Why Religion Feels Heavy

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So hopefully you can find your way there. All right, we are gonna wrap up our series, Relief Today, and I'm really excited about today's message. We're gonna go deep today, gonna give you a lot of stuff for you to think about, hopefully when you walk out of today, you're gonna see the gospel, you're gonna see God, you're gonna see a variety of things in a brand new way. If I ask most people why they struggle with faith, they would probably say something like, I'm not really sure God exists, or maybe I struggle with doubt,

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but what if the real obstacle isn't doubt? What if the real obstacle to faith is religion?

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Because a lot of what is preached in churches isn't actually the message of Jesus.

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It's something else.

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Something that looks spiritual,

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something that sounds biblical, but underneath it all is moralism.

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And people by the millions are caught in its web and lured into a snare of shined up religion and dressed up behavior.

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Now you say, what is moralism? Moralism is an exaggerated emphasis on behavior,

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and its message is seductive, and once embraced, it is difficult to escape. And when it's preached with passion, and it's preached with fire, it's preached with excitement, it is tough to detect because it sounds so right. And the person up front is preaching with such fury and such passion and such giftedness, you're like, oh, that must be the gospel.

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I mean, who doesn't want to see improved behavior in their kids or spouses or government or society at large? And we all know that we have behaviors that we don't like,

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behaviors that cause relational problems, health problems, financial problems, of course, we wanna see behaviors improve. But changing behavior is not the gospel.

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No matter how good it seems or how helpful the results, the gospel is not behavior modification, the gospel is heart transformation. I want you to sit with that for a moment. The gospel is not behavior modification, the gospel is heart transformation.

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Listen to the passion of Apostle Paul in Galatians 1. I am astonished, some translation says, I am shocked, or I'm amazed, one translation says, I'm betwixt, meaning I am just, it's bewitching to me, it's confusing to me. I am astonished, he's talking to Christians, early church Christians, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a what?

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Different gospel.

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So it is clear from this passage, there is another gospel. And this other gospel is preached, is written about, is supported financially, churches are built around it, pastors promote it, conferences teach it. The question is, can you detect it?

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There is a market for this other gospel, but the other gospel doesn't free you, it ensnares you. The other gospel does not bring hope, it brings despair. This other gospel promises life, but it is a minister of death and it will never bring relief. And that's what we're talking about today. Again, the Apostle Paul, this comes from Romans 7.10, listen to what he says, "The very commandment "that promised life proved to be death to me." So something that promises life, Paul says, actually, when I got into it, it didn't bring life, it brought death. Commandments that promised life ended in death. Rules that guarantee freedom ended in bondage. Shoulds and nots that assume relief only brought me more and more under the snare of bondage.

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2 Corinthians 3, "Who has made us qualified "to be ministers of a new covenant?" Make sure you pay attention to that, we're gonna dive into that in a moment. Who has made us qualified to be ministers of a new covenant? Not of letter, but of spirit for the letter kills,

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but the spirit gives life. So there is a letter, there is a message that kills, and there is a spirit, there is a message that gives life.

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Now listen to how Paul continues on with that verse. Listen to this, it's all in your notes if you're following along. Now if this is verse seven of Galatians, now if the ministry of death, think about that, there's a ministry of death. If the ministry of death, watch this line, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, what is he talking about?

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Chiseled in letters on stone tablets, what's he talking about? If that ministry of death chiseled in letters on stone tablets came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze on Moses' face because of the glory on his face, a glory now set aside, Paul says there's a greater glory here now, how much more will the ministry of the spirit come in glory?

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Paul is showing how the 10 commandments, that's what he means by these chiseled letters in stone, he's talking about the 10 commandments that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. He is showing that the 10 commandments came in glory so much so that the Israelites could not look on the face of Moses because he was radiating from God's presence when he walked down Mount Sinai, carrying the 10 commandments. Paul says yet those commandments that are chiseled in stone are actually a ministry of death.

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Folks, that's radical.

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And that is shocking to his Jewish audience.

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Why?

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The 10 commandments primarily addressed behaviors and improving behaviors has many benefits. Improving habits can enrich one's life, helping one financially, increasing life expectancy, but that is completely different than spirit infused living because behavior cannot create life. Behavior matters, but behavior cannot create life. Life creates behavior, completely different. But this other gospel that Paul's talking about, this ministry of death is alluring for several reasons.

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One reason it is so popular is because this other gospel provides a covering for bad character.

