Hey, let's pray together. God, I thank you so much for your grace this morning. We have sung about the fact that God, you see us and when you see us, you see us through the lens of your grace and God, for me, that's a game changer because I recognize my sin. God, I know that there's times that man, I think, and I do what, what I don't wanna do. But when you see me, you see the cross and you see a new creation in Christ.

And so today we worship you, we praise you and God, we thank you for the good news of the Gospel, which is centered around your grace for us. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, what's up, church?

Good morning and amen. Welcome. We are so glad you're with us wherever you are today. And man, we're really excited about this series we're in. Uh, we kind of, um, one of the things that we do, if you've been kind of with us for a while, then you know this, we, we kind of divide up the year into different series.

And so some of you, man, you came, first time you came was back in the summer and you walked in and we were showing a movie and you were like, what in the world is this series? Like, what are we doing? What we were showing a movie as a way to get a message across, right? It's just one of the series that we do. Others of you, you'll come in a time where we've been co covering a topic like parenting or we've been covered dating or what we've talked about, just how to get in and study God's word.

Like sometimes we'll hit a different series built around a topic that typically lots of people are talking about. Now, there's other times it's kinda like a, it's kinda like a diet. There's other times that we're gonna just pick a book of the Bible and we're gonna walk through it verse by verse. Now, that's the series we're in this week. And in fact, we started it last week.

And, uh, we're in the book of Galatians and the name of this series is really simple. It's just called free. Now, if you were here last week, and we need to do this, can we just celebrate Blake? He did an incredible job last week. I, I'm just telling you, he, he kinda made it hard for me to preach this message because he, he just did an amazing job.

I want you to go back and see it. But one of the things he said in that message, he said at the very end of the message, he said, I want you to grab a communication card, and I just want you to write on there, I am free. And I got this text. I thought this was such a cool picture. I got this text from a friend of mine this week and he took his card and I want you to see what he did with it.

He just put it right on the dash of his truck where every time he looked down during the week, I dunno if we've got that picture, but there's a, there's a picture where he took a communication card and it just says, I am free. And I show that to you because here, here's what we wanna see happen in this series, is we wanna take this series out of this room and we really wanna put it into your life like this, where like all day long, when you're riding around, you look down and you see those words, I am free. Because if you're like me, man, the enemy does not want you to recognize that. And he wants you to see your sin more than your savior. And so that's why we've tackled this book because we want you to be free.

All right? Now little, a couple of little things about the book of Galatians, because I've learned a lot as I've just kind of studied this book to present it to you. Uh, you know this probably this, this was a letter and it was a letter written by Paul now where it kind of falls in, in the 66 different books of the Bible, right? You've got the Old Testament and the New Testament, and right outta the gate in the New Testament is the gospels. Now, I love the gospels.

I think that may be part of the reason we started the year studying the gospels, which is just the life in the story of Jesus. And then you get to the Book of Acts. Acts is basically the life in the story that acts of the early church. So if you ever wonder like, Hey, what should we be about? What should we be doing?

Go back and read acts because it's the, it's the early church is how it all started. Now, part of the Book of Acts gets to a place where it tells a story. I think it's at 14 or 15 where you learn about Paul who's on these missionary journeys. Now think, think through it like this. Do do you have a friend?

Do you know someone who loves to start things? They might like to start a fight. They may like to start a debate. They may like to start churches. Paul loved to start churches.

Now, I don't know how good Paul was at finishing things, but he was great at starting things. And when you read the book of Acts, you're gonna hear about these journeys. He went to start churches, well, one of 'em was to this region of Galatia. And he starts this church and man, things are going so well and things are happening. He's reaching this people group that really wasn't being reached by the Gospel until Paul came on board.

And man, he is sharing with them the good news of the Gospel. And this little church is growing. Now, here comes the problem. Paul leaves this area to go do what he does. He didn't do anything wrong.

He just went to start more churches. And as he's starting more churches, he gets word that things are beginning to unravel in the church that he started in Galatia. So here's where this gets interesting. So he writes a letter that's, that's what so many of the books in the New Testament are. They're letters written to these churches.

And when he is writing the letter, he begins to address what he sees as the problem. And the problem was you had one people group that were coming to this church that were new to their faith and every time they heard about the Gospel, they were excited about it and they were stepping into this new journey. But when Paul leaves, you get a second group that comes into this church. Now this group was a little more educated. Uh, they had a history to 'em.

