Cross-Centered Church

So here's where we're going to go today. I, several years ago, we changed, what, two years, three years ago, changed the name of our church to Cross Assembly. It had been First Assembly of God, Riley. Then we changed it to Riley First Assembly. Then we changed it to RFA Church.

Perhaps we should call it, change your name to Schizophrenic Church, because we've been all over the place on this. But I made a commitment that once a year, I'd share with you why we changed the name of our church to Cross Assembly. And since we're between sermon series, January, I think we're going to go, I think we're going to go into the Book of Romans. I think that's what we're going to do in January.

But we're between series right now. And so I just wanted to take this Sunday to kind of live up to that commitment and share with you why we call our church Cross Assembly. And I'm going to be using some visuals here. And in fact, hey, Clay, or one of those guys, I just left an object lesson on the desk in there. If you guys could, one of y'all could go and grab the object lesson. It's a little brass thing if you'll go grab that for me.

I'm going to be using some visual stuff today. Now, here's the challenge. I don't know how this will translate into the radio, because y'all know we're on the radio, like, in three or four states.

Did y'all know that? Lord's expanded that radio ministry, AM and FM, and so if you're listening on the radio, and usually there's about a three or four-week delay. If you're listening on the radio and it doesn't translate over or whatever, just turn the dial to Rock 107 or whatever. Don't do that, it's devil music. Thank you, brother.

But at any rate, we're going to do our best today on this. Does anybody know...do you know what this is? We've got a little picture of this up here as well.

Y'all, have you ever heard of this before? It's called a sextant, be careful the way you pronounce it, sextant. I had a former naval officer give this to me as a gift.

What is a sextant? Before the days of GPS, this is how you figured out where you were on the ocean. I mean, imagine you're on a ship in the 1700s, you're on the ocean, and you don't know which way you're supposed to go.

It's dark. You've got thousands of miles of water before you. How do you know where to go? Well, you use one of these things called the sextant, and here's what it would do. It would measure where you're at based on the horizon and a fixed object like the North Star. If you have a fixed unchanging object, if you can measure that, you can know exactly where you are and what direction you're supposed to go in. But it's critical to have a fixed point. If you don't have a fixed point, you're going to be wandering around the ocean until you die. Spiritually, we have a fixed point. It's Jesus Christ and him crucified. The cross of Jesus Christ, that is our fixed unchanging point.

And that's not just for us. That was for the Apostle Paul. When the Apostle Paul lived and ministered, he was living during a time of changing philosophies, changing global leaders.

Do you think things were turbulent now? They were very turbulent in Paul's day, and yet Paul made it very clear, I have a fixed point. If I can focus on that fixed point, everything else starts to make sense. And for Paul, that fixed point was the cross of Jesus Christ. He says in 1 Corinthians 2, 1 through 2, and I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.

Look at this. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified, the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul says in Galatians 6, 14, but God forbid that I should boast except in the what? Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I love how theologian D.A.

Carson puts it. He says, quote, Paul cannot talk long about Christian joy or Christian ethics or Christian fellowship or the Christian doctrine of God or anything else without finally tying it to the cross. Cross, listen, Paul is cross-centered. Everything about him is Jesus Christ who died on that cross and came back to life.

That's, leave it to us to make things as complicated as we possibly can. It's about Jesus Christ dying on that cross for our sins. Now, listen, the pivotal event around which all of human history revolves is not the second coming of Jesus. I love talking about prophecy. Don't y'all second coming?

Y'all get into that? I get into prophecy. I'm looking forward to Jesus coming back. I'm looking for the rapture of the church. But understand this, end times prophecy, that is not the pivotal event of human history.

Hate to disappoint you. Christmas is not the pivotal event of human history. Christmas sets up the pivotal event, but that is not the pivotal event. The pivotal event of human history isn't somewhere off in the future. It's in the past. It's when Jesus Christ died on that cross. That is, listen to me, that is the issue. That is the event around which all human history revolves.

Y'all would be on that. And so I want to talk about that today. Why are we a cross-centered church? Why is our name cross assembly? I want you to understand, the cross is the center of everything in the Christian experience.

