Conversation - with Pastor Jared about - Surrendering Our Past - Altar'd Series

Kingdom Conversations: Surrendering Our Past Sins & Mistakes

In this week’s Kingdom Conversations, Pastor Robby and Pastor Jared dive into a powerful and often uncomfortable topic—what it truly means to surrender our past sins and failures to God.

Continuing in the Lenten series Altar’d, this conversation centers on the altar built by David in 1 Chronicles 21—a defining moment where failure meets surrender, and surrender opens the door to restoration. David’s story reminds us that our greatest mistakes don’t have to define us, but how we respond to them matters deeply.

Together, they explore the tension between saying “I’m sorry” and “I’m sorry, but…,” uncovering how our natural instinct to justify ourselves can block true repentance. They also wrestle with the reality that what we often consider “private” sin can have very public consequences—impacting not just our own lives, but the lives of others.

You’ll hear honest discussion around questions like:

•  Are we minimizing sin by calling it a “mistake” or “struggle”? 
•  What does it actually cost to follow God in repentance? 
•  Why do we wait until things are cleaned up before coming to Him? 
•  And how do we move from a one-time surrender to daily freedom? 

David’s declaration—“I will not offer to the Lord what costs me nothing”—challenges us to rethink what genuine surrender looks like in our own lives today.

This episode is a call to stop carrying the weight of past failures and instead lay them down at the altar—trusting that God’s grace not only forgives but transforms. 

If you’ve ever struggled with guilt, shame, or moving forward after failure, this conversation will encourage you to embrace God’s restoration and walk in true freedom.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to our bonus podcast called Kingdom Conversations. At Church of the Lakes, our mission is connecting all to Christ to become healthy in God and courageous in love. In 2026, we're emphasizing a kingdom mindset in all of our ministries and missions by being more like Jesus and countercultural in the living. During the Latin season, we're focusing our kingdom conversations around the sermon series entitled Altered. As we study the altars found throughout Scripture, we're reminded of our call to surrender to God. In surrender, we create space for Him to transform us from the inside out. Join Pastor Jared and Pastor Roundy as they unpack this week's message on surrendering our failures so we can receive his restoration. Be blessed.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Welcome to another Kingdom Conversations. I'm Pastor Robbie Strach, and today we are heading towards the next altar through our sermon series, this time found in 1 Chronicles 21 and altar created by King David. And if you know anything about the backstory of David, it is littered with major successes and tragic failures. And this altar is so fascinating because it's on the precipice of both success and failures. This altar signifies, once again, just this amazing transformation of God in a person that meets him at the altar. David's life is certainly a reflection on how we should handle failures. And Pastor Jared, I'm so excited to get your thoughts on this next altar. How are you doing today? I'm doing real well.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Well, you certainly led us uh in an amazing worship uh on uh this past Sunday, and this your sermon can be found right here on this podcast feed. And you pointed out to us just this great story at the altar of David on the threshing floor of a guy named Ornan. Um, certainly this story unveils and and kind of um helps us get through our last altar before we go to the ultimate altar, which we'll talk about on Easter, this next sermon on our podcast series. Uh, but I'm so interested to hear what you said yesterday and kind of work through it together. Sound good? Sounds great. Let's go. Well, I have to admit, what struck my heartstrings this week when I was going through your sermon and then as you delivered it, you harped on the idea that David at the altar gave and expressed this I'm sorry statement to the Lord. But then you parse it even farther and you showed us what was missing. You said, and I quote, David says, I'm sorry. He doesn't say, I'm sorry, but the conjunction that kind of gives the excuses. Why is it, Jared, saying, I'm sorry, with the conjunction but so instinctive for us? And what does that really reveal about our human nature and maybe even further to the extent why David dropped the butt off of the statement?

SPEAKER_03 3:08

The first thing I would say is an I'm sorry, but statement is not true repentance. Uh it's self-justification with manners. Um, you know, it's it's half-hearted. And I think in terms of the I'm sorry, but uh is instinctive for us is because we really do want forgiveness, but we want it without losing faith. Uh we want to be forgiven, but also still be right in the argument. We we want mercy without surrender. Uh we want reconciliation without repentance. And so we'll say things like, Well, I'm sorry, but I was tired. Uh, I'm sorry I lashed out at you verbally, but be honest, you provoked me, right? Or I'm sorry, that's just how I am. You know, I have a friend who has red hair, and she uses her fact that she's a redhead, giving her a path to be angry at people all the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

And that's fiery personality, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:08

