Christ is Life Podcast

Now I want to start my journey, and because this was what Jason really wanted me to focus on for y'all for Sunday morning here. Now, like many of you, I grew up in in in church. In fact, I probably was going to church nine months before I was ever born and, and you know, my my mom passed away in 2023 of March. And wait a minute, come back here. And I wanted to show you this little treasure. She had a chest of family photos. And here was a chest of a photos of Austin Avenue Baptist church that we grew up in. And right here you see these two little boys in suits with a little white handkerchief. That's me. That's my brother and and then I have my sister and my mom and dad, my grandparents. I have aunts and uncles, and I have cousins in this in this photo, and so it was a wonderful experience. Now, I growing up in Austin Avenue. I didn't become a believer until I was 18 years old. Now I'm sure I heard the gospel many times growing up at Austin Avenue, but it wasn't until February of 1975 when I heard the gospel for the first time with understanding, and I said that eternal yes to receiving Jesus Christ. Now, folks, that was 49 years ago. Spiritually speaking, this coming February, I'll be 50 years old in Jesus Christ. And that's a that's a neat thing there. Now, that night that I was saved, nothing spectacular happened, you know, I didn't get a strange feeling over me. I didn't speak in tongues. I didn't see Jesus at the foot of my bed. I just simply said yes to receiving Jesus Christ and and the thing that I remember the most about that night is when my mom heard the news, she gave me this big hug, and that's the thing I remember the most. So I was saved on a Saturday night. I made it public Sunday morning at Austin Amin Baptist Church, and then I was baptized on that same evening. Now, within days, though, of that decision, I had this keen awareness that something was different on the inside. Now, back then, I couldn't put it into words. I really didn't know what I was experiencing. But later on, as I grew up in Christ I understood that, you know, I had this God shaped vacuum in me, and, and, and then that night, when I said, Yes, that God shaped vacuum was filled with the very life of Christ. His life was pulsating in Me, His Spirit. He took his spirit and fused it to my human spirit, and therefore made me alive to God. And he did that by raising me from the dead. And that's exactly what happens when you said yes to receiving Jesus Christ. Here's notice this verse, right here, Ephesians, two, one says, and you He made alive who were dead in we were dead in Adam, but we were dead in the trespasses and sins of our Adam life. And then it says, like says this in Colossians, says this in Colossians three, three for you have died. See, that's what happened to you the moment you said yes to Jesus Christ, God killed the person that you and I were in Adam, and then he took our life and he hid it in Christ. He hit it, hit it with Christ in God. You remember those mutushka dolls? You know the dolls within the dolls? Well, that's exactly what God has done with our life. He hid our life in Christ, in and in God. And so here's the point, whatever you do to the one doll, you do to them all, and that's the kind of life we have. And so when you said yes to Jesus, the person you were in Adam was put to death. And folks, here's the good news. The person you were in Adam is dead. He's buried. He's gone there. There's no portion of the person you were in Adam present within you. You are a new creation. He's given you a new identity. You have new desires. And when Jesus said in Revelations, 21, verse five, Behold, I come to make all things new, he started that renewal process in your life. At salvation, you. Yeah, and so let me show you this diagram right here. Okay, this diagram, so there's basically two families. You're either in the family of Christ or you're in the Adams family. Yeah, you got it. I always like that little idea. And so what happens is, in Christ, we have ever lasting life. That's the That's God's life. It's, it's a life where there's no beginning and there's no ending. And but in Adam, we had, basically, we have everlasting existence. In other words, we have a beginning and we have no ending. Alright? Now, First Corinthians, 1522, four says this For as in Adam, all die. So also in Christ, all will be made alive. And then in Christ, it's a receiving system. Everything about in Christ, we're just simply taking it on. We're receiving but in Adam, it's an achieving system. In Christ, the operating principle is grace. In Adam, the operating principle is the law. In Christ, the results are righteousness and freedom in Adam, it's condemnation and bondage. Now this plays out. Now that's me with my stomach catching up with me right there. That's me in the blue, and that's my dad, Joe, and that's my grandfather, Jimmy, and that's my great, great grandfather. And you get the idea, my bloodline, my connection, goes all the way through my family, all the way back to Adam. You know what that means? I was born into Adam, and when I was born into Adam, I was born into sin. I was born under the law. And so what happened was, on February of 1975 I heard the gospel for the first time and said yes to Jesus, and God took me out of Adam, and I experienced a second birth, and he placed me in His Son, Jesus Christ. Now, you know what this is, folks, this is the marvelous magnitude of salvation. This is what salvation looks like. This is what Jesus, this is what he brings into the relationship. It's huge. It really is big. But you know, when I was first saved, my understanding of that was so far