Alive To God

maybe is making aware to you that when you walk out of here today, and as you go through your week, and as you go through the next few months, and as you go through this year, you'll look at your life as unto God. You would look at a life that is actually alive to God and not just alive to rules or alive to church attendance or alive to a bunch of other things, but there's quite literally a life with God to be had. And hopefully we can get there today. If you've got your Bible, like I said, we're going to be in Romans 6. It'll be on the screen. If you have our app, it's in the app as well. A lot of verses here that I'm going to cover, I'm just going to focus on two points today, but let's get into that, and we'll take just a second to pray and really ask the Lord through the Holy Spirit to help us with this text. Romans 6, starting in verse 1, Paul writes, what shall we say then? Are we to continue to sin, continue on in sin, that grace may abound? Should we keep living? This way so that we get more grace from God, as if to say that the more we sin, the more grace we experience. Paul is saying, no, that's not, that's not the point of this life with God. The point of this life with God is not to sin more so you get more grace from God. He's, that's kind of foolish. He says, by no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Now, real quick before I just push over this spot, there's a difference between sinning and living in sin. So if you're here today and you, and the church is a, is a byword in your mouth and you don't really like religion and you're, me too, me too. I get that. I'm with that. But the idea that living in sin and not sinning are going to be the same thing are worlds apart in Paul's view. So if you're here today and you say, Jonathan, I've given up because there's no way I can live this life without ever living in sin. No, no, no. And that's not true. You can live a life where you don't live in sin. You may still sin, but you don't live in it. You don't live in sin. You don't live in sin. It's many of us have learned that you don't have to sit in the mud hole the rest of your life. You can actually find this. As we talked about in one of the psalms, the second we get washed clean. It doesn't mean that your clothes don't get dirty from time to time. So there's a big difference there. Paul says, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? So the baptisms that we celebrate or that we, we, it's one of our, we would say the church's sacraments is the thing we practice. It's not just the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, a showing of, Oh, Hey, listen, I'm, I'm believing this stuff. Now it's in a, in almost literal sense. It, it transports you back to that cross when Christ died. Like Callie was just saying, when she was leading us in that song, that quite literally you're being brought in with Jesus. Jesus didn't just do it for you. He is sharing that with you. In other words, what he suffered, he suffered on your behalf and your old life is what he was taking to that cross. So he says, we've been baptized into Christ Jesus. When we were baptized into his death, we were buried. Therefore with him by baptism into death in order that in other words, there's a, there's a, um, what you would call a procedure. You cannot fully enjoy the resurrection unless you fully experienced death. Everyone in here wants new, but you don't get to new in the Christian faith unless you fully experience the resurrection. So he says, you first die. So if you're in here and you think God just wants to make, um, a small place on your shelf, you know, I don't know about, I love knickknacks. Is anybody here like knickknacks? I'm a knickknack person. Give me all the little things to put on my desk. God does not want to be a knickknack on your spiritual shelf. He wants you to die. And you say, my God, what a religion he wants me to die. Yes. Why? So that you can know what actual, real life is because whatever you lived before you met Jesus is not life. It's something else. It's a, it's an existence, but only God can give life. And he says, he goes on to say, we've been baptized into his death in order that procedurally speaking, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life. You underline that kind of keep your eye on that. If you're on your phone, or whatever, highlight that verse. We're going to come back to it. Verse five. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly, in other words, if it's been this way in death, it's certainly going to be this way in life. Matter of factly, this is the way that it is. He says, if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Now, many, many people are thinking future. If we die to death like his, then one day we're going to experience resurrection. And that's what I remember years ago. We were connected with a Methodist church, our church, another church, and a Methodist church. And we decided we were going to do a sunrise service. Come on, somebody. But y'all, we didn't do it at the church house. We did it in the stinking graveyard, y'all. We went up and set up camp in a graveyard. And we started talking about in the dead and Christ will rise. And I told us a group the other day, I was like, your boy would be bouncing. I'm just telling you right now, dead bodies start coming out. There usually is this one day there's going to be a taste of resurrection life. What I want to kind of go ahead and put in the water here today is that too many people are waiting for a life that God is trying to give you in Christ now. And we're trying to wait for that one that comes after death. And I want to speak a little bit to that, but I'll get through the rest of this verse. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of God would be crucified with him. And we're trying to of sin might be brought to nothing. In other words, the reason Jesus needed to be crucified was not just to sacrifice the perfect lamb on our behalf. But if you'll remember, sacrificial law meant that that lamb had to take on all of the sins of the people. So part of the process is that Jesus didn't just take your sin. He became our sinfulness in his body. Just as Trey said, when we were taking that little piece of bread and breaking it, God was breaking through the cross. He was breaking through the cross. He was breaking through the cross. Jesus's body that we might be freed from living in sin. His death is very, very important because without Jesus's death, the bondages of sin still rest on your life. If you don't have Jesus's blood as an atonement for your sins, then you're at best working out some kind of legalistic system where if you do a lot of good things for God, you're hoping that on the eternal scale, when you get into eternity, it's been a lot of good things for you. And if you don't do enough for you to gain entry into what we call heaven. But I don't think that's what Paul means here. Paul is saying that your sins have been taken care of for yes, one day in the future, but for a day that is today. He says, so sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we had died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Again, a lot of us think of that as a future tense. One day when we get to heaven, that's when all things will get worked out. But for now, we just have to kind of deal with it. Verse nine, we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. That's why so many of us were getting excited as we sang those songs, because our Christ is not some deity to whom some people in an ancient world ascribed to wrote down in a book and hoped would create some kind of alternate reality. The fact is, is that Jesus is alive today. He is alive today. He is alive today. He is alive today. He is alive today. He is alive today. He is seated at the right hand of the Father. His glory is the glory that keeps the fabric of this world together. So when we say he's alive, the reason to get a little excited is because I realize it's his life that governs life. It's in him we live and move and have our being access. So just to simply say he's alive and act like it's just a part of the day and we're going to do our ham lunch and our Easter egg hunt later. No, no, no, y'all. He's alive means everything you know is different than before when you lived in your old life. There's a new reality. It says, we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him for the death he died. He died to sin once for all, meaning that that which he did on the cross has no expiration date. What he did, the person that yells out, I'm too far gone. No, you're denying what the scripture, scripture clearly says. You can't be too far gone because the blood of Christ still is good for you. He died once and for all. Otherwise we'd have to have Jesus re-crucified every time we made a mistake. Every time we sin, every time someone else sin, we'd have to re-crucify Jesus. No, the blood is good. It has no expiration date. For the death he died, he died once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also, if it happened to Jesus, Paul is making a really powerful claim. If what happened to Jesus over here that we saw and we know happened, it has also happened to you. Thank God we didn't have to go to a cross. Thank God we didn't have to be buried for three days. Thank God that that happened on our behalf. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. I want to focus on two points there. Walking in the newness of life in verse four, and then considering ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in verse 11. Before we do that, let me pray, and then we'll kind of jump into the rest of this. Father, I'm asking that you do what I ask you to do every week. Help us. Help us to see you, Holy Spirit. Reveal the goodness and the glory of God through your scriptures. Help us, not just so we can have a better life, but that we can have resurrection, that we can have a share in the resurrection of Jesus. We honor you today. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So there's a comparison kind of being drawn out here between two different types of life. I stopped a lot along the way just to kind of give some context, but the gist of this scripture is that there's a comparison between a life where sin defines everything, and it'd be good to define this really quickly. By sin, we don't just mean a list of bad things that you've done that you've failed to do. We don't just mean a list of bad things that you've failed to do. We don't mean a list of bad things that you feel bad about. When we talk about sin, we're talking about a condition that makes you anti-God, even though you feel like you might not be. It's a condition on our hearts that says, we're going to do things the way we want to do them. I heard someone earlier this week say, our natural condition in sin is to build a kingdom and amass all of it to ourselves. When we come to Christ, we destroy that kingdom, and we say, yours is the kingdom, and yours is the glory, and we amass everything to King Jesus. If there's not that stark difference in our lives, then it may very well be that we said a prayer, or that we trusted in something that helps us take care of the kingdom we were already building. And it is my concern in the church today that many people never actually came to a point that said, my kingdom needs to be destroyed, and Christ's kingdom needs to be glorified. Instead, what we said, was, can I put a little brick from your kingdom inside my wall? And we continue to live lives that are about ourselves and don't reflect the nature. Now again, the reason I'm saying