I just need to turn it on. That's better.

I've been here 3 and a half years. I've never done that, that I know of. So again, what I was saying was we're going to have 2 readings today, Colossians 2:6 and Mark chapter 2. So when we stand up in a minute, we'll read the Colossians first and you're going to flip backwards. We're going to read the Mark passage.

Before we do though, I just want to tell you how excited I am about Breakaway next weekend. And if you have not signed up— parents, if you have not signed up your student, grandparents, if you haven't encouraged them to sign up— please do so. Just do it right now. Just, just take a moment, go ahead and sign them up for this weekend. I believe it's going to be such a great challenge to our students, and there's 2 reasons for that.

One, we're going to be talking about discipleship. That's what Breakaway weekend is. If you grew up go into Disciple Nows, then you know exactly what breakaway is. We want them to break away from things that distract them, hold them down, but, but also to break away so that they're walking down a new path. And what I love about what Crosby's done this year is it's going to be right in line with our series, Explicit Discipleship.

So we're not going to miss a beat. Those of you in this room though, you miss out on the whole weekend because you're not a student. So somebody asked me, can we have an adult Disciple Now? We do. It's called Grow Groups.

It just doesn't come with the funds and games. But I really seriously, I want us today to pray for them. I want us to pray for the weekend. I want to pray for the students. But I also want us to pray for the volunteers, the ones that'll be serving food, the group leaders, those that'll be in the lobby greeting and welcoming and signing kids in.

Yes, those on stage. Whatever capacity someone's going to serve, we want them to have an— leave and have an impact in the lives of these students. So on your study guide, I want you to write down 12 noon. 12 noon. Would you be willing to take your alarm on your phone for the next 7 days and set an alarm for 12 noon and stop and pray for our students this week?

You also have an opportunity Not tomorrow, but Tuesday morning. You're welcome, because tomorrow's Labor Day. But Tuesday morning will be our next day of prayer. If you haven't been to one yet, I want to encourage you to do so. It does not— I'm telling you, it refreshes you.

Yes, you wake up earlier, but it refreshes you to come in to have a time of worship and a time of just focused prayer. And yes, we're going to focus on our students and this weekend, but I'm inviting you. When? Tuesday, not Monday. I know it's just the only month we're going to have kind of a, a little bit of a curveball in that.

But please come Tuesday morning, join us for that. So stand with me as we pray for our students and remain standing, and then I'll read our passages. Father, be with our students this weekend. Be with them now. Plow their hearts.

Break that soil that as they come into the doors next Friday for the 48 hours they'll be on our campus, God, would you speak to them Would you make your word clear? Would you challenge them? There's some that are going to come that do not know Jesus Christ. Would you save them? There's going to be some that come that have never stepped into the reality of grasping the knowledge of Christ.

And I pray that you would do that. Be with every volunteer and team member that's coming. No matter what the task may be. All of us are working and serving that weekend. To lead students to know Jesus and follow him more.

So Lord, bless this week, bless this time. Remind us through the week to lift up our students to you because they belong to you before they belong to us, and we want to be good stewards of our time in the event. In Jesus' name, amen. Colossians 2:6 reads, therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. Let me say that again.

As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord— the only place in the New Testament that that phrase is used, Christ Jesus the Lord— so walk in him. And he gives some descriptions of that: having been firmly rooted and are now being built up in him and established in your faith as you were taught, instructed, and overflowing. Say overflowing. Overflowing with gratitude. Now turn back to Mark.

Pick up with me in verse number 8. Verses 1 through 12 tell of the paralytic man who is on a mat and his friends bring him to Jesus. Immediately Jesus, aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is it easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, Or to say or command, get up, pick up your pallet, and— what does your Bible say? Say it again.

Walk. But so that you know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet, and don't just walk, go home. You may be seated.

In our recent study of 1 Thessalonians, repeatedly we heard this call to walk. 1 Thessalonians 2:12 said, to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you. 1 Thessalonians 4:1 read, you received from us instructions how you ought to walk. Then 1 Thessalonians 4:12 said, so that you will behave or walk properly. The way that you walk matters.