Now, I'm going to give you about five or six examples of this. Number one, jot this down, worship is centered around the cross. Worship is not centered around you. That's a challenge with some modern worship music.

We turn it in on ourselves. It's about us making me feel good, and then you come to church and you want us to be your personal iPod and play your personal favorite worship songs. Worship is not about you, it's about Jesus Christ and him crucified. He is the center of worship. And we see this in the book of Revelation. You know, Revelation 5 gives us a glimpse of what worship is like in heaven. You don't like worship down here because it's too loud, there's too many people in here, it's too noisy, people get too excited, you're not going to like worship in heaven.

Because in Revelation 5, worship is loud, it's a lot of people, it's active, it's exciting, and I want you to see this, Revelation 5, verse 9, and they sang, it's worship in heaven right now. They sang a new song saying, you were slain. Where is he slain? Where did he die at the cross? And you have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. Look at verse 12.

John heard millions of people singing, worthy is the Lamb. That was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory, and blessing. Listen, our worship is centered around Jesus Christ, the one that was slain at the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ, that is the center of our worship.

We worship the one Jesus Christ who was slain at the cross. The Presbyterian Church USA, a few years ago, did a study on whether to include a song in its hymnal. And they finally said, I don't know that we ought to put this in the hymnal.

Why? Because it mentions the blood of Jesus Christ. And they asked the authors of the song, they said, well, can we change this nasty word blood? Can we change it to something else and then we can include this in the hymn book?

And the hymn writer said, absolutely not. It all goes back to the cross of Jesus Christ and the blood of Jesus Christ. You don't take the blood out of our song.

So we live in a squeamish society. We like the nice white Jesus who walks around telling everybody to love each other and carry sheep all over the place. But we don't like the bloody, bruised, torn Jesus Christ who died for our sins at the cross.

We don't like the blood, do we? The United Methodist Church, they were ahead of the ballgame on this. They spent years just taking out every song in their hymn book that mentioned the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ because it turns people. There's almost an embarrassment of the cross of Jesus Christ. I was talking to somebody who was a member of a cult, a sect, whatever, and they said, we don't like crosses. They said, why do you have crosses at your church? And I said, because that's where Jesus died from. I'd be going to hell if it wasn't for that Jesus who died at that cross. And they were like, no, you know, our group, we don't have any crosses all over the place, we're embarrassed of the cross.

It's a bad thing. Embarrassed of the cross. Heard a story one time of a young girl who was deeply ashamed of her mama. She said, Mom, you got the ugliest hands in the world.

My friends talk about how nasty your hands are, I'm embarrassed of your hands. In fact, she would often ask her mom to wear gloves to cover up her ugly hands. One day, the girl asked her mom, by the way, mama, how'd your hands get to be so ugly?

She said, well, here's what happened. When you were a baby, you poured a pot of boiling water from the stove. I pushed you out of the way and I caught that pot, and as a result, my hands were scarred for life.

You know that? After that day, that little girl was proud of her mama's hands. To her, they were the most beautiful hands in the world because those hands saved her life. Why am I proud of the cross of Jesus Christ? Because it's on that cross that my soul was saved from a devil's hell.

I'm going to heaven because of that cross. So worship is centered around Jesus Christ and him crucified, even in heaven right now. Two thousand years after the cross, they're still singing about the lamb that was slain. Number two, the work of the Holy Spirit is centered around the cross. Look at Luke 24, 46. Jesus says to his disciples, this is right before he ascends into heaven, thus it is written and thus it was necessary, look at this, for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. That's the cross right there. The Messiah had to die on the cross to pay the punishment for the sins of mankind, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but wait in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.

Isn't that great? Verse 46, Jesus says, I suffered at the cross. Verse 49, I'm going to send you this promise called the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Why? He tells you right there. So you'll be empowered to go share Jesus with everybody. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was given to you by God to empower you to be a witness for that Jesus Christ who died on that cross. That's the purpose of the baptism of the Spirit. Now, we are a Pentecostal church, right? Okay. And so a lot of people think Pentecostal churches are centered around the Holy Spirit.