out, so far out. Now I want to tell you a little bit about my mission, my ministry journey. So I'm not a stranger to ministry. I shortly after my conversion. At the age of 18, I surrendered to the call. I moved to the Dallas Fort Worth area from Houston, and there I received a degree in Biblical Studies. I started my journey as a youth pastor, then an associate pastor of two congregations, a missionary in the Pacific Northwest as a lead pastor in a church planning program, and then I've been a lead pastor of three congregation, and that's over a span of about 23 years, and in 2001 I experienced a forced retirement, and I'll tell you a little bit about that here in a moment. But now I want to talk to you a little bit about my exposure to the grace message, because that's the really the important part of what we're going to be talking about today in 2003
now remember, in 2001 I experienced a forced retirement, but in 2003 I heard the grace message for The first time. It was at the exchange life ministry in Dallas, and Bill loveless was the lead teacher. And it was there that the seeds of the grace message were plate I planted in my heart. And little did I know that soon, very soon, I was about to experience a radical transformation in 2005 I was a member at Green Acres Baptist Church. And one Sunday morning, they made the announcement that they would be having their fall classes, and we were encouraged to sign up for one. And in the foyer, they had all these table with various classes, you know, displaying the various classes that a member could take. And the table that caught my attention was this. It was the exchange life, men's Bible study. Well, I knew something about the exchange life. I went to a conference and weekend conference in Dallas, and heard Bill love us speak on it. And the teacher was a. Um, Donald Campbell. Campbell, some of you know Donald Campbell and and the book that we would be studying from was Grace walk. And during that study, I experienced this shift in my understanding of the Christian life. It was like a paradigm shift. I mean, the Christian life, I was seeing it differently. It's like these rose colored glasses had fallen down. Now I could see, I could see something clearly, much more different about grace. And for the first time, I was understanding grace and a wonderful new way and and I was, you know, it was transforming my thought life. And so I realized for the first time that I was actually living for Jesus and not living from Jesus. Now you realize that's a big difference. There a huge difference. I wasn't living from the standpoint of His grace. I was I wasn't living from the resources of his life, which was located in me, which I already possessed at salvation. See, I was living from my own resources, from my own strengths, from my own reasoning for my own ability. You know what I thought the Christian life looked like? And guess what? It wasn't working. It usually does. So now we have to ask the question, what is the grace message? Well, simply put, the grace message is the realization that at salvation Christ made you complete, complete. Here's what Steve Pettit said recently. We got a newsletter from him, and Cassie was reading it, and she she pointed out this statement that Steve put in his his letter, he said, he said, the one thing that distinguishes Christianity from all spiritual journeys is that believers in Christ start their journey Complete. Complete. How complete Are you now? You say, you say, Now, Larry, is there some verse in the Bible that backs it up? I'm glad you asked, because I got something for you. Look at here, Colossians, 210 For in Him, you have been made complete. Here's what James one, verse four says, you're complete and you're lacking nothing. Now, when I started my journey off in Christ, the salvation of that back, I didn't feel complete, but God said I was complete. It's just my understanding hadn't caught up with the reality
of who Christ was in me.
So the Bible makes it clear. The Bible makes it clear that we're complete. For 23 years, the first half of my Christian life, I lived under the illusion that and the deception that I wasn't complete, and I had to work hard to fill the gap. And the Bible makes it clear that we're complete. Look at this verse right here, his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Now, the last time I checked the word everything meant everything. Yeah, religion says religion said to me, Larry, you're not complete. Religion said to me, Larry, you've got to strive to please Him in all that you do. Religion said it was Jesus plus other things. But what if? What if religion is wrong? What if it's like Andrew Farley says in his book The Naked gospel? What if it's just Jesus plus nothing? What if Jesus is the end of all things? What if, I mean, what could possibly be more than Jesus. So the grace message is an exchange message. It's an exchange life message. It's living from the sufficiency of Christ. It's living from the standpoint of His grace. It's the revelation that we've been freed from the law. Romans, 10 four. Hey, just dawned on me the other day. 10 four. You remember the old CBS, 10 four good buddy Well, God's got a 10 four good buddy verse for you, and it's this, Christ is the end of the law to everyone who believes you. Yeah. Well, here's what Andrew Farley says in his book The Grace message. He says the grace message is an extraordinary message. It's a battle tested message of hope and freedom that has a proven track record of transforming lives. The Grace message is a surprising alternative to the behavior improvement message that offers no more than the illusion of sin management.
