Well, hallelujah. I've been telling you about World
Magazine visiting us and that we were nominated for the Hope
Award, which is given actually by World Magazine and the Heritage
Foundation. And I got a call this week that
we were the Midwest regional winner. Then there'll be a national-international
winner, and I'll be telling you more about that. But we got $4,000
from the Heritage Foundation and a plaque to go in the mission.
Oh, let's see. I'm always a bit apprehensive
when religious people visit us because Religious people have
so many rules and I wasn't overly joyed necessarily with the article,
but you'll get to read it and you can see it. They took note
that many of our people were carrying cigarettes in their
front pocket in the article and some of you were listening to
rock music. And let me tell you, if those two problems are the
only problem you have, We'd all be happy people. I'm not certifying either of
those. I'm just saying we hunt mice
while the roaring lion devours us. Now, this is always a time I
always start with a joke. So all of you religious people,
it might be, thank you, Paul. I know, I know. Thank you so
much, buddy. I appreciate it. I know you never
forget me and thank you. All right. Are you ready for
the joke? All right. An atheist was seated
next to a little girl on an airplane. And he turned to her and said,
do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike
up a conversation with your fellow passengers. The little girl who
had just started to read her book replied to the total stranger,
what would you want to talk about? Oh, I don't know, said the atheist. How about talking about there
is no God, There is no heaven, there is no hell. There is no
life after death, as he smiles smugly. Okay, she said, those
could be interesting topics, but let me ask you a question
first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all
eat the same stuff, grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets,
while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is? The atheist, visibly surprised
by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, hmm,
I actually have no idea. To which the little girl replies,
well then, Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, heaven,
and hell or life after death when you don't know crap? With that, she went back to reading
her book. Some of you are going, did he
actually read that? I did. And most of us laughed. Amen? Just say it. If you're an atheist, you don't
know crap. There is a God. There is a heaven. There is a
hell. And there is life after death.
There's a resurrection. Amen. Some of the most solemn and I
think most glorious passages of scripture have been read in
your hearing today. And especially the sixth statement
from the cross, it is finished. Never has so much been said and
so little. Actually, Ask our Greek scholar
who's on staff here, Nick, who plays the accordion, telheno or telheo. Is that close? Kind of close. And it means what, Nick? It means finished. One word in
the Greek. It means finished or accomplished. In John 17, Jesus said, I have
finished the work which you gave me to do. Work is such a God
thing. Work has to be good for us because
it's of God. God is always for work except
when it comes to saving us. There really wasn't a work or
any work that we could do to save ourselves, we had to be
saved. We were without strength, the
Bible says. And so salvation had to be of
the Lord. It's imperative that you get
that. that God is the author and the finisher of our salvation,
that salvation is of the Lord. And many times it's that message
that makes people mad. I have noticed what makes many
people mad makes me glad that Jesus Christ finished the work. I looked up the word work, what
is it? Well, the dictionary says it's
restless motion. It's activity in which one exerts
strength or faculties to do or perform something. Our God has designed work. And
so believing God is always right. It is my position that entitlement
is wrong. You knew I was gonna get to that,
right? In other words, if you don't work for it, a God principle
is you don't get it. It'd be more like this. He who
does not work should not eat. That's not the position of our
government. And that quite frankly may not
be your position, but it is the Bible position. If you don't
work, you don't eat. So entitlement is not of God. In fact, entitlement seems to
breed the notion that you're worthy of it, that you deserve
something, but nowhere in scripture will you find a social plan for
government and for people that includes entitlement. It's always
boasting is excluded. There is none good, no, not one.