Not if you're walking, but how you're walking. In the most literal sense, the word in Greek, peripateo, means to tread or to walk about. Literally, to take steps. A little over half the times it's used in the Bible literally just means to take a walk. That your legs move you from point A to point B.

But in a figurative sense, the word is also used as how you conduct life, the way that you live, the manner in which you live. That's what the word means. So when Paul says to consider how you're walking, he's not telling people, hey, why don't you go take a walk? Literally, he's saying where you walk matters, how you walk matters. The journey of your life as a Christian matters as much as the destination that you're following.

Your quality of life matters. When he said in Colossians 2:6, therefore— what's he saying? Why is he saying therefore? Well, in the context of Colossians, Paul is having to address a whole lot of mess. I mean, a lot of problems.

Look at verse number 4. He He says, I say to you that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. In other words, there were people there trying to convince them of something else to be true other than Jesus Christ himself. Look at verse number 8. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception.

Most of what you hear online today. Most of what you hear preached from pulpits today. Is empty deception if it does not point back to our God Jesus Christ, who said that he is the way, the truth, and the life, that no man could come to the Father except through him, that he is the salt of the world, that he is the light of the world, that he is the Good Shepherd. He's leading us to a journey not to rediscover who we are in and of ourselves, but to give us transformation Your destination matters. Your quality of walk matters.

So I ask you today, folks, how are you walking? How are you walking? A lot of you don't even know where you're going. Some of you, if you could look at your spiritual walk, it's like a limp man dragging his foot behind him. Some of you are still so chained to your sin, you're dragging a ball and a shackle— your shackle to a ball and you're dragging that weight behind you.

Rather than a beautiful horse that's running in a gait with perfect step. Or maybe it's the picture of, of, of, of an army walking in, in, in rhythm with each other, perfectly stepping along. Or if you've ever seen Riverdance— have you ever seen Riverdance? Listen, I'm great at Riverdance from the waist up. I can keep my arms completely straight.

The footwork's a different story. But I went years ago, and it was just beautiful to see somebody not just kind of treading along, but walking with a little gait in their step, with a little pep in their step. Do you think Jesus wants you to drag your dead carcass through your life, or do you think he wants you to run with passion and with the Spirit of God driving you forward? I'm asking you today, ladies and gentlemen, how How are you walking? Because I think it's very clear how he wants us to walk.

You see, a lot of us kind of in our spiritual life are like a young man named Yusuf. Yusuf was a young man in Qatar. And one day his mom returned home from a business trip and realized something was wrong with him. His eyelids began to droop. His speech became slurred.

And then he started having trouble breathing. And it all happened so fast. His mother later said, in the afternoon, in the afternoon he was able to walk, but that evening he could not even get up and walk. Within 24 hours, this young man was completely paralyzed. He couldn't walk.

He couldn't move. He couldn't open his eyes. Doctors later discovered that the young man suffered from a severe form. I won't say it wrong. I'm going to go ahead and say it because it's French, from Guillain-Barré disease.

It's a condition where your immune system attacks your nerves and it completely paralyzed his body. He was transferred from Qatar to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where a neurologist observed that every muscle in his body was paralyzed by this inflammatory disease, which means Like, we think about that and we're looking at the external, but it also means his internal was also paralyzed too. You know, it takes nerves to make your heart pump and for your lungs to work and for your brain to function. This child was totally incapable of life. In Ephesians 2:1, Paul was very clear.

You are dead. In your trespasses and sins. You're no different than this little boy. You are completely paralyzed. If you could even think about moving, you can't move.

But then Jesus Christ— Jesus Christ came to set you free from the sin that paralyzed and keeps us from walking the way that we ought to walk. Folks, right now I want you to ask yourself the hard question. How am I walking in Christ, if I am at all?

If you say you're saved and you are not walking, can I translate that for you? You're lost.

You're lost. There's no way that someone can say, I've been saved by the grace of God and have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and there be nothing inside of me driving me to want to follow after him because he changes your volition. You see, Colossians 2:6 makes it very clear we're called to walk in Christ. In Christ. Not in myself.

