Morning. Everybody doing well? Good, good. Hey, this week, uh, just if if you think about it, pray for Nathan. Nathan was the person that was just standing right here. A lot of us know anything. He's having his tonsils taken out tomorrow. Uh I know, right? And uh, we've already told him, you know, that if his voice doesn't recover, then we'll just find someone else. But um he's good. He's good. You know, Nathan's been part of this church for 10 years, and uh, and I'm I'm gonna guess that part of the the tonsil struggles he's had in the last year, he's had several several bouts of tonsillitis, and he's still kind of fought through it all and sung each week. And none of none of us may realize that you know sometimes that's the case, but he's he's he's done everything he can, so he's having that surgery tomorrow, and it's a pretty big surgery, so just pray for that, pray for him tomorrow and uh and for his family as they recover from that. I'm sure it'll be it'll be awesome, though. Uh I want to start by saying thank you for being here. If you're here for the very first time, welcome to his hands. Uh, we are a family of people that exist for one big reason, and that is to love people to Jesus. I want to thank everyone who's here for uh for for being uh the in the second week of the parking team. We are making big adjustments, we listened to a lot of feedback, uh delivered in a variety of different ways last week, and we are so no, seriously though, so we've added a few things. Um you may have seen the signs that if you ever need to drop someone off at the front, uh either you need dropped off or you need to drop your wife, your kids off, anything like that. Um, that you can just put your flashers on and the parking team will waive you right to the front. We'll take care of that. We're gonna be making adjustments each week, but but here's the thing this is crazy. We got a pretty big parking lot. We used to be a super Kmart here. That's what this was, if you didn't know. Not quite Walmart Super Center level, but you know, we'll take it. And last Sunday we had 45 open spaces in the parking lot during the second service at the end. That was it. When all was said and done, just 45 spots left. And actually, this Sunday I think it's gonna be even fewer. I was talking to a family that just arrived. Uh they got here a little late. Great family, I know them, they got a lot of kids, and they said, Man, we got here a little later than we normally do, but but all the parking spaces that were left were right in the same spot. They were easy to find. If that ever happened in the past, we'd like to drive lane to lane trying to find one. It's important that we do that kind of thing because every single space, every single one is a family. It's a marriage, it's children, it's lives. And us making room for as many as we can handle, and then we'll figure out a way to make room for more, it changes people's lives. I want to thank you for that very, very much. I've got a couple quick things to share before we jump into the message. Number one, just want to encourage everyone that wants to to get connected. This is a time of the year where we really make a big point to talk about our home groups because all of our groups are getting started again this week. We have groups for men, for women, for married couples. We also have some groups that sort of fall outside of those three categories. We have a college group that meets on Sunday nights at six o'clock. They meet in our coffee shop, they've got a big kickoff tonight. So if you are a college student or you have one that lives with you at home or you know one, just say, hey, be here tonight at six. We've got a 20-somethings kind of career-minded group that meets on Monday nights. Uh, we have a singles group for people in their 30s. We have a singles in their 30s group that's just getting started. You can sign up for that today at the Connect Desk in the main lobby. Uh, we're just launching that, and in the next few weeks, we'll be having a singles for 40s and up group that's going to be getting going in an official way. And so uh just be on the lookout for that as well. Um, because we want to make sure that no matter what stage of life you're in, where you are, we have something here for you. We have a way for you to get connected, to be alongside other amazing people. And if you ever want to lead a group, let us know. Go to the Connect Desk, tell Megan that you want to lead a group because I know we could use some more married couple leaders right now. Um we want to make room for everybody, and and thank you in advance for doing that. Um, it's an exciting, exciting time. I want to share a story with us all real quick. We get these stories in uh every single week, people sharing stories about how their lives change. And I love to share these. I love to share these because these are the results, right? This is why we do everything that we do. These are lives changed, and they're changed because of all of you. You are his hands church. Every single one of you here. And so, this story, like the the others that we share, there they exist because you serve, because you pray, because you give and you help out. This story just blew me away this last week. Uh, this person writes, My story is so long I could fill this card plus a hundred more. However, my story started turning around almost 10 years ago when we started coming to his hands. Every Sunday, my life has gotten better as I find out who God thinks I am, and I'm leaving behind who the world has shown me that I am. I've