All right, Galatians, first chapter. Starting at the sixth verse, the word of God says, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ. Unto another gospel. which is not another. But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so now I say again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. I want to stay here because the Lord's not allowing me to move too quickly past this point. I want to preach to you today from the sermon titled, Returning to the Simple Gospel. You're on the same page with me this morning. Let me say this to you. This morning, I got up early because my thoughts were all jumbled, and I was like, I need to get to church and kind of get centered here because I have so much that I want to say and so many things I've learned just this week. I got up this morning around six something. Got dressed, ran out the house, wanted to come to church. Before I came to church, turn on all the heat and whatever have you, sit in my office, try to put my thoughts together and condense everything so I'm not preaching for, as David says, five hours. I went to Pete's after I turned on the heat, went to Pete's in Plano, got there, and there was a guy that was evangelizing another guy as I walked into the front of the store. And he was talking to the guy, and the guy who was evangelizing the other guy walks up to me and says, as he sees me coming, he says, you know about Jesus. And I said, I guess I look like I do. And so he goes, why don't you tell this brother? So I'm thinking, OK, well, you're already evangelizing. And it seemed like, I don't know what you said. But Jesus has saved my life. And I'm grateful for him saving me from hell. And he's the only way to truth in life. He's the only way to salvation. And I said something really quick. And then I head back into the store to get my coffee and my little bran muffin, whatever have you. Back, I'm paying for my coffee and I notice the guy that was evangelizing walks in. I guess he's through talking to the guy. And as I'm headed out, I see the guy that was being evangelized kind of looking down a little bit. And I'm like, oh, I don't know what was said. I don't know. I don't know if I said something wrong. He said something, I don't know, if he didn't like something, whatever. And so as I'm walking to my car, I say, well, you know, God bless you. Have a blessed day. And he said, F you. He just dropped the F bomb on me. Just blew me up real quick on the way to church. And I said, OK. Well, you have a nice day then. So I say all that to say to you that I've already been cursed out today. I'm going to say everything I need to say on this page. And the worst that could happen to me is you come up to me and drop an F-ball. I'm praying for that, brother. Okay, here we go, Lord. Something about hearing the simple gospel is offensive to people. You know what I'm saying? Me telling him, you can be saved too, implies that there's something wrong. Oh, now we're talking. Something, I'm assuming that it wasn't the guy, I'm assuming that it was me that ticked him off. But I just told him the truth, God saved my life and you could be saved too. And I remember, now I remember it, when I said that he had a little attitude problem. Like, what makes you think I need to be saved? In fact, yeah. In fact, that's what he kind of, oh, you're just going to jump in? I am saved. Well, you can't be saved dropping F-bombs on people. Something's not right. If you even have hatred in your heart, that's murder. Jesus said that, right? Something's wrong. But he was not happy about that. That kind of makes me feel like, and I'm going out on a limb here. I don't know for certain. But there seems to be some aggravation with Jesus nowadays. I can say something. Maybe I could say, you have a blessed day in the 70s, and that would have been OK. But it's 2020, and you tell people that they need to be saved or Jesus loves you, and there's an angry something. that comes out nowadays that we just didn't always experience before. Is that your experience that people are noticing that? Did you start saying that Jesus saved you or rescued you and that they need to be saved too? And all of a sudden, there's an anger. I remember when I was not too long ago in Arizona, I mentioned that, you know, that someone needed salvation just like I needed salvation. I remember they got upset with me, angry. Which makes me feel like there's possibly a time when they might have tried Jesus or went to church and got upset and something went wrong. They got upset or they didn't like what they heard and you see how that goes. Which leads me to this. After David preached Sunday, Monday night I went to Our children's normal Monday night scheduled thing that we do is called Trail Life, which is like the Christian version of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. When I got there, and there were parents there that I kind of got into a conversation with. Two parents were talking with me, and they were saying that they had noticed that their older children, who were raised in church are no longer interested in church. And the problem is the children nowadays are feeling like church is outdated. Church