Listen to me. You push Jesus out of the center and you put the Holy Spirit in the center, things get real weird real fast. Jesus says in John 15, 26, when the Spirit comes, he's going to point people to me.

That's the job of the Holy Spirit. And so I remember when I was a young Baptist pastor seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and I would go to these Holy Spirit conferences. And I went to one one time that said, now, if you're a pastor, here's what they said, if you're a pastor seeking the baptism of the Spirit, you want a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit, come up on the platform.

There's a lot of people there. And I said, I'm going to go up. And so I go up to the platform and the guy starts laying hands on people and every person, have you ever heard of this term, slain in the Spirit? Everyone, they get slain in the Spirit.

They all fall, slain in the Spirit, slain. And I'm seeing this coming closer and closer to me. And I said, what do I do? And he puts his hand on me and I didn't feel anything. And so in my mind, I'm thinking, do I do a courtesy fall?

What do I do? Now, look, I am not against people getting slain in the Spirit and falling out of the Spirit. It happens. I've seen it happen. Some people have such a powerful touch from God, they can't stand up. I'm not against that at all.

Here's what I'm against. I'm against you using a non-biblical phenomenon to determine whether the Holy Spirit is moving or not. You do understand there's not an example in the Bible of a Christian being slain in the Spirit.

You do understand that, right? So why are we using non-biblical phenomenon to decide whether the Holy Spirit is moving or not? Again, I'm not against being slain in the Spirit. But if I'm reading that correctly, when you get filled with the Holy Spirit, you can't help it. You just start talking to people about Jesus. So my question is not, do you hit the ground when you get baptized in the Spirit?

My question is, what do you do when you get up off the ground? When you get up off the ground, you can talk to people about Jesus Christ. Even the baptism of the Spirit is here to empower us to proclaim Jesus Christ, the one who died on the cross. Look at this, racial reconciliation is centered around the cross. It's been the biggest issue in America for the last several years. We have a bad history of racism, I get it.

We have a lot of things that we need to be ashamed of, I get it. But this racism thing, our society is scratching their head trying to figure out how to solve the race problem. In fact, I just got finished watching this documentary. Have you ever heard of this documentary? It's called, Am I Racist? by Matt Walsh. I just got through watching that and three things stood out to me about...

If you haven't watched that documentary, you need to watch it. Three things stood out. Number one, how ridiculous the elites sound. I used to be impressed with people who had titles. In fact, I wanted a title.

I think I've told you all this before. I wanted to be one of these elites and I actually started a PhD program because I wanted to be a PhD. And then in theology, they had an old theological degree called LitD, Doctor of Literature. And then they had a DD.

You heard of this? The Doctor of Divinity. PhD, LitD, DD.

I was so impressed until I realized when you put them together, it spells fiddly DD. I don't really care about this stuff anymore. And so I'm amazed at how ridiculous the brilliant elites sound. That's number one. And the number two thing that stood out is the racism industry is a huge money-making industry.

There's a lot of people making a lot of money off this thing. And then the third thing that stood out is how clueless our society is on how to deal with this issue. Do you know the cross is the answer to racism? Did you know that? Here's what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2, verse 14, where Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles, whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos. Look, he united us into one people when in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles, whites, blacks, rich, poor. He made peace by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.

Do you see this? The cross is the answer to racism, that when I get saved, I'm no longer a white person. When you get saved, you're no longer just a black person. We are now a new racial group called Christian, body of Christ.

We are now brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. That's what Paul is saying. Now, I understand we haven't gotten that right in the past.

I get it. But Paul is saying right there, that's the cure for racism. And how does the cross destroy racism? Well, it does it in three ways. Number one, jot this down. Would you see this PowerPoint picture here?

It's kind of this triangulation. When Jesus Christ and him crucified is the passion of my life, I just want to know Jesus. I just focus on what he did for me at the cross. And I get...watch this, as I start pursuing Jesus and get closer to Jesus, and my African-American, or Asian, or Latino, or Pacific Islander, I don't know, offend somebody, Native American, you get it.

