Today we're going to continue a conversation that we started last week called All Because of Jesus. All Because of Jesus. We're looking at this section of a letter in the New Testament of the Bible. It's often called the Book of Romans, but it's a letter. It's a letter that was written to a church in Rome by a man named Paul, who was really one of the foremost leaders of the early movement of Jesus. And by the way, this is a time when becoming a Jesus follower got you zero instantaneous circumstantial benefits. It wasn't like, oh man, I follow Jesus and everyone high-fives me and everyone celebrates me. It's like, no, following Jesus was a really quick route to being disowned by your family and ostracized by society. But people would come into contact with the message of Jesus and it would start to do something in their hearts. It would start to change the way they saw the world and the way that they saw themselves. Because the message of Jesus is powerful. You know, guys, there's a reason why the most authoritarian governments in the world fight really hard to keep the message of Jesus out. Because when you hear the message of Jesus, it changes your understanding of who you actually are in God's eyes. It gives you a value that nothing else in this world can give you. You know, when I was young, I collected uh sports cards. I don't know. Any guys, by the way, uh collect sports cards when you were a kid, like that was, or girls, I'm sorry, look at the sexist on the stage. Anyone collect, I just didn't know any that collected sports cards. In fact, my wife is like, this is dumb, this is dumb. And my son started to get into it, which actually is code for I'm getting back into it with him. Um because you know, when you're a dad, you get to do that. And I'll never forget this. It just comes to my mind often. I've probably told this story before, but I'm I'm I repeat things. Um when I was like in the fifth, sixth grade, I got this magazine and it had like a list of the prices, the value of all the cards. And I went through it and I tallied it up and I was blown away because my my cards were worth like a few thousand dollars, which to a fifth grader, uh, it's like I could leave home. You know what I mean? Like I, mom and dad, thanks, but I'm off on my own now. I'm going off, I've got my cards. And I told my dad, I was so so excited. And I went to my dad, I was like, Dad, do you have any idea how much my cards are worth? And he's like, How much? And I told him the amount, and he goes, Oh, they're not, they're actually not worth that. You know, leave it to a dad to like pop the bubble. Um, but he actually said something super profound after that. He said, Your cards are only worth how much someone is willing to pay for them. And at the end of the day, that's true, right? Something's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. What does that mean about how much you're worth? How much was God willing to pay to know you? You know, the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself. Even if, by the way, you're new to the whole Jesus thing, you're like, I'm not sure if Jesus is God. Okay, Jesus believed he was, so he's either right or he was lying or he was nuts. It's one of those three. Um and he believed that knowing you, that giving you the ability to have a relationship with him was worth his life. That's how valuable you are. And so when we study these scriptures, the things that it's telling us, the things that God is speaking to us, he's telling us that we're worth something, that we're so valuable in his eyes that he wants to give us a kind of life that we can never have on our own. And at the end of the day, it's not a life that we can ever win on our own. It's all because of Jesus. And Romans 5 really goes into that, into what we can experience in this life right now, not after we die, not in the life to come, but right now on this earth, what kind of life can we have? What kind of things will define our life, all because we know Jesus? And so I want to set the stage just by reading the first one and a half verses. Last week we got through verse one, this week we're gonna get through the first half of verse two. Um, but the whole series is only gonna be five weeks, so don't worry, it's it's not, it's gonna pick up. The pace will pick up, but this is really big. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, all because of Jesus, we have peace with God. And last week we talked about that. If you weren't here, I I encourage you to listen to it, listen to the podcast, Spotify, however you do that. Um had a good time talking about that. And then he goes on and he says, Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. We've gained access to God. We have access to the grace of God. Grace means that you get what you don't deserve. Mercy is when you don't get what you do deserve. Grace is when you get what you don't deserve. We have access to God and all of his blessings, all of his grace, because of Jesus. So I want us to talk this morning about this idea of access. Do we have access to God? Do we actually have direct access to God? And is there anything standing in the way of that? And if so, what is it? And what do we do about it? There's a story that made its rounds on a lot of news sites a couple weeks ago, um, at least some of the news sites that I read. Is anyone here familiar with cryptocurrency, with like Bitcoin? I mean, how many of you just show of hands, those of you online engaged, like how many of you've heard of Bitcoin? You were aware of Bitcoin. How many of you could explain it to someone? A couple. Cool. Um that probably means that you own some, so good job. Uh Bitcoin is in some ways kind of a made-up thing, but most things are. But it's uh it's it's