Not my own ambitions or my own plans. He's got a plan for me and his plans are perfect. Why would I not want to walk in that? What's holding me back from walking in him? What's holding you back?

You see, in Galatians 5:16, we're going to learn we walk by the Spirit. We've got the very power that raised Jesus from the dead living inside of us. He's got this worthy call he's placed on our life, not because we're worthy, but because he was worthy, and he called us into that path with him. In Ephesians 5:2, we're going to see that we're called with a purpose that we talked about— wait a minute, yes, we did last week. We talked about the command to love.

That I have a reason that I love God and I love others. You know what that means, ladies and gentlemen? Your walk affects me and my walk affects you. I can choose today to not take it serious that Jesus Christ has called me to walk in him.

And the ministry of our church and other churches around us is limited By those who claim to be Christians but do not take their walk serious.

Remember what I said last week in John 13:35? By this the world will know you are my disciples. They also will know if we're not.

It matters. Jesus called us to walk as children of light. Why? Because we've been reborn. We're no longer children of the darkness.

We're children of light. When we look at this passage in its context, Paul confronting this idea of false teaching, of, of them trying to be drawn away. As Paul said to the Galatians, I'm shocked that you are pulled away so quickly to a gospel I did not preach to you. They're being pulled away in this syncretic mentality that, well, Jesus is just one of many gods. You hear that today?

Or being pulled back into some form of, of legalism where I got to do stuff to prove myself. I, I've got to earn it. I'm pretty convinced some of us in this room, we've been saved by the grace of God and we're like the prodigal son. We've been met by the father at the end of the road, but as soon as he put the robe on us, we took it back off, said, I'm not worthy of this.

We live like a worm when we've been called to be children.

You are a child of God. You're sons of the King. That right there in itself, it's not a point of shame. It's a point of celebration. You are no longer the person you used to be.

Do I need to sing Tight Pants again?

And notice I didn't wear them because that's my old self. I want to walk in the new. Why? Because I have received Christ. How weird would it be if you showed up on Christmas morning and they piled all these boxes on in front of you and you just said, I'm not worthy of them, you pushed them away?

Receiving means I take it And it's mine. When you look at the use of the word received in Paul's writings, more times than not, only with the exception of twice, he's talking about receiving his teaching, receiving the word. So when he says you have received the Lord Jesus Christ, he's saying you have taken him. And what's beautiful about that passage is this: it says 2 things. Number one, It declares the supremacy of Christ.

Jesus Christ the Lord. It declares his deity. He's not created. He's not an angel. Michael's not his brother.

He is God in the flesh. He put on human flesh. The only way that he could pay for the sins of humanity was to become humanity. And he suffered in his flesh, not the spirit hovering over flesh. The, the two had become one.

He was fully God and fully man. He was having to attack those kind of heresies in culture. But then the third thing is he's sovereign over all. That highlights and shows the humility of our Savior In Philippians 2, when it said that he gave up equality with the Father, the supreme God and King of the universe gave up heaven to come down here and put on our old stinky flesh so he could die on a cross so that our flesh might be forgiven. Hallelujah to be his name.

Glory. Our God loved us that much. And here's the second thing. There is a sequence. Not only does this verse show us the supremacy of Christ, it has sequence.

Therefore, as you have received— say received— then walk in him. You deciding today, you know what, I'm just going to go out and do better. How many of you have ever fallen into the trap, I'm going to do better, I'm going to do better? Raise your hand. All of us.

All of us are guilty. I'm going to do better. I'm going to do better rather than go into the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace in our greatest time of need, or to confess our sins because he's faithful and just to forgive our sins. Some reason we think we got to pay them back, that we got to earn God's favor, that if I get the robe and the ring like the prodigal son, that somehow I gotta, I gotta give it up because I've messed up again. I'm not worthy to be his son.

Is that the same words the prodigal son said? But it didn't stop the father from embracing him and taking him in. If you've strayed away from the Lord and you know that your walk isn't where it's supposed to be, I've got some good news for you. You don't have to clean yourself up today because you can't. But you know what you can do?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness. In other words, my debt is paid. And he's washed me up enough where I can step fully into his presence. Do you realize that today you are a child of the King? Are you walking in that light?