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This is why people are so shocked when someone we look up to or respect does something contrary to what they preach or they say they believe. They maintain an outer appearance of good behavior.

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They followed along the commandments, the aughts, the shoulds, but their character did not have the same quality. They may have gone to church, volunteered, promoted positive things on social media. You never saw them drunk or high. They never had an affair publicly, but then all of a sudden, boom, their private life is exposed and people are shocked. Why? Because their inner character betrayed their outer behavior.

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This other gospel is alluring and popular because this other gospel gives us permission to feel superior.

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When we use behavior as a scoreboard and we check ourself based on our behavior and we check other people based on their behavior, it causes us to notice someone who's not living up to our particular level and we judge them as being inferior to us.

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Behavior is important, don't get me wrong, but never assume because someone exhibits a specific behavior in public that they are better or worse than anyone else.

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Lastly, the other gospel is alluring

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because the other gospel promises what it can't deliver.

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Some people think that if I just keep these good works up, eventually I'll be free from temptation or addiction or whatever, not true. Behavior plays a role, but behavior doesn't change the heart. The heart changes behavior and we have to get that right.

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This is why the 10 commandments were never the final and complete revelation of God. They were the basics, the beginning, 1.0, if you will. And when Paul refers to them, he refers to them as that which killed a ministry of death. Why in the world would Paul refer to the law as a ministry of death because law creates pressure.

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How does the law create pressure? The law creates pressure, one, by condemning us.

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Commandments build pressure.

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Here's your commandments. Don't lie, don't steal, don't kill, all the way down the line. And what happens when commandments are laid out? We lie, we steal, we kill.

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Commandments show you where the boundaries are and they dare you to step over those boundaries and when you do, the commandments then judge you guilty and condemn you to punishment, but they can't change your heart.

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The other reason the gospel like this is so alluring to people and creates pressure on people instead of life is because it fails to solve the problem.

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Law never delivers.

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Law never sets us free.

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Law reveals law breakers. Guilty people, shame filled men and women. We think by hanging the 10 commandments up that we will somehow help people live better. See those commandments, follow those commandments. It will inspire people to do the right thing if they read the commandments. No, it will not.

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The commandments are holy, the commandments are good, but they were never meant to produce life. They only were meant to reveal the problem, not cure the problem.

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Why? Because the root problem is not behavior.

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The root problem is the heart.

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The root of our problem is not poor behavior. Poor behavior is the fruit of our problem. The root of our problem is internal, not external. The law deals with the externals, the gospel deals with the internals, and we have to get that right. And that's not what I say, that's what Jesus says.

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Matthew 15, I'm gonna read a portion and then put some of it up here on the screen for you. Matthew 15, listen to what he says. Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand." So whenever I say, "Hey, listen up, pay attention." I picked that up from Jesus. Verily, verily, I say unto you, listen up, pay attention. Everybody be on guard, pay attention to what's coming next. Jesus says, "Listen and understand "to what I'm getting ready to say."

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It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it's what comes out of the mouth that defiles.

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And if you're like, "I don't really understand that," well, join the crowd because Peter didn't understand it either. Peter says in verse 15, "I don't get it, explain it to me."

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And Jesus comes back and says, Peter, do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? Watch this. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.

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What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart. What comes out of the mouth proceeds and erupts from the heart, and this is what defiles.

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For out of the heart, Jesus said, come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. And he's talking to a Jewish audience when he says this, "But to eat with unwashed hands, that doesn't defile."

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Do you know how radical that was to a Jewish audience for Jesus to say that? They had ceremonial washing on everything. And Jesus is like, "Well, if you don't wash your hands "before you eat, that doesn't defile you. "That doesn't make you sinful."

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Now, do not misunderstand

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what you do on the outside matters. What you consume through your eyes and ears and mouth matters. Everything affects some part of who you are. What you think about affects how you feel and how you feel affects how you act. So Jesus is not saying, Jesus is not saying, I am not saying that it doesn't matter what you eat or drink or watch or listen to. That's not the point of what he's talking about here. He is saying this. Stop thinking to a Jewish audience, imagine how radical this was. Stop thinking eating pork or failing to wash your hands and ceremonial cleansing or picking up a box to help your spouse on the Sabbath. Stop thinking that stuff defiles you.

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Our world's problems are not caused by watching a series on Netflix or going to a concert in Norfolk.