When they start pursuing Jesus Christ, what happens? The closer we get to Jesus, the closer we get to each other. Only Jesus can do that. The second way that the cross destroys racism is this.

Racism is grounded in superiority. At the cross, we realize none of us is superior to anybody else. We are all messed up, sinful people. And at the cross, I realize I am as messed up as that sister who's as messed up as that brother who's as messed up as that sister. We are all messed up people. Listen to me, the ground is level at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.

And the third way that the cross breaks up racism, Jesus makes us very clear in Scripture, if I've received forgiveness from the Lord Jesus Christ, I now have a biblical obligation to extend that forgiveness to other people. Listen to me, a marriage will never survive as long as the wife, every time there's some tension, reminds the husband of how he cheated on her 30 years ago. That marriage is not going to make it. When you go through a tough time and you keep reminding that that spouse of the failures, that's not a good marriage. As followers of Jesus Christ, it's not good to continually remind ourselves day after day after day how messed up this whole race stuff was.

I get it. We need to learn from our lessons of history. But at some point, as followers of Jesus Christ, we've got to love each other, forgive each other. The forgiveness that was given to us, we've got to extend and just move on in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The cross destroys racism. Number four, jot this down. This is one of the biggest issues we're dealing with in our society.

Overcoming fear and anxiety. Maybe I'm just being simplistic here, but I think even that goes back to the cross of Jesus Christ because I want you to see this beautiful passage. This is Hebrews 2. We don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews.

Some say it's Paul, we just don't know. But the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 2.14 says this, for only as a human being could he die. And only by dying, stop, where did he die?

At the cross of Jesus Christ. Only as a human being could he die and only by dying could he break the power of the devil who had the power of death, verse 15. And only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

Do you see what he's saying here? The author of Hebrews is saying, Jesus' death at the cross makes it possible for me to have eternal life. And if I have eternal life, I don't have to be afraid of dying anymore. Do you know this, eternal life does not begin, Christian, when you die. Eternal life begins the moment you give your life to Jesus Christ. Jesus had the audacity to say this. He says, he, she that believeth in me will never die. You know, if I know my sins have been forgiven, if I know that Jesus Christ is now Lord of my life, and if I know that the moment I close my eyes in death in this world, I open my eyes in the next world, staring at the face of Jesus Christ, according to that verse right there, look what he says. It says, that frees us from the fear of death.

Now, here's my point. Freedom from the greater fear releases us from all the lesser fears as well. If I've ceased being afraid of dying, there's not a whole lot more left to be afraid of. I've talked to people who had cancer, the cancer diagnosis, and the doctor said, you know, it doesn't look good, it's terminal.

And they fought cancer, and they beat cancer, and I asked them what changed. They said, I'm not afraid of dying anymore. Listen to me, once Jesus Christ frees you from the fear of death, all the other fears just kind of fall into place. So, you hear me on that? That's the big fear.

Look, if you can bench press 350 pounds, you can probably bench press 100 pounds. If you can overcome this magnificent, horrible, awful fear of death, there's not a whole lot more to be afraid of, church. Where did that fear of death get broken? That verse is right there, at the cross of Jesus Christ.

Let me give you another. Holy living goes back to the cross of Jesus Christ. Look, at this church, we're not legalistic, but we emphasize holy living.

If you're going to act like a Christian, if you're going to name the name of Jesus and say you're a Christian, you better act like a Christian. You know, we talk about how messed up this society is, and how our society is going to hell. I'm now to the point, the problem is not that the society is going to hell and they're all messed up.

Can I give you news? Sinners sin. They're going to sin.

We should not be surprised when our society acts sinful. Sinners are going to sin. The problem is not that the sinners sin. The problem is the saints, who are not supposed to be like the sinning sinners, are sometimes more sinful than the sinning sinners that are supposed to sin.

That's the problem. And yet, at the cross of Jesus Christ, we see that power of sin broken. Romans 6 verse 6, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin, look at this, so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We're no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. Look at verse 10. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin.