So let me give you some— I'll just say some teaching points. Is that okay to say those? Well, I've got— there's a bunch of verses in there. I give you more verses than anybody ever needs. No, excuse me, we need them all.

And they're all my favorite. If you want to ask me what my favorite verse is, it's all of them. Even, even the shortest ones. They're all my favorite. You know why?

It's like the disciples said to Jesus, you have the words of life. Number 1, walk because you have received Christ, not to earn salvation. We've discussed this so many times, but what is the difference? Too often the good news is only good news if I get the glory.

We're glory hogs, folks. We are glory hogs.

Do you know how liberating it is when I take that credit and I give it back to the one who did the work? I'm not made to hold that. I mean, Moses went up on the mountain and came back with his face shining. When he just experienced a little glory and nobody could even look at his face.

But yet we want the glory of God for ourselves. The gospel only fits when things are going well, but when my faith is challenged, when it's challenged in thought or it's challenged when I suffer, well, where's my faith?

Well, that's the expression of it, guys. When God allows bad things to happen to you, do you think God's just being a cosmic bully? He's not. This is a fallen world that we live in, and fallen things happen in a fallen world. I know you've suffered.

I know you've been wronged. I know that you have suffered, but I have too. I haven't experienced your suffering. You haven't experienced mine. But what I know to be true is our God is able to take all of our suffering on himself on the cross.

He's able to heal us of that suffering. He's able to liberate us. Don't you want to be liberated? Because without being liberated, you know what my walk looks like? Me dragging ball and chains behind me like a criminal.

I want you to step. I mean, I want you to literally step. Paul said in Galatians 3:23, uh, 2 through 3, 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 with faith? How you start your walk matters.

If, if you just signed on to Christianity so you can make yourself look better, you're lost because that's not how you achieve salvation. If you signed on to Christianity because you thought it was going to be better, it's not.

But our living can be. You're not guaranteed you're going to walk out of here and not have a problem or a crisis happen. Here's what I know to be true. Some of these— one of these days I'm going to leave this world and I'm going to open my eyes to the reward of heaven. Anything else in this world that I put my hope in above that hope, that's what's going to make me struggle.

You realize that— you realize this morning that there are brothers and sisters in Christ around this world that have gathered to do the same thing that we've done, and they did not eat today. That's a tragedy, isn't it? That's tragedy, isn't it? But that does not mean that I can't have hope for the future. And because I have that hope, that means I can walk.

How are you walking today? Number 2, let's walk in divine enablement. Let's walk in divine enablement, not our own human strength. Guys, we just realized, I just told you, you don't have the strength. I don't have the strength.

He says in Galatians 5:16, but I say to you, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Our biggest problem is that we step into our flesh. We make stupid decisions. We say stupid things. We think stupid stuff.

And then we're like, well, what in the world happened? Well, he's given me the path. If you skip down to 5:22-23, we realize the fruits of the Spirit. Against such there is no law. I mean, he's working these things in us because we cannot do them on our own.

Philippians 2:12-13 also emphasizes this in verse 13. He says, for it is God at work in you both to will and to work his good pleasure. Your will will not think the things of God.

Not in your flesh. In your flesh, you think about who? Say it. Say it loud. Don't be ashamed.

Me. I think about me when I'm in my flesh. I think about what it does for me. And when I'm so me-focused, I forget that in my striving, in my walking, there are people watching me walk. There are people walking beside me.

Listen, I am that guy. My family's about to say amen. I outrun my family wherever we go. Well, I used to until my son passed me. Now his legs are longer.

I do it everywhere I go. I get in my mind where I'm going and I just start walking. Half the time people can't keep up with me. Now, I might, you know, when I hit about 89, that may change. Um, no, I, I mean, it's just the truth.

But the problem with that is sometimes, especially for the airport, I have to look back and they're all kind of just scattered down the walkway, you know.

How I walk matters. If I get there and no one else comes with me, what have I gained?

We have been enabled by the Holy Spirit to walk. Or as Zechariah wrote, he said, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, not by power or by might, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Are you walking in that enablement? Number 3, walk in the work of Christ, not your own ability. Go back with me to 2:7.