That's I'm sorry, but again, it's not repentance, it's just self-justification with manners.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Now, some of that stuff certainly is convicting to me because as you're starting to list all these excuses here, I can't help but think of the stories and illustrations you were using and making excuses myself for your action. Because I I so often do it in my own life and a personal reflection.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

But uh well it's happened since nearly the dawn of creation. You go back to the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3 uh shares the narrative of when Adam and Eve, the first human beings, disobeyed God by eating from the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was forbidden for them to eat from. God said, Don't eat from it. If you do, you're gonna die. And so after they ate from it, and God goes, What have you done? Why did you eat from this tree? And and the first thing Adam says, he throws Eve under the bus. Well, it it's the woman you gave me, that's why I ate from it. And then he directs his attention to Eve, and Eve goes, No, no, it the serpent, he deceived me to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so there's this blame shifting, this unwillingness to take ownership for our faults and our failures and basically our sin. Um, and that's why I'm sorry, but doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

It's just well, theologically, Jared, what I'm so interested here in why you went back to Genesis 3, you went back that far towards the creation narrative because it's a part of our human nature. It's not something that's learned, right? It's a part of our human nature to feel this need to excuse our poor actions, or is it learned behavior? I I'm just trying to parse through here a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Maybe a both and okay uh you know, I think that we we sin, but we're also sinners. You know, at our very core, uh we have a bent towards sin because we were born with a sin nature. Um and so I, you know, we see that played out on the world stage so often that when when when when major politicians or celebrities do something sinful, the first thing we want to do is excuse it or justify it or blame somebody else. And that I think is just part of our nature as human beings. But I also think it's a learned behavior. Um when you when you think of family units, uh, you're going to act as your maybe parents act or as your child as your your sibling or your um your siblings act, so on and so forth. And so you can you know have it as a learned behavior as well. Whereas there are, you know, in my family, you know, we say forgiveness is uh saves what you're sorry for, and forgiveness is mandatory. And so we don't allow our kids to say, I'm sorry, but no, you need to take ownership. So, in a sense, that can be a learned behavior as well if you can train up the next generation to to one, not just say sorry, because there's no ownership of a sorry, it's I am sorry, and then it's not a but, but I am sorry for, and then list what you're sorry for. And that I think can open the door to real reconciliation and relationship where the I'm sorry but doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

So there's obviously a difference between explaining behavior and excusing it. So where's the line for us as Christians? Is there ever a time where we're supposed to explain our behavior when it hurts someone else, or are we just supposed to immediately apologize for it? Which is obviously written in scripture over and over again. But uh where do you think the line is, Jared?

SPEAKER_03 7:35

You know, you use the word explaining and excusing. Uh, to me, explaining uh has a better connotation to it, and that I'm trying to seek understanding for what I've done or what somebody else has done to me, whereas excusing the behavior is like avoiding responsibility completely. Washing your hands, washing your hands. So so explanation to me is self-examination, excusing is self-justification. And to me, that's where I think the line is between the the difference between the two.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

And then so what do we see here in First Chronicles David doing, you know, because I'm so interested in turning the page in David's life and his story, because so often we gravitate towards the mistake that David makes that is so inexcusable. You know, we you know, the king of uh that you know Samuel had anointed, uh, you know, defeated Goliath. Here he is, uh lusting after a woman on top of a rooftop, right? And he sins mortally, so much so that it ends to the you know uh explicit death uh of uh 70,000 people. It's it's it's it's a plague. It's brutal. It's brutal. And you know, it's in this story of First Chronicles that we see David at the end of his life, the end of his narrative really, uh not try and ex you know, excuse his behavior at all. Instead, um, as you highlighted it for us, it was this private pride that caused sin and created a public p pain. Jared, that's a big thing for us to try and understand. Can you help us corporately try and flush that out a little bit more? Why does the private pride, the private sin of our lives produce a public pain, no matter what we do?