slowly been gaining confidence in all I can be with God by me every step of the way. Most recently, I've conquered an addiction to a drug that I've had for years. I felt this was something that I would carry my whole life. It's been my own self-medication for my anxiety, for my stress. I've said I can never conquer this, never stop it, because no one will be able to be around me without it, but guess what? That's not true. I am finding out that I actually like to be around myself, even without the drug. I can handle the stress, I can be strong, I can win this battle, and I am every single day. I love God's journey for me, and I thank him for all of the people at his hands that are helping me along the way. So thank you, all of you, for that story. You know, stories like that. That's what happens when we serve and when we pray and when we give. If you're here for the very first time or the hundredth time, we're not gonna pass a plate or anything like that this morning, but we have four stations in the back where you can share prayer requests, where you can give and support us financially. Uh, I want to thank you, all of you who do that. It makes so much possible here, and it makes stories like this possible because this church is changing lives. You are changing lives, and many of you are doing big things to make it all possible. So thank you. Keep it up. Let's let's keep doing what we're doing. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for uh for this amazing family, for this group of people. Thank you for every single person in this room, for their lives, for the impact that they have. God, you want to do something in us today, you want to do something through us today, and so we ask in your name, Jesus, that you would you would show us that through your word. That your word would speak into our hearts and that we would be more equipped to live the amazing life you have given us. And we pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Have you ever noticed how eager other people are to tell you who you are? You know I'm talking about how other people in your life are very quick to tell you who they think you are, who they think you can be. Have you ever had someone come up to you and say this to you, hey, you're a lot like me. We're a lot alike. And depending on who the person is in front of you, you might nod your head in agreement. Yeah, yeah, sure. But on the inside, you're like, no, please, please, no. I I don't want, I don't want to be like you. I'm I want to be different than you. That happens when we're kids and we're we're growing up, we're trying not to be our parents. That's the big goal of your 20s, right? Don't be your parents. But then eventually you'll start doing things and you're realizing, I am my father. I am I no, no, right? It's inevitable. How about this? Have you ever had someone come up to you and ask you this question? It's a nerve-wracking question. They come up to you and say, You know who you remind me of? Isn't that awful? Isn't the moment of anticipation right after that question the worst? Because you don't know who they're about to say. And you're about to be either either offended or flattered, and rarely in between. You know, do you know who you remind me of? That's that's intense. I always cut people off when they say that. I say Brad Pitt, right? Like Brad Pitt? Because Brad Pitt and I have a lot in common. We're both from Springfield, Missouri. And then then, you know, it's where it ends. But but hey, guys, men, that means I have a lot more in common with Brad Pitt than a lot of you in the room, okay? So I'll take what I can get. I try to cut people off when they ask me that, but but still, no, people will say, no, no, no, no, no, not Brad Pitt. Um, no, you remind me of of this person. A lot of times, maybe it's someone semi-famous that you kind of look like or sound like. In 2009, I had someone walk up to me, a friend of mine here at church, and he said, Hey, you know who you remind me of? And then he mentioned this guy's name, this actor that I had never heard of. It's 2009. He said, You remind me this guy named Chris Pratt. And and I said, Okay, I don't I don't know who that is. He said, Oh, he's on this show called Parks and Wreck. Anyone watch Parks and Wreck? Any Parks and Wreck people? Okay. Um, he plays this character named Andy Dwyer on Parks and Wreck, and I'd never seen the show, so he says, You remind me of this guy. You could be his brother. You guys just you're you're the same. And I said, Okay, is that a good thing? He said, Oh, yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome. He's he's hysterical. So I just sort of went about my day, and I never even saw the show until two years later. Two years later, enough people had told us it's a funny show, watch it, that I started watching the show. And when his character came on, I'm excited, right? Because apparently this is my twin, this is the person that I'm a lot like. And I don't I don't know how to put this any other way. But if you've ever watched the show, you know this. Andy, uh, he's he's fun-loving, he's amusing, he's very lovable, but he's a moron. Like, I mean, there's no other way. He's he's the village idiot on the show. He has he has zero intelligence, he has the maturity of like a 10-year-old child trapped in a man's body. He's the first episode I watched, he had lit something on fire because he was trying to cook ramen noodles in a coffee pot, and something about that made my friend go, Justin, just that's Justin. It's the same. And he wasn't the only person to