I love these, the word pictures with— there's 5 verbs.

5. Well, participles. I didn't want to get too technical. There's 5 verbs in here. Listen to them.

The first one is, having been firmly rooted. That is a perfect tense verb that's done to you. You can't root yourself. I was amazed yesterday. I, I got to go dove hunting, and I'm sitting there distracted.

It was also 175 million degrees and nothing was flying. So I'm sitting there, and where I was in this cornfield, it had washed down a little bit below the roots. Have you ever seen the roots of a corn stalk? It looks like a— it looks like this. Like, and I tried to pull it up, this dead corn stalk, and I couldn't get it to move without breaking it.

Firmly rooted. Folks, you're not a seed anymore. If you've met Jesus Christ, you are not a seed. You have been firmly rooted, and the person who's rooted you is Jesus Christ.

There's a picture of agriculture. What do things do that have been firmly rooted, it's implied that they are growing. What? How? Because he's working it in us.

The second one, being built up in him. This is an ongoing action, but it's still something done to us. I am being built up in him. Why? Why does that matter?

So that I can hold up and persevere. Some of you came in here today and life really has knocked you down. Can we be honest today? You came in here, you're struggling. If you were a building going up, you're one 2x4 standing up in the middle and there's nothing else attached to you.

He's working on you. He's building you up. You know the greatest— I used to have a shop teacher when I was in 8th grade. He was our welding teacher. And the way that he would grade our welds— his name was Mr. Hembree.

He's a big old dude, big farmer guy. He had this clamp on his table, and we would do a butt weld, and we'd bring it over to him, and he'd hold it with his channel locks, and he'd go, hmm. And he'd put it in the clamp, and he'd take those channel locks, and he'd break it.

And he'd go, okay, I'll give that about a B+. Because he could see how much of the weld actually went deep enough to hold it together. And see, Jesus knows. Jesus knows what's holding you together. And if it ain't strong enough, you know what he's going to do?

He's going to allow you to go through some suffering so he can break that weld so you can reweld it again. The 3rd verb here is being established in your faith. Again, that's present tense. You, you haven't arrived. Yes, You've presented faith unto salvation.

But now you're walking in life and things are going and something happens and he's established. You are firmly planted. Look back at verse number 5. Paul commends them and says, I'm rejoicing to see that your good discipline. And he says here, the stability of your faith.

That's a rare word. It's only used here. It means stiffness. I am stiff in my faith. There is no philosophy.

There is no influence that will move me from what I believe. If there is, then you have not been rooted, which means you have not received. You see how all that plays together? And what he's calling us to realize is that it's Christ's work in you. As Paul said, I'm confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will see it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Let me ask you a question. Are you confident like that too? Are you confident in the Word of God and his promise to you that he's still working in you? That he is working in you to bring about a desired result? Look at me.

Do you think God's given up on you?

Can I tell you something? That's a lie. God has not given up on you. You may have given up on God. You may have given up on yourself.

But today our Lord wants you to know he has not given up on you. That he is still wanting to work in you his workmanship. The things God prepared beforehand that we might walk in him. He wants to produce the work through you because he's already done the work. Number 4, if that's the case, then let's walk in our calling, not our own initiative.

I love what 2 Timothy 1:8-9 says here. Says he saved us and called us with a holy calling. Now I see 2 things at work there. The first thing is that I'm saved. Well, how am I saved?

When I have received Christ. He does the saving, folks, not me. Stop living this lie to think, well, if I get my life right, then Jesus will take me in. That's a lie. He's asking you to yield your life to him and let him do the work in you.

But then secondly from that is you have a calling. Not because you're holy— he's made you holy. Not because you're worthy— He's made you worthy.

You don't get right and then God say, okay, now I can do this, this, and this. The greatest miracle is the evidence that God's at work in you and he's called you to make an impact. It's not based on my plan. It's not based on my merit. It's based solely on his plan, his grace in Jesus Christ.

We must be founded in him. Him. Do you see in your life that you're rooted? He did that. Perfect tense.