is not changing with the times. Church is not relevant to what's happening now. I hear these arguments. A lot of young people nowadays have attended church, but they're not grounded in the church. Amen? So there's now a desire for people to shift things up. A lot of young people don't like the rules. You know? To them, the church doesn't have any answers for what people want to do now. Their friends are into this, and their friends are into that. And their classmates are doing this, and their classmates are doing that. And so there's a desire nowadays for the church to shift positions on social issues. And many churches are doing exactly that. They are shifting what they believe, or they are shifting on what they allow, or they are accommodating or keeping up with the times. Amen? The problem with that shift is this. The church does not have the right to shift on anything. We don't have the right to shift what we believe. We don't have the right to shift on what we allow. Why? Because the church doesn't belong to the church. The church belongs to Christ. Amen? But watch this, people. And this is where I'm going this morning. If people are not solid on the fundamental doctrines of the church, when they join the church. And if the leaders are not careful to rehearse those fundamental doctrines over and over and over again and review those fundamental doctrines over and over again, then the next generation of the church will not be raised in the truth. Then someone will come along and suggest to them a subtle shift. and change the foundation for believers and all future believers and all for whatever we've been standing on. Amen? This would make the church become something that is no longer the church. Now, the one thing we must not be unclear about, the one thing that we must never change, is the simple gospel. Are you with me on that? That's how we all got in. You follow me? It's the simple gospel. Amen? All right. And what you have nowadays, not just young people, but I'm seeing a lot of older folks that just don't like the rules. And the reason why is because Unfortunately, a lot of churches have made Christianity just about the rules. That's not really what the church is about. It's not just about the rules. Yes, we should obey the rules, but you can't obey the rules without loving Christ first. The church is, ooh, thank you, Lord, the bride of Christ. I don't want to get married to somebody who just feels like they have to do what I say. Are you following me? Here's my bride. She's beautiful. She really don't like you, but she's going to do what you say. That's not the church. The church is the bride of Christ because the church loves Christ. Are you hearing me? Amen? Nobody wants to get married to somebody just because she doesn't like you at all. She's just here because she has to be. That's not the bride of Christ. Amen? And some people turned it into nothing but rules. Now, this is what was happening in the Church of Galatia. Some folks came in and suggested that what was needed was a subtle religious shift, a religious shift that seemed to be holy, but in reality, it was straight from hell. It was nothing but the devil. If you go back just a little bit, Galatians 1 verse 4. Thank you, Naya. The Word of God says this, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. to whom be glory forever and ever, amen. Jesus, hear me saints, simply, gave his life that we would be delivered from this present world, not just in heaven, but that we would experience our deliverance right now. Amen? We have, as I said before, power from Jesus Christ because he purchased it right now. Amen? While we are in this world, whatever right thing that you are doing comes because Jesus purchased that for you. Amen? I don't take credit for it. You can't take credit for it. It all comes from him. What's missing from these two verses is my name and your name. Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone gave us Huh? By the plan of the Father, uh-huh, power to defeat sin, power to live holy, power from the penalty of sin. Amen? Huh? Huh? Power to not do what we feel just because we feel it. I got an urge before I didn't have the ability to turn from myself. Jesus purchased that and gave that to us, which means that my efforts to save myself without him would never work. Are you hearing me? Amen. So Paul here is saying to the Galatian church, I marvel. I'm having a hard time believing what I'm hearing the reports about. I marvel that you are so soon removed Uh-huh. From, notice this word, him, that called you into the grace of Christ. The Galatian church was not leaving, watch this, Christianity. They were leaving him. Ooh. Are you hearing that? That's why I like this version because it tells us exactly what's happening. They were leaving the grace. They were leaving Jesus Christ. Are you seeing it? Paul's saying, I just left there not too long ago telling you the truth. I spent three years teaching you that you need to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. He said, I am shocked. I'm perplexed. I am outdone by the fact that you are turning and removing, deserting Jesus Christ who gave you salvation. You're