make that connection. So many people used to say that. Just to add insult to injury, Chris Pratt has become a pretty big movie star in recent years. He was in Guardians of the Galaxy, he's a big star of that. If you saw that movie, he was the star of Jurassic World, which I think was like the third highest-grossing movie of all time. And to get ready for those action roles, he's made, he's made a lot of progress physically, like he's in incredible shape. And no longer do people say I remind them of Chris Pratt. Like we have before and after pictures. I put these up there, okay? The one on the left is Chris Pratt in 2009, and then that's the new one. And just keep in mind that when people said I reminded them of Chris Pratt, I'm the before picture. I'm the one on the left. Now, I would like to think of myself as kind of in between the two, right? I'm either the one on the left moving in the right direction or the one on the right regressing. I don't know. But uh, just for my own sanity, you know who you remind me of. Those are those are brutal words. We're in a series right now called Who Do You Think You Are? We're looking at that question, it's an all-important question. Because who we understand ourselves to be affects every part of our life. Who you believe you are affects virtually every decision you will make, the goals you set for yourself, the people you will choose to be around. It all comes from our sense of understanding and knowing who we are. So it's very important for us to be able to answer that question. We want God to help us answer that question. We've heard enough people tell us who who we remind them of. We've heard enough people tell us who we are. Who does God say we are? A lot of people believe that the God of the Bible is about telling people what to do. The God of the Bible is about telling people who they are. And what's incredible is that every time he does, they are greater. They are more than they ever thought they could be. We see this time and time again. We all need to understand that no one has a higher opinion of us than the one who created us. No one believes you're more capable than God, no one has a higher opinion of what you can be in life than God. God believes in you because he made you. And if we will allow God to be the one that tells us who we are, we will be more. We will be greater. That's what God does. He lifts us up. Two weeks ago we we started this series by looking at the word heir, H-E-I-R, that God says in his word, we are heirs of his kingdom. We are his co-heirs with Jesus. When we accept Jesus into our lives, God adopts us into his family. We become the adopted children of God. And that means we are lifted up to be co-heirs with Jesus. Just think about that. I had lunch with a friend, or breakfast with a friend rather, and we talked about how scandalous that was. Co-with Jesus, who in their right mind can ever hope to be co-with Jesus? But Jesus made it possible for us to be that. He brings us into God's family. We become royalty in God's eyes. We are heirs. We should live like that. We should live understanding that we are so important to God. And we should treat ourselves with the kind of dignity that God treats us because we are the co-heirs of Jesus. Last week we looked at the word mighty. God says, we are mighty. In fact, the phrase used in the New Testament is that we are more than conquerors. That means that we're meant to have overwhelming and exceeding victory in our lives. We're not meant to be ruled by anything but God. We submit to authorities and whatnot, but we surrender to Jesus and then we never surrender again. We live in a world that constantly tells us we're powerless. It's really good at giving us these messages and masking them, but our world tells us things like you can't change the way you feel, you can't control who you're attracted to, you can't change who you are. You can't. That's the message we get from our culture all the time. You can't, you can't, you can't. And God says, no, no, no, no, you're more than conquerors. So don't listen when people say you can't do this, because I say you can, I say you're mighty. We are mighty when we have the power of God active in our lives. And that's what we have access to through the Holy Spirit. Today we're gonna look at another identity that God gives us. It's one that pops up often in Scripture, it's one that the Apostle Paul uses in what he writes, it's one that Peter used when he wrote some of the New Testament. It's this phrase, this two-word phrase that we see often in Scripture, it's the phrase, in Christ. We have this identity according to Scripture that we are in Christ. We'll look at some verses that show this. 1 Peter 5, verse 14 says, Peace be with all of you who are in Christ. Romans 8.1 says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Paul begins his letter to the church in Philippi by saying this, to all God's holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi. In Colossians 3.3, Paul says, For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. So time and time again, we are in Christ. We're in God. That's our identity. We are in him. And that sounds really cool, that sounds amazing, it sounds pretty spiritual, and it's kind of hard to wrap your head around. We're in God. What does that mean? How do I make sense of that? How does that affect my life? Thankfully, Paul gives us this incredible metaphor that really helps us grab hold of this idea that we are in Christ. It's in Galatians 3.27. He says, All who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. The New American Standard Version, it's the closest to the original language, says this for all of you who were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ. So we're in Christ, we're in Jesus. How are we in Jesus? Well, we're we're kind of wearing him in God's eyes. We are clothed in Jesus. When we give our lives to him, when we commit our lives to Jesus, go all in with him, we are clothed in Jesus. We're in him just like we're in our t-shirts and our jeans right now. We're in Jesus. And I love the fact that God gives us this metaphor because all through scripture, there are amazing metaphors to help us understand how we relate to God. Jesus used the example of shepherds and sheep pretty often. And all of us in here, we get that, right? We understand that shepherds lead the sheep and sheep follow the shepherds, and we we make sense of that, but we don't live in a culture that is surrounded by shepherds and sheep. So we don't understand all of the incredible, incredible richness of that metaphor. But the people in Jesus' day, they would have been thinking about all the implications. They knew shepherds, they knew what sheep smelled like. I don't. I assume it's bad. I assume that. But but they understood the richness of that metaphor in a way that we can't. But clothing, clothing is a metaphor that we can all understand. Clothing is a metaphor that is not outdated. In fact, last year alone, Americans spent two trillion dollars on clothes. It's a lot of money. I'm guessing that some of us in here contributed to that. Um, some of us may have contributed greatly to that. Some of us not so much. I buy clothes like every four years. My wife gets tired of what I'm wearing. She says, Everything you're wearing is old, it doesn't look good, you don't fit it anymore, go buy new clothes. Buy the right size. I'm like, fine, I will. I don't know why the difference between a 34 and a 33 should matter, but it does. Stinking Chris Pratt, you know, I have all this stuff I gotta do. Okay, 36. It doesn't matter. Um But we we get clothing. Clothing affects us. We we very easily identify ourselves with the clothes that we wear, walk up to a young person who's dressed a very specific way, and ask them, why do you wear those clothes? Why are you dressed that way? And they'll probably give you an answer of something along the lines of this. I don't know, this is just me. This is who I am. This is I dress this way because it's who I am. And as we get older, we look at that and we go, that is not who you are. If that's you, you are going to be changing as soon as you get a job. Like you will change very quickly. Right? You will have new clothes, you will have a new haircut. What you wear is not who you are, but we still identify it so closely with us. We all did that at some point in time. It's easy to look at younger generations and be like, silly, but we all did that. Some of y'all rock some amazing bell bottoms in the 70s, I'm sure. You know, I've we we do that eventually. Some of us just quit. We stay in whatever decade that we liked the most, and we live there for the rest of our lives. You know, 1995, we liked it. We're gonna dress like it's 1995 forever, and that's okay. That's okay. But the point is, we understand how clothing affects our identity. There's all these different implications. Our confidence, for example. Have you ever been in a situation where you were way underdressed for an occasion and you didn't realize it? You showed up and you are so much more underdressed than everyone there, and you feel awkward, you feel strange, you feel like a fish out of water, or maybe you're the most overdressed person in the room. You thought it was a black tie event, but it was casual, and you're you feel awkward and weird. Right? That that happens. The way we dress can affect our confidence. You don't even have to be the one that's that's dressed inappropriately. You could be with someone dressed inappropriately, and you can feel really strange by association. Parents, you make your kids feel like that all the time. My parents made me feel like that a lot. My dad, I love my father. My father is a brilliant businessman, he's hardworking, he's creative, he's very innovative. My dad's a very innovative person, he's invented things, he's very innovative. Innovation is both a positive and a negative. It's positive in that sometimes, if you're innovative, you think of things no one's ever thought of before, and that's good. But sometimes you will think of things that no one has ever thought of before for a reason, right? Like, yes, that is a very innovative idea, but I think there's a reason that no one has ever tried it. My dad sometimes has those types of ideas, and he tries them out. He had an innovative fashion idea when I was in high school. My dad loves golf. Loves golf. We used to play a lot of golf together, and when we would go golfing, a lot of times golf courses have you know pretty simple dress codes. Sometimes they'll require that you wear a collared shirt. If you buy someone a golf shirt, it means you're buying them a polo, a collared shirt. My dad recognized one day, he said, you know, athletes love to do their sports, sands sleeves. They don't like to wear sleeves a lot of times, because if you get sweaty and it's hot, you know, the sleeves stick to your arms and it feels restrictive. And so I'd go play basketball with my friends and I'd cut the sleeves off of t-shirts, and that's what I would use to play. My dad said, Hey, golfers are outside, it's hot, they use their arms a lot, right? So what if they had sleeveless golf shirts for men? Sleeveless collared shirts for men. And I mean, I my dad ran the idea by me and my mom, and we were like, that's an idea. That that is an idea. So my dad tried it. He actually did. He cut the sleeves off of some of his golf shirts, and we went golfing together. And I'm in the golf cart with my dad, and he's dressed this way, and he was saying things like, Man, I think people really notice the golf shirt. I'm like, they they do notice, dad. They absolutely notice. You notice that that pretty girl that drove up and gave us our drink, she noticed. I'm really glad you were here for that. That was a good moment for me. Um, you know, and eventually for my dad, this became like a fashion statement. It went beyond the golf course. He started wearing this out and about. We would go to restaurants as a family. And my dad's in a sleeveless golf shirt, collar, no sleeves. You ever seen a man dressed that way? Have you? No. I've seen one. In fact, if I wanted to have a really bad day, I could have said this to my dad. Hey dad, you know who you remind me of? Fred Flintstone. Because he's the only person, he's the only person I've ever seen that's a man that's wearing sleeveless-collared shirts. You know, he could have put a tie on and it would have been just deadpan, Fred Flintstone. Oh, it's bad. It was bad. I love my dad. I love my dad, very innovative. Fashion, he's not gonna be showing it at Fashion Week or anything like that anytime soon. He's a good man. Clothing, it affects us. It affects the way others see us, it affects our confidence. And yeah, just like you can feel awkward wearing the wrong thing, if you have something that you look good in and you know you look good in it, it's it's your shirt. You might still ask your spouse, do I look good in this? But you know. You know, it's it's the rare shirt or pair of pants that you buy that looks good in the department store and when you get home. There's not many of those. They play tricks on you. But when you're wearing that, you know you look good, you have some extra confidence, you have some extra swing in your step, you feel better, and you should because you you know you look good. We try to think to ourselves as a culture, we shouldn't care about the way we look, we shouldn't care about that, and maybe that's True. We should not, but we do. And so when you're clothed in something that makes you feel good, you feel good. The Bible says that we are clothed in Jesus, that we are clothed with Christ. That we're we're spiritually speaking, we are wearing Jesus. So how good should we feel? How confident should we be in front of God when we're wearing Jesus? It's pretty common in the fashion world for a question to be asked of people hey, who are you wearing today? Like I'm wearing Mark Anthony. You can find his latest fall collection at the men's department at Kohl's. Okay? He was married to J Lo, so I guess he's probably a snazzy dresser. That's why he wears clothes. I bet he wears all of his own clothes too. Celebrities do that, right? And so, um, you know, who are you wearing? You're wearing Jesus. You're wearing Jesus. Spiritually speaking, you're clothed in Jesus. And this is a big deal. Because all jokes aside, this means that God could walk up to you today and say, hey, you know who you remind me of? You remind me of my son Jesus. You look a lot like him to me. Because you are clothed in Christ. See, this metaphor, it's it's amusing in some ways, but it's powerful and it has massive implications for our relationship with God. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 goes into some detail about this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there we have that phrase again, we are in Christ. The new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here. All this is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ. He's given us the ministry of reconciliation. And here's the definition of that ministry: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. When we're reconciled with someone, it means we've made up. It means a debt has been paid and it's now reconciled. And Jesus brought us reconciliation with God. He paid our debt. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors because he's committed to us this message of reconciliation. As though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you, I love that phrase, implore you. We're practically begging you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Be reconciled to God because you don't have to do anything for it. He's paid the price. Just be reconciled to God. Accept his love, accept his presence in your life. God made him who had no sin. God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us. So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Okay, this is this is this is crazy. That God chose to make Jesus, that Jesus decided to take our sin upon himself. So that in him, when we have him in our lives, we're clothed in him, we have the righteousness of God. It actually says we become the righteousness of God. That means if you have a relationship with Jesus, if you've given your life to him, in God's eyes, you are the righteousness of God. I rarely meet people who feel like they're righteous. I don't feel like I'm righteous most times, and I shouldn't, in and of my own strength, because I'm not. See, I have no ability in and of myself to stand in front of God and say, hey, you should listen to me. You should, you should hear me, you should be for me, because look at what I've