cryptocurrency, digital currency, it's become really big in the last 10 years. And there was a Bitcoin-related story that really circulated, got a lot of traction just a few weeks ago. There was this guy named Stephen Thomas, and you may have read the story, it's kind of a crazy story. Pray for Stefan. Um, about 10 years ago, he was contracted by a cryptocurrency company to make a video explaining what it is. And so if you don't know what Bitcoin is, then go search Stefan Thomas and find his video and it'll it'll probably help. Um, and to pay him for that, they gave him Bitcoin. They gave him 7,000 Bitcoin, which at the time was worth about $2 per Bitcoin. Um this morning, Bitcoin was worth $34,000 per Bitcoin. Meaning that the 7,000 Bitcoin that they gave him is today worth $230 million, which is a lot of money for making a video, right? That's a very that we don't pay our video guys nearly that much, not even not even close. And we don't pay them in Bitcoin. So um it just is what it is. But but here's the here's the tragic thing. He can't access it. Because when you have something like Bitcoin, you can do a couple different things. You can store it on like a like an online bank, or you can actually pull it out and store it manually on something called a digital wallet. Like this is this is the world we now live in. Like, oh, I keep my digital money on my digital wallet, and that digital wallet, it's like a like a flash drive, it's like a hard drive, and it's password protected. And he put all of it on there several years ago, and then he lost the password. He lost it, and he can't find it. And the way that this digital wallet is designed, if you put the wrong password in 10 times, it locks the entire thing and encrypts it and it's gone forever. It's just it's done. It's like you lost your wallet, like you would throw it in the ocean. He has 230 million dollars and he can hold it in his hand, but he can't access it. Oh, you're laughing, but I mean there's I poor Stephanie. Can we just take a moment? God, please be with Stefan. Like, help this man, please help him figure this out because this is where he's at. He has tried eight times, he's got two left. Just I mean, just imagine that. Some of you are like, I can't, I don't, it would short circuit my brain, you know. To have access to something, or or to have it, you should have access, but you don't. It's tragic. It's pretty incredible to think about. Well, the reality is what what Romans is telling us here is that we have we have access to God. We have absolutely unfettered access to God. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, right? For for Stephan Thomas, that password is an external barrier that's keeping him from experiencing the access to something great that he he really deserves, that he owns. It's an external barrier. And if you read the scriptures, if you read it, especially the Old Testament, you read a lot about external barriers, about things that were put in place to kind of keep us at the right distance with God. I'll give you an example. There's a really interesting story, Exodus chapter 33. It's the story of Moses. Moses is a man that God has called to lead his people out of Egypt. You might be familiar with the story of Moses. Even if you're not a Jesus follower, it's kind of a well-known story. And he leads them out of Egypt, and now they're in the desert, and God's presence is kind of going ahead of them, and God has blessed Moses. He really, he loves Moses a lot. And he's he's encouraging Moses in a moment of insecurity that he's going to be with him. And so we kind of jump into that conversation. The Lord replies, I will personally go with you, Moses. I'll give you rest. Everything will be fine for you. Everything will be fine for you. Then Moses said, If you don't personally go with us, don't make us leave this place. And this is so great. I love, I love the fact that we get to see these windows into people's experiences with God because what did God just say? I will personally go with you. And then Moses goes, You know, God, if you don't go with us, uh, it's not gonna go well. And he's like, I just said that. God knows what it means to be a parent. Those of you who have kids, you under I just said, I just said that. Listen, okay? So God's having this moment with Moses. Moses goes on, he says, How will anyone know that you look favorably on me, on me and on your people, if you don't go with us? For your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all the other people on the earth. And that is something, by the way, that was undeniable about the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. Other nations would say, Look, you guys don't make sense. You're not mighty in number, you're not mighty warriors, yet there's clearly some presence that's with you that just makes you different. And it actually at times created great fear among the people who opposed Israel. They they knew that someone is with these people, someone powerful. The Lord replies, Moses, I will indeed do what you've asked. I look favorably on you, and I know you by name. And Moses responded, Well, then show me your glorious presence. And the Lord replied, I will make my goodness pass before you, and I'll call out my name Yahweh before you. I'll show mercy to anyone I choose, I'll show compassion to anyone I choose, but you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live. And the Lord continued, Look, stand near me on this rock, and as my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock, cover you with my hand until I've passed by, and then I'll remove my hand, I'll let you see me from behind, but my face will not be seen. Now, this like dramatically affects Moses, even just seeing God passing by, not his face, just like