They were a little more religious and they began to kind of have some conflict. Can you believe that inside the church, I mean 1,900 and something, 46, 1,967 years ago, they were fighting about the same things we fight about today. What's gonna be our culture? What are gonna be our traditions? Really it's this who's in and who's out now, that's what we're gonna talk about today.

And what I want to encourage you in is this venture. Hear me so clearly, thank you. Of all the churches that you know, all through South Mississippi, they are still, and I I don't mean this critically that that's gonna sound critical. So many churches are still fighting over who's in and who's out because of tradition and because of culture. We're either an African American church or we're a white church.

We're either a traditional church or we're a non-traditional church. We either worship this way or we worship that way. You are known typically for what you're against, not for what you're for venture. Thank you. One of the best things we have going for us is we are diverse and we have found a way to keep the main thing the main thing.

And that's the story of this book. It's God's grace. Okay? So here we go. You're gonna join me and uh, let's just see, let's see what we can learn today so that we can stay on track.

Now, who's in, who's out in the kingdom of God? Galatians chapter one last week, Blake got us through verses one through five. So if you listen, if you're into those series where you just can't take it verse by verse, that's kind of what we're doing in this one. Just don't tell anybody. Okay?

So let's go with verse six. We're gonna start in verse six. This is where Blake kinda stopped last week, says this, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and you're turning now to a whole different Gospel. He says, listen, that's really not a Gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and they're trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ.

Remember I told you there were two groups. He said, man, there's a group that's trying to confuse you, verse eight. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a Gospel other than the one that we preach to you, now, my man, Paul's fired up. You ready? Let him be eternally condemned as we've already said.

So now I say it again. If anyone is preaching to you a Gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. Paul says, let them go to hell. I didn't say it, Paul said it, right? Alright, verse 10, and I now trying to win the approval of men or of God.

Or am I trying to please men? If I was still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. I want you to know, brothers, that the Gospel I preach is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any other man, nor was I taught it. Rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Alright, here we go. How do we not make the same mistakes that they made? Here's the first thing I think we gotta do. We have got to learn to recognize what's real and what's fake. Now let me get real this morning.

Alright, got the Benjamins. My girl said, oh, I got two different a hundred dollars bills. All right? Now one of them I wrote on here so I didn't get confused. Counterfeit, all right, I don't wanna get busted with this.

My tenure as the lead pastor will be short. This one right here is counterfeit. This one is not real. This one right here is real. Now to know what's fake or what's counterfeit, I gotta study what's real.

Because if I take what's real and I hold it up into the light, my real one has a little line right through here. But if I study what's counterfeit and I hold it up into the light, there's not a line right there. You, you get this with money, right? One's counterfeit, one's real. You get this?

If I got any parents in the house, I, you get this. When it comes to Es, I've been learning about dupes. Like when I do some shopping, I wanna find the gold H skirt that is a dupe. I wanna find that Nike air shoe that is a dupe. But what Paul says, he says, listen, when it comes to your faith, don't fall for what's fake.

Here's how he said, he said it really specifically in verse six. He says, you are turning to a different Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all. Now here's what hurts about this, because you've been like this before in relationships. You ever get in a, in a fight or you, you and your wife just aren't getting along and you go and you say this like, Hey, let's go back and do what we used to do. Or you start thinking like, do you remember when it was this way?

And that's the journey that Paul takes this church on. He begins to go into this whole story about how he found the Gospel, about how he was walking along. He was terrorizing man. He was everything that you don't wanna be. He was a wrecking ball for the church.

That was Paul. And he tells this whole story about how he was going. If you know the story, it's in the book of Acts. He was literally knocked off his horse. He has this encounter with Jesus and it changes everything.

And he goes back to this church in Galatia and he says, the teaching that I brought you, it's not based on men, it's not based on religion. He goes on a rant to say, I have all the things that the religious people say they have, I have it and I have more. He says, I can be legalistic. I grew up in the Christian school and the Christian home. He said, I grew up following all the laws.

I can flex and talk Christianese with the best of them. But he said, I didn't bring all that. I brought the grace and the Gospel message of Jesus. And he tells the church, I think you've got off track. He says, I need you to get back to the Gospel.

He says, there has been a different culture that has come into the church and you have drifted from where you started. Now, I've been so excited about this moment and this message because I love college football. And my favorite is when I get to see 'em, draw the plays on the board, on the tv. I just live for that. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you something today that I hope helps if you're a visual learner because this is, this is, this is the message that Paul was saying, okay, Paul was telling the church that this is the Gospel.