done. I've earned it, God. I've earned your ear, I've earned your love, I've earned your support. I can't do that with God, but Jesus could. I mean, Jesus had a perfect relationship with God. Think about this. Jesus never apologized to God. Jesus never had to go to God in prayer and say, God, I'm really sorry about earlier today. I just, you know, I'm stressed, but you know, help me, help me be better tomorrow. Jesus prayed with utter confidence. Because he and God were completely reconciled at all times. But here's where it gets crazy. The Bible says that Jesus, being like that, decided, no, no, no, I'm gonna take their sin upon me and I'm gonna give them my righteousness. They can wear it, they can have it, they can be my righteousness, my perfection, my sinlessness, my glory. They can have all of that, they can wear that, they can have that on display, and I'll take their sin. I mean, this is incredible. Philippians chapter 2 says it this way though he was God, talking about Jesus, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. He was in heaven, he was God, he was worshipped, but he left that. He came to live life as one of us. The very next verse says that instead he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave, and he was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and he died a criminal's death on the cross. I mean, this is this is the message. Jesus came and he did miracles, he did incredible things, but he brought us a message that was utterly unique, and it still is utterly unique. And the message is this that Jesus, that God himself, decided to clothe himself in our humanity, he put on our sin, he clothed himself in our weaknesses, paid the price for our mistakes so that he could clothe us in his perfection. You are the righteousness of Jesus because you are wearing Jesus. You remind God of Jesus. This is the message that God has been telling all throughout history. It's not like Jesus is the first one to mention this. One of the most audacious things that Jesus said, I love this, because just imagine someone saying this and taking them seriously. Jesus told the Pharisees, hey, you search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but what you failed to realize is that the scriptures are all about me. Think about someone saying that. Coming up to you saying, hey, you know, you read the Bible and you look into that, that's all good, but I don't know if you know this or not. The Bible's actually all about me. That's a bold thing to say. But see, Jesus was absolutely right because you can you can read the Old Testament and you'll find foreshadowing after foreshadowing of Jesus. It's all about Jesus, it's constantly pointing to Jesus. There's even this incredible moment that happens early on in the Bible that foreshadows this concept of Jesus being able for us to wear him, to be clothed in him, so that we receive the favor and the love of God, a love that isn't rightly ours. In Genesis chapter 27, there's this blessing that a father gives to his son. It's a really powerful blessing. See it in Genesis 27, verse 28. The Father says, From the dew of heaven and the richness of the earth, may God always give you abundant harvests of grain and bountiful new wine. May many nations become your servants, and may they bow down to you. May you be the master over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. All who cursed you will be cursed, and all who bless you will be blessed. This father speaks this over his son. Blessings were a big deal in that day and time. We're talking 4,000 years ago. They believed that a blessing was real. They believed that a curse was real, that the words you spoke over someone would stay with them their whole life. And we look at that and we think that's kind of silly and superstitious, but I have had blessings spoken over me 20 years ago that still affect me to this day, and I still have to get over some curses, so to speak, that were spoken of me, about me 25 years ago. I mean, people would say things, and we all deal with that, right? There's things someone said to us 30 years ago that's still in our mind. We have to fight that. So maybe there's more to this than meets the eye. They believe that if a father spoke a blessing over his son and it was the right blessing, it's paving the future. It's paving the way for a successful life for a son, because that blessing was spoken, the son just knows God's gonna do everything my father said he would do. So I am gonna be successful now because I've had the blessing. I'm gonna have more than enough because I've been blessed. Here's the crazy thing about this story, though, the story that this blessing takes place in. The son who received the blessing, he had no rightful claim to it. The blessing was not intended for him. See, he was a younger brother. His name was Jacob, his older brother's name is Esau, his father was Isaac. And in that day and age, the older brother got everything. The older brother got the inheritance, the older brother got the blessing. It wasn't like today where if a father or a mother passes away, their estate is divided amongst their children. No, no, no. Every time the oldest son gets it all, and then the livelihood of the other children will just depend on the generosity of the big brother. Scary, right? If you have a big brother, I do. Scary. I love my brother, but I'd still be nervous. One day Isaac thinks he's about to die. He was very old and he was blind, couldn't see. And so he told his older son Esau, Go and hunt for some wild game, and when you get it, prepare