That he's building you up and that he's establishing you in your faith. So again, I ask you, how are you walking? Does it mean— it seems to me there's only one logical conclusion this lands at in verse number 7, because he, he interjects this one verb that's just a past tense verb As you were instructed, as you were taught. It's like you run into your English teacher in Walmart. She said, you still reading those books?

Yes, ma'am. You still say yes, ma'am? Don't make me sic Wanda Carpenter on you.

You, you still remember. You still remember, just as you were instructed. In other words, you're walking in the word you have received.

But look at this, and overflowing with gratitude.

Colossians 1:28 says, we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ. Do you know what that produces? It produces gratitude. It produces thankfulness. Are you thankful this morning?

Wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think you understand. Like, are you thankful? Remember Philippians 4:6 says, don't be anxious for anything, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

The key to peace is thanksgiving. The key to peace this morning for you Is being able to realize God's not a cosmic bully. God is for me, not against me. He is in my corner and he wants me to succeed. He wouldn't root me, build me up, or establish me.

I've been taught this to be true. Embrace that. And what it does is it erupts with worship. Like, look at all these pictures you see. You see an agricultural picture here.

You see construction or engineering at play. You see this biological deal where you're being strengthened within. You see education when you're instructed. But now we're looking at nature overflowing. When you think overflowing, what do you think?

I remember years past when I served in Helen and we'd get a flood and the river would be up to the parking lot. And cars couldn't navigate down the road because the river was so over the banks. We saw the power of nature just a week ago for our brothers and sisters in Nepal. And in that way, the destructive power of a river. But I'm telling you the constructive power that worship can have in your life.

When we get to that place where we stop living as a divine victim. That God has just served me this platter of junk that I got to continually eat. But that God roots me, builds me up. He leads me. He's securing me.

He's establishing me. And these are things he's doing in my life as I follow the teaching that I have received. As I have received Christ Jesus, so I want to walk in him. I don't want to drag my legs. I want to gait like a horse running a race.

How are you walking? Because if you're walking, this is what I know to be true. Walk in thankfulness because we know what Christ has done.

I remember years ago I heard this guy at a youth conference or youth service. Let me say it that way. It wasn't a conference. I mean, I'm talking like 30 years ago. This dude, I call him a brother.

But he spent 45 minutes telling these kids how he wished God would have not called him to preach and how bad it was.

And I went, okay, every kid's going to leave the room today thinking, I'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole.

There was no— nothing in his voice that was thankful. I know I'm not worthy. I learned that a long time ago. I'm not worthy. I don't have it together.

Do you? If you have it together, you're a step above me because I, I don't have it together. There's days I'm a puddled mess in my faith. Do you— are you identifying? Can I hear an amen or something?

Like, like, none of us have it together, but if God's waiting for me to get it together to call me, I, I'm lost. I'm lost. There's no hope. There's no hope for this world if God's waiting for humanity to get it right. It took Jesus dying on the cross to save you, and it took Jesus dying on the cross to get you to walk.

Have you given up and sat down in the middle of the trail and just said, I'm just gonna wait for somebody to come get me? Or today, do you realize that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is ready to help you walk and run the race set before you. That's what our Savior wants to do. Let me express it a little bit poetically. I was a wretch.

I remember who I was. I was lost. I was blind. I was running out of time. Sin separated.

The breach was far too wide. But from the far side of the chasm, You held me in your sight. And here's the good news. So you made a way. You built across the great divide.

You left behind heaven's throne to build it here inside. And there at the cross, you paid the debt I owe, broke my chains, freed my soul. And for the first time, I had hope. You know why? You know why?

Thank you, Jesus, for the blood applied. Thank you, Jesus, it's washed me white. Thank you, Jesus, you have saved my life. You broke me out of darkness and into glorious light. Sometimes you need to slow down and listen and read what you sing because it's powerful.

I know who I was. I know from where I came. But I'm not that man anymore. And he's called me to walk. Listen to this.

For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. So let me meddle.

Can I meddle for a moment?

Some of you come in this room and you refuse to worship because you don't like the songs being picked. Can I tell you worship's bigger than a song you pick? Yeah, I like old songs, I like new songs, but you know who you hurt when you refuse to worship? Yourself. You know who else you hurt?