that is because if Christ has truly done what he's done, if you really do have a life in sin, and you're dead, and Christ has come that you might be brought to life, surely something in all of us kind of shakes, kind of trembles a little bit on the idea that, I would ever, after knowing that, spend my life trying to build anything that wasn't for him. And so what we do sometimes is we try to figure out how to co-opt the kingdom and the glory of Jesus into a self-help, how do we make my life better type of life. And Paul is making a contrast where he's saying, there is a life where sin defines that life, and then there's another life where the grace of God defines it. This isn't to put your life on a scale, but I like asking questions. I like trying to figure out how to make my life better. And I like asking questions. I like trying to figure out if when we say something, does that thing that we say actually have real effect in our life? We use words a lot in our life, don't we? Words that because of its overuse, that word no longer has real meaning or value in our life. I like to think about it like this, like the word love. A lot of us say we love people in our life. That's right, that's good. I think that's fair. I love you. A lot of us around here, when we're leaving the building today, we'll say, okay, hey, see, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. See you later. Love you. That's fine. But then later today, I might enjoy a meal. And if at some point today I got pizza, I would be completely fine with that. I know some of y'all bougie and y'all having real, real meals. But if at some point today I got a slice of pizza, I might utter, I love pizza. I love pizza. And somebody's going to say, well, he could really love pizza. And if you know me, you might be like, well, that is an accurate statement. He really does love pizza. But do you understand that? When I'm talking about love with my wife, and I'm talking about love for pizza, I'm not talking about the same kind of love. And when we talk about grace in the church, sometimes people talk about the grace of God. And I've thought many times, how is it possible that the grace of God and still live lives steeped in sin? And I think it's because of what we see in this text. There's still a part of us that are alive to our old life. And because there's a part of us that's alive to our old life, being alive to God seems like the most difficult task on the face of the earth. Many of you, Christianity is not something you don't want to do. It's just hard for you to do. And that's why you don't do it well. And this again, this isn't a measuring thing like, oh, can we get you to an 80% Christian before you leave today? If we could get you to 80, you know, or C, C's get degrees, praise God, right? Amen. If we have indeed on the Jesus scale and get you in that C level, that's what, no, no, no. It's not about levels. It's not about how much more can you do. It's, it's, is it there at all? Are you a person that gets sparked often, but a fire never comes? Are you a person that you in your heart, you would say, I know that God is who he says, and I believe and trust in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but there's no newness of life. Paul doesn't just say we need to be alive to God. He says there ought to be a walking it out. There ought to be something happening. One life because of Christ's death on the cross has died with Jesus. That's why many of you don't look the same anymore. I mean, you still look like you look, right? Uh, some of us were looking worse and worse every year, right? As when I work out, I age 30 years. Okay. So, um, some of us don't look as good as we used to, but you have changed because you're alive to God. And I don't mean this. Listen, I don't mean this ugly. I'm just saying, I don't mean this ugly. I'm just saying, I don't mean this ugly. I'm just saying, I don't mean this ugly. I'm just saying, I don't mean this ugly. I'm just saying what's true because this is what I have found in our culture today. We are so scared of people having hurt feelings that we don't say things that will ultimately change their life. But if you say you're a Christian and there's no newness of life, that's what my thought would be. Do you really, are you really alive to God? I'm not asking you to question your Christianity. You know what? I just said that. I don't know that that's true. Maybe I do want you to question it because if questioning it is a scary aspect, it may be a sign that you don't quite have it and that you could. So many people that I've been around coming to the reality of their life in Christ in their 30s, in their 40s, in their 50s. Why? Because in our culture, we're inundated with church Christianese stuff. And people think if they do good things and they go to church services, then they'll be taken care of. And Jesus doesn't want your works. He wants your life. He wants your life. He wants your life. If you get your life first, all the work stuff comes. But if you get the works first, the life never comes because it's legalism. It just leads to death. Why? Because you keep trying to outdo yourself. Let me tell you, someone's already outdone you. His name is Jesus. And what he did on the cross liberates you from trying to perform for God. That's what a life dead in sin tries to do. Now, in the Christian culture in church today, in many ways, we have resigned all of these things to mean this life that God will forgive you of your sins. This is what Jesus died on the cross for and give you a new life. And here's the thing. It's basically the same life with a few amenities. There's a group, two guys that do a bunch of comedy skits. And I was watching one of them the other day, and it was about the guy's airplane or his seat ticket on the airplane being