some food and bring it back here, and we'll have a meal together, and I'll give you the blessing. And so Esau goes. And while he's gone, there's this scheme that's hatched, that's sort of hatched between Jacob, the younger brother, and his mom. Kind of a dysfunctional family. And Jacob goes into the tent with Isaac and he pretends to be Esau. And he does a few things to guarantee his success. Number one, he he puts uh wool, like sheep's skin, goat skin, on his arms because Esau was apparently really hairy. Like a Yeti or something, right? Like that's a very, very hairy man. And so he puts this goat skin, this fur on his arm so that if Isaac grabs a hold of him, which he did, he felt this hairy arm and it felt like Esau. And he actually wears Esau's clothes. He puts on the clothing of Esau. So he smells like Esau. He feels like Esau. He tried his best, I'm sure, to do a good impression of Esau. Brothers can usually do good impressions of each other, but but Isaac even sort of caught that and he said, You don't sound like Esau. And I'm sure he said something like, Oh, you know, I'm I've had a cold or, you know, allergies, you know, whatever. But eventually Isaac was convinced. And so Jacob received the blessing and the favor of his father that belonged to Esau. Jacob had no rightful claim over that blessing. But because he was clothed in the identity of his older brother, he received it. It's kind of a crazy concept, but when we're brought into the family of God, when we're adopted into God's family, you give your life to Jesus. Like, what does that make Jesus to us? It's our older brother. And God's our father, and Jesus is the son, and Jesus is our older brother. And honestly, kind of like it used to be, we're we're sort of at the mercy of the kindness of our older brother. He's been given all the authority. And Jesus said that I've been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Just like Esau would have been given all the authority of the estate, all the blessing and all that, Jesus has that. He has all authority, but thankfully, we can absolutely trust the generosity of our older brother. And Jesus deserves all the blessing from God. He deserves all the favor from God. Jesus is the one that can stand in front of God and say, I rightfully deserve your favor, your love, your blessing, and your support for my life. I have earned it. I'm the Son. But Jesus allows us to be clothed in him. Just like Jacob was clothed in Esau, we become clothed in Jesus when we give our lives to him. And God looks at us and he sees Jesus. And God's not a blind father that we have to trick, right? It's not a scheme. But the result's the same. The result's the same. That God turns a blind eye to our failures. He turns a blind eye to everything that makes us ashamed. He turns a blind eye to our shortcomings, and what he chooses to see is the righteousness of Jesus on your life. You are the righteousness of Jesus. You are wearing his perfection in God's eyes. I mean, this is incredible. This is something that's so amazing. This message. We have to do something with it. I understand Paul when he's saying, look, this is this amazing message. We've got to do something. We've got to implore people to have this. Because there are people in our lives that are not wearing Jesus right now. That's not what's what's clothing their identity. They're wearing shame. They're wearing regret. They're wearing hopelessness. They're wearing fear. They're wearing anxiety. And they don't have to wear that. There's this amazing story in John 11 where Jesus heals Lazarus, his friend of death. It's a pretty big deal. He's been dead a few days, and Jesus goes to the tomb. We see it in John 11. It's just an awesome story. Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. A lot of people believe that Jesus has to be specific. He says, Lazarus, come out, because if Jesus was at a tomb full of graves and he just said, come out, everybody would have come out. And it would have been a very hectic, confusing day. So he says, Lazarus, come out. Lazarus answers, the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and cloth around his face. And the first thing Jesus said is, get those grave clothes off of him. He is alive. He does not need to be clothed in death. There are people in our lives that we love, that we know we live with them, we work with them, we work for them, they work for us. There are neighbors. There are people in our lives that we interact with on a daily basis. That are wearing grave clothes right now. They're not clothed in Jesus, and they don't have to live that way. We have to be people that say, look, you can have Jesus. This is the message. He wants you to be reconciled to him. We're his ambassadors. We're wearing Jesus. We're the ambassadors of Jesus to Woodstock, Georgia. There are other great churches that are doing the same thing. It's not just us, but there's a lot of people. There's a lot of people that need to understand that they can take their grave clothes off and they can be clothed in Jesus. And here's how that happens. Here's how it happens. We wear Jesus. And we wear him proudly. See, when we wear Jesus, we just look like him. And if we look like Jesus, other people see it, other people notice it. Jesus is irresistible. Sometimes church culture and the world does a pretty bad job of representing Jesus, so people have rejected Jesus, but if they've rejected Jesus most of the time, it's because it was not the real Jesus they rejected. Jesus is irresistible. That's why other faiths include Jesus. In