Here's the Gospel. He says, it's Jesus plus nothing. Absolutely nothing equals my spacing is gonna be off salvation. Okay? He says, that is the Gospel message I brought you.

That is where we started. But what happened was, what had happened was people done got up in there and said, you need Jesus plus works. Oh, that's a dyslexic guess. It works okay equals salvation. And Paul says, wait a minute, listen to me.

That is not salvation, that my friends is legalism. And it is really, really important y'all, that we stay right there for just a second because this Gospel message is centered around one person. Jesus, This Gospel message is centered around Jesus plus works. What I'm telling you today is what the Book of Galatians says. And he says, Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Jesus plus anything equals legalism. And this is what we've gotta begin to ask because this is, this is really good in, in the book of Galatians, what they're arguing about right here, Blake kinda mentioned that last week is circumcision. Now you thought we, we can make lots of jokes right there. We're just gonna skip 'em. Alright?

But what I need to know and what we need to know today is what do we put here? Now, what are we tempted to put right here? Like Jesus plus denomination? Jesus. Some, some of you come on.

I mean, some of us, Jesus plus, what translation do you reading from Jesus? Plus, come on, you see these guys on tv, I I, and this is why it's hard to talk about money. Jesus plus tithing Jesus plus your quiet time. Jesus plus baptism. Now those aren't bad things.

We're gonna teach on those things. We celebrate those things, but those aren't saving things. This is the Gospel. And that's where Paul starts with this church. He says, you've gotta get back to that.

So gimme some Scripture, Craig. All right, Romans 10, nine. This is one you need to know. You wanna put it on the card to put it on the dash. It says this, if you declare it with your mouth, do you hear those guys in the baptism pool Do that?

Who's the Lord and Savior Jesus. Jesus is Lord, if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that's it right there. You will be saved. And I need you to hold onto that because you're like me. And the enemy wants you to begin to doubt your salvation sometimes.

And I'm ju I'm just here to tell you if, if listen, if that's wrong, then I'm wrong. 'Cause sometimes I doubt and get worried. Sometimes the enemy uses fear in my life, but I gotta combat it with the word of God, with the truth. If you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart, you will be saved. No add-ons.

Here's number two. The Gospel never has to be updated or upgraded. I love that because everything else in our world, it feels like it does. This week. I, correct me if I'm wrong, somebody, but I think this week the iPhone 16 came out.

And here's what's happening. When I pull out my phone like this and I hit my home screen, people judge me. Does anybody else still have a home screen? Would you just raise your hand if you still have like a home button? You know what I mean?

Like you still gotta hit the home button. Home button, home button people home button people. It's okay. You, I don't know where you are today, but I, I still got a home button on my screen and maybe you're rocking the 16 and you've upgraded your phones. Maybe you have upgraded your house, maybe you have upgraded your husband.

Don't do that. The point, the point, the Gospel does not have to be upgraded. It does not have to change. It cannot change. I mean, like, I like you do math.

Like I, I did math in the eighties, all right? And when I did math, it was like two plus two and it equaled four. Alright? Now I, I got someone on the front row with green with me. It's different.

Now, the way you come up with the answer is different. If you've done math to your kids, you're like, they don't use their fingers. They use weird things. They come up with the right answer. But how they get there is different.

Here's the point. You already know where I'm going. The message cannot change. The methods have to change. So how we come up with the answer, but the answer, it's gotta be the same.

And the Gospel is like math, right? Math doesn't change. I mean, it equals the same thing. And the Gospel can never change. And what happens is look at verse seven.

Let's get back to verse seven. It says, evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and they're trying to pervert, pervert just means to add to or to take away from the Gospel of Christ. And what happened is you had these believers that were new to their faith and they were so excited, they were passionate. And then you had this other crew that kind of came in there and they said, Hey, you know, I know you're all excited, but you wanna be varsity. You wanna make it to the varsity Christian table.

You remember your letter jacket? Like my letter jacket had a, it had a soccer ball and it had a a, a a, a tennis racket. And it, it had a little baseball action. And I was, the punter wasn't very good. I was the punter and my letter jacket, these varsity Christians that are coming into this church, they, they've got on theirs.

They've got like a little 40 for 40 days that they fasted. They've got a little dollar sign for all they've given. And they're walking into this church and they're creating these levels of Christians. 'Cause, and I've said it, you, you know him, he's a big Christian. What is a big Christian?

You have either experienced God's grace and you're a new creation in Christ or you're not. And he's saying, I don't know where they're coming into these things about varsity and JV Christians, but that's not in the book. I mean, that's not the message of Jesus. You've either come to me and experienced my grace or you haven't. This is, this is what's so tragic.

God. This is the culture that we're, we're trying our best to change in every one of our churches, every one of our campuses. Because you know, people, like I know people that you see 'em in the baptism, you hear their story about how they accepted Jesus and they are so excited about their faith. It's, it's, it's like they're living out the verse we studied in the previous series in Matthew where it says, come to me and you'll find rest. And you see them finally finding rest.

And then what happens, man, so many times they get involved in church and they get around religious people and they turn mean they get discouraged the next time you see 'em. Instead of being excited to come running to me like, bro, if you read the, I just read the coolest story in the gospels, and the next time they come to, they're like, Hey, hey, hey, what, what translation should I use? Hey man, I'm, I'm, I'm so sorry I didn't get to go to house church, man, I'm so sorry. And they've lost this joy that comes with being free in Christ. And instead they've turned inward and it's all been about them and typically about their failures.

Listen, you don't have to be perfect. Jesus already was. It's the story of the Gospel. And I'm just telling you, we can't come down that road where we begin to be that church that is heavy and burdensome. I mean, think about it, right?

God created life not to take life. He lifts, burdens, not gives them, he heals you, not breaks you. He gives you hope and peace, not misery and fear. Our goal is not to be spiritual, it's to be spirit filled. Man, it's not a got to, it's a get to come on.

Amen. And when you fall in love with Christ, man, when you experience his grace, it goes from this to-do list to like, I can't wait to experience list. It's like living water. The New Testament talks about like a stream. And so I want you to get in the stream with me so that you can just understand how deep, how wide, how long is the love of Christ, how consuming the word uses words.

Like it's this fresh encounter he's watching over you. I mean it's just this picture that we wanna dive into. You saying, Craig, I can, you mean I can live like however I wanna live and then just go jump in the water? No. When you experience his grace and his goodness, you don't wanna live that way anymore, right?

So, so, so hang with me. Here's the third one. It's okay to be intense. All my intense people, alright? It's okay to be passionate, but let's be passionate about the right things.

Here's what I mean. Go back to verse nine. It says, as we have already said, so now I say it again. If anybody is preaching to you a Gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. Now, I would say that's pretty intense language.

If clear is kind, Paul is, oh so kind. Alright. And he is briefing 'em, he's pretty intense about some things, but I think he's intense about the right things. And that's where I wanna challenge us. I want us as a church to be, continue to be passionate about and excited about and bent about the right things.

I want us to care deeply and be burdened about the right things. Because sometimes a church culture can get sideways and Paul is saying, maybe you've drifted church. Maybe you've drifted and been influenced by the wrong things. You've gotta come back to what really matters. I want you to pick your battles.

Parents, you get that language. He's talking to one of our elders this week, man, he's got kids like me. And he said, I'm learning. I've gotta pick my battles when it comes to being a parent. I think the same thing's true as a church and as partners.

Like we've gotta decide what is it gonna be that we're passionate about? What is it gonna be that we care deeply about? We as a church, me as the pastor, will be held accountable. Our elders, our elders will be held accountable that we do not drift. Paul was so burdened by that.

There is this language in all of his letters. If you've read 'em, you know this. He says it in Galatians two, two. He says, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain, he uses that all through all of his letters. Where he is like, man, IIII just don't wanna run the wrong race.

I don't wanna get to the finish line and realize I was passionate about the wrong things. This weekend, Katie and I on the back porch, man, we were running from birthdays to soccer to homecoming, to all the different things. It's right where we wanted to be running. But we had to ask ourselves, are we running the right race? And that's a church.

You've gotta sit back and say, are we passionate about the right things? I love what Paul's able to say to his, to his mentor Timothy. Can you imagine getting to say this? I want you to see this firsthand because this is so powerful for, it says in two Timothy four, seven, he says, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

What a testimony. I wanna be able to say that church, we've gotta be able to say that, that we don't drift. Anybody enjoy the Olympics? Come on, gimme a hand. You enjoy the Olympics.

Come on campuses. We loved them. I'm just gonna tell you. And there was this like drought in my house from the Olympics to college football. The Olympics were so called.

There was a story, I don't know if you saw this. There's a, there's a, in 2004 I read about a guy's name's Matthew, uh, Emmonds, I believe Matthew Emmonds. I'll show you his picture. This is his picture. He uh, he did the 50 millimeter uh, shotgun shoot deal, alright?

And, and this is him. He won all the medals. This guy was multiple, multiple medals, alright? He's the best. The US has 23 year career.

Four time Olympian came down to the final round in the Olympics in 2004. He's winning by landslide. He takes his last shot bullseye. Here's the problem. He didn't win a gold medal.

Why? Anybody know the story? He hit the wrong target, he called it. That's where the term right crossfire. He hit the wrong target.

Instead of hitting his target, he hit the target in the lane next to him. So he didn't win a gold medal. Okay? So here's how I want to end today. I want to end by asking you what is your target and breaking this board?

That that may be a problem. Y'all like that? I may be dyslexic, but I can think of a new way to solve a problem. Okay? Okay, here's what we're going, here's what I want you to see the target.

Alright? Here's what happens to us. Okay? Sometimes we can begin to think the target is this ready Begins to be about me. It begins to be about an earned salvation.

It begins to be about a learned religion, okay? I'm just telling you that's not the target. That's not what we're going for. If you're at the center of the target, then you're shooting at the wrong target. Alright?

Here's the Gospel. Okay? It says the center of the target is this. It starts and ends with Jesus. And when we begin to hit the target and experience Jesus, oh, this is what's so good about the Gospel.

And remember, it's the good news. Ooh, my spelling, it's about receiving grace. That's the target. And then the last one, transforming relationship. Now here's the question.

Which one you aiming for? Jesus. Jesus. This is the sinner. Any other Gospel is the wrong Gospel.

It's a counterfeit Gospel. If you catch yourself thinking and drifting towards your sin and all that's happened in your life, the way you've been separated, I'm not telling you that's not true, but I'm telling you what the word says in Colossians three, three. It was in our Bible reading plan this week. Ron Kane quoted it. He says, if you are in Christ, you're a new creation.

He says he's hidden in Christ and all the things of the past are dead. You are now a new creation in Christ. That's where I want you to get today. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ. So who's in and who's out.

That's what we're talking about today. It's really simple. The ones that are in have received Jesus and they're experiencing his grace and they're experiencing a transformed relationship. It's a gift and it's sitting right there for you saying, I want you to open this. In fact, it says so clearly His mercies are new every day.

It's a gift that you get to keep opening. You're not just saved once. You're saved every time you sin. If you've experienced his grace, if you're resting in it and you're living out of it and you're living from it, it's not a one and done thing, man. His grace covers you daily.

You experience his grace moment by moment. And that's how you live freely and lightly. This is so powerful. When people trust in Jesus, what's true of him becomes true of them. There's nothing that you can do to undo what he's already done.

That's the book of Galatians. What are you aiming for? I want you to bow your heads with me for just a second, and I wanna give you a second just to think through this. Because I've recognized in my life that sometimes it's like, it's like the enemy. It's like, it's almost like he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

He will take my eyes and my glance, my glare, my my presence, and he'll just make me try to sit in this lane of my sin and I don't have to be there anymore. I mean, not only have I received his grace, but I wanna live in his grace. And this series is about freedom. It's about saying and writing on that card. I am free because of what Jesus has done.

It's a gift that he has for you. I'm gonna give you a chance to receive that. But I'm gonna tell you, man, my heart is not only that you would receive it, but I wanna ask you to live in it because that's how we live freely and lightly. So I want you to give God just a chance to work in your heart. I wanna just remind you of what the word says.

It says how deep, how long, how wide does the love of Christ. It says if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart, you will be saved. It says you are hidden in Christ. You are a new creation in Christ. You have been separated as far as the east is from the west.

That is God's word from your sin to now your savior. You are now one in Christ. Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden and you ready? I will give you rest. You can live freely.

You can live lightly. I'm gonna tell you, God, that's our heart today. That's our prayer. We wanna live freely and lightly. We wanna understand, we wanna open, we wanna receive.

We wanna live from your grace. God, I thank you that it's a free invitation. God, I thank you that you did what we couldn't do. God, I thank you that we don't have to be perfect because you already have. And so today, God, we worship from a place of freedom.

We stand and we worship, and we receive the gift that you have for us, which is salvation and which is free life. Life separated from our sin. So in just a second, guys, you're gonna have a chance. You can come to the crosses, you can leave on the cross. Leave the things that continue to come in your mind that the enemy is using to steal, kill and destroy.

Leave them behind and listen, I'm not saying this a one and done trip. I have to battle it constantly. But let's start somewhere and let's start today to receive. God we love you and we worship you. It's in your name we pray.

Amen. Amen.