So the grace message,
simply put, is this, it's not living for Jesus, it's living from Jesus. It's not living. It's, it's, it's, it's living. What it is is living from a new life source, which is located in you, which you received at salvation. And Colossians 127 tells us about that location, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now, in real estate, they say Location, location, locations, everything. Well, guess what, location, location, spiritually speaking, is this, Christ is in you, the hope of glory. Yeah. And now, folks, when Christ moved in, he brought all these wonderful resources with him, which makes you complete. And I want to show you what they are. Just pick something I am. Did you like love growing up? Well, Christ says, I'm your love. Did you Where did you feel? You know, insecure? Oh, there's several on this list that I felt, but I discovered that Christ was my life, and this, these are the resources that he brings into the relationship. Now, what's the difference between living for Christ and living from Christ, when a person is living for Christ, living for Jesus, most of the most of the time, those individuals you know, you know, have a to do list. You know. You know it. You know, when a person's living from Jesus, most of the time that individual is calling all the shots what living for Jesus looks like. It's, it's the belief that unwittingly puts the emphasis on the believers performance, how well they perform at the Christian life. It's always about appearance. You know, appearance is the act of being visible noticeable. It's the facade that usually is masking the despair that comes from living according to religious flesh. And I did that a long time see a performance based Christianity says that Christianity looks like this and it looks like that, and if you want God to bless you, you have to perform well at it. For example, I was told that if you want Larry, if you want God to bless you, then you need to read your Bible twice a day, morning and evening. You need to pray three times a day, morning, noon and night. Attend church every time the doors are open, witness daily, confess your sins daily. Do do do now those three words Do, do, do remind me what I'm usually dodging when I'm in the cow pasture.
See a performance based Christianity is a life of bondage. It's exhausting, and it's the opposite of rest, the kind of rest that the father wants us to have. It focuses on how well you can keep the rules and the regulations. And I know that to be a fact, because that's the usual testimony of those being set free from the law. If you know, if you're a good Christian, you're good at keeping the rules and the regulations, you're usually branded as a good crush Christian, and if you're struggling, you're branded opposite, you know differently. Performance Based Christianity is usually, you know, just, you know, finding life in behavior modification. You know, it's external and it constantly needs affirmation. It you know, it's the equivalent, as Andrew Farley says in his book, it's the equivalent of exploring a bottomless pit. Yeah. And so now let's get to the rest of my story, and we're coming to the end here. 23 years ago, I reached a point of crisis in my life.
I love the Lord.
You know, I. I was a god lover, but the performance based lifestyle wasn't working for me, and something was missing. I noticed, I knew that I was experiencing exhaustion, and in 2001 I was a lead pastor of a Baptist church here in East Texas at the time, I didn't know what freedom in Christ was, what the what the grace message was. And so, you know, you know, ministry for me was a mixture of law and grace, and I was making a mess of them both. As Andrew says in his book, I was cheating on Jesus while flirting with Moses, despite my lack of understanding of grace, believe it or not, this church was growing. People were being saved. We were experiencing, you know, these folks being baptized. The church was experiencing numerical growth. We were having to make changes to accommodate this growth, and then it started. A certain group within the church didn't like the changes. These people were made up of family members and friendships, long standing relationships in this community. The issue that sparked the fire that eventually burned everything down. Was a staff member. He grew up in the church. He had a family in this church, and he was well connected with this group. And you know, you know when, when I started my journey at this church, you know, I would hear people say, Man, brother, Larry, it's, it's God's will for you to be there, to be here, but in one Sunday evening now it's God's will for me to leave, and after 17 months of being there, they voted that night to end my journey with him. Now I want to tell you it was surprising. It was shocking, and it was and it was dead devastating. Over time, it became very devastating. The Gossip started circulating in this small community. My reputation as a pastor now had was online, and ministry had come to a screeching halt, but now I want to say this to you, I did nothing for which I need to be ashamed. I wasn't asked to leave for immoral reasons. I was asked to leave because I was lazy. I hadn't misused the church friends, but I didn't even have any say so in that anyway, and I wasn't teaching doctrinal error. This was simply a clash of personalities and for control. And the this experience would be very costly. This experience would put me out of the Ministry for the rest of my life, and