the backside of God walking away from him. It says Moses, like his face glowed after this, and like people could see it. It kind of freaked him out. Um and you know, hey, this is a supernatural God who does supernatural things. Sometimes we have this hard moment of faith when we read stuff in the Bible, we're like, I don't know about that. Look, guys, God is real, he's supernatural. It only makes sense that he doesn't make sense. Does that make sense? Okay. Um here's what's really cool though. God isn't angry with Moses. God isn't threatening Moses. He's not saying, if you look at my face, I'm gonna kill you. That's not what he's saying. It's not a threat, it's it's a certain he's saying, Moses, like, I know you want to see me, I know you want to look me right in the eyes, I know you want to be that close to me. That would be a problem for you. That would not work out well for you. You would die. So what can I do? He's like, Oh, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll hide you in this rock, and then I'm gonna cover you, I'm gonna cover your face, I'm gonna kind of like walk by real fast. And then Moses is like, I saw, I saw the backside of God, and it changed my life forever. That's basically what happened here. And the idea that's being communicated is that God is just, he's so powerful. The the biblical word might be holy, he's so other, he's so grand that we like, we couldn't handle it. It's not that that he's saying, if you see my face, I'll be angry. I'll do no, he's just saying, you just can't handle it. We actually have real-world examples of stuff like that. Think about radioactive material, right? There are things in this on this earth, there's material on this earth that is so powerful, it is like emitting a constant power, and if you were in its presence unprotected, you would die. Think about the sun. At the right distance, the sun gives us life, right? The warmth, the ability for things to grow. But if we got closer to the sun, it would be a problem for us. God's holiness is like that. And so God, in mercy, is creating these external barriers, is saying, Moses, you can't be not that close. I love you, but just not that close. And and as time goes on, as the people of Israel sort of become formalized in the way that they worship God, these external barriers just keep they keep being added. And their whole religion really becomes this religion defined by barriers, defined by all the ways that you you can't get close to God. And and religion does what religion does. You know, some of the things were from God, some of the things were people's ideas of what God must want, and usually when we think we know what God wants, we're wrong. And so uh some of their cultural biases come in and they create this whole system that's very, very rigid. It's very good at saying who's in and who's out. You really see it, by the way, best demonstrated in the way that their temple was set up. This is the temple that Jesus teaches in. It's a temple that was actually being restored and rebuilt right when Jesus was on the earth teaching. And if you know anything about the temple in Jerusalem, it was all about external barriers. For example, it had all these different chambers within chambers. And if you weren't Jewish, it didn't matter what you believed about God, didn't matter what your faith was, but if you just weren't Jewish by birth, you could never go into the courts of the temple. You were only allowed in the outermost court called the court of the Gentiles. Now, if you were Jewish, you could go into the next court. It was called the court of women. And it was because if you were a woman and Jewish, that was as far as you got to go. And that was their culture. And so, you know, Jewish women could go there, but then if you were a Jewish man, you got to go into the next area. But then the next area, you you not only had to be a Jewish man, you had to be a Jewish man from a specific tribe in Israel, the tribe of Levi, the Levites were the priests. And so only the Levites could go in that one. And then in the next area, you had to be like even higher up, you had to be a ranking priest to go into the next area. And the deepest part of the temple was this room called the Holy of Holies, sometimes also called the most holy place. And that's where they believe that the presence of God, the actual presence of God, dwelt in that place. Only one person got to go in there one time a year. It was the high priest, the highest ranking Levite, Jewish male in the entire nation. He got to go in there one time a year to make a sacrifice. One sacrifice once a year on behalf of all the people. That's who got to go in that room. And we don't have this in the Bible, but but oral history says that they would also tie a rope on the end of the foot of the high priest so that if he happened to die while in there, they just pull him out. Because the idea is like, oh, if he dies in there, you know, what do we do? We can't go in there. The next high priest can't go in till next year, and that's gonna be bad. Like we just, you know. And so that they would do things like that. That's how seriously they took this. There were there were all these external barriers. Separating the the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was this giant curtain. And don't think like IKEA curtain, don't think, you know, something you get at Bed Bath and Beyond. I I love the fact that I know, I know in my heart as a man that if I was not married, I would have never bought a curtain in my life. Like any other guys in the room would say if I had not been married, I would never have bought a curtain. I wouldn't even think to. I mean, when we we first got married, my wife started buying curtains, and I was like, why? There's blinds on the window. Like that's it gets the same. She's like, it's cute. I'm like, I don't, is it? Um, this is my life now. I wouldn't, I would never have bought a curtain, throw pillows, we'd have none. I'd have none. They're the most, they're there, we have 75 throw pillows at my house. And I would have bought none. It wasn't a curtain like that, though. It wasn't decoration. This curtain was like as legit as a curtain can be. Okay, I don't know if that's a thing, but this is like a legit curtain. So some like manly men, you would appreciate this curtain. 