And no matter how hard we try to build that thing, no matter what we try to do and all these things that we try to do, and Paul’s telling them, quit telling these people that. They keep trying to do these things and build that bridge and put another brick in the bridge and all that. It doesn’t build anything. It just falls into the water. That’s what the curse is about. And the only way we get the bridge is who builds the bridge? God builds the bridge. Jesus builds that bridge.

He says, “Now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident,” verse 11, “the righteous man shall live by faith.” And then he says an interesting thing. Verse 13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’” In the world is he talking about cursing is everybody that hangs on a tree. Guys, you ever remember hanging on a tree when you were a boy? I hung on a lot of trees. I fell out of a lot of trees. And I know it sounds that way sometimes. The way I talk, you know, it might fall on my head. You know, we all hang from trees. What does that mean? Well, if you go back to Deuteronomy chapter 21, verses 22 and 23, what it means is pretty much this. When God gave us the law, He said this, there were going to be capital punishments. Most capital punishments were taken care of by stoning. They just, they stoned you. But they didn’t always stone you. If you did something pretty bad, they hung you from a tree. You know why they hung you from a tree? Because they wanted everybody to see what you’d done.

Now, make no mistake about this. But one of the rules was this, if they hung you on a tree, you had to have him down by six o’clock. Because if he went down by six, which was the beginning of the next day, everything around, all that ground would be cursed. Everything around would be cursed. What Paul is sitting there saying, you know, one of the references for the cross is? A tree. You know who got hung on a tree? Bore our curses? Someone named Jesus. He shed His blood, put on a curse, died on that thing. They got Him down for the next day, put Him in an empty tomb that He didn’t stay in, and then He rose from the dead. He says, like the law says, when you commit capital offenses, and you deserve to die on a tree, and be that example. God gave an example by taking everybody’s sin, taking everybody’s curse, shedding His blood, giving up His life for me and for you. So now we’ve been released from the curse.

Why do we obey God? Not because we’re trying to build up something for heaven. Not because we feel like we got to. It’s because we want to. We’re not under compulsion, but we’re out of gratitude and joy. Why? So I can show the world what Christ means to me. How do we do some of that? Well, let me just give you some examples of saying, God, I want to do it Your way. We’re going to get married. We’re not going to live together. I’m going to wait for the context of marriage for sex, than doing it before marriage. I’m going to choose to be nice to someone who’s not been nice to me. I’m going to forgive. When everybody looks at me and says, I wouldn’t do that. I’d choose to give up my wants for someone else’s need. I think this is a, I believe this is kind of the definition of marriage. When someone comes into a marriage relationship, what they’re saying, hopefully to their bride or their groom or their family is saying this, I’m going to put my wants aside for your needs.

So we do as Christian, a visitor comes to church. You guys love the, you know, I think it’s awesome that you guys talked and get together and all that kind of thing. But sometimes if a visitor walks in, wouldn’t it be neat if, if all of a sudden it said, excuse me, I’m only, you leave this conversation and you go have a conversation with the visitor. I know y’all wouldn’t do this, but I’ve been in churches where someone sitting in your seat. That’s my seat. You need to go somewhere else. I know y’all wouldn’t do that here, but, but, but I’ve seen it in other churches. So I give up my seat on Sunday. I mean, think about when we, when people come in and we’re, we’re, we’re acting like Jesus would want us to act. Think about the first impression. When people walk through their door, what’s the first impression they get of this church? See, sometimes we do the uncomfortable.

It’s like when, when Jesus looked at Peter and said, Peter feed my sheep. I can see Peter going, don’t like sheep. I like fish. I’m a fisherman. I go out in boats. And what Peter, He said, no, no, tend my lambs. Don’t like lambs. Don’t even like lamb chops. Just, just give me fish. What did Peter go do? Peter tended to sheep. Peter fed sheep. You know how you do this? Paul talks, especially in chapter two, he says, it’s Christ in me.