There is none worthy. What we ought to be thanking
God for is that we don't get what we deserve. Let me say that
one more time. Aren't you glad you don't get
what you deserve? Everybody in here, if you got
what you deserve today, after you got up, or maybe before you
got up, we'd all be in hell. you had thoughts and thought,
even on the way to church, isn't it amazing how much sin you commit
before you get to the house of God right on the way. But I'm
just throwing that in, that's not gonna cost you anything this
morning. Jesus in John 17 four spoke of the work which he had
finished. In fact, In John 19, he said,
it. Now, if you can find out whatever
it is, you will come to know that it's accomplished. It is
finished. Well, what it? The work which
the Father gave Christ to do. I was thinking about that. I
was thinking about how much work is going on around
here at Grace Centers of Hope and Grace Gospel Fellowship and
kind of not feeling sorry for myself at all because I have
such wonderful helpers, but thinking about all the energies and activities
that are taken up with the work of this ministry. I brought over
all of the plans. Well, not all of them, but just
a whole bunch of the plans of things that are happening. It's
quite unbelievable. what is going on around here
right now and how much time and energy we are exerting and looking
forward to the day when we can say it is finished. You know, I could start throwing
out things like, and this is just one of the small ones. This
is the plans for the learning center. This is the plans for
the parking lot. This is the plans for the daycare. There's several of those. This
is the plan, not nearly as thick as it really is, and I couldn't
find those, but that's the plan for this church. And then there
are plans for Hands of Hope, and there are plans for the Learning
Center. And you know, the parking lot's
about $480,000. That's a big cost, right? You always ought to count the
cost when you're building. You know, the Lord said something
like this, upon this rock, I'll build my church. So the Lord,
in his plan, was to build the church. And there was a lot of
planning going on, which I'm going to talk about a little
later. In all of those plans are city permits, approval meetings,
drawings, asphalt people for the parking lot, county engineers. State Road Commission, electricians
for the lights, surveyors, water runoff for the parking lot out
there. It's got to all run toward that
light right there at the corner of Huron and Widecrack or Woodward,
the Learning Center, same thing. All of those things going on
in order to establish or build these things and be able to say
it's finished. the women and children's shelter
that's going on right now. Just all kinds of things going
on. And as we began to deconstruct
things in that building, we're discovering that there are structural
issues in different places. So the architectural drawings
have to be changed a bit and things have to happen. But just
hours and hours of work that's going on to establish or to finish
those projects. You say, well, why do you want
to talk about that? Because that's really nothing
compared to the work we're going to talk about today. Let's talk
about the work of Jesus Christ. Let's define the work which he
undertook. Actually, think about this a
bit. It was a no condemnation project. That's what we'd call it, the
no condemnation project. And it was a huge project because
you see on the property, there was contamination. There's about four acres right
behind us here that I want very bad. But it belongs to General
Motors. But there's only one problem.
The contamination that's in that property is going to cost millions
of dollars to clear the contamination. Now I want you to just think
a little bit about contamination with regards to yourself. You
think you might be contaminated? Somebody told me they'd have
to go down five feet to remove all of the soil and the blacktop
over there in that four or five acres, five feet, and haul it
off. And then haul it off to where?
When you've hauled it off, it's still contaminated. The work
of Christ was to take away the contamination. and also on top
of that, to remove the condemnation. Now, I'll tell you right now,
Job was right when he asked this question in Job 25, how then
can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? That is a great question. And
then Job goes like this, he's not through yet, he goes like
this, behold, what does that mean? Look, even to the moon
and it shineth not, yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man that is a worm. And then he says again, the man,
the son of man, which is a worm. Houston, I think we have problems. I was thinking about what Ms.
Pam said just before she fell back and died. She said, Kent,
I think we have a problem. The reason I'm telling you that
is because I want you to get how big a problem we had here.
One of the reasons that we don't shout with tremendous joy and
are not taken up with the wonder of it all, because we don't say
how big the problem was. My friend, you and I are sinners. And I'll tell you, it goes deeper
than five feet, the contamination. It's deep. You are not only a sinner, but
you are in debt. You and I were in debt. We had
a debt we could not pay. God demands that every sin and
every transgression must receive a just and righteous recompense
of reward. In other words, every sin you've
ever committed has to be paid for or you go to hell. And then
it gets bigger. Not only you have a debt you
cannot pay, but you have a righteousness you cannot produce. And by the
way, some of us are falling behind on our productivity. Let that sink in just a little
bit. Are you working every minute to produce a righteousness that
God's well pleased with? Or are you relapsing, falling
back, being unfaithful, lusting, committing sins on a daily basis? Listen, it takes a power not
only to save a sinner, but it takes, I believe, even a greater
power to take them all the way to heaven. So here's the project, here's
the work scope. Pay the debt in full and produce
a perfect righteousness that can be imputed and accredited
to the sinner's account. Obviously, this is gonna take
blood, sweat, and tears. It's going to take a God-man. If you think about it a little
bit, it's an impossible task. It's a task that only God himself
can do. It's going to take the creator
God. It'll take one from Bozrah with dyed garments, traveling
in the greatness of his power. It will take one who comes from
heaven to earth. It will take a condescension.