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Our world's problems are caused by greed and lust and hatred and racism and dishonesty. It is what comes up and out of the heart that defiles. It's always internal.

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These other things, these other behaviors, they may be unwise. They may result in problems on a lot of different levels, but they do not corrupt you in and of themselves. The gospel is not behavior modification. The gospel is heart transformation.

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God didn't come to polish up your behavior. He came to give you a new heart. And Forest Park is not here to teach you how to behave better here and behave better there and polish up your behavior and polish up behavior and send you home with four more behaviors to carry out this week. That's not our goal. Our goal is to do everything we can to teach you how to follow Jesus and Jesus gives you a new heart. And when your heart is changed, your behavior modifies.

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So where do we start with this heart transformation?

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Here it is. And I want you to pay very careful attention because we're gonna go deep and then we're gonna come up for some air in a moment, okay? Here it is, the blood of Jesus.

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Now, if you pay attention to our singing and preaching, you will hear references to the blood of Jesus. In fact, one of our songs this morning that was sung had the reference to the blood of Jesus in it. You will hear me refer to it during communion as I did last Sunday when we received communion.

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And to those of you who are new to Christianity, maybe new to this type of church, it just sounds horrific. You might conclude Christians are obsessed with violence and drinking blood, what's going on? But when you learn, when you learn about the meaning and the application of the blood of Jesus suddenly like a flash of insight and a wave of truth, the blood becomes the most beautiful thought imaginable. And I need you to sit up and I need you to pay careful attention because I'm telling you, this is gonna change everything if you allow it to.

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The Bible contains two documents. Unfortunately named the Old Testament and the New Testament. The correct naming of these two documents should be Old Covenant, New Covenant. Old Covenant was law. New Covenant, grace.

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The Old Covenant is the covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses as I referred to a moment ago when he walked down with the Ten Commandments. It was a covenant of law based on the Ten Commandments which Paul refers to as the ministry of death.

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It was a sacrificial system offering up the spilt blood of lambs and bulls and goats and all of that spilt blood covered over the sins of people.

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It was in effect for many centuries.

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The New Covenant, the one that we now live under is called new because it made all going before it obsolete.

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It was not merely an improvement on the Old Covenant. What we live under is not the Old Covenant 2.0. It's not an improved version of the Old Covenant. It's set aside the other covenant and this is a new kind of covenant. Now in a sense, this New Covenant knew in the sense that nobody had ever thought about, nobody had ever dreamed about this covenant before. This was brand new and Jesus launched it. Again, the Old Covenant came through Moses and was made possible through the law

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and we had availability of the Old Covenant through the blood of animals.

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The New Covenant was enacted through Jesus and made possible how? Through his blood.

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The Hebrew word covenant means to bind or to fetter. It was a binding obligation. Simply put, a covenant is an unbreakable promise sealed by blood.

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In the Bible, covenants were for the most part made one-sidedly. Somebody strong, somebody powerful, somebody wealthy and successful, somebody superior would enforce a covenant on a person of lesser power and lesser position.

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In the making of covenants between clans and tribes and people, there were certain ingredients that were always present. If you study anthropology, you look at human history, you'll find tribes in the most remote parts of the world that have some kind of covenant that they enter into, whether it's scars or tattoos or the drinking of blood or all kinds of different things, there were covenants that are made everywhere. In other words, where covenants were formed, there were specific rituals and symbols and ways of marking this is a covenant.

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When God chose to form a covenant with us, he used the same pattern of covenant making that humans had done for thousands of years. He used our understanding, our ways of thinking. He got down to where we lived. He used our vernacular, our understanding, our language, our cultural things and he used those settings to reveal himself to us by way of covenant. Why? Because as humans for thousands of years all around the world, we understood covenant language. We got it. People from all over the known world at that time had used various forms of covenants so covenants made sense to us. So when God chose to redeem us, to forgive us, to express his immeasurable grace and eternal love, he used the language that we understood

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and in the Bible, the language that was understood was covenant language and the symbols and the rituals of covenants. So what did God do? He met us in our language within our culture. He used the human language known and understood at the time and in his unconditional love for us, he invited us to participate in the most intimate relationship and the most unbreakable bond known to humanity. He invited us into a covenant with him, the superior one and us, the inferior one and he joined us together by way of covenant and sealed it in his blood, knowing that he would never ever ever break his promise to us. We might break it, but he won't break it because it was sealed by his blood.

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It is the everlasting oath of God.

