You know 2,000 years ago, on
the tree of the cross, Jesus paid your debt if you're here
and a believer? I mean, you have no debt. If
He paid it, He paid it in full. You have no condemnation. Do
you understand that? Why do you keep kicking yourself
around if you're a believer in Jesus Christ? Why do you fear
death? Why do you fear facing God? There's no judgment. He's loved
you. He bare your sins in His own
body on the tree of the cross. You'll never go to hell, there's
no condemnation. He loved you before there was
a world, before He ever said, let there be light. For whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate. And whom He predestinated,
them He also called. And whom He called, them He also
justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? I'm persuaded that neither
life, nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Have you
ever heard Him calling you? Are you being called today to
faith in Christ? I don't know what you're talking
about, preacher. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking about somebody. Today, who is hearing His voice
as this feeble preacher proclaims the good news that there is no
condemnation to those that are in Christ. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Think about how corrupt
you were. The Apostle Paul says, and you
have been made alive who were dead. Dead! You ever been around? a dead
carcass of any kind, you were dead. I was dead in sins and
trespasses. We were like a person who had
been stabbed a thousand times. We were dead, dead to God, inactive
toward God. Can you remember, those of us
who can, who have been converted and come to know Christ, we remember
how crazy we were. I mean absolutely out of our
minds to think you can drink yourself to happiness, that you
can smoke yourself to happiness, that you can inject stuff in
your bodies, that you can commit sexual sins that will bring a
heaven on earth. That's insanity. It will not
happen. So, you're out there. Some of
you, many of you in here attended Grace Centers of Hope. But it
wasn't until you were bankrupt. Most people don't drive by. There
won't be a lot of drive-bys tomorrow and say, yeah, I think I'll stop
over there and talk to them about getting off drugs. No, no, no. No, you have to lose your house,
lose your car, lose your wife or husband, lose your children,
the courts take over, and then finally, a block from hell. you end up over at Grace Centers
of Hope. And the truth is that He brings
all of His people through that route. Maybe not over to Grace
Centers, but eventually you're going to hit rock bottom. Whether
you're a multi-millionaire drinking yourself to death and can't find
any peace or happiness, you know that, I am special. I am His
workmanship. I'm His poem that He's still
writing and finishing, but I'm a masterpiece. He had to start
working on you, because you were a mess. You had nothing to offer
Him. He had nothing to work with.
You didn't bring God something to work with. What would He want
with your filthy rags of unrighteousness? So God came to you. You know,
I'm standing up here and I'm being amazed as I'm speaking.
I'm preaching to myself. I am out of nothing. Psalm 14 says that God looked
down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
good men or women that did seek after Him. And He looked down
through time and the conclusion was, no, not one. You're not a pretty good person.
You were evil. And sinful we were. And God came
and gave us life. We were living in spiritual death. We were anti-God. We were enmity
against God. Not at enmity. We didn't just
dislike God. We wanted nothing to do with
God. Nothing to do with Sunday morning church. Nothing to do
with righteousness and nothing to do with helping other people.
And then you were born. I've had people say, you know,
I was almost stillborn. No, you weren't. I've had people
say this to me, you know, I really don't even know who my real mother
and father was. I am such an accident. No, you're
not. Not if you're in Christ. All
of that was predetermined and planned. That was God's purpose
for you. And if you look over your life,
you'll see it's absolutely amazing how He shut you up. how you tried
to run away, how you tried to get away from Him, how you tried
not to listen, how you would not come to Him. You'd try crack,
you'd try heroin, you'd try drugs or sex or whatever, but you would
not come to Him that you might have life. And finally, all of
those things fail till you ran out of steam and simply trusted Jesus Christ.