Here's what Paul is saying, it's fascinating. In some metaphysical way, when Jesus Christ died at the cross 2,000 years ago, he knew everybody was going to get saved in the future. When he died 2,000 years ago, in some sense, you died on the cross of Jesus Christ. That old you, that old nasty fleshly you died with Jesus Christ. Implication, the power of sin has been broken in your life. Before you got saved, when Satan said, jump, you had to say, how high? Now that you're saved, you don't have to live like that anymore. You don't have to be a slave to porn, and the flesh, and all this mess. You've been set free when?

At the cross of Jesus Christ. I was reading this thing about prisoners who've been in the prison for years, and like decades. It's really interesting how after you've been in prison for decades, you get a prison mindset. And a lot of these men and women, when they're released from prison, they can't cope in society.

They don't know what it's like. How do I cope as a free person? I need somebody to tell me what time to eat, what time to go to bed.

I need somebody to tell me how to live my life. Now I'm free, I've been in prison for decades, I can't handle it. And a lot of these people commit crimes so that they can go back to prison.

I think you saw something like that on that movie Shawshank Redemption. My brain, I'm free now, but I have a prisoner mindset. Listen to me, that's the problem with a lot of Christians. Jesus Christ set you free when you got saved, and yet you have a prisoner mindset. You think you're still a slave to your lust, to porn, to this, to that. You've been set free through the Lord Jesus Christ. Live by the power of the Spirit in that freedom. You were set free at the cross 2,000 years ago, okay?

Let me give you a couple more here. Even healing, y'all believe in divine healing? No, I'm serious, y'all really believe that God supernaturally heals people today. Y'all believe that?

You know what's interesting? Anytime we see somebody in our church supernaturally healed, we've got great testimonies, we all get excited and amazed. No, we shouldn't be, that's normal Christianity. In the book of Acts, you see people getting healed all the time. I look forward to the day when the Spirit of God is healing so many people that we are surprised when somebody doesn't get healed. And yet, even healing, and this is going to be controversial.

Some of y'all are going to disagree with me on this. But in my humble but correct opinion, healing even goes back to the cross of Jesus Christ. I want you to look, if you would, at Isaiah 53.5. This is a prophecy of Jesus dying on the cross. And it says in Isaiah 53.5, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his stripes, his body is being torn to shreds, by his stripes, we are healed.

Now, here's what the skeptics will say, no, no, no. Isaiah is not talking about physical healing. He's talking about spiritual healing. That's what he means. Why would y'all take something that is meant spiritually and you take it literally at the cross of Jesus Christ?

Watch this. Part of the curse of the fall of man is that sickness entered the world. Jesus came to begin to reverse that curse. And so if part of the curse of the fall of man was sickness and Jesus came to reverse that curse, doesn't it make sense that sometimes our bodies would start manifesting that reversal of the curse and they would be healed? Now, here's the question, why are you taking something, Chad, that's obviously spiritual and you're using it literally?

Here's why I do that. Because in Matthew 8, verse 17, Matthew, y'all know who he is? One of the disciples of Jesus. He sees Jesus physically healing people, physically healing people. Do you know what Matthew says? Matthew says, this fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah 53 that by his stripes we are healed. In other words, Matthew does not take this spiritually or allegorically. Matthew takes this literally. So we do believe, y'all just staring at me, are you with me on that? Does that... I'm trying to get out of saying, does that make sense because I say it all the time. But I do want to make sure. Matthew doesn't take this allegorically, he takes it literally, that something at the cross of Jesus Christ was going to happen to break the power of even sickness in our bodies.

Let me give you a couple more. Freedom from guilt and condemnation, it goes back to the cross of Jesus Christ. Romans 8, 1, so there's now no condemnation. How much condemnation? No condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

Why? Verse 3, because God did what the law could not do. He sent his own son in a body like the bodies we sinners have and in that body, God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins. Where was he given as a sacrifice at the cross?