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Hebrews chapter six, God also bound himself. Think about that God binding himself, making a promise that he himself cannot break.

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God also bound himself with an oath so that those who received the promise, that's you,

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that's me, those who received the promise could be perfectly sure

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that he would never change his mind.

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You might change your mind, but he won't.

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You might fail, but he won't. You might not keep your end of the deal, but he will. And how did he do it? Matthew 26, for this is my blood which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many.

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Now, how does the blood of Jesus, this covenant, free us from moralism, from rules and commandments, from the tyranny of behavior, from the ministry of death?

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We have to understand that God first is not a vending machine.

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If you were with us last week, you remember I told you you kind of dispelled the idea that God is a vending machine. Many of us were taught and we still practice this. There's people sitting right here watching online. I can almost guarantee you, you see God, you would never say it, but you interact with God. Your prayers are like this. Your worship is like this. Your giving is like this. Everything is like God is a vending machine.

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Basically, we were taught this version of God that you put in the right coins, you collect the right coins, the right prayers, the right amount of faith, you do the right things, put the right change in, pull the right strings, and God is obligated to give you what it is that you ordered.

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You had a dollar 25, you want those bag of chips, you put them in, you push the button, around it spins and out it drops. God's a big vending machine. I prayed the right prayer. I went to church five times in a row. I gave my money, I did all the things. Now God owes me a blessing. That's not the gospel.

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That's a transactional arrangement. That's a contract. You keep your end of the deal and then God will keep his end of the deal. If you break your end of the deal, God will break his end of the deal. That's not the gospel. That's law.

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And we struggle with letting this idea go.

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So we smuggle it in the back way. If I ask you is God a vending machine? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, God's not a vending machine, but we suddenly add it into our preaching. We add it into our discussions. We add it into our ways of thinking. We add it into the sermons and people will sit there and say it's grace and then walk out under law every single Sunday across our nation in churches everywhere.

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We like the idea that blessings are given to those who deserve it.

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So we're gonna do everything we can to deserve it and then expect God to give it to us. And then we look over there and see somebody else who's not getting blessings. We're like, well, they probably aren't living right.

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They don't have the right change. They haven't pulled the right strings. They haven't pushed the right buttons. All of that is old covenant law and it's given to in churches everywhere.

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Now, ruffle some feathers here, make some people go, I'm not really sure. And then you can walk out and talk about on your way home. Okay? Deuteronomy 29.9, I wanna show you, just stay with me. I'm gonna show you how we smuggle things in. Deuteronomy 29.9, we'll read a passage like this.

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"Carefully follow the terms of this covenant." What covenant is he talking about?

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That's Deuteronomy. What covenant is he talking about? The old covenant, the old covenant. "Carefully follow the terms of this covenant so that you may prosper in everything you do." So we'll teach our people, you gotta follow the terms. You gotta do the right thing. Why? Because the only way you're ever gonna get blessed of God is to keep the covenant. You gotta keep the covenant. You gotta do the terms. And we pull in law and we drop it into the New Testament. We pull in law and we drop it in churches. We pull in law, we drop it in sermons and people walk out under condemnation, believing they gotta keep the terms of the covenant or they'll never be blessed.

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Here's one that happens all the time. "In all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths."

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We preach that and talk about it and tell people, you gotta acknowledge him, you gotta acknowledge him in all your ways. If you acknowledge him in all your ways, he will direct your paths. Basically, if I do A, then God will do B. And it preaches really well, but it's not the gospel.

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It is law dressed up as the gospel. And it adds pressure on the people listening. Why? Let's just get real practical and get really honest with me, okay?

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Here's why.

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We can't keep our end of the deal.

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Can I ask you a question?

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Do you acknowledge him in all your ways?

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Come on.

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Do you acknowledge him in your marriage, in your money, in your work, in your thoughts, in your entertainment, in all your behaviors? Do you acknowledge God in all your ways?

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Can I answer that for you? No.

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So guess what? Living under that, he won't direct your paths.

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Because the only way you're gonna get God under the old covenant to direct your paths is you've gotta acknowledge him in everything you do.

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How about that? Carefully follow the terms of the covenant. Do you carefully follow the terms of the covenant?

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The only way you're gonna be prospered is if you follow the terms of the covenant, then you'll be prosperous in everything you do.

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We think well, and the opposite of that is to think, well, since I didn't keep up my end of the deal,

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I guess God won't keep up his end of the deal.

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Or we think, well, I guess since things are not in my favor, that I must have broken a promise that I made and I must have compromised somewhere and all that comes down upon us is pressure and guilt and fear.

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Let's get tighter.

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Deuteronomy 30, listen to what this old covenant says. Listen to this.

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But if your heart, this is Proverbs 30, 17, if your heart turns away, has your heart ever turned away?

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If your heart turns away and you do not hear, but you are led astray to bow down to other gods or serve them, I declare to you today that you shall certainly perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are crossing Jordan to enter and possess. Does your heart ever turn away?

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Mine does.

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How about Leviticus 26? But if you will not obey me and do not observe all these commandments, I in turn will do this to you. I will bring terror on you, consumption and fever that wastes your eyes and cause life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain for your enemies shall eat it all.

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Now let's rejoice.

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Do you always keep all the commandments?

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Folks, those passages are not good news.

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When you read passages like that, you begin to fear and you begin to wonder if you're messing up, if you're bringing down curses upon yourself. That is not the gospel.

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Everything in the Bible is not good news because everything in the Bible is not the gospel.

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Here's why. Some parts of the Bible reveal the problem

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and never give you the solution.

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And it's intentional.

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The law serves a purpose. You know what that purpose is? To show you how holy God is and how unholy we are. But if you are left in that, you are in trouble.

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The law breaks us. The law shows us how far we are away. The law says, can you keep the commandments all the time? Can you acknowledge God in all your ways? Can you make sure you follow all the commands? And the answer is a collective no.

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And then guess what comes to the rescue?

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The blood of Jesus.

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You see, when I began to understand this, everything shifted for me.

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Let me back it up and say it like this. For years, I bounced back and forth, gospel law, gospel law, gospel law.

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Here's what it looked like for me. I would see something in the teachings of Jesus or in the writings of Paul,

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and I would feel free and joyful and excited, right?

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Then I would read something like a few of the Old Testament passages that I just read to you. And I would think, well, I'm not acknowledging God in all my ways.

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I'm not following every single area. I mean, I got this issue and that issue, and I struggle here and I'm tempted there, and I failed over there. And then all of a sudden, I would read all the curses

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and all the punishment and all the things that would come. And I would be right back into guilt and condemnation. And I would read Romans 8.1, there is therefore now what? No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And then I would walk out feeling so condemned and I was just like, I don't get it, I don't get it. I'd have a good week and I'd come into church like this. I'd have a bad week and I'd come into church like this. I'd have a good week and I'd come into church like this. I'd have a bad week and I'd come into church like this. I lived under law and grace, law and grace. And all I felt was pressure and guilt and fear.

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You cannot build your relationship with God on both law and grace. You cannot compromise the truth. And that is what Paul preached. That's what Peter preached. That's what the apostles preached and that's why they were killed.

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Because we like the other gospel because it allows us to cover our sins and judge other people.

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And I hear people say, I want a church that preaches the word. I want a church that preaches the Bible. We need to have the whole Bible preached. And I get it, I get it. I'm not making fun of that. I understand what people mean. Most of it comes from a good place, but often it comes from a misunderstanding

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because we must present the Bible, the whole Bible, but we must present it correctly.

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The rightly dividing the word of truth. We must understand the role of the Old Testament and the role of law and be able to distinguish it from grace and teach people what the difference is and how we live underneath the new covenant, not the old covenant. And you can't mix the two.

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If we don't, we risk living in constant confusion. We'll be, as the apostle James says, double-minded and unstable in all of our ways.

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And that's what it means to be double-minded. You've got one mind on grace and you've got one mind on law and you can't figure out how to live and you're back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. James says you'll be unstable in everything you do. If you don't live out of faith, you'll be unstable in all you do. Let me walk you through one more passage and then we're done, okay? Galatians 4, Paul again writing, to the church in Galatia who,

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they were confused about the gospel. They allowed false teaching to enter in. They allowed the mixture of law and grace. And Paul comes in and goes, "I just can't believe you guys have just allowed these perverted teachings to get right back into the gospel and confuse everything."

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What's wrong with you folks? That's what he was saying. I'm confused, I'm astonished, I'm amazed that you've done this. So he clears up the water. He drains out the poison and presents to them the fullness of the gospel. Listen to what he says here in Galatians 4. He says, "So with us, while we were miners," or basically while we were immature, while we were miners like children spiritually, "we were enslaved to the elemental principles of the world." That's Galatians 4, 3. The elemental principles, what does that mean? It means sequence.

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It was a word used by the Greeks, meaning a formula for how to make life work.

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Paul says, "For a long time, you live like that. If I do this and this and this, God will do this and this and this." That kind of thinking, Paul says, is like children.

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If I clean my room, I'll get a cookie.

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That's like a child. If I get an A on my report card, I'll get $5. That's like a child.

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If I do all my homework, my teacher will let me have extra time at recess. Paul says, "That's like a child." And you're treating faith like that. A sequential order, elementary principles.

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That's law thinking, just like Leviticus 26 says, "If you don't obey me and observe all my commands, I will let bad things happen to you. If you don't clean your room and do every single thing I told you, you are not going outside."

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But if you do what I say and you obey my commands, then good things will happen to you. Paul goes on to say, verse four, watch this, this is so beautiful. I hope you get this. I really hope you see this. "But when the fullness of time had come,"

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all that led up to it. There was a point where the fullness of time had come. "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his son,

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born of a woman," watch this, "born under law.

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In order to redeem those who were under law, he came into the period of law, grabbed us so that we might receive the adoption of children and took us into the new covenant.

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And because," Paul says, "you are children,

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God has sent the spirit of his son into our," what?

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Hearts, not our behaviors, our hearts crying, "Abba, father." "Abba, father, the relationship has changed."

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Watch this, verse seven, "So you are no longer a slave, but a child.

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And if a child, then also an heir through God."

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Because of the gospel, God is no longer your master.

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Because of the gospel, God is no longer your judge.

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Because of the gospel, God is now

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your father, and that changes everything. It has moved from transactional to relational.

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You are no longer a slave, but a child. And Paul is reasoning with these early Christians, and he is saying, "Why would you wanna go back to the transactional way of living?

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Why would you wanna go back?"

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One example, one example, I didn't give this to the early service, so you're lucky or unlucky, depends on how you look at it.

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One example, for thousands of years, the covenant sign for a male was circumcision.

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It had to be circumcised, it was part of the law. And if they weren't circumcised, there was a problem.

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Paul comes along and says, "Stop it. You no longer have to do that."

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Thousands of years, he just completely did away with it all. You don't have to do that, you know why? Because that was just a symbol on the outside of what Jesus does on the inside. Now, where's the circumcision? It's the circumcision of the heart, Paul says.

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One example of how the behavior is completely changed. That was radical at that time. In fact, they were bringing circumcision back in to appeal the Jews, and Paul says, "You've gotta stop that.

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You're compromising the old covenant and the new. Stop it. It's the new covenant, not a mixture of both.

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If you do this, God will bless me. If you do this, God will curse me. If I keep my nose clean, good things will happen. If I screw up, curses await me." Paul then gives an example. He says, verse 10, "You're observing special days.

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You've got certain months that you highlight as sacred months. You've got seasons and years of consecration, and stop all that stuff.

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Every day is God's day.

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That's all shadows of things that were to come, and now it's all fulfilled. What are you doing, Paul says, certain days of the year are holy? Every day's holy.

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You have consecrated months. Every month is consecrated.

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You have years of blessing. Every year is a blessing.

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And verse 11, last verse, he says, "I'm afraid that my work for you has been wasted.

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I have brought you into the new covenant and shown you the blessings that Christ gives, and you have run right back into the old covenant and live under condemnation. You're living like people under the law. What are you doing going back to all that stuff?"

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Folks, it is malpractice to set people free with the gospel and then pull them back into law.

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Silly seasons of blessings or behaviors that guarantee good things from God's hands, and if you don't do this, you'll be cursed. You are exposing not your spiritual depth, you are exposing your immaturity.

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You're not exposing that you are super spiritual, you're exposing that your ignorance is on display.

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You don't know the gospel.

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Some people quote a lot of scripture and completely miss the point of the gospel.

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They don't act or think or behave like God is their father. They act and think and behave like God is their judge, their master, their ruler, but not their father, and I don't want you to be one of those people.

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You see, grace changes people in ways.

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Pressure never could.

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For years, I lived like everything depended on me.

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Like if I behaved well enough, God would accept me, and if I messed up, maybe He'd reject me.

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That's how a lot of people live with God, always wondering, did I pray enough, did I read enough, did I do enough, always looking over their shoulder?

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The gospel is something totally different. You are not an orphan trying to earn a place in God's house. You are a child who already belongs. Children don't earn their place at a table. They sit at the table because the family blood is in their veins.

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That's what the blood of Christ does. That's why He says you must be born again, born into the family.

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And with that truth, when it finally sinks into your heart,

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you stop trying to earn love. You walk into the church every single week with your arms up because what grace has been poured out upon you.

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You have been loved, you have been adopted, you have been given more than you are even capable of explaining, and you live underneath that flow 24-7. Your father loves you and you are pull a chair up at the table and eat from the bountiful blessings of God. Will you mess up? Yes, but thank God, His blood has sealed you and you are His child. And I'm telling you, when that sinks in your heart, guess what happens? Your heart is transformed and your behavior is modified.

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But it starts from the inside out, never the outside in.

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Why? Because the gospel is not behavior modification, it is heart transformation.

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It has always been about heart transformation. And folks, that knowledge brings relief

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because you can breathe.

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I am loved.

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I am secure in Him.

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I now can rejoice, I can give, I can serve, I can love, I can tell people, I can herald the good news, I can let people know the covenant is different, I can let them know they're saved, they're sealed, they're loved, they're okay with God. I can let them know that righteousness has been given to them and they don't have to earn it and they are not under the curse of God anymore. He took upon the curses, He took upon all of it on the cross and set us free and His blood seals it. And now we can breathe and live and rejoice and walk as heirs of the King.

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That's relief.

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Let's pray. Father, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you that this truth sets us free.

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It's hard for us to swallow it, just as it was for the Jewish audience, it was difficult for them. That's why Paul had to write and Peter had to write and John had to write and James had to write. That's why the gospels are there, that's why Jesus preached so much and people followed Him everywhere because the new covenant was so radical, so different, so incredible life transforming.

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We wanna go back to those beggarly ways, we wanna go back to that transactional way of living because we understand it. We like to keep scores. We like to know who's ahead and who's behind. We always like to know that we're one up on somebody else. God save us from all that silliness

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and set our hearts free that we might rejoice in the gospel, the good news, live in the good news, revel in the good news, give to the good news, serve to the good news, be the people you've called us to be and enjoy the freedom that the blood,

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the blood of Jesus bought for us, sealed for us, gave to us out of grace. And we ask all of this in Jesus name, amen.

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Amen.

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Good news, it's good news. And I think that that's what the series represented was just that message of good news and relief and grace that sometimes is just so often overlooked, I think, in churches and religion. I'm just grateful that you're here to hear just a part of it. Maybe you've been here for the whole series. We're wrapping it up today. So thank you so much for being here. And I have a few things I wanna make sure I get across before I let you go. First of all, if this is your first time or you're new to Forest Park, we are so honored. You chose to take some time to come join us and we'd like to give you a free gift at our information center or on your way out while you pick up your kids. Just drop a connect card into that box there that says connect card and we will give you a mug and coffee on us. So make sure to grab that on your way out and fill out that connect card. Also, we have our first midweek starting this Wednesday and midweek is a middle of the week gathering on the second and fourth Wednesdays where we get to genuinely connect in community with one another. We're gonna be able to talk about the message and what we are unpacking as far as what we heard through the message. This is a great opportunity to answer questions. I don't wanna make sure you know that on that webpage, forestpartchurch.com slash midweek is a place to submit questions. So if something you heard today made you think a little bit and you wanna ask Pastor Scott what he meant by that or how this applies in this way, in this situation, that's the place to do it. And we're gonna take those questions and talk about them on Wednesday night. So it's at 6 p.m. the second and fourth Wednesday of each month starting this Wednesday. We're gonna have childcare available for age three, potty trained and up for elementary kids. So if you have a kid, you want them to come back, we'll have pizza. So please make sure that you register your kids. It's all on that webpage. Make sure to register them, that they're coming so we know how many to prepare for, how many to get pizza for, that type of thing. And we're also gonna have prayer. So prayer requests, you can submit them there and we'll have a time of prayer. Just connection, that's really what we wanna do as a church is connect with one another, be there for one another. And so it's really gonna be a great regular gathering that we have starting this Wednesday. Last thing is for our students, they're all out in there but if you're a parent of a student, make sure they're here for the bingo night that is happening March 15th, which is next Sunday, 5 to 7 p.m.

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Students always have a great time in those things. So we hope that your student is there and we are grateful for you. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Great, it's a new week, we're starting a new week. So have a great week, we love you, see ya.

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(Upbeat Music)