It will take an incarnation. It will take God invading history
for you and I to go to heaven. That's what it's going to take. It's going to take somebody to
come down here who's fully God and fully man to accomplish this
task. This is no small task. Sometimes
we sing, count your many blessings, name them one by one. Sometimes
I think we ought to count our many sins, name them one by one,
and it'll surprise you what the Lord has done. It'll cause you
to fall on your knees like we did today. It's finished, it's
accomplished, it's done, it's over. The condemnation project
has been accomplished. There's no condemnation. Now, I realized this, that when
I leave here today, I will know I have failed because I have
taken the subject that I myself have not reached the depth and
neither have you. Last night I was thinking, it's
going to take one who's able to die a soul death. What is
a soul death? It's separation from God. It's going to take one who will
endure hell. It's going to take somebody who
will drink the cup of our damnation, who will render satisfaction
to the justice of God. Somebody who will take the cup
of our damnation and invert the cup where there's not a drop
of condemnation. Someone who satisfies justice,
who renders satisfaction I'm thinking of a passage and
I got goosebumps. He shall see the prevail of his
soul and be satisfied. Satisfaction. God will be satisfied
with the redemptive person and work of Jesus Christ on your
behalf. He's satisfied with you. The job calls for one dying and
rising on the third day, having conquered sin, death, and the
grave. In order for you to get up on resurrection morning, he
had to get up. Micah 7.18 says this, it will
take a God like no other. Is your God like no other? Because
you see Him in this light, He is a God who saved you, who keeps
you, who indwells you. It will take a God like no other,
one that pardons iniquity and passes by the transgressions
of His elect, one who can subdue our iniquities and cast all of
our sins into the depth of the sea. Did I sing that last Sunday?
Gone, gone, gone. Yes, my sins are gone. Buried
in the deepest sea, that's good enough for me. I shall spend
eternally with the God of this Bible who saved my soul. Oh, grace salvation is not cheap
salvation. Sometimes people go like this
to me. I've had this over 50 years.
People say to me, oh, you know, you don't have to do nothing.
That can't be right. That can't be right. Well, the
problem is you are so contaminated that everything you do is wrong. The heart is desperately wicked. The heart is enmity, not at enmity,
is enmity. There's a big difference between
being at enmity with God and being enmity itself. In other words, You're like a dog foaming at
the mouth. You're rabid. You hate God. There's no desire to bend your
knee, to bow to His Lordship, to submit to His Son, to receive
Him as Lord and Savior. You're just foaming at the mouth.
You don't know crap. Do you see the task? Do you see
the scope? By the way, this is the only
church I can preach this way. I have to be nice when I go away
to other churches, because they're not ready to receive it. But
nevertheless, it's true. It's just true. Aren't church
people so unreal? You know, get real. God had to reach down into the
dung pile You were just a piece of dung. There is no difference. You high and mighty folks who
are here today and think you can go to heaven, you think you're
better than the crack addict, the heroin addict, you think
you're better because you don't live in the inner city. Some of you are going, yeah,
we came over from Bloomville Hills to the house of God and
he called us a piece of dung. That's so you'll get the scope
of what God has done. The Bible says that God was looking
for a good man. God looked down from heaven in
Psalm 14 upon the children of men to see if there were any
good that did righteous. And he said, I couldn't find
a one. No, not one. He came to save sinners. Real quick, let's check out the
blueprints. for this job. Oh, believe you me, this building
of God's church has blueprints. It was drawn up, these blueprints
were drawn up, I think these were drawn up in March of last
year. But God's blueprints were drawn
up in the eternal council before the foundation of the world. It's amazing to me. Oh, and by
the way, it has the architect's name on the blueprints. God's blueprint has his name
on them too. Drawn my almighty God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit in the council halls of eternity. And that building,
that church, that church is being built. Aren't you glad that God
brought you in? and put you, you're one of the
blocks in the church. Some of you out there don't even
know you're a block yet. That's about all you are too,
a block. But you're a block. And when in his time and in his,
you don't get saved by accident. You don't get put in his church
by accident. No, it's all in the plans. Aren't
you glad God has plans for you? God the Father. And look at the
clients, look at the blocks, just slimy worms, messed up sinners. Aren't you a mess? Isn't it amazing
that God has taken a mess like you? You know, think about it
this way. Way back when you were crazy.