turning from God. My goodness. To remove is to fall away from the teaching that comes from Jesus Christ himself. But not just a teaching, you're leaving God. Jesus Christ is the grace. You're walking away from the very power that brought you in by thinking that you could save yourself. Wow. He said, he marveled that you're so soon removed from him that called you into the grace unto another gospel, from him that called you. One of the things that happens here that we need to understand is that when Jesus died for our sins, he allowed something to happen. When God calls you, he's not calling you like I'm calling you. I can say, hey, Ben-Kia, how you doing? I'm just calling and checking on you. That's an audio call. That's not the same thing as when God calls you. When God calls you, he calls you from something to something. Amen? So when God calls me, he calls me out of darkness into the marvelous light. When God calls me, he calls me from myself to Jesus Christ. So God calls us into a purpose. Give me Romans 8.30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, before you had anything to do with it, then he also called. And whom he called, then he also justified. And whom he justified, then he also glorified. Over and over and over and over and over and over again, he's saying you had nothing to do with your calling. You weren't good enough. I called you. I selected you. I picked you. I gave you salvation. Are you hearing me? So back to the Galatians. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another. Which is not another. It happened quickly. If you don't stay rooted and grounded in the truth, if you don't stay rooted and grounded in the fundamental truth of the gospel and remind yourself over and over again of what Jesus Christ has accomplished on the cross, then you will begin to drift into another quote unquote gospel that is not the gospel. Are you hearing me? One of the things we deal with today is I see over and over again, I hear statistics of pastors leaving their churches because they are so stressed out. The numbers are getting bigger and bigger and higher and higher. So-and-so just quit in his prime. This pastor just walked out in his prime. They're throwing in the towel. One of the reasons why is because they're saying, I can't handle the pressure. Why? Because church has turned into something it never should have been. What's happening? One of the things we deal with today is people are so concerned about their present circumstances that they come wanting to hear a way to get out of trouble every single Sunday. They have no more room for the simple gospel teaching anymore. It's all about some quote-unquote good news that leads them into an easy life where everything is trouble-free, where I get every single thing that I want. The gospel is not something that is trouble-free. Jesus came here not to give you a trouble-free life, people. The gospel is not about what you can get from Jesus, it's what Jesus has already done. It's not what you'd like to get from him today, which will probably change tomorrow. The gospel is about what Jesus Christ has already done. He saved your soul. There is no other gospel. Only a religion that pretends to be the good news. The gospel is very simple. The gospel is very specific. If you are trusting in any other gospel or some combination of the gospel or something that is added to the gospel, then you are not, hear me, safe from the wrath of hell. You are not safe from the wrath of God. You are going straight to hell for rejecting God's son. Now go ahead and curse me out. It's the truth. It's the truth. Let me just move around here. He said, verse eight says, but we though an angel of heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed. To get people to depend on themselves and their own good works and not place their total hope in Jesus Christ and his ability to save you, it's preaching people straight into hell. That's why he said, if somebody else teaches something other than the gospel I preached that I gave you, let them be a curse. My goodness, the gospel is good news that Jesus saved us from our sins by giving his life as payment so we don't have to pay for betraying God. Amen? The payment for sin is death. If someone preaches something that perverts the gospel, or twists the gospel, or something that is not good news, but sounds like it's good news, but is not the specific good news of the word of God, and you believe it, then you are placing your faith in something that will not save you. Wow. The good news is, guess what? There's now payment available for your sins. That's the good news. Go tell everybody. Guess what? Payment is now available. It's been made available a long time ago. But what does that mean? That means that through the death of Jesus Christ, Jesus now becomes, as I said before, precious to you. Because there's no other way in. There's no other way around the wrath of God. There's no other way to save yourself. There are no other options. If I give Lydia to save your life, and then you tell me, thank you so much. That was great, but I really didn't need it. That's going to make me upset. Think that through. Oh, that was great, but I really didn't. I had a couple of other things I was going to do that would actually work to help me save my own self. Excuse me, I just gave my child for you. And you're going to tell me that's not good enough? How would you feel? Does that make sense to you? There is no other gospel. There is no other way. Amen? The grace of God is Jesus Christ. He paid for our sins. He earned our salvation. And I can say it over and over again until we really begin to lean on that. Because a lot of us know that, but don't always show that. He said, but there'll be some that trouble you. Some folks came in, started causing commotion. They troubled the believers in Galatia. The word trouble here means to take away your calmness of mind. They disturbed the believers. Paul just got through teaching that Jesus was enough, and here they came saying, no, what you need to do is you need to be circumcised, And you need to obey all the Mosaic Law. Amen? There are 600 laws. And then they said, we need to add several more to that because the law that God gave wasn't good enough. And then after Jesus comes and fulfills the law, by giving his life so that we will not be under the law, they come and say, no, the law wasn't good enough, and now Jesus isn't good enough. You see what's happening? They came in, and they started troubling the folks, because the folks were like, woo, you mean all I got to do is place my faith in Jesus Christ and his righteousness is good enough for me? That's all I need? Paul said, that's it? You settle on that and you stay there. And then they came and said, no, if you don't wear the right clothes, if you brush your teeth sideways, if you go to the wrong movie, if your skirt is not to my liking as far as how long it is, If your lipstick is too red, if you eat pork, if you mix up your fabrics, if you don't do the Sabbath right, if you're not careful and you don't add your holiness to Jesus, then you ain't gonna make it. That's what they said. Watch this, people. Jesus came and took away the law, taking them out of bondage, relieving the heavy burden, because the law got so heavy. And he took the heavy burden away. And then these people came back and said, no, here's a little bit more burden. You need more, and now you're right with God. What would make them change? What would make them give up the freedom of God in Jesus Christ and exchange it for even more bondage? They twisted and perverted the gospel. Acts 15, one says this. And certain men came down from Judea, which came down from Judea, taught the brethren and said, except ye be circumcised in the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. Here's the thing that we want to pay attention to. The scary thing that was happening in Galatian churches is that these people were not being told to believe in Buddha. No. They weren't coming in preaching Muhammad. No, they weren't coming in teaching another religion. They were giving a subtle twist on the truth and calling themselves Christians. The slight twisting of scripture was being taught by folks that called themselves believers. The people weren't coming from outside the church. They were coming from inside the church. They were sitting on your row. They were so-called experts of what would please God. They felt that they knew how to be right with God. Let me give you a snapshot of where we're going. Legalism says that you can't do anything right. License says you can't do anything wrong. I'm going to say that again. Legalism says you can never do anything right to please God. License says you can't do anything wrong. God is pleased with everything. OK? The devil is on both extremes. Are you hearing me? We are not to live on either. or function out of either extreme. And here's the thing, after trying to do everything right in the law and failing, you swing from absolute legalism to absolute license. I've seen it happen over and over again. What happens? I get frustrated because I can't do it all right. And so then I just throw up my hands and say, well. Because the truth is, I just want to be right with God. But the law and trying to do it by the law, which I'm not supposed to be under, causes me to realize that I'm failing. So instead of running to Jesus or running to God with my failures, I run away from God. Because the law brings shame. The law brings guilt. And if you live on either side of the extremes, you're not trusting in Jesus. What you're really doing is either trusting in yourself or making God a liar about all the things that he says he's okay with that he's not okay with. I've seen people do it. They get to a place and it's like, you know what? It's too tight. I can't do it. I blew it already. James 2 says, if you don't keep the whole law, huh? and you offend in one point, then you're guilty of all the law. So if you're going to mix in law and grace and mix them together, they don't work. It's got to be all grace. So what ends up happening is I sit up there and I say, well, you know, I did pretty good this week. I haven't really done anything, which is a lie. Huh? I've been living holy. And then I get on the freeway. And something happens on the freeway. And somebody drives on medical marijuana. Medical. And I get upset. And I don't verbalize what I'm thinking. But what I'm thinking is there. No, I didn't sin outwardly. But a whole paragraph of dirty words showed up in my mind. And I think I'm okay because I didn't let it out. No, you already blew it. Imperfection. I already messed up. I can't keep the law. What does the law do? The law is my schoolmaster. It's supposed to bring me to a place of total frustration where I go, even on my best day, I still need to lean on Jesus because I keep blowing it. Are you seeing it? So the law, being legalistic, that's not the way. The law brings you to a place where it trains you to make you understand, I keep blowing it. I mean, I just haven't had a good week since I've been saved. I mean, I got saved, I got out the water, I spun a rail, I shouted, and come Friday, I blew it. And it's been like that for 20 years. So somebody eventually goes, well, some people eventually go, well, I just can't do it, so I just try everything. And we start blaming God. Well, you made me this way, so. You knew I had problems. It's not fair of you to be so tight. No, no. The law as a schoolmaster brings you to a place where you come to an understanding that you can't keep the law. And then you have to, by default, look to the only one who did keep the law. and you place yourself behind him. And you say, you know what? I'm not all that, but he is. So if I just get behind him and his righteousness, and he becomes my righteousness, then I can go to God about anything. Are you hearing me? Watch this, watch this. Paisley, come here. Come here. Come to daddy. Just come to daddy real quick. Come here, baby, come here. Okay, perfect. Now, but I want to show you this. You see how she ran? You know how we're supposed to be with God? Just like that. But here's the only way to do it. If you're perfect, you can go. But you're not perfect. You're going to need somebody else's perfection. Huh? What happens when you become legalistic? Thank you, baby. Sorry. What happens when you become legalistic is you get into a position where you start to remind yourself of all the stuff that you messed up on. And what that does is it causes you to do God like this. Are you seeing what's happening? You start to move away from God because you're thinking about your own righteousness, which is not adding up. It's not cutting it. So what Jesus Christ does is he says, I'll give you my righteousness. If you come to my righteousness, you can go to God because you take your eyes off yourself and you start looking at him. Are you hearing me? Am I being clear here? Are you getting it? Amen? Amen. 2 Timothy 1 and 9. Let's start wrapping this up. I went all off my notes. That's okay. Second Timothy 1 and 9, Jesus Christ, here it is again, who has saved us, and there's that word again, and called us with an holy calling, whoa, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. You didn't have it. You couldn't even get started right. Christ gave you his righteousness. That ought to make somebody run. You know, every time I got frustrated with myself, I can't do it. I can't do it. Then it dawned on me, wait a minute, Jesus did it for me. He did it for me. He made me right. Amen? The Bible tells us, as we learned in 1 Peter, to add to our faith, but it never tells us to add to our salvation. You notice that? Add faith and virtue. But the Bible never tells us to add to our salvation. We can't do it. The remedy, the only remedy for dealing with our legalistic side or our licensed side, where we want to just do anything and think that God's OK with it. Huh? Or our legalistic side where we think that we can impress God. The only way to deal with that is by focusing on the gospel, which reminds us of the accomplishments of Jesus Christ and what he did to pay for our sins in full. Jesus does not have your righteousness on a layaway plan. It's paid for. Did you get that? He's not asking you, oh, by the way, I'm late on my payment this month for your... I'm going to need you to help me out. No, no. Jesus paid for it in full. And here's the thing. Here's the thing, saints. I know this is simple, but we've got to get this, because if you don't get this foundation, you drift. OK? If you are not sure that you are totally accepted by God, then you will live your life trying to find acceptance everywhere else. Woo! I'm going to say that again. Believers, if you're not totally sure that you are totally accepted by God through Jesus Christ and what he did, then you will live your whole life trying to find acceptance everywhere else. I hope that blesses somebody. You can be saved and do this back and forth with God for the rest of your life, never really realizing just how much God loves you and that you can never do anything to improve on that. Are you getting that sense? So that's why he says, verse 8 again, go back to Galatians 1, verse 8. But though we are an angel from heaven, Preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed. He said this because the folks that were preaching this false gospel came from Jerusalem, the head church, okay, with the big dogs, Peter and them, okay, all right, which would make The Gentile Galatians go, whoa, maybe we ought to listen to them, because you know where they came from. They claim to come from the big church. You follow me? So he says, I don't care if they are an angel. He's got these folks with fancy religious titles. Are you getting this? They're over certain jurisdictions in the church of mother so-and-so, head deacon bishop so-and-so, and mother Mac of this or that. And we get all into that. And Paul says, I don't care if they sprout wings out of a three-priest soup and fly. If they are saying anything other than what I'm saying with this simple gospel and this simple dependence on the righteousness of Jesus Christ, they are cursed. And they're teaching you to be cursed. If you're under the law, you're cursed. If you're under grace, you're free. I hope this is not too simple for y'all. Because sometimes we get caught up in thinking that other people are better than us. So we listen to them more than we read our word. Somebody get up and says, you need to do this, you need to do that. Wait, wait, that's not what the word is. If you don't know your word, you are going to listen to somebody else. And listen, let me explain something to you. People will have you tripping. People will have you fretting. I don't know if I am good enough. They ain't better than you, you are no better than them. We are all depending on Jesus the same. Are you hearing me saints? He said, I don't care if an angel comes down and tells you something different. I don't care if they call themselves prophet as whatever. They got a new revelation from Jesus Christ. If they're not dependent on Jesus Christ for salvation, that's not the gospel. It's not the gospel. There is no pluralistic gospel. There is no all-inclusive gospel. There's only one gospel. All other gospels will take you to hell. You cannot reject the gospel specifically whom Paul preaches and still be saved from hell. No adding to it, no taking away from it. There's no universal God's children, and we all come from different places. We all have different approaches. No. There is no, why can't we all just get along? No. The gospel is the good news, the good news. You may hear something that sounds like good news, but if it's not the gospel, it's fake news. It's not the truth, amen? He says it again in verse nine. Now I said before, we say before, so I say now again, if any man preaches another gospel unto you, then ye have received, let him be accursed. That means cut off from Christ. Did you, yeah, somebody felt that over here. If someone preaches to you something that is not the simple reliance on Jesus Christ, he says, that person is cursed. They are cut off from Christ. That is heavy. Oh, we got all these people teaching these different things. If Jesus is the grace and you replace him with something else, even yourself, you are trying to deal with God without Christ. That person is teaching you something that is not true. Amen? Let me give you a modern day application of this. These preachers who don't preach the gospel in total dependence on Jesus Christ for righteousness and for salvation, many of them have their churches packed. With either the legalistic side, where they smell themselves, or the licensed side, where they think that God allows them to do everything. Amen? All right? But there should be no evidence, absolutely no evidence of any Christians attending those churches. There should be not one Christian in those kind of churches. Are you hearing me? We don't patronize or encourage people that teach any other gospel. The reason why these people thrive is because we don't know the gospel. Are you hearing me? They may have a lot of numbers, they may be huge, but there should be no Christians in there. Are you hearing me? Amen? Believers who know the truth don't join cults. There it is. You'll be like, woo, that preacher's good, right? Wait a minute, hold up. No, wait. OK, babies, let's go. Come on, kids. They ought to see you leave from the front row. Because we don't play that. Amen? Last part. Here we go. I'm almost done. We've all been on airplanes. And we have experienced what we call turbulence. Amen? Most of us fly on commercial airlines, which means we only get to take our luggage on the plane. We don't get a chance to bring anything on the plane but our stuff. Now, if we got on the plane with a parachute, then when the turbulence happens, we might feel a little bit more at ease. Because when the plane starts shaking, We don't worry too much because we realize that something other than ourselves or what we brought on the plane is able to save our lives. Are you hearing me? We know that nothing inside of us, nothing that we have, nothing that we brought on the plane ourselves can save us from the destruction, only the parachute that was freely given to us. Are you catching this? We know that we're not good enough to fly on our own. We're not light enough to float to the bottom. Now all we can do if the plane starts going down and tells us to jump is die. Are you hearing me? Now, it would be a terrible thing if someone came along and convinced us that we didn't need a parachute. That somehow my Louis Vuitton luggage could save me. Oh, I have the nicest bags on the plane. I'll be all right. If this thing goes down, my stuff is from Gucci and Louis. I will be trusting in something that will not help me. I know it's simple, but that's how we are. We think that we can add to our own salvation. It's the same with believers. We must settle This truth in our minds, hear me say this, and not allow any other opinion to deceive us. And the truth is, only Jesus saves you. You don't have anything that can save you. Only Jesus can justify you. Only Jesus can make you right with God. There is nothing that you brought with you or that you bring with you. There's nothing that will help you as you're traveling through this life journey that will save you. You need something outside of yourself, someone outside of yourself, someone who's outside of what you can do or produce on your own to save you. Thinking you're good enough is not the way out of the wrath of God. It's foolishness. That's just like thinking that if the plane crashes or is headed down, you'll be okay because you were the only one on the flight that didn't order anything alcoholic. Oh, I'll be fine because I didn't order a drink. I had orange juice with nothing in it. That's just silly. Are you hearing me? Is that making sense to you? Is that clear? Perfectly clear, right? Let me give you another one, and I'll be done. Oh, yeah. When my wife and I were younger, we just celebrated our 16th anniversary. Amen. When my wife and I were younger and getting ready to go on our honeymoon, We wanted to take a cruise. And because we were newlyweds or going to be newly married, we wanted to protect our marriage and its infancy stage by choosing to go on a cruise called Holland America. Now, Holland America has the reputation for being a cruise that's full of old folks. who have been married for many years and want to take one more cruise before they die. And that's pretty much what we experienced. They could barely get on the dance floor. On the floor with an IV machine, do the electric slide. Just barely making it, popping pills because they know they're going to pay for it afterwards. Amen. We decided to go on the cruise with some older folks who knew how to act right. Instead of going on carnival cruise, or carnality cruise, or whatever you want to call it. Amen? With some folks, you know, a bunch of young folks that don't know when to stop drinking and folks that walk out their room without half their outfit on. We was like, no. We're a young marriage. We're in our infancy stage. We want to make sure that we do everything to protect our marriage. And we didn't want to test our baby marriage by going out and hanging out with a bunch of young folks who were acting crazy. Let's just not tempt ourselves. Let's do the right thing. Amen? We're going to hang out with some people who are mature because we're not that mature yet. You know what I'm saying. We don't want to do something crazy. We don't want to go to a slut fest in order to have a honeymoon. Don't do that. That's just not a good idea. Amen? So this was our effort. Our effort. Our effort. to protect our marriage. Now, what I realized and my wife and I realized is later on, sinful cruises and holy cruises, that didn't start the trouble in our marriage. Amen? It didn't stop the trouble in our marriage. We messed up our marriage all by ourselves. Are you hearing me? It was the sin within us, not the sin that we were witnessing. It was not the external thing. It was that we had internal problems ourselves. Amen? We did it all by ourselves. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't everybody else's drinking. You follow me? It was what we were capable of doing ourselves that messed up our marriage. Amen? We needed what? Power from God. We needed to be saved. We needed to have a new heart. We needed to realize that God was our Lord. We needed to realize that Jesus was supposed to lord over our marriage. We needed to realize that I'm purchased. I don't act like this. I don't even belong to myself. I got to do what God is telling me to do here because he loved me. We were not good enough to save our own marriage. What we had to realize is Jesus is the only one that saved our marriage. And we still have to lean on Jesus and totally on Jesus. We've already proven that we're not good enough. So what has to happen is I have to lean on the Holy Spirit. Don't respond to her that way. She didn't mean it like that. Huh? Don't get even. Don't punish her. Huh? That woman that called you, she's not your friend. That guy that called you, they're not interested in the success of your marriage. Huh? Are you hearing me? Huh? Don't be stingy. It's y'all money. It's not just yours. Are you hearing me? Help her with the kids. Don't disappear on her. All these things that you get from the Holy Spirit, why? Because in and of myself, I don't know how to do that. I can't save myself. It's the same thing with salvation. You're not good enough. Nothing you have to offer will save you. You can't add anything good enough to save you. All you can do is lean on Jesus. Jesus is the only one to save you. Your best efforts to stay away from this or that will fail if it's not coming from the place of loving God first. Can't do it. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. All of our righteousness is as filthy rags when we compare them to Jesus Christ. So the best that we could do is to continue to trust on His goodness. and what he's already done. Now, this, people, and this is why I'm gonna leave this today, is the secret to freedom. The other way leads to frustration. You will never be good enough. Jesus is enough. It's the secret to holiness. When you realize what he's given you, When you realize how much he loves you in spite of you, amen, you will live out of your love for him. Thank you, God. Thank you. Somebody's getting it. You will not live out of your self-powered willpower. It doesn't work. Your New Year's resolutions that end in three weeks I'm going to do this. I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to. And then three weeks later, it just falls apart. Why does that happen? I'll tell you why. As I said before, we run out of steam. But the love of God, when you love somebody, you just do. You just do for what? What can I do? What must I do? What do you want me to do? I'll do anything for you, Jean. I want you to let that go. OK, Lord. I'll let that go. Can you help me with it? I sure will. Lord, I messed up this week. Keep coming to me. I love you. I'm not punishing you. I love you. I want you to turn from this because this is hurting you. This is coming between me and you. Stop that. I love you. You hear the difference? That's something that will cause you to run to God, not run from him. The truth is, my best day of service to the Lord is something that falls short of the glory of God. This truth, my best day of being a father, is something I still have to repent for. I learned that this week. My best prayer that I could pray still falls short of the perfection of Jesus. When you realize that, you don't just try harder, you throw yourself at the mercy of Jesus Christ. And you say, you're the only one that can fix this. You're the only one that can make me right. You're the only one, huh? That doesn't make you want to do craziness. No, that makes you lean on him. Because his righteousness is the only righteousness that's perfect. Amen? He's so perfect, he makes the worst that I do look holy. You hear me? You hear me? So what's happening nowadays? I'll tell you what's happening. The young people, as I said before, have not been raised In Christ, they've been raised in church. There's a huge difference. Which is no different than being raised in some other offshoot of Christianity that's not Christianity. Because if it's missing Christ, it's missing power. If it's missing Christ, it's missing grace. If it's missing Christ, it's missing love. If it's missing love, you will run out of steam. Amen? And you will end up in a place where you're frustrated. Amen? The law only brings you to the place where you say, I can't do it. And in that place, when I finally surrendered my porn addiction to God, that was interfering not only with my marriage and my life, but was causing me to be grieved as far as how God felt about me. that was causing me to be distant from God because of what I was doing. When I finally gave it up, you know what I had to say? Oh, not that I'm going to try better. I just simply said, I can't do it. And at that point of realizing that I had no power, I received power. It was humility. It was me saying, I can't keep all the laws. I can't do it. I can't do it. I need somebody stronger than me. And then Jesus said, I'm glad you asked for help. Are you hearing me? So it's not impossible, even in these days and times in 2020, for old people, young people, in between people, teenagers to live holy. It just depends on whether or not you're connected to the love of God. That's the difference. Legalism says, I can't do it all right. License says, I can do anything. Those two extremes are wrong. What I'm asking God to do in this church is to adjust us, to bring us right to the center of Jesus Christ. to where when we grow from this church and the people that are coming into it, our children, the people that we're growing with, or the people that we're inviting to church, the people that we're loving on, the people that we want to come to church, when they see us, they'll realize that we're connected to a power source that never runs out. Amen? Are you hearing me? I hope I'm saying this as simply as possible. Amen? We gotta stay with the simple gospel. Satan will rev up your life and cause everything to spin out of control to where you will focus on all of your temporary immediate needs and forget about the simplicity of the gospel. It's a trick. It's a trick to get the pastor to focus on everybody else's situation and not on Jesus. Here's the real truth of the matter. Where we're headed in Christ, when we go to heaven, there are no situations. There is no lack. There is no, I need a job. You'll have one. You'll have the best employer ever. There is no, I need some money. That doesn't exist. You don't need any of that. Think about it. So if we focus on all the temporary stuff and lose the gospel, we've lost everything. The simple gospel. season.