Let me ask you, what are you doing? I mean, some of you aren’t even doing the what’s. I mean, the what’s are important, but let me ask you this. Why do you do stuff? Why do you do stuff in church? The why’s are that important. It’s what’s important. And I want to ask you this. Do you have a personal, daily relationship with Jesus? Nod your head, just in your mind. I want to ask you that. I want to ask, have you ever committed your life to Christ? I’m talking about confirmations. You know, the equitable, you know, what’s equitable with Jewish bar mitzvahs, you know, where you learn stuff. I’m not saying learning about the Lord. I’m talking about learning, you know, knowing God. See, everything’s Christ in us because He hung on a tree. That’s why we do it.

So let’s go back to the original question. Paul asked these folks, how did you receive the Spirit? Did you receive the Spirit? See, when you do, the God comes alongside you. And now you do everything together. Things you never dreamed of before. Looking this week, and I was going through some YouTube videos and I saw one that I hadn’t seen in a while. I think I showed it to you guys within the name of the first month I was preaching here. It’s about a father and son. His last name is Hoyt. And I want to play it for you because if there’s a picture of what God wants to do in our life, this is it. Morgan, if you can play that.

The sun is standing You can know this far And who do the moon The same God spends things. The same time. You do things in your life. You do things in your life because you’re not alone.

I mean, if there is a better picture, I don’t know of a better picture of us going through life. That’s how we’re going through life with the sin in our life. How we’re going through life with the curse of God. And then when He takes it away and how we’re trying to move and go. And then also there’s the father behind us who comes through us through the Holy Spirit. Who takes us places we never thought we could go. I mean, they competed in Ironman, you know, triathlons. God will take you further than you ever wanted. You thought you could go. Do things that you just thought were impossible. And bring joy into your life that is immeasurable.

You’ve got to commit. Say, God, this is yours. Nothing I’m doing. Nothing I can do. And even when I get saved, there’s nothing I can do. But I do it because I want to bring You glory and You honor. See, sharing Christ crucified brings God’s glory. Demonstrating a life of walking in faith glorifies God. Sharing this with all the folks that we come into contact with. Any and everyone glorifies God.

Question to you this morning is, how are you glorifying God? Or have you ever made that commitment anyway? How do you show Christ? And why do you show Him? Not so much the what’s, but the why’s. Paul is saying, look at the why’s.

Do you need to make this morning? Do you need to give your life to Christ? Do you need to commit? Do you need to say, Lord, you know, I’ve never really done the baptism thing. I want to do that. I want everybody to know.

I had a lady. Let me just close with this. I had a lady at my last church. One of the sweetest, Murray Alice Johnson, has gone on to be with the Lord. Didn’t want to get. She grew up in another denomination. She grew up basically a Lutheran. And she, but never been baptized. And according to our constitution, had to be baptized to kind of work in the church, those kind of things. And finally, she said, you know, I want to do stuff for the Lord. I want to be part of this body. I want to be part of this church. I want to do stuff. So she finally said, Al, let’s get baptized. And I’ll never forget what a glorious day that was.

I was up there and I had her husband with me because he was a Christian. And here’s what I told the father. I said, I’m not saying she wasn’t saved, but what she gets to do now, she gets to show another picture of what Christ means in her life. Now we’re doing it through baptism, dead to the old ways. She wanted, I said, this shows everybody here. I want to tell you, you go to China right now. They don’t care if you tell them that you’re a Christian. They can live with that. They just don’t want you to get baptized. They want you showing it. They don’t want you committing and demonstrating what Jesus means to you.

She said, I can’t believe I waited. I got to show people again what Christ means to me. And it was an incredible day.

Have you settled all those things? Have you settled the whys? You can’t do the whys if you don’t, you know, you can’t do the what’s if you don’t get the why right. Get that right.

Let’s pray. Father, thanks for pushing us and coming alongside of us and reminding us that we don’t do anything without You being there. You take us places we can’t even imagine. You help us defeat things we can’t do by ourselves. You give us purpose and direction that we can’t get anywhere else because You are who You are. And that’s what Paul is telling these folks. It’s all about Jesus, not Jesus plus. When we get things right with You, the plus comes. And it comes because we do it for You because we love You and have a relationship. And we want to do it with You special.

Lord, we may need to make some decisions. There might be folks here that just never got that right. They do a bunch of good stuff, but they’ve never gotten the why right. They know of You. They may not know You. Whatever we need to do today, help us to do it. In Your son’s name we pray.