By the way, nobody goes to heaven on a straight shot. We wander
all over the place. When God found you, you were
not marching to Zion. You had turned your back on God
and were going to hell and running as fast as you could, but aren't
you glad that He pursued you, caught up with you? I saw on those plans last night,
I was looking at them and said, contract supervisor. Oh, I said,
that's Jesus Christ. He's the contract supervisor. Well, who provides the material?
Oh, the Holy Spirit. You didn't come on your own and
say, here I am, put me in the house. No, you were brought by
the Spirit of God. Romans 8, 28 says, and we know
that all things work together for good to them that love the
Lord. To them, watch it now, who are called according to his
purpose. That's the biggest word in the
Bible, purpose. You were saved on purpose for
a purpose. I'm glad God has a purpose. I
rejoice in God's purpose. The building of this heavenly
church of the firstborn ones is a God thing and it's done. Now, here's where we get into
some heavy stuff. This is where people get really
upset. Every block, every person that's
being put into this spiritual building was foreordained before
the foundation of the world. So why? You're going to start on that
predestination stuff. Watch it. You say that word too
many times, I'll be dancing up here. Because it's not a dirty
word to me. If God had not determined to
save me, I would not have been saved on the tree of the cross. And let me tell you this, whenever
you experience that reconciliation, what we call salvation experience,
all you are finding out is that he did it over 2,000 years ago
on the tree of the cross. Let me play that back just a
little bit, because I don't think you just got that. We were redeemed
over 2,000 years ago. That means you were bought. You
were paid for. It was finished. It was done. This is good news to me. It was
accomplished. Jesus said it's finished. What
do you think? And by the way, if he left anything undone for
you to do, how am I talking? You get it, don't you? What if
he did it all except he left your willer alone? And you had to make up your mind.
And then some of you made up your mind that you were gonna
trust Christ while your brother or sister who are of the same
parents did not choose Christ. Oh, I see, you think you're better
than your brother or sister because you chose Christ and they did
not. The question is, why did you choose Christ? Because you
were redeemed. You were bought. You were paid
for. You were called. You were predestined. You say, well, pastor, you know,
I really, I really want to know, you think I was predestinated?
Why don't you give it a shot? Come to Jesus Christ and trust
Him. Why don't you bow before Him?
Why don't you come up here and fling yourself down here and
say, I'm trusting Christ. Come hail the high water. I don't
care about predestination right now. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. I can say to every man, woman,
boy, or girl here, come to Christ. Come unto Christ. Come just as
you are without one plea. The Spirit and the bride say,
come. Let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, not
whosoever won't, whosoever will, let him come. You want to come,
then come. Zechariah 4, 7 says, he shall
bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings of grace, grace,
grace unto it. The hands of Christ have laid
the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it. I love Romans 8 because it says,
whom he forloved, he glorified. There's a lot of stuff in between,
like for whom he did for no or for love, he also did predestinate.
Thank you, Jesus. Whom he predestinated, them he
also called. Thank you, Jesus. Whom he called,
them he also justified. Thank you, Jesus. It looks like
this whole thing's a God work to me. And then it ends up with this.
Nothing shall be able to separate you from the love of God. I know
there's some of us here right now that really and truly being
honest with ourselves and honest before God, sometimes we think,
if he doesn't take me all the way, I'm not going. Oh, there's some of us here that
agree with the old songwriter, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel
it, prone to leave the God I love. But God, yes. There is no accidental formation. This is all on purpose. The blood
of Christ goes deeper than the stain of God. Some of you are
sitting there and I know you're thinking things like this. Could
that be? Could it really be finished for
me? Did he really finish it? Yes, but you know, I'm an addict. Yes, you are. In fact, everybody
in here is an addict of some kind. Yes, but pastor, I fathered
children that don't even know me. I used to think I was stud,
now I think I'm a hell deserving wretch. Oh, it's you I'm talking
to. It's you that Christ died. Some
of you girls in here, I've had three abortions, pastor. I can't
get it off my mind. I can't get it off my mind. I
have done so much. It's unbelievable what I've done.