The person standing next to you with you standing there with your arms folded. You know, I went to church before And there was a guy who so loathed anything but old, old hymns. I watched him in service one time put his fingers in his ear going blah blah blah blah blah during church.

How many of us do that on the inside? How many of us look around the room and we see, see God doing something good in their life and we just fold our arms and just say, I wouldn't have done that for him. There's shackles on your walk.

Has he let— when was the last time you really worshiped and you surrendered and let it all go and you didn't worry about what the person beside you was thinking or feeling? In fact, we worship for a total of about 25 minutes in this room once a week. Is that all the worship you get? Folks, he's talking about a life overflowing with gratitude. I'm telling you, when you start tapping into that overflow, you're going to see where God's at work in the lives of other people, because we're all walking.

And it ought to bother me when somebody falls down. I ought to go back and help them pick up. It ought to bother me when somebody gets in the mud and it gets up to their knees. I ought to go help them get out of that muck, not sitting there going, what kind of person are you?

Folks, we're in this together.

And powerful things happen when we worship together. Don't you think for a moment about that man.

He's let down through the roof because they couldn't get in the front door. Aren't you thankful he had some friends that cared?

Oh, let me just be real for a moment. Everything in this world at some point is going to let me down. Jesus never does. If at the end of the day that's all I've got, I've got everything because I have Jesus. These men saw their friend who was crippled and lame, and I love the way that The Miracle Worker, the animated claymation version, has this because they go to the rooftop And the man on the mat, it's not going to work, it's not going to work.

He was naysaying, but the faith of his friends, they let him down. And instead of Jesus going, hey, he didn't do that. He said, your sins are forgiven. And everybody, oh, who is he? Who is he?

Folks, listen, don't be so sanctimonious that you don't think the same things the Pharisees thought.

They're sitting there mocking this. And Jesus perceived what they were thinking. He said, well, which is easier?

To say your sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up and walk?

Listen. He says, so that you know the Son of Man has authority, get up and go home.

Folks, Jesus is calling you home today. It's time to stop running. Time to stop playing games. It's time to stop letting your heart be hardened. Stop, stop, stop being jealous of other people.

Stop being judgmental of other people. Embrace the love that Jesus is offering and let God work in your life. Listen to what the result was. And he got up and he immediately picked up the pallet and went outside in the sight of everyone. He didn't crawl back through the roof.

You ever notice that? He didn't say, hey, let me down the line. I'm gonna, I'm gonna climb out the roof because I don't want nobody to know what Jesus just did in my life. So they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, we have never seen anything like this. Folks, some of you have never seen God at work in worship.

But we can't worship until we take the glory and the eyes off of us and start putting it on where it is. If you're here today and you don't know Jesus, don't leave this place until you do. Come up here. I'll be at the front. Randy's at the front.

Come and talk to us. And we would love to tell you how you can repent and believe in the man Jesus who came to this earth and died on a cross and was raised again, and he wants to give you eternal life. And you want to take it like a kid and tear that box open, wrapping and all, so you can have the gift that's inside. And that's what we want for you. If you're struggling, you're tired of the shackles on your, on your life, it's probably because it's a day of repentance for you.

Not to get your life cleaned up, not to walk out of here going, all right, these are the 10 things I'm going to do better. No, come Come and let him clean you.

And what about worship? How could worship change in your life on a daily basis? Not, not just on Sunday morning. I know I nitpick. It hurts my heart sometimes when I hear people say, well, if they just sing this song I'd sing.

You know, the songs we sing didn't exist even 100 years ago. And most hymns didn't exist until about 400 or 500 years ago. What'd they do for 1,500 years? Play tiddlywinks and twiddle their thumbs?

Apparently the disciples were so moved by what Jesus did in their life, they didn't have a worship service. They just went. Do you need a worship service to give you a little oomph? What if you came in with the oomph and then sang with gusto? How it would declare our God.

I'm going to keep on going. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for this people. Thank you for your word. I hope that the word sunk into their heart, not, not anything of my words, but your words, and that it would enliven us, move us, motivate us to walk in Christ.

In Jesus' name, amen.