30 feet tall, 30 feet wide, and the material was about four inches thick. So this curtain would have weighed, I mean, hundreds of pounds. And if you wanted to cut through the curtain, you would need a chainsaw. I mean, it's that intense of a thing because that's how intense the glory of God was to them, the presence of God. It's this external barrier. That's the world that Jesus enters. And Jesus does what all revolutionaries tend to do is he says, Hey, I see your preferred method of doing things. I see all your external barriers, and I'm just gonna kind of kick through all of them. And Jesus shows up and he does. He like turns everything on its head. And he messes up the whole system because he's clearly doing things that you couldn't do unless you were God. Like he's healing people of diseases, modern science still hasn't figured out how to heal. He's doing things that only God could do, that's the only explanation, but then at the same time, he's not respecting the external boundaries that all of these people have set up and rely so heavily upon, and it's causing a huge stir. And the people that's making the most angry are the people who the external boundaries have worked really well for. Like if you happen to be a Jewish male Levite and you're one of the ones that gets to be in the innermost places, you don't like Jesus very much. Because Jesus is challenging that, and all of a sudden he's doing things and he's letting people in. He's saying that people are in, he's signaling that people are in with God's favor, that everyone has always said her out. And then he has the audacity to act like some of those guys who thought they were like really in aren't even in at all, and they don't know what to do with that. And so they think, I know, let's kill him, because you know, that'll solve things. And that's like one of the most all-time backfire plans uh that's ever happened, right? Like they killed him, it's all good. Don't worry, guys, what's the worst that could happen? What's he gonna do? Get back up, like come on. Um, you know, just didn't work out for him. And so Jesus shows up and he starts to upend these barriers. And we really see it come to a head at the cross. You know, that the cross, the cross of Jesus is one of the most beautiful and at the same time brutal images we have in all of history. If you read scripture, there's all these different ways that the authors of the New Testament try to describe the cross. Like sometimes they describe the cross as a ransom payment. That the idea is that like we owe a debt to sin itself because we have been selfish and we've gone our own way, and in doing so, it's like we're taking out a line of credit and we can't pay it back, and Jesus comes and he pays the price we can never pay. He's that ransom payment for us. Some of the language to describe the cross is language of victory, that Jesus on the cross defeated the power of sin and death when he rose again. That all that happened on the cross. You have language of substitution in Scripture where Jesus takes our place. The idea is like, oh, it should have been me up there paying that price, but but Jesus took my place and he was a substitute, and now my sin, he paid for it, and his righteousness is given to me. It's this beautiful exchange. You have language of self-sacrifice that Jesus is modeling for us on the cross, what it really means to give your life for someone. And like theological people sometimes get really stuck on asking questions that don't matter. They'll ask questions like, well, which one is it? Is it a ransom payment or is it a victory moment? Or, you know, is it a substitution or is it a model? Like it's got to be one of those. Which one is it? So you actually have all these theories called atonement theories, because atonement means like sacrifice of what actually happened on the cross, and it's all kind of dumb because all of that happened on the cross. And sometimes things happen that are so amazing, so beautiful, so hard to wrap your mind around that there is not one explanation for it. There is not one analogy that can sum it all up. So much happened on the cross. Understand this. Even if you're not a Jesus follower, that Jesus' death and resurrection is the hinge point of human history. Because that's literally how we define the eras of human history. That what happened there was so impactful, undeniable, that that's actually how we gauge the history of the world. What happened before that, what happened after? We actually see some of the incredible uh uh understanding of how many things are happening at once with Jesus on the cross, how significant of a moment it is in Matthew's version of what happens. Matthew chapter 27. It says at noon, this is, by the way, Jesus is hanging on the cross at this moment, at noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. So that's a big deal. Like, how many, how many times is like the sun just stopped shining for a few hours, right? At about three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabak Tani, which means my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Let's all pretend like I pronounced that right. Um, there's no way. Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. But the rest said, Let's let's see whether Elijah comes to save him or not. And then Jesus shouted out again and he released his spirit. One of the cool things, by the way, about us having multiple accounts of Jesus' death on the cross, because there's multiple, uh, we call them gospels. Those are the books that tell of the life of Jesus. It's that they fill in some of those blank spaces because it says he shouted out again, and you're like, What do you shout? And we know from another gospel that he shouts out, it is finished. So that's what's happening right there. And he released his spirit. At that moment, the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened, and the bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. And they left the cemetery after Jesus' resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people. The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquakes and all that had happened, and they said, This man truly was the Son of God. These are guys, by the way, who perform executions on a daily basis. Basis. This is their job. And this one is different. Now, what I love about this story is some pretty significant things happen. And even if you're kind of a skeptic, just go with it for a second. Just be like, okay. Um apparently there was like a three-hour-long eclipse of some kind. Dark. I don't know if it was a thick fog or super cloudy. I don't know, but it was dark. For three hours, that's significant. Okay? There's an earthquake. That's pretty significant. Rocks are splitting apart. Like, so it's a pretty intense earthquake. Dead people are getting back up and like hanging out with people and telling them things. That's a pretty big that doesn't happen that often. Um right? Oh, and you have a curtain torn too from top to bottom. Now, which of those seems like it does not belong in in the description of what's going on? Like, like, if all those events happened, you would not believe what happened yesterday. The sun stopped shining. There was an earthquake, rocks were like splitting apart all around me. It was crazy. I could see into the earth. There were dead people coming up out of their graves, walking around and talking. Oh, yeah, I saw a curtain split in half. And you'd be like, I think the curtain does not belong. And that is, it is not like it's not as cool as the other things. Unless you know what that curtain was and what it meant. Right? That separation between people and the presence of God was gone. It was gone. It's like, hey, if the presence of God was password protected, the password is Jesus, and it's done, and now there's access to God. It's okay, I don't know what I was talking about like access to God. That's what that meant. Because of Jesus, because of Jesus, we have access to God. There are no more external barriers now. Why is it if that's the case, that we still struggle to experience the presence of God? If every barrier has been removed, if all of those external barriers have been taken away, then why is it that we as people, even people who love God, even people who have faith in God, still sometimes struggle to feel that presence or to experience the presence? And the reason for that, at least one of the reasons, is that there's a different type of barrier. And the type of barrier that honestly sometimes is more challenging to overcome than an external barrier, and that's an internal barrier. My wife put it this way: we all have a way of putting up our own curtains. And we've experienced that by the way, right? In life, like there's probably people in your life who you have a hard time being close to. There's a distance that's there. And it's not necessarily that something so earth-shattering happened that it justifies the distance, but there's something in your heart. There's some moment, there's some pain, there's some hurt, and because of that moment, you you put up a curtain, so to speak. And there's this barrier that's there that keeps you from engaging. But we all know what that feels like. See, we have this tendency as human beings to put up curtain. To create internal barriers that keep us more distant from the presence of God than we need to. We have no reason to be distant from God now. The curtain got torn into access to God. Jesus is the password we're in. But we've got to deal with those internal barriers. We see this by the way, in the earliest stories that we have in scripture. Like the earliest one, the story of Adam and Eve. They mess up, they sin, and we see the aftermath. Genesis chapter 3, verses 7 through 10. At that moment, their eyes were open. This is the moment that they disobeyed God, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. I think it's so interesting. The first feeling they experienced was shame. When they departed from God's way, they thought they were going to have all this wisdom. So exciting, and the first thing they feel is shame. Shame never comes from God, by the way, ever. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. And when the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord among the trees. And the Lord called out to the man, Where are you? He replied, I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked. Now notice that there's been no external barrier created between God and people at this point. None. It doesn't exist. God has not removed himself from Adam. Adam has removed himself from God. There's an internal barrier, shame. Shame is a very powerful internal barrier. There are some of us in the room, some of us watching online that struggle to engage with God because we are holding on to shame. And maybe for a moment we even believe, we even believe that that shame is from God. It is not. I want you to, I don't, I don't care what it is, by the way. It could be it could be something in your past. It could be, you know, your lowest point as a person. Number one, you are not defined by your lowest point as a person. You are defined by the highest point of Jesus Christ. That's what defines you as a person. You are the you are the son, the daughter of God. You're not defined by your worst mistake, your biggest issue. But what's what's interesting, what's really interesting by the way, is like in a in a family dynamic, okay? Like I'm a dad. I got four kids. You probably didn't know that. I never talk about it. So I have four kids, and uh there is this sort of like I don't have the right words for it necessarily, but it was kind of a healthy guilt dynamic that sometimes exists between fathers and kids, where like if a kid gets out of line, as a dad, you have the ability just to kind of look at them and they're like, I'm sorry. And you're like, we're good. You know what I mean? You kind of need that. It's not this, but it's not shame. It's actually funny. I was reading this this really interesting take on culture today and how as a culture, collectively, we have rejected the idea of fatherhood. And in doing so, really rejected the idea of authority, and and you know, like it's kind of like the okay boomer, you know, you know, all you guys are familiar with that? Anyone? It's just me. Anyone know okay boomer? We're talking about Bitcoin and boomers today. Here we go. This is like millennial culture. I'm technically the oldest millennial in any room. That's like if you look at millennials, I'm there, but I just got in at the beginning of the millennial movement. So um boomer means you know, baby boomer generation, and there's this disdain for anyone who's older, like okay boomer, you know, okay, you're the one that messed all this up, you know? There's that there's that attitude, right? And and what's interesting is that when you reject fatherhood, when you reject any type of respect for authority, what you end up doing is replacing the need for belonging with a father to a peer group. So now you're not looking to belong with your father, with the elder. You're looking to belong and get all your sense of meaning from your peers. The problem is, uh, if you step out of line with a peer group, you don't get guilt, you get shame. You get canceled. Like that's that's what happens. If if the peer group, they have no reason to have any feelings of ownership or attachment to you because you're just one of them. Whereas a father, if you step out of line with a father, that father, if he's a decent father, just a half-decent father, has a huge internal desire to bring reconciliation to the relationship. And so there might be a little guilt, but there's never shame. But when you reject a fatherly relationship and you settle just for this feeling, feeling like I belong because of my peers, you will receive shame when you step out of line because we don't want you anymore. No father ever says I don't want you anymore. And if that father does, he looks nothing like the father. Nothing like it. Shame becomes this internal barrier that we put up, it's a curtain we put up, and we don't go to God because we're like shame. Jesus can handle your shame. It'll give you a sense of belonging. It's us that puts up the barriers. We see it, we see it illustrated also in the story of the prodigal son. If you're familiar with that story, by the way, worship team, you guys can make your way out. The story of the prodigal son, you know, there's the prodigal, and by the way, his hands has always been a church for prodigals, by the way. So if you identify with the prodigal, like you've kind of gone and done your thing, and and you know, this church, you belong here. There's never gonna be any judgment. Um, actually, one of the police officers who helped us out a lot said, Man, your people are just so much nicer. It was kind of cool to hear as a pastor, your people are nicer than like a lot of the other people at other churches that we work with. I was like, a lot of us have records. Um, so it's just, you know, that's just kind of like how we are. We have like, officer, you know. That's good. That's good. A lot of us that don't have records could have if things had gone a little bit differently and if we'd have been caught, let's be honest. So um I got an amen. I love that. Oh man, my rap sheet would be so long, but uh man. But you know, the prodigal we kind of identify with. He goes off and he does his thing and he just wild and he comes back to God and God receives him, the father receives him. Then there's the older brother, and he's ticked off because he doesn't feel like the prodigal son should have been able to return, and he's mad about that. But what's interesting is he's just as distant from the father as the prodigal was. It's just his distance wasn't external, it's internal. Like in his heart, he's far away from his father. So much so that he settled for living like a worker and not living like a son. And what he's actually trying to do is he's trying to get God to validate him by, well, it's the father, but the father represents God. He's trying to get the father to validate him by celebrating what he's done. And hear this God the Father will never play that game. Because if God the Father validates you because of what you've done, all that's gonna do is keep that cycle of performance going in your life. God the Father will not validate you because of what you've done, he will validate you because of who you are. Just because you are his. And that's why the prodigal son comes up with this rehearsed speech, like, Father, I know I've sinned, and if you'll just take me back, I pray. And the father just like, stop talking, uh, we're gonna throw a party. He doesn't