Hinduism, he's a God. In Buddhism, he's an enlightened one. In in Islam, he's a prophet. Because it's really hard to look at Jesus and go, nah. There's this scramble, like, oh, it's what's Jesus. We've got to figure out a way that Jesus fits in. We have Jesus. We don't need anyone else because we've got Jesus. This world needs Jesus. People that we love need Jesus, and all we have to do to bring Jesus to them is be Jesus, wear Jesus, look like Jesus. That means love people like Jesus loves people. Doesn't mean you have to wear t-shirts, doesn't mean you have to walk up to strangers, hand them pieces of paper that tell them they're going to hell. Don't have to do that. Those don't work. You don't have to do that. You don't have to wear a bumper sticker on your car or a fish or anything like that. You can, there's nothing wrong with it. If you have a fish on your car, awesome. I don't, because I don't drive like Jesus would drive. And I'm just trying my best to represent him well, you know? Jesus had all of eternity. I'm in a hurry. I gotta go. I gotta go. But see, every single one of us here, we we are a church. We are a family. This is what a church is. We are Jesus' ambassadors to the world we're part of. And if you've been following Jesus for a minute, maybe today's the day you make the decision of a great wardrobe change and you're exchanging your grave clothes for Jesus today. Maybe this makes sense, or maybe I've convoluted it for you, and I'm sorry if I have. But you can make that decision today, and today you are the ambassador of Jesus. And that doesn't mean you have to be perfect, that doesn't mean you have to look good on the outside. That just means you point to Jesus with everything. Even if your everything isn't much. All of us, whether we've been following Jesus for a day or 10 years, we are the ambassadors for Jesus. So let's wear him. Let's serve people like Jesus. Jesus served people, he washed his disciples' feet. That was the ultimate display of the lowest kind of servitude you could have in his day. That's a tradition that has died, thank God.

Okay.

But there are so many versions of that in our society today. You know, it's it's picking up the tab for your friend when you're out to lunch. It's it's leaving an amazing tip today. Because your server may have provided you with with poor service, but they may be having a really hard day. It's treating your wife the way that Jesus would treat your wife. It's understanding her. It's desiring to see her life be full, and it's doing everything you can to see that happen. It's loving your husband, looking like Jesus, loving your husband the way Jesus would love your husband. Jesus would wait till he's out of the room to roll his eyes. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. Just give him a minute. You know, it's it's it's cutting people slack. It's not going on and on about how we deserve this and we should have this, and we haven't gotten our fair shake. Jesus did not get a fair shake. His life was not easy, and he never stomped his feet saying, I'm Jesus, I'm the Son of God, everyone should be treating me very differently. He served. I announced that we had 45 open spots in our parking lot last week. And that's kind of exciting. There's a lot of parking spaces, but um, I'm excited about the day that there's none, and we're having to negotiate with Lowe's to see if they'll just move somewhere. You know? Like, you guys don't take this the wrong way. There's a Home Depot right there, and there's other you just we just need your parking lot, you know. I like I'm serious. I there will be a day where that kind of thing is what's gonna have to happen. That's exciting, but but it's only gonna happen if we love people like Jesus. That's our mission. That's what we're called to do as a church. It's not about us being a big church. I pray that every single church in this community doubles, triples, quadruples, because that's what it's gonna take for this whole community to know Jesus. But it only happens if we look like him. If we wear him. So wear Jesus this week. Wear him with passion, wear him with pride. Because you look good when you wear him, I'm just saying. You look really good. Every single one of us in this room can do that. So let's do it. We are clothed with Christ, we are the righteousness of Christ. So let's go this week and let's wear Jesus and let's look like him to this world that we're part of and let's see it change. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for uh for loving us exactly like we are. Thank you so much, Jesus, for changing everything, for coming into this world with this unbelievable message of reconciliation, this exchange that we can have, that we can trade in our sin and our shame and our guilt, our grave clothes, we can trade that in for your perfection. We don't earn it, we don't pretend to, but but we get to wear it, it gets to cover us as if it belongs to us rightfully. You have clothed us in you. And that has made us family in the kingdom of God. That has made us everything we are. So, Jesus, we just ask for the courage and the strength and the energy that we need to be you this week. To go love people like you, to serve people like you, to cut people slack, to forgive people like you, to listen to people like you, to pray for people like you. We want to look like you, Jesus. We want to wear you proudly in this community that we're part of. We love you. Thank you for making every single person here who they are. Just bless us this week, and we ask all this in your name. Amen.