The blood of Jesus Christ will make you white as snow. And the truth is he saw that
abortion. and redeemed you. That sin was
imputed to Jesus Christ and paid for on the tree of the cross. Finished. Made an end of. When I was a little boy, I used
to hear preachers say, all of your sins are under the blood. And I remember thinking, what
if somebody lifts the blood up? We're so good at trying to, you
know, trying to get out of this thing that Jesus paid it all,
that it's really finished. We're our own worst enemies. The devil accuses us, then conscience
says, you know what? Slewfoot is right. You did do
that and you know it. Then you start agreeing with
him what you need to start saying when you're accused is you start
saying that oh Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect? I'm persuaded that neither death
nor life nor principality nor powers nor things present nor
things to come nor any other creature shall be able to separate
me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus and I was
looking the word up, it is finished. And it was amazing how many preachers
or people online who were saying this, the Calvinistic view that
Jesus paid for all of our sins is not true. And I said to myself,
that's not good news. I said to myself, well, if he
didn't finish it, who will finish it? The word redemption means
to buy, to purchase, to pay the price. Back in slave days when slaves
were put on the slave block and auctioned off. Somebody would
buy that slave. Well, the truth is we were all
on the auction block. And one day Jesus Christ walked
into the slave market. And there you were. How much
am I bid for this slave? Wanda. And the slave master said, it's
going to cost you your life, your blood. And Jesus said, I
will pay for Wanda. I will give her emancipation
papers. And somewhere around 10 or 15
years ago, God gave her her emancipation papers. And my friend, if you
want to know anybody that's free, watch Wanda. She's free. Sometimes people, you know, sometimes
in here we actually get happy. And you know, church people aren't
used to you getting happy in church. You're supposed to be
bored and looking down and looking at your watch and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
And sometimes people say, see somebody get a little happy to
go, who is that? Who is that? Yes, Wanda, they
ask about you quite a bit. Who is that person? Oh, I say
that's Wanda. Looser and let her go. If the
sun sets you free, you're free indeed. Every Saturday night, I'm gonna
tell this on you, Greg. I text Greg the scripture that
I'm going to be speaking from. Last night, I text him the scripture,
and in about an hour, he wrote back, I just had church. Does
anybody else know what it means to have church all by yourself?
You ever have church all by yourself? Just alone and maybe 22 up over
in the big dorm? You get to thinking about the
blood of Jesus Christ, that there is a fountain filled with blood
drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunge beneath that flood,
lose all their guilty stains. What am I asking you to do? I'm
asking you to do this. Are you able? Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. The burden will roll away. I
guarantee you. You're carrying around all that
mess. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Just let it go. Trust Jesus Christ. And you might just say to yourself
this, if he didn't pay it, who's going to pay it? Who's gonna pay it? How's it
ever gonna be paid? You know you can't do enough.
So just come sweetly to Christ, just as you are, without one
plea. Say, pastor, as soon as I get
over this addiction, that's gonna take some time. Because in your
flesh dwells no good thing. Just as soon as I get over this
hump, just as soon as I lay this down. No, he doesn't even ask
you to get yourself ready. He says, come just as you are
in all of your sins and trust him. I feel like I need to tell
this story that some of you who've been here have heard me tell
it over and over, but it's my great story. Brother Barnard
used to tell it about, he was in Yellowstone National Park,
that old Model T he was driving broke down. You know, you had
to crank those things to get them started. Well, anyway, it
broke down in the park and he was going to see Old Faithful.
It broke down. He got out of his car and worked
on that old Model T, got his hands all greasy, took his white
handkerchief, Wipe that grease off his hands. Brother Barnard
said he got to Old Faithful and said there was a trough of that
hot water running out of Old Faithful. And there was a sign
that said, if you have any dirty rags, if you'll drop them right
here and walk down so many feet, this hot boiling water will cleanse
them, will wash them. He said, I took that white handkerchief
that was now black with grease. I thought to myself, I'm going
to give it a try. He said he dropped that handkerchief
and went down so many feet, picked it up, and it was white as snow.
He said, I couldn't help it. I began to sing. There's a fountain
filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners
plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. He said,
somebody tapped me on the shoulder, and there was 40 people standing
behind me, and said, can we join you in the second stanza? He
said, why, sure. The dying thief rejoiced to see
that fountain in his day, and there may I, though vile as he,
wash all my sins away. Dear dying lamb, thy precious
blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed church
of God be saved to sin no more. Now let me tell you real quick.
William Cowper wrote that song. Now listen to me real close.
William Kalper tried to kill himself at least three times.
What? A man write a song like that?
Depressed? Yes. You ever get depressed?
Aren't you glad it doesn't depend on whether you get depressed
or don't get depressed? Aren't you glad that you can
be in and out and all messed up and thinking you're going
to hell, but you're not? You bring up all of the things
about your life that are so ungodly, and yet, on Christ the solid
rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sands. Come to Christ,
just as you are. Let's stand together and praise
Him.