Here's what the Bible say, if you're a born-again believer, the moment you say yes to Jesus, your sins are forgiven. Why? Because he died for your sins at the cross. You don't have to carry that anymore.

Even... I heard, I think it was Billy Graham quoted a prominent psychologist one time who said this, I could release 90% of my patients if I could release them from a sense of guilt. See, some of you all carrying stuff around that's already been paid for, that Jesus already died for, you're still carrying that stuff around.

Let it go in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for it at the cross. And I love this great story that the pastor Adrian Rogers told. He told a story back in the agriculture days of a man going down the road carrying a large, heavy sack of corn. This kind old man is on his horse-drawn carriage and he stops and he tells the guy, man, get up on my wagon. The guy climbs up on the wagon and he's holding on to that corn. And after a few miles, the farmer who's driving the wagon looks at him and says, hey, look, you can put that corn down if you want. Here's what the guy said, no, sir, you've been so kind to give me a ride, I'm not going to ask you to carry my cargo as well. Jesus is carrying you from here to heaven. And he says, you know, you can also let down that guilt if you want.

It's been paid for. You don't have to carry this anymore. Let me give you one more because I'm running out of time here. See, what I'm saying is that the cross is the center of everything.

Here's another one. We do believe that there are demonic forces at work in our world today. Do you know what breaks the power of Satan? Do you know what Satan is more terrified than anything else and what he hates more than anything else? It's the cross of Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ. The cross is a constant reminder to Satan.

You lost and he won. He hates the cross. And here's what the Bible says in Colossians 2.14, Jesus canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. And in this way, he disarmed spiritual rulers and authorities. He disarmed Satan at the cross. Revelation 12 and 11, they overcome Satan by the blood of the lamb.

Church, here's what I'm trying to tell you. Everything we do as followers of Jesus Christ goes back to Jesus Christ and him crucified. We've got to proclaim the cross. We've got to lift up the Jesus who died on the cross. We can't be embarrassed of the cross. It all goes back to the cross. Billy Graham told a story years ago in one of his crusades. He said a little boy was trying to find his way home.

It's a foggy, rainy night in London. Eventually, he got so turned around, he didn't know where he was. He was totally lost. A London police officer noticed the little boy and asked him if there was a problem.

The boy was crying, sobbing. He was afraid. He explained to the officer he didn't know where he was and he didn't know how to get home. When the officer asked where he lived, the boy was so tired and scared, he couldn't even remember. He couldn't remember a street name, a shop, a fire station. So the policeman asked him, do you live near Big Ben?

That giant clock tower. He said, no, I don't live near there. He said, do you live near the Parliament building? The boy said, no, I don't live there.

He named all these different buildings street after street, but they were all unfamiliar to the little boy. The policeman then remembered the large cross on a church downtown. He said, so you know that big church downtown with the big cross on it?

Do you live near there? The little boy's face instantly lit up and he said, oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir, take me to the cross. If I can get to the cross, I can find my way home. This church boldly proclaims to a lost and dying world. It's our job to get you to the cross. And if you can get yourself to the cross, we can find your way back to the heart of the Father. It's all about Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Pastor Danny, our Benson campus pastor, had an experience a little while back. There's a reason why we put three crosses up out front of our church. We're just trying to proclaim to this world. We're not against Lions Club. We're not a glorified Lions Club. We're not a Rotary Club. We're not any of that.

We're a church that proclaims Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And Danny looked outside one day and there was a truck driver standing underneath those three crosses just sobbing. So Danny went outside and he said, sir, can I help you?

Man, just sobbing. He said, man, I grew up in the mountains and as a little boy, there's a field beside my house that had three crosses in that field. He said, for the last however many years, I've been living a messed up, sinful life and I am absolutely miserable.

And when I saw those three crosses today, I was reminded of how far I've fallen. And I pulled off the interstate and I called my boss and I said, boss, and I'm supposed to make my delivery, but I can't see because my eyes are filled with tears. I told my boss what I was doing, that I was going to be late. The boss said, hold on a second.