which it has, well out of full time ministry. I'm still in ministry, just picking on a different of different flavor. A wife of 32 years basically said she had enough, and she filed for divorce and and I think she threw me under the bus because she didn't know what else to do. I think really, she just wanted out of the ministry because of how we were treated. And then financially it was tough. It really was tough. And I call it the loss of 3m loss of ministry, marriage and money. Now the question is, Where was God in all this? Well, I think a good verse to look at would be this right here from, I forget what translation I got this out of, but I love how his word it says, Now we know with great confidence that God, who deeply, who is deeply concerned about us, you know, is causing all things to work together as a plan for our good. Now, at the time, I didn't see a lot of good coming out of this, but God was at work, and God didn't cause this. You know, God didn't do this. These things happen because we live in a fallen world and we have an enemy. But God, did you hear that? Now, did you hear that little conjunction there? But God, did you hear? Do you hear life after the conjunction? But God, God had a different plan. I mean, certainly God could've stopped it all, but he allowed it. So the question is, what was the Father's plan? What was he up to? What was he going to accomplish through this seemingly bad situation? Now you don't want to miss it. I'm getting ready to tell you. You ready? You're listening, alright? I hope it's not disappointing. I went through all of that. That loss of ministry, marriage and money, so that I could rediscover the Jesus, I said yes to at the age of 18, that's it.
Religion had
skewed my vision of Jesus. Religion had caused me to lose sight of Jesus. My eyes were not on the person Jesus. My eyes were on the performance of Larry. I was busy polishing my performance. You know why? Because I needed you to approve of me. I needed you to accept me. I needed you to love me. Now, folks learn this, God loves us, He accepts us, he approves of us, and he can't love us, accept us and approve of us any more than he already does. And so our admonition is this, Hebrews 12, one and two, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Now, you know, do you remember the parables in Matthew 13, the there's two parables, and they're kind of go, they kind of are connected. It's a parable where Jesus taught about a man who who found his hidden, hidden treasure in the field. And so what he did is he sold everything he had, bought the field, and he got the treasure. And the next parable, following immediately after that parable, is the merchant who sold everything he had so that he could purchase a pearl of great price. Now, in similar fashion, I lost everything, but what I found, what I rediscovered, was the Jesus I said yes to at the age of 18. That was huge. It was so sharp the distinction of what I lost 23 years in living in bondage, and now I'm free. So here's my takeaway, today and tomorrow, and from now on, Jesus Christ is my life. Today. I'm living from Jesus I'm living from the standpoint of His grace. The father's teaching me how to live from his resources, which I already possessed at salvation. Christ, I mean, God used that situation to bring me to the end of myself. He delivered me from the illusion that I could live the Christian life without him, and now I'm enjoying freedom in Christ, and I have entered into his rest. And man, is it wonderful? It's wonderful. Let me leave you with a couple verses. Here. It says this, John 836, if the Son has made you free, then you're free. Indeed.
I love that effect. They call it the anchor,
and it is, it is for freedom that Christ set us free. So there you have it. We already have it. We already possess it. I guess now we just need to claim it and live from there. So that's my journey to freedom in Christ. Well, we're not going to have an invitation. Jason, I talked about it, but he wanted me to just say this. I'd be down here at the front and and if you know, if you realize today that you haven't received, you haven't really received Christ, I'd love to take that journey with you and show you how you can know, for the you know have the assurance of salvation. And if you're a believer and you realize the struggles and you haven't really entered into that rest, I'll be down here to help you out. There's others in our church that could help you with that man. There's Nancy Kilpatrick. She's She's spot on with the grace myth. There. There's Karen right there. She knows the grace message. There's a lot of us in here that know the grace message, and we stand ready to share it with you. Alright, let me pray for you, father. Thank you for your life that you've deposited in us when we said yes to your son. Thank you for making us alive. Thank you, Father, for just just being so good to us all these years. I mean, for the first time, I feel safe with you. For years, I was trying to convince you that you hadn't made a mistake when you saved me and you delivered me from that, and I'm thankful for it. I pray Your blessings on this message. You'd seal it to these people's heart, riveted these truths to their mind, set them free those your. Children who may be still struggling and for the person who has is a stranger, from your grace, may they they could say it right now just Yes, yes, Jesus, I want you, and they could be saved just like that. We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen.