Father, thank you for being such a great God. Thank you for loving us. Thanks for adopting us. Thanks for our identity being in you, like we just uh talked about and sang about. And we just praise you. And Holy Spirit, thank you for being our teacher. Thank you for being our counselor. And I just pray you'd speak to each of us today. Translate what I say and just take your word and bring it alive. And speak to each of us in our hearts. Please give us what we need and something of you. And so we thank you and we trust you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we're taking a few weeks and we're talking about a resurrected life, living uh a resurrected life. And and that is really the primary symbol of baptism. When we get baptized, we go down into the water just like Jesus was buried into the ground, but then we come out to a whole new life. That's the that's the whole thing about baptism. It's not uh you know some sacrament. It it it's uh it's a powerful symbol. It it's it's it's uh following Jesus. It's what he himself did. It's uh um it's doing what he asked us to do. And our next baptism Sunday is May 16th. So if you haven't been baptized before, this would just be a great opportunity to to do it. And you can sign up for for that or get more information about baptism um at the at the info desk afterwards. But there'll be a bunch of us, it'll be it'll be exciting. You know, to me it's it's really one of the most exciting things that we do. You can really feel the Holy Spirit just uh um flowing because it's a it's not just a physical experience. It is truly a baptism, it's truly a supernatural um experience. And um so I just encourage uh you to uh to be baptized if you have them. Maybe you're baptized as a child, but but now as uh as an adult, you you're ready to say, hey, I'm all in, or maybe like for me, I've been baptized you know more than once. Because there's I was baptized as a teenager, you know, and and but then as an adult, there was a point where man, I just wanted to turn it over to God. And and and really it was just my outward expression of saying, of saying, this is a new start for me. I'm I'm all in with you. This is gonna be be different going forward. And it was powerful uh then. So that'll be May 16th. We've got uh doing the Bless the Bikes things uh next week, Mother's Day, the week after, and then uh um and then we'll have baptism Sunday on the 16th. So please sign up uh if uh if you're ready for that. Two weeks ago we talked about um Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the from the dead. You know, he had Jesus heard about it, he kind of waited around a little while. Um Lazarus had been dead four days by the time that that he uh actually got there, and and uh um Lazarus' sisters, who Jesus was also close friends with, were uh were really upset. And uh in John 11, Jesus said, Your brother will be raised up. And Martha replied, I know that he'll be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time. You don't have to wait for the end. I am right now resurrection and life. And that was going to be true of Lazarus, but it's all it's true for us. We do not have to wait till the end. That Jesus is for us right now, resurrection and life. It's with Lazarus. They went right to the tomb, they rolled back the stone, Jesus shouted to Lazarus to come out, and and he does, but he comes out wrapped up like a mummy. I mean, you can almost picture Lazarus just walking out of this uh this tomb, uh, you know, like somebody in the Scooby-Doo episode. You know, he's got the just wrapped around and around the way that they would wrap up someone to be uh to be buried. Um, he comes out like a mummy because Jesus had saved him already. He was he was saved, but he wasn't free. He was still tied up in all those um burial clothes. And so Jesus says to his friends, you take off his grave clothes. You set him free. You help him into new clothes. It reminds me a little bit of when Jesus was out uh teaching on the countryside. This big crowd gathers around, and his uh his disciples say, Maybe we should send them to the, you know, it's getting late, maybe we should send them to the villages to get something to eat where they can where they can buy some food. And Jesus said, No, that isn't necessary. You feed them. See, Jesus was gonna do the heavy lifting. You know, he was gonna miraculously feed 5,000 people with five loaves and a couple fish. But his followers had to participate. They had to gather, they had to distribute, they had to help. Jesus said, No, that's not necessary. You feed them. He was gonna do the heavy lifting, but they had a part. Same with Lazarus. Jesus did the heavy lifting, he raised him from the dead. That's the big, that's the big thing, you know. And um, but Lazarus' friends were the ones that were gonna set him free, that were gonna take him out of his uh grave clothes. And we all come with our own set of grave clothes. You know, Jesus saves us, he does the heavy lifting, we're saved, but we've got uh you know these things associated with with death and and destruction in our old lives. It might be habits, it might be patterns, it might be um how we think, how we react to things, it might be things that have done to us that create uh baggage and and hardship, uh you know, dirty clothes, stuff that we want to get rid of. Paul used this exact same metaphor. We talked about it a couple weeks, but he rattles us off a list of stuff that that keeps us from from being free. Things like meanness, sexual promiscuity, lying, having a bad temper. And he says, it's like a filthy, this is in Colossians 3, it's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. And then he tells us what our new clothes are like. He says, So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you, compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline, be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. Wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. So, one of the things that we do together as a church, one of the purposes of being a church, is we help each other get into our new clothes. Get out of our grave clothes into the new wardrobe. And it's a process. It's like Lazarus. It's like, you know, a mummy's not a bad metaphor because it's a process, and there's layers, and there's unwrapping, you know, and and it uh it takes time. And we've talked before about when we turn to Jesus, our spirits are saved instantly, just like that. God saves us, our spirits are saved, his spirit testifies to our spirit, the truly we're children of God. We come alive inside. God breathes his life into us. Our spirits are saved immediately. So he saved our spirits, he is saving our souls. He is saving our souls. It's a process. That doesn't happen overnight. Our souls, you know, sometimes we we use them interchangeably, but our souls are basically our mind, our emotions, our how we make decisions, our thought processes, um, you know, our will, those those types of things. And so Jesus starts the process of saving our souls, transforming us, changing us from the from the inside out. Ultimately, he will save our bodies. That every now and then, you know, well, I shouldn't say every now and then, often, often he physically heals us. And it's a it's a touch of heaven, but ultimately we all are going to die. When Jesus comes again, he will save our bodies. All of us. Strong, healthy, new bodies, real bodies. And so he saved our spirit, he's saving our souls, he will save our bodies. And so when we talk about grave clothes, what we're talking about is our souls. You know, the inside stuff, the way we think, the way we react, uh uh habits we uh we have, thought processes we have, that type of thing. And so it's a process of transforming us from the inside out. We would all, I think, prefer to get zapped. You know, I mean, if God would just zap us, it's so frustrating when he doesn't. When we've got dealing with the same thing over and over and we're crying out to God all the time, and why doesn't he just zap us and and um and take it away? I mean, that's what I would do if I was God. I would just uh just do it like that. But that but that isn't what God does most of the time. Most of the time, it's a process. That's how God works. That's that's uh what he does. Um example, this is uh I think an easy example is with uh with addictions. Okay, there's one thing that we want to just be zapped from. You know, we want to be delivered. And I know I was just this morning, off the top of my head, I could think of several people here this morning that were zapped, that were just just supernaturally delivered, had a serious uh um drug problem, got saved, got zapped. And I probably have a hundred friends here this morning walking out the process. Step by step, didn't get zapped every day, learning, learning what Jesus taught, learning how to follow it, somebody helping them, walking them through it. It's a process, step by step. Which is better? You know, in many ways, it's the process. Because when someone walks out that process, they learn a lot of things. They learn about them themselves, they they uh um learn to um um uh clean up some of the junk in our souls, learn about you know what resentments we have, go back and try to try to fix some of the damage that we've done, and all these different things that come out of the process. And so when someone has to walk it through and has victory, they actually come out of the process better than if they'd just gotten zapped. Does that make sense? That's why God's ways are so much better than our ways. His wisdom is so much better. And and in that process, you make you make great friends. In the process, you learn you can depend on God. In the process, um, you learn to hear from God. There's so many benefits of the process. Now, the reason, well, even so, if we had our choice, we would probably still get zapped. You know, but uh but we need to embrace the process and realize that that we all are in process. You know, the reason I wanted to do that short recap is I decided to back up a little bit. Two weeks ago we talked about Lazarus and and the idea of his friends uh um taking off his his grave clothes. The reason that always jumps out to me, that particular verse, is because Betty mentions it several times, and it's one of her, I think, favorite verses. But uh idea of us helping take off each other's grave clothes. And so I didn't really have time to put much legs on it. I think when we talked about it, it was more of an encouragement. Hey, you know, we can do this, we can help each other, we can we can get off the stuff that's uh that's dirty and smells and it's associated with death and destruction. We can get rid of that stuff in our lives, but we need to do it together. We can we can help um together. But I want to take a step back and just uh kind of I don't know, flesh that out a little bit, talk about some practical ways. How does that how does that really work? And there's there's three things um I want to share. See, what we don't want to do is we don't want to come together every Sunday, have a big hoop-to-do, get excited, go home, and then be exactly the same. All right, we want we want to experience change, transformation. You know, we want our souls um to be saved. And we can do that uh with God and with each other. So there's three things I want to talk about. One is one is prayer, and and not from a theological perspective, uh more from a practical, real perspective. You know, prayer seems prayer is the most practical thing we'll ever do. You know, I usually think about it as the least practical, so I wait till all the practical things don't work, and then uh, you know, then I might fall back on prayer. And uh, but it's the most effective practical thing that we can do, and one of the most important things we can do with each other to to help take off our grave clothes. We'll talk about that, why it works, how it, how it works. Another is the words that we uh use with each other, the idea of speaking life over our friends and our family and each other. Peter said to Jesus, You have the words of life. And we can use those same words. We can think the same way, we can speak the same way as as uh as Jesus. Speak life over each other. But this morning I want to talk about something that is kind of simple. It's uh something we've talked about some before, but it can have a profound impact, a profound impact on whether or not we can help each other get rid of these grave clubs. And that is simply being ourselves. Just being ourselves. You know, it's so I I didn't know what Susan was gonna share at the Lord's Supper, but that idea of not having to perform to please everybody else because our identity was established in the cross of Christ, and the freedom that brings to just uh um to be ourselves. You know, there there was a time in my life where I couldn't be myself because I wasn't even sure who myself was. I kind of had three selves. I had my work self, where I performed for the bosses, I knew what they wanted, and so I became that, you know, for them. I had my church self, I knew what was gonna uh help me fit in and get approval at church, and so there I was that. I always hoped that nobody met, you know, none of my friends from work met any of my friends from church because you know it was two different selves. And uh then I had myself at home where where you know I I uh um tried to be what I perceived uh uh a good husband and a good a good father would be. But I remember Susan and I were were getting some marriage counseling, and so everything they asked me, well, what do you think about this? What do you think? I mean, honestly, I didn't know. I didn't know what I thought. I I had for so long performed, if you will, and had been what, you know, I mean I knew what I was supposed to think, and so for a while I just regurgitate that, but but I didn't really know myself. And so it was a process of actually just kind of getting free and being myself, not wanting to be somebody else, not you know, just being how God created me. And um and it is so powerful if uh if we can be ourselves. You know, we don't have to pretend to be accepted here. This is so critical because if we're not aware, church can be the fakest place around. Where there's a certain thing we gotta do to be approval, so we just pretend that. And before long it's not even real. It's fake. And people come in and and and and and they sense it, we know it. Um, where we're just doing great all the time, or you know, we're not just Christians, we're Christian superheroes, brimming with faith, you know, never a doubt, that, you know, that that type of thing. And and one of the one of the things when we do that too much is everyone feels like they're everyone else feels like they are the only ones that's struggling. You know, I'm sitting here and I'm really discouraged today. I'm sitting here, I'm wondering if God even exists. You know, I'm sitting here and I got this this problem or this issue, and look around, everybody's just so everybody else is so strong. But it's it's not true. We all struggle. We all have grave clothes. We all do. And we still all have some that need to be unwrapped. Thankfully, God's you know transformed us a bunch already. But we all have grave clothes and we all need help in taking them off. Matthew 9, 12, and 13. I know you know this verse. But when Jesus heard this, he said, Healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do. Then he added, now go and learn the meaning of this scripture. I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices. I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices. For I have come to call not those who think they're righteous, but those who know they are sinners. And see, we're not the only ones. You're not you're not the only one that struggles. If you're a guy, you're not the only one that struggles with internet porn. Or at least fights that temptation. In fact, if you don't, you might be the only one, or one of few. You're not the only one who's had a failed marriage. You're not the only one that has hung over this morning. You're not the only one who's had an abortion. You're not the only one with anger issues. You're not the only couple that had a big fight in the car on the way here this morning. I will say, Susan and I figured out how not to fight on the way to church. We uh take separate cars. It works. It works great. You are not the only one that's depressed. You are not the only one that doubts God. You're not the only one that's been in prison. You're not the only one addicted to prescription pills. You're not the only one that was molested. You're not the only one with money problems. You're not the only one frightened about your children. You're not the only one. And you know what else is there's others here that have been through those exact same things, exact same things that God has brought them through, that God has saved them, that have they have great lives, great healing, they've been transformed. We're all in this together. But if we pretend we're never in a position to get help, if we pretend we're never in a position to give help. And it's not that we any of us, I don't think, are cavalier about weaknesses or sin or or I mean more than anything, we're brokenhearted and and and frustrated when we can't get over that same that same thing. And we can get over it, we will get over it, but we're gonna need each other's help. Someone might have to help us get out of those grave clothes, and so we can be relaxed. You know, we can we can we can be ourselves. In 2 Corinthians 1, it says, all praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah, Father of all mercy, God of all healing counsel. He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. See, when we're our ourselves, it puts us in a position to help. It's just how God works. You know, we wonder sometimes, you know, what is I'm gonna use two Christianese words in the same sentence. You know, what is our calling? You know, what is our ministry? What is What is our purpose? You know, what what is it that God would have us to do? Susan Susan shared two really great messages that are on the podcast. But the first is what is is my purpose, which is basically to love God and love people in whatever situation we're in. And then the other was that hurt people help people. See, we've probably heard that hurt people hurt people, which is true. If you've been abused, you're more likely to abuse. And we get hurt and we and we hurt back. But what is also true, the way that God works, is that hurt people help people. Just like, just exactly like Paul talked about. That he comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us along someone else who is going through hard times. So that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. See, hurt people can help people. Example Susan used was um us getting pregnant before we were married, and what a traumatic that thing, that experience was, and and uh well man, we we were young and we really, really needed help, but um but we didn't get much much help at that time, and it had to do with the the um had to do with the church, and we all of a sudden we were you know we were the outcasts because we had uh had messed up. And but what that's done is it's given us a real compassion for for for people in the same situation so we can come alongside and help them, just like God came alongside and helped us through that. I uh you know, another example is just uh uh me struggling with uh with drinking. You know, for years and years I would never I hid that, I would be mortified if anybody knew that. I hid that from everybody. I'm I'm not a very kind of open person. God's helping me um helping me with that. But you know, by by talking about that, what that does is it gives me an empathy and a compassion and a desire to help others. And it also makes me a safe place for someone to come talk to me about it, you know? And so if we're not pretending that we have it all together, if we're not pretending we've never had a struggle, we're not pretending, you know, if we have to pretend to fit into the club, it's not much of a club. We can be ourselves, and then God can use us to help each other. Paul in Romans 8 said, that's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. You might know it that God works all things together for good. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. So he takes our pain, he takes our weakness, he takes our mistakes, he takes things that have happened to us, and one of the primary ways he turns it into good is we use that experience to help somebody else. And so it ends up being good. You know, there there's there's so many people with uh um, you know, it's like Mike, who leads uh um the freedom group. You know, he says that he thanks God for crack cocaine. Because it's really was through that experience he he came to he came to God. And it and it's through that recovery that now he's got a whole life of uh helping other people take off those same grave clothes. You know what I mean? And so that's one of the ways that God uses that makes everything turn out for good. You know, our bad stuff, he works it all together, we help each other, and it ends up creating more good than the pain that we went through. It's like Paul said, God of all healing counsel, he comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who's going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. It's not a formula, it's not a system, it's supposed to be a way of life. It's supposed to be a church way of uh of life. You know, we don't want to have a cool church. We want to be a church where you don't have to be cool. I mean, there's something inherently cool about that. Where you can just be yourself, be how you are. You know, and it it it it's it's not a formula, it's it's just the way we can be. And it's true in uh it's true in all aspects. It's not just you know things we've gone gone through and struggles we've overcome and and those types of things. It it's in it's in what we wear, just being able to be relaxed and be ourselves, it's in um it's in our worship. You know, I appreciate so much that that Susan and Nathan and Jimmy um don't boss us around that much when they're leading worship. You know, it's it's um I don't like I don't like to be worshiping and have someone tell me, okay, everybody, everybody lift your hands. Because there's been times I haven't been comfortable lifting my hands. And so now what do you know what I gotta do? I gotta pretend. If I'm gonna fit in, I've got to pretend. I can't be myself, I can't be myself. I remember the first time I ever um, you know, I was raised, we didn't even have instruments when I was raised. I mean, it was hymns and and a cappella, and then we went to kind of a uh you know church that had uh a band and stuff, and and um so I got over, is this even right? You know, I'll process through that. But I the first time I ever raised my hands in church, I didn't really raise my hands. I was sitting here like this, and I took my right hand and I went like this. And honestly, I thought the world was gonna come to an end. I thought, I thought everybody was staring at me, you know. You know, what what are people thinking, you know, and and um and it was so difficult to get from there up to up to here, which now comes so easy, and it's just it's it's it's uh it's so natural, and I can kind of feel just that spirit pouring out to God when um when I do that. But but I don't want to put that on somebody else, you know. We we we we don't want to have to pretend. We want to feel safe to be where we're at. We're not trying to impress, we all need God, we all love each other, we all know we're in process. I'm not gonna be freaked out if I notice some grave clothes on you, you know. We all have them, and so we can help. We can help. And he does the heavy lifting, he does the big transformation, he changes us from inside out, but it's our honor really to help. And the only way we can be in that position as a group is to take a risk and just be ourselves. You know, with the good and with the bad, and and uh, you know, God did a pretty good job on all of you. I mean, he created each of you wonderfully. You know, as a as a replica of him, in his in his image, he created you. And together, we're taking off some of that baggage, and we're getting back to how God really created us. We're getting back to having a wardrobe of love, we're getting back to being able to walk just in freedom, getting our identity and our value and what Jesus did for us, not what others might perceive or or think about us. It's it's an important part of being in a position to help each other out of our grave clothes. If the worship team wants to come up, we'll we'll finish here in a minute. Now that all being said, you know, the Holy Spirit's funny how he works. Because, you know, we're talking about it's okay to be ourselves. We're all gonna have we all have stuff, we do, and and we can help each other. But at the same time, it wouldn't be unusual for the Holy Spirit to be telling some of us, you know what, I want to get rid of that thing. Whatever that is, whatever that that that next layer is. You know, I want to get rid of that thing. I could use some help. And um, you know, maybe that's a step that that that we could take this morning in getting out of some of those old clothes and into the new clothes. Um a couple ideas, you know, it's just we've we've got the greatest prayer team, and and they're gonna be um back in the prayer room, which is just on your left, when you're going out that that way, for at least an hour. You know, now might be the time just to go and say, Hey, I know I'm not the only one. I'm struggling with this. Could you pray for me? It's powerful. You know, we've got prayer cards in the back. If when we fill out prayer cards, you're gonna have a ton of people praying for you. You know, you could use one of those cards this morning to say, hey, I'm struggling with this. Could somebody call me? Somebody who who's uh gone through that. I could use a little help. You know, take a take a step and discard some of our uh grave clothes. First thing we gotta do is let Jesus do that heavy lifting. We gotta get we gotta get connected with him. You know, we can't do it ourselves. We don't we don't have to get in a new wardrobe so we can come meet the king. No, he'll take us just like we are with whatever we're wearing. And he breathes his spirit into us, he brings us to life from the inside out. He does the hard work. We just get to help. But that's easy to do. I mean, if you most of us have lived our lives trying to figure it out ourselves, and at some point we realized we need to we need to be connected with the creator of the universe. We need we needed his help, we needed his change. And so it's it's really that acknowledgement, turning to Jesus, saying, Okay, I give up. Uncle, I'm gonna follow you. I need your help. And he will help you, he will transform you, and and we will help each other. 1 Peter 1. It says, What a God we have. What a God we have, and how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand new life, and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven. And the future starts now. Let's pray. Father, thanks for being such a great God. Thank you so much for loving us just how we are. Thank you for giving us each other to help us out of our junk and into freedom and into life and and into love. And I just ask that God that I thank you for what you're what you're doing here and just how uh open and and and real everybody is. But God, could you just do even more? Just help us to be ourselves, help us to lose all pretense, help us to not worry about what others think, but just um just be open and honest so we can receive help and so we can help each other. I just praise you for that. I praise you for doing that. I thank you for how you continue to change us from the inside out. We love you and we thank you and we trust you. Jesus, it's in your name we pray. Amen.