Went to the internet, looked up our church online and said, it looks like a pretty good church, take as long as you need. And there under those three crosses, Danny led that man to the Lord Jesus Christ. He found the cross and if he can find the cross, he can find your way back home.

So I want you to bow with me now. I want to give you the bad news and I'm going to give you the best news you've ever heard. The bad news is you're a sinner and I'm a sinner. And our sins have separated us from the holy, righteous God of the universe.

We are all under God's righteous condemnation because we are all sinful, rebellious people. And God could have just said, to hell with all of you all. But 2,000 years ago, God said to heaven with you, I'm going to send my son into this world.

I'm going to become a man. That man's name was Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and every sin you and I have ever committed that would send us to hell, 2,000 years ago on a hill outside of Jerusalem, Israel, Jesus was crucified for. All of our sins were placed on Jesus Christ. Somebody's going to have to pay for your sins. Either you're going to have to pay for it or somebody else is going to. Thank God 2,000 years ago, somebody else paid for your sins.

He was buried, he came back to life, he is alive today. And now if you'll repent of your sins, turn away from your sins, and just turn to Jesus and place your trust in him, Jesus will come in and take control of your life and forgive you of all of your sins. And when you die, you will go to heaven. If you've never done that before, I want you to bow your head right now and I want you to think about everybody else in this place and don't just repeat words.

I've said this a million times. The mantras don't save you, magical words don't save you, Jesus saves you. But if this captures what's going on in your heart, I want you to say something like this to Jesus. I want you to say, Jesus, I am a sinner.

I don't deserve to go to heaven. Jesus, I believe you died for my sins, tell them that. You died for my sins. You paid the price for my sins. I believe you were buried, and three days later, I believe God raised you from the dead.

Now, this is so important. Say to him right now, Jesus, I turn away from all my sins, and I turn to you. Please forgive me of my sins. Come and take control of my life. When I die, please take me to heaven. He said, Jan, is that it? Don't I have to burn a candle and burn some incense, say some Hail Marys?

No, no, no. Here's what the Bible says. All who simply call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. If you have called upon the name of the Lord with a sincere heart, according to the Word of God, you'll be saved. Thank you, Father, for that precious gift of Jesus, who lived the life we should have lived, who died to death.

We really should have died. Thank you for the greatest treasure you've ever given us, Jesus Christ, in Him crucified. People of God, say Amen. Hey, would you stand with me now, just kind of going over the various and sundry names of our churches through the years. Cross assembly is it, we're not changing it for another year or two, okay?

That's it. I just, my mind just started thinking about how much we've been through together, good times, challenging times. I've done funerals for some of your families. I've married your kids and dedicated your grandkids, and I don't know, church, maybe this is the time of year or Thanksgiving, but my heart today is overfilled with gratitude for you and for God, who's just been good.

I mean, again, let's not make this complicated. Would you agree He's been a good God? He's just been a good God.

And so let's just close today. I like this. I like praying songs to God. So can we pray this song to the God who's been good to us as a church?

Lift your hands and lift your voices. Let's sing this to the Lord. And all my life you have been faithful And all my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God Your goodness, your goodness is running after, is running after me Yes, it is.

Your goodness is running after, is running after me With my life made now, I surrender now I give you everything Your goodness is running after, is running after me Your goodness, your goodness is running after, is running after me Your goodness is running after, is running after me With my life laid down, I surrender now I give you everything Your goodness is running after, is running after me And all my life, cause all my life you have been faithful And all my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God I told you just a second ago, Satan is real, demons are real, evil is real, all that stuff is real. But they're terrified of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible says something really interesting. We are covered in the blood of Jesus.

That cross that was shed in 2008, we're covered in that. So everywhere we go, demons ought to flee and get scared. And they ought to be more afraid of us than we are of them. That's why I say to you, church, chazak be'matz. Alta erot, y'all ought to ket. He emecha adonai elehecha b'ho asher telach. Which means, church, be bold, be strong, do not be afraid, and do not be terrified of anything, for the Lord your God is going to be with you everywhere you go. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen and Amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go take the world for Jesus Christ. God bless you.