even give the kid a chance to like make the plea, because that's the heart of God. But that older brother has this distance, and it's the distance of disappointment. You know, he's tried so hard to earn it, he's tried so hard to live this perfect life, and he just hasn't gotten the feeling that he's wanted. And he looks at the father like, Father, I'm I'm frustrated with you because I'm disappointed, and that disappointment's like a curtain that he's put up on his heart. And the father looks at him and says, I didn't, I never asked you to to engage with me that way. You never had to do that. You chose that. Now come to the party. I asked my wife, what are some other curtains that she could think of? And part of the reason I asked that of Megan is she's a big part of our prayer team and has been for many years. And by the way, all of you guys in the prayer room, thank you guys so much. And being in the prayer room on Sunday mornings, you you really get to experience the things that people bring and the things that often are keeping them from the peace they want to have with God. And so I said, Hey, what have you seen? And and Megan said, disqualification. People feel like they are somehow disqualified from being close to God. And sometimes it's because people are too old and they'll say things like, 'I'm just at my age, you know, there's I just know that you know, I really missed it when I had those chances. You are not too old at all. In fact, if life is forever, if we live for eternity, you're like, you're really young. Like all of us are really, really young. And if you look at scripture, it's amazing how often God doesn't really get started in someone's life until they're way up there. Or sometimes people say they're too young. There's a disqualification there. And some of you in the room, you're really young, and you're like, I don't know that much, and I don't have, okay. What makes you qualified? What you know? You think what you know impresses God? Like, wow, you know a lot. You know nothing. None of us know anything. One of my favorite pastors that I listened to since I was in college, he used to say that we all have these ideas in mind, like, one day when I get to heaven, I'm gonna ask God all these questions, I'm gonna get all the answers to the questions. He's like, No, you're not. Because when you get to heaven and you look at God for the very first time, you really see him for who he is, all those old questions aren't gonna matter anymore at all. You're gonna care about any of that stuff. I got a whole new set of questions. Because God's gonna blow away all of that. It's like, I don't care. Irrelevant. It's not about what we know, it's not about how old we are, how young we are. Some of us disqualify ourselves because of what we've done, it's that shame thing. But you're qualified. Because you've Jesus, He qualified you. It's like getting a loan with a cosigner. You might have the worst credit in the world. But if the person co-signing on your loan has great credit, the bank's like, sure, you're qualified for this loan. And when they say that, they're actually like, that person's qualified for this loan. You're just on the you're on the paper. Well, good news, Jesus has cosigned for you, and that makes you qualified. That makes you like pre-qualified. We'll keep using that mortgage language, right? But there's a curtain that's up, and here's what I want us to do it's 1109. And uh now that we're a one-service church, there's this sliding scale of when church ends, which is great. It's so great. Um, I love it. Because in my mind right now, it's not like, ooh, we gotta get these people out of here because the next group is coming. You're the only group. By the way, that's one of the reasons that we we actually have made a conscious decision to be a one-service church. And when it comes to, well, what about growth? And what about but we'll figure all that out. I'm not worried about that. But I want us to be a church where when when we're together, we're together. And we see every baptism. And when the Spirit of God moves, the worship team, myself, we don't have to go like, wow, first service was amazing. We gotta bring that again. I didn't bring it, it was God. I don't, I can't manufacture that. Like when God moves, he moves. And I don't want anyone to miss it. I don't want us to have the ability to linger afterwards and just talk and experience and have conversations. It's that's why we're doing this, but but it also means that there's not another group coming in. I'm not saying that we're gonna go long today, don't worry. Okay, what I'm saying is you can be here as long as you want to be. What I'd like us to do now for the next probably next 10 minutes, um, is I was I want us to have some time with God. Now, hear me, you're released if you're like, no one's gonna look at you, there's no shame if you get up and go and go, they don't want to be with God. You know, we'll just go, wow, a lot of people had to use the restroom at the same time. And it's fine. But I think there's something really beautiful about having this moment together. And those of you watching online, like, stay engaged and eliminate all distractions because, man, wouldn't it be awesome if we each got to spend just a few minutes hearing from the Lord together personally? And do you think God loves you enough to speak to you if you took that time? Because as I was going through this, this idea of these curtains that we put up, I was reminded that the curtain in the temple tore from the top down, not the bottom up. And so I could sit here for hours and try to name all the curtains that we could put up. Okay, there's shame and there's disappointment and there's disqualification. But the truth is, most of the time these are heavily personal curtains. Like these are heavily personal internal barriers that we've created over many years, and they're complicated. And they have to deal with our childhoods and disappointment and things that our fathers said or didn't said, or, you know, were there or not there, all kinds of it's just messy. It's messy. And I could not stand here for three hours and adequately describe all of the potential scenarios, but God knows it. He knows you. And one word from God, I'm telling you guys, one word from God can cut through everything. I just spent five days at a uh silent retreat. I told you guys that last week. No talking for five days. Um for the most part. God's He's proud of me. It's okay, so I'm good. But I did pretty well. Um, but but you know what was cool is I was uh I was having this moment where I was praying, and I was feeling uh just kind of beat down, you know? And and I asked God a question. I think it's it's good sometimes just to ask him questions, give him a chance to answer. And I asked him, God, are you pleased with me? And you know what he's saying, and when I say this, I want you to understand, I would say that there's I hear God speak pretty often in the sense that not like I'm a crazy person, like, uh, because God talks all the time. And if you listen, you tend to hear things. Um, but when I say, yeah, God showed me something, there's like different categories of that. There's I really feel like God showed me this, and then there's like, oh no, no, I I know the voice of my father. And when he speaks, and he speaks this clearly, I know it's him. And there have been 10 times in my life where I would be able to say, no, to that, that was God. And so I'm I'm praying. And I'm kind of walking around, and uh, it was a Catholic-run place, by the way. I don't know if anybody's come from a Catholic church. I realize like it wouldn't be that hard for us to be Catholic. We already do Lord's Supper every week. We're gonna do that here in a little bit, and I would just get to hear all your sins. That would be cool. Um, so we're gonna start confession over there, and um just I'm just I'm excited to hear all the details. I'm just joking. Um, I have a really hard time being serious if you can't tell when it gets vulnerable. So, all right, let me get back to this. Um, so I'm I'm praying, and this is emotional. I'm going, God, are you pleased with me? And I've I heard him say this, and I know it was him because of the effect that it had on my spirit and my heart. And when God usually speaks to me, it's very short phrases, but in that phrase, it's like a million things open up, and I'm encouraged and lifted, even if it's challenging. I say, God, are you pleased with me? And it was like he was smiling, and he said, I'm easy to please. He's easy to please. And that word from him, it just cut through every single frustration that I had in that moment, just melted it. That's what a word from the Lord will do to you. And so rather than us sitting here and trying from the bottom up to tear these curtains down, trying to identify them all, name them all, and speak against them all, what if we just took 10 minutes and just were quiet and each of us individually just said, Lord, what curtain needs to come down today? And let him identify it in your heart. Let him bring it to your mind, and let him tear it in half from top to bottom. It's not about you having to do it yourself, it's not bottom up, it's top down. Let the father speak into your life, listen, and say, Lord, what curtain needs to come down? And he might say unforgiveness, and you might say to who, and he might say a person, and you're like, I don't want to forgive them. And then he's gonna say, I already have. And you let it be torn, top to bottom, but it's between you and him. Now, Lord's Supper. Normally we do that all together. We have cups, we have they're in the back, you might have grabbed when you came in. If not, you can take take Lord's Supper during this time if you want. Let it be a self-directed thing today. But here's the cool thing: the cross, that's the moment that the curtain tears. And so when you tear open that little lid, and when you tear open the you know the bread, it's a curtain being torn in your heart so that there's no more barriers between you and the love of the Father. Does this make any sense? Do I need to stop talking and we need to get into this? Yes. Okay. So, Lord, we're here today to meet with you. It's so cool, Lord, how you speak. And uh Avery, who sang earlier today, was backstage and we were walking out of the same side of the stage, and she was wearing a blazer, and I commented on it, and she said, Yeah, I put on a blazer this morning because I'm here to do business with God. And I think that's a word for all of us today, Lord, that we're here right now to do some business with you. But this isn't just business in the sense that we think about it. This is this is a father, a loving, compassionate, understanding, gentle, but at the same time powerful and mighty father, who wants to meet us right here. You want to meet with us right now, and Lord, you want to remove every single barrier that exists between us and you so that we can have unblocked access to your presence. Because your presence is everything, Father. One word from you can change our lives forever. Lord, when you speak, new things are created. That's what happens when you speak. You spoke this universe into existence, and you can speak life like we've never experienced it before into existence in our hearts. Just one word from you will do that. So, Lord, I pray right now that you would show us what our curtains are and that we would let you and trust you to tear them top to bottom. So, for these next ten minutes, speak. We'll listen.