upgraded to economy plus. And he was so, so excited. He was like, oh, economy plus. And he looks in front of him, and he's got like an inch more to move his feet. And he's like, oh, economy plus. And he just keeps saying it over and over again. And I'm serious. I laughed. But at the same time, I was like, oh, my God, this is how I was a Christian for so many years. I wasn't upgraded to a new life. I got upgraded to an economy plus life. Things got slightly better. I got upgraded to a new life. I got upgraded to better for me. And I attributed it to God. But I was still struggling with my life in sin. As much as I was alive to God in certain areas of my life, other areas of my life, it was just an economy plus. There's another skit where he goes into a hotel, and they're like, you get free continental breakfast at 10. He's like, oh, continental breakfast. And he goes in there. It's like bagels and some fruit. And he's losing his mind. Oh, my gosh. And I wonder if, honestly, guys, in our Christianity, if we're too easy. satisfied with the bagel, with the continental breakfast. The continental breakfast is do good things until you go to heaven. And I wonder, is that really what Christ died and was resurrected for? Economy plus or walking in the newness of life. So basically, we get a new life, but it's just a few amenities. And then you seal the deal with what we call an everlasting life. And that's the one you receive once you die. And so we define new life as a sort of okay life until you get to the good one once you die. Now, for a second, I just want you to think about what I just said. This has been a challenge to me this week. Do I, by the way that I live, do I believe that eternal life is just going to start when I die? Do I somewhat believe by the way I live my life that I'm trying to act good until I get to that eternal life? Is there a part of me that might be scared about how I'm working things out in my faith? Things don't feel secure. Things don't feel completely right. If you're here today and you don't know Jesus and you're sitting there going, well, yeah, I mean, like I get all the stuff you're saying. I've heard this stuff a thousand times. My thought would be is, is God not offering you only a life when you die, but a life today? And I wanted to almost redefine these two terms before we close and really deal with that alive to God statement that Paul makes. The new life and eternal life are one in the same. And this might not be that big of a deal in like as far as semantics go, but let's talk about it. We talk about new life in Christ. And sometimes people say, if you died today and you've probably had this happen, I had a door knocker come to my house a few years back. If you died today, would you go to heaven? And I was a little frustrated with her, but I was like, yes, I would go to heaven. She's like, how do you know? I said, because I've trusted Christ. I believe in what he's done on the cross. And I went through my little spill and she's like, good deal. Do you go to church anywhere? And I was like, yeah, I do. And she's like, where do you go to church? And I was like, yeah, I do. And she's like, where do you go to church? And I told her, and she was like, well, that's good. But pastors need to know this stuff too. And I was frustrated a little bit, not on the end of like pride, but just on like, I just didn't want to be bothered on my Saturday. You know what I mean? But at the same time, she's right. In that sense, I'm not going to walk around spitting out eternal life stuff all the time. If you know Jesus, you'll go to heaven. If you don't know Jesus, you're going to go to hell. I believe that. But if we speak that way only, and that's the way that we've been taught, then we think eternal life is going to start when we die. And it's not going to start in the moment we trust Christ. Why is that a big deal? Well, let me read these two verses to you. And one I'm going to read, if you read New Living Translation, this is no bag on you, but I'm going to read you the difference in the translations because I think it's important to hear and why it might change the way that we think. In John 17, 3, in the New Living Translations, it says this, Jesus is speaking and he says, and this is the way to have eternal life, to know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. That sounds right, but I think there's a translation error. Let me read you another translation that I think is more accurate. John 17, 3, again, same verse. This is out of the ESV. And this is eternal life. Now you might think, Jonathan, this is supposed to be about Jesus being raised from the dead. And we're supposed to be, this is supposed to be Easter. And we're supposed to be talking about, yes, if Jesus is eternal life, then we're supposed to be talking about Jesus being raised from the dead. If Jesus isn't raised from the dead, then everything that we're talking about in the Christian life doesn't exist. Like you really do want more in your life than you just to get over the habit of yelling at your kids. If Jesus is the ointment that you're putting on being angry when you talk to your kids, and that is what you're wanting, you're missing what the resurrection actually provides. It is not a new habit. It is a new person. You don't want to, settle for not yelling at your kids. You want to be a new dad or a new mom to your kids. Come on, I thought I'd get some parents on that one, man. I need some help with my parenting. Come on. So you're not just getting a new habit, a new list of to-dos, you're getting a new you. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says that you have become a new creation. And that word in the Greek means something that's never been seen before. In the New Living Translation, it says, and this is the way you have eternal life. But the English Standard Version says, and this is eternal life. What is eternal life? It's not something you get when you die. It's something you have as you know God. As you come alive to God, you get life from the one who is eternal. Instead of thinking, oh, I got to be good. Oh, I got to stay good. I got to try not to sin. I got to try not to this. I got to try not to that so that one day I'll get to heaven. And finally, everything will be easy. You have missed the resurrection and its glory because it's meant to take you to heaven. You have missed the resurrection and its glory because it's meant to take a dead person in their sin and bring them into new creation. The glory of the resurrection isn't that Jesus was just dead and was killed on a Roman cross. It's that by his resurrection, you also may consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. To know him is to have eternal life. We think a lot of times based on the way we've been raised and the ways we've thought is we have to do these things to get eternal life. One day. And Jesus says, eternal life is when you start knowing me today. Eternal life is life that comes from knowing the one who is eternal and starts as soon as you become alive to God. I heard a man by the name of Steve Denef. He said, the Christian walk is not a treadmill. It's a trail. And that spoke volumes to me because it's a doldrum. My experience has been meeting Christians who are bored with Jesus. They're bored with God. They get sparked and then the spark goes out. A couple of years ago, I thought, you know, maybe that is just how it is. Maybe there is no person on this earth who's come alive to God, who's continued to burn. Maybe life with Jesus is this doldrum on the treadmill where you get sparked every once in a while, your pace picks up, but then you get tired again because you're trying to do a lot of stuff for Jesus. You're trying to make somebody happy or be moral. And you're trying to do a lot of things. If we can be honest, do a lot of things that we don't like doing. Christianity has turned into for many people, a list of things they hate doing for a person they barely know. So a couple of years ago, I guess I just thought, well, maybe that's just how it is. Except that I know people who are still burning. Do they sin? Do they make mistakes? Do they fall short? Yes. But just because you sin or you fall, it doesn't put the fire out. It doesn't put the fire out. It doesn't put the fire out. It may dampen it a little bit. I'm finding that a lot of people, the reason they feel like they're on a treadmill is because they feel like they're doing a lot of things they don't like to do for a person they barely know. And they're trying to figure out how to maintain some kind of steady pace. At our gym, we use this phrase, RPE. I was already laughing at me. The RPE, everybody's putting up eight that goes to our gym. They're like, hey, RPE stands for rate of perceived exertion. So the RPE, in other words, is this is what you should be putting out for this workout. This is how much you should be going. And I feel like in the Christian world today, the reason many see a Christian and think, I don't know why I would want to get on a treadmill like you are, is because we're not walking on a trail. We're on a treadmill trying to do things we don't like for a person we barely know. And I honestly, to be honest with you, I don't know what's attractive about that. I don't know what's attractive about a gospel that saves you to be bored until you go to a life that we maybe expect might be slightly more interesting than this one. But that's if eternal life is something you get when you get there. Eternal life may be something that many of us have not experienced because we're on the treadmill and not on the trail. We're not walking in the newness of life. We're not walking in a life with God where we're dead or alive to the things that God would be doing in us. Cain, you can go ahead and come up here. I just had this thought of, I'm trying to think in terms of every once in a while, I try to figure out how I can do something that's more illustrative. I'm a very illustrative person. I don't know why I don't use them more. Maybe because I just share my illustrations a lot of times verbally. But I had this thought of like, how does one see coming alive to God and realize that there is a trail to walk, a newness of life versus a decision you make that'll get you in at the end of your life. Does everybody see what I'm saying? It's as if sometimes we live as though there's not much for us to do except wait until we get to the good place. Instead of experiencing knowing God and actually having something with him. And we have trails at my mom's house and we were out there recently with my boys and I was walking up one of these trails. And every time you would turn, there would be it. Like a new scenery, a new view, something different that wasn't there previously. It's just a trail winding up and through these different terrain and different areas. And I thought, man, this really is true that walking with God is this pathway to where sometimes you think, oh, I know everything that God's ever done or wanted to do and in me and anybody else. And there's a turn and you're like, oh my God, I didn't know that I had pride in my heart. And then you keep walking because you go, oh, I want God to deal with this. So you keep walking and you see that God invites you to being a humble person and humbling yourself before him. And you realize that there are things that God doesn't like about pride and he actually opposes himself. And you walk the trail and God changes you. And the newness of life continues because now you look more like Christ. The resurrection life is on you and eternal life is something you're experiencing. And then you come down a little bit further down the trail and you realize, oh my gosh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that my, I didn't know that prayer could be so full and. And I don't want to spend five minutes praying and think that's enough that I want to know God better. So I'm going to spend 20 minutes in prayer. And you go down a little bit further down the road and you realize, oh my gosh, I've been holding bitterness and unforgiveness towards this person in my past. And I didn't realize that every time I think of them, my body changes and I get tense in my neck and my heart rate gets high. And I, and I start thinking about ways if I saw them in person, how I would tell them. And, and then God comes in and just starts massaging that heart of stone into a heart of stone. And I'm like, oh my God, I didn't heart of flesh. And you start realizing, I don't want to carry this bitterness anymore. And if Christ has come and I've been the rebellious person I've been towards God, and he's forgiven me, I can forgive that person. And the newness of life carries on. And you walk a little bit further down the trail and, and then you realize, oh my goodness, I'm trying to amass wealth and material stuff to myself to make me feel complete. And God starts dealing with you about materialism. And you realize there's a person down the street that needs money for something. And God sparks your heart and you give money and you get more, you get more out of giving that money to them than buying that thing for yourself. You see, when you become alive to God, God does things in you that you didn't know you wanted done in your life, but that need to be done in your life. And I thought, man, I know so many people who've come alive in areas of their life and I've watched it. And I want to use three different people as an example on the screen. I'll show you. And I'm going to start with, is, is traces first. I'm going to start with trace. This is trace. If you don't know trace, trace was just leading us in communion and all of that. This is trace. How many years ago is that when 14 years ago, he is still that ferocious. Like he is still that ferocious for, if you listen to trace's story, it can bring a tear to a glass eye. I'm telling you, it's, it, it really is a cool story. There's significance in it, not just because of the physical piece, but because of the spiritual piece. But if you were to ask, I'm not saying anything trace would not tell you. Okay. By the way, I'm not trying to expose everybody in the church to be like, look at this man. But 14 years ago, he was miserable. He was absolutely miserable. The way that he felt, the way that he felt physically. And then the way he even felt about himself. And this is a picture from just a couple of months ago, maybe a woo woo Aaron. So lucky. Why is this picture significant? Because 14 years ago, trace became alive. To a desire to change. And this is 14 years into that. And you might say, okay, I mean, yeah, trace. I mean, he looked pretty fit. You know, he looks good, but what's behind that is the gym that him and Aaron started. That's not just about him fulfilling his life of fitness, but other people's lives of fitness. So you see when he became alive to that, it didn't just affect him. It's affecting people. People that we would have never known their names. We would have never come into contact. We would have never known them, but because of coming alive to something and walking out a process, look at all this fruit. And not only has it affected him, but it's affected many families. They have a vision to bring so many families in the North Jefferson area into a place of fitness and health and for it to be fun. It's not just affecting him. It's affecting loads of people. This next picture should be a picture of crystal and Charles. Well, babies, I believe that was right before y'all were going to get married, right? They came alive to each other, right? They liked each other. They loved each other. Now, now we've got this to contend with. They're coming alive to one another. Didn't just affect them. It literally brought little people into this world. So when we come alive to something, I mean, this is in our natural lives. When we come alive to something, things change. There is a process that starts working out in us. It's not a spark. It's a fire. And this last one's of our buddy, Caleb. This is Caleb's first wedding to photograph. I mean, we were back then, we were probably championing you, Caleb. We were like, these are the best photos we've ever seen in our life. But here are the pictures of one of the last weddings that he did. And we could talk about all kinds of things. We could talk about him learning the process of how to use the camera more efficiently. We could talk about the things that were added to his life that helped him take photography. We could talk about all kinds of things. But now, just taking that one singular picture back then and what it equates to now, the turnaround time. Come on, somebody in the editing world. Things that used to take you a long time. I'm preaching to myself. I'll preach to myself and I'll preach to Caleb. Things that used to take you a long time don't take you as long to do anymore, do they? God wants to turn around things in our hearts. There are things that used to be big things for me. But as I became alive, God, guys, they get squashed. Now, it takes time. I'm not going to lie to you. God does not take you into glory and make you levitate everywhere. All right. But what does he do? He starts a process. And I would love more than anything else to preach an enthusiastic, emotional message about God giving you resurrection life on this Easter Sunday. But what I want more than that is for your resurrection life to be that you are made alive to God in Christ and that you would start walking in the newness of life. And I'll just be frank with you. Many of you are on a treadmill and you're tired and you've been a Christian longer than I've been alive. Is that what it is? The doldrum of being bored with God until hopefully it ends up being better in heaven. Guys, I got to think it's a lot better than that. I got to think that God wants to change us and free us from lives being dead in our sin to a path, to a trail, where when we walk with God, it changes everything. God will get up in your business and every nook and cranny of your life and change things about you. It happens through believing and it happens through knowing. Some of you, I want you to walk through this next week with this challenge. Two questions. Do you believe in this God that we've talked about today? Romans 10, nine says that you'd believe in your heart and confess in your mouth and then you would be saved, saved from your old life, saved into your new life. But then there's the second part. You would be saved from your old life, saved into your new life. Knowing God. I'm not talking about knowing information. Some of you know people and you'll tell people, hey, I know him, but you don't know him, know him. You don't know him, know him. And I'm asking some of you to think about that. Would you do me a favor and stand to your feet if you're able, that we would walk in the newness of life, that we would consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. This week, do you believe? Because if you don't believe, it's hard to get to know. Do you believe? And if you believe, have you been sold a gospel that says if you just believe in it, then you reap all the benefit from it? Or is it that today God might be saying, no, no, I want you to be alive to me just in the same way Trace was made alive to his fitness journey, the same way that Charles and Crystal were made alive to their love for one another, in the same way that Caleb was made alive to the practice of photography and the skill of photography. Would God make me and you alive to him so that our lives actually change? So that in the next six months and the next two years and the next 10 years and at the end of your life, you're saying, I've been walking with God and I've not been on a treadmill. I'm not bored with him. In fact, I'll go back to so many of the great saints who have just passed in the last 10 years who on their deathbeds have said things that have just been wild to me. I wish I would have spent more time with God. I wish I would have listened to God more intently. I wish I would have given more of myself to God in places where I was resisting. Man, when we go this week asking those two questions, do I believe? Do I know? Take time to think. Don't be an unthinking Christian. Think about these things and then come, come to him. If you don't believe and you want to, then come to that place of faith and believe. If you don't know God and you believe, then ask God, I want to know you. These are the greatest prayers that you could ever pray. And some of you, you might need to pray them today. We're not going to do an altar call. I'm not asking anybody to raise their hand. I'm not asking anybody to raise their hand. I'm not going to hold any of you hostage. I know y'all have all got plans. But as I pray, this is a time of you committing your life to some things that in the past you haven't, or maybe you thought you had. This would just be a great day to do it. Nobody's going to try to single you out or grab you out of the aisle. We're not going to ask you any questions. This really is about you and the Lord. Would you pray with me? Would you go to the Lord in prayer? Father, Lord, as we close out this service today, we don't just want to be people who would hear a thing. Jesus, you said that those whose houses in a spiritual sense were built on the rock were those who heard and then did something. Father, I pray that I know that the physical ears of every person in this place have heard things I've said, but Holy Spirit, where the heart has heard, would you come to those places? If you're giving faith to believe right now, we ask that there would be a response, a response in the heart of those that are seeing that they want to believe. They want a new life in you. They see what Jesus has done is real and for them. Jesus, right now, would you softly and yet boisterously welcome them into the kingdom of God? Would they leave their life of sin? Would they leave their life of living for themselves? And when they say, I don't want to live this way anymore. When Trace was saying 14 years ago, I don't want to live this way anymore. That spark. Father, would you help some people come alive to you today? And what a fire begin to grow in them. And not only to believe, not only to confess with their mouth, but to know you and the one you've sent. This is eternal life. Father, the journey of knowing is sweet and sorrowful, but I would not trade it for anything in the world. And I pray that many would begin to take that journey of life with you today as well. Father, bless each family represented here as they go to homes and to families to celebrate, to be with each other, to enjoy food, to enjoy fun stuff. God, I pray that you would bless them. But God, let these questions be in their mind. Bless them as they leave. Bless them as they go. Bless them in this week and stir their hearts that there might be a fire for you. We ask it in Jesus' mighty name. And everybody said, amen. Amen. Well, you guys have a great Easter. We love y'all. If you do not have a church home, we're not soliciting, we're not recruiting, but we would love to see you. We would love to see you. We would love to see you. We would love to see you back. Get connected. Y'all have a great Easter. We'll see you soon.