SPEAKER_03 9:31

That's yeah, it's a it's a great statement. Um I I I wish I could tell you it was my statement. It might have been. I don't know. Uh you know, I I read so much from so many people, uh, and that's a statement that really does um it convicts me, you know, as a leader, to make sure I'm I I'm living above bar, above reproach, uh, not only for my sake, but for the sake of the people I I lead. And and so uh I think we tend to think sin is private because it happened, because the moment it happens is private. But sin is never private because the person is not private, right? Because we're supposed to live corporately, we're supposed to live within a community corporately, and so that's why a leader's pride affects his or her staff. A parent's anger affects children, a spouse's secrecy affects the marriage, a pastor's ego affects a church family, a business owner's greed affects his employees, a citizen's apathy affects a nation. Even though it might be a sin being done in a private moment, the person isn't private, the person lives out, lives life out within community, and so the whole community is affected by it. Uh, David thought he was taking a private moment to take census of his army. Uh however, even though it was a private moment, it was pride that affected the nation, and 70,000 died because of it. And you know, David, I think, had a swallow hard in the realization that, well, I just cost the life of 70,000 people because of something I did behind closed doors.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And that's such an uh explicit illustration in our scriptures of this played out. But Jared, in our own context, how does our private sin really shape our entire community as a faith family? Because I, you know, I look at the my own sins just like you are in those moments of self-reflection. I'm like, is this really shaping our whole entire community, this brokenness? What do I need to do? And it pushes you further towards um the repentance part of David's story and David's call, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Yeah. So, you know, you know, thinking about specifically in the church as a faith family. Um I corporately speaking, the things that we want to normalize within the church are things like repentance and forgiveness. When we're engaging in private sin, that undermines what we're trying to do corporately. Let me give an example of our mission statement. You know, our mission statement is connecting all to Christ to become healthy in God and courageous in love. That's a we statement. That is what we collectively are seeking to live out. Now, with that said, when you look at the accountability measures of our mission statement, how do we know if we're actually living it out as a corporate whole? Every one of our accountability measures is uh an I statement. Everyone, all nine questions that that fit under the the three the three statements of our uh mission statement are all I statements. Therefore, what that is saying is that the the more individual people who live these questions out daily, we will be able to effectively live out our mission as a collective whole. The less people we have living out these mission measures, the less of a good job we're doing living out our mission as a collective whole. And so even though something might feel private, it's not private because it it it it either undermines or it elevates the witness of the collective whole. And sin just works that way, right? Like, I mean, you you think of private sin like I some of the examples I went down, like a maybe a leader's pride amongst colleagues. Well, that's gonna affect his staff. He's gonna undermine his staff not even knowing he's doing it. You know, he thinks he's just doing it in a separate room with colleagues, but he's bringing in a spirit or uh a dynamic into his staff that's going to eventually undermine his staff. Um it happens with families, you know, fathers and homes, mothers and homes. When they're doing stuff behind closed doors they shouldn't be doing, it's bringing in a negative spirit and and and uh dynamics that are going to affect the collective whole.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Well, Jared, once you say that you feel as if we're in a hyper individualistic culture.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Oh my goodness, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

It's terrible, actually. So you constantly remind us that we're supposed to be the one another religion. All yeah. We're supposed to be connecting to one another. But when we're looking at our individual lives, like you said in the I statements that are a part of our mission measures, how do we recover kind of from this consequence of sin without falling into the trap of unhealthy guilt? Because in an individualistic culture, you're constantly doing the mirror belly button gazing, as Pastor Bryan says, right? So how do we fall not fall into the trap of this unhealthy guilt, but yet still have the self-reflection to be aware enough to use the mission measures to realize that we're whether or not we're following God's plan and his ways, words, and wisdoms?

SPEAKER_03 14:53

That's a really great question. Um, the way I think I would answer that is the Bible clearly teaches corporate consequence, like what we see here in the day bananas, right? He commits a public, or I'm sorry, a private sin. He's pridefully wants to take a census of the army to show how mighty he is, and it creates a public uh disaster. 70,000 people die from a plague. So the Bible clearly teaches corporate consequence, but it does not teach corporate condemnation, and there's a difference between the two. Okay. Corporate consequence, it means my sin affects other people, and other people's sin affects me. Corporate condemnation says I am morally guilty for someone else's sin. The Bible doesn't teach that, right? Corporate consequence, but not corporate condemnation. Here's what the Bible teaches we are guilty of our own sin, but we are affected by others' sin. However, we are responsible responsible for each other in community. Let me say that again. The Bible teaches that we are guilty of our own sin. We are affected, however, by other people's sins, but we do have a responsibility for each other within community. Uh, again, if I could put a plug in for anchor groups, that's why anchor groups are so important. What is that? What is an anchor group? An anchor group is you know, three to four people, um, same-gendered people who are you know trying to pursue holiness and sanctification in the right ways, that are willing to be transparent and vulnerable with one another and really as iron sharpens iron, you know, uh expose each other's sins and faults and failures and growth edges and spur one another on towards love and good deed and spur one another on towards being more like Jesus. We we need each other, we need to be responsible for one another. However, we're not um responsible for another's sin in the fact that we are we are guilty over the sin they commit, they're guilty of their own sin. Right, we're guilty over our our own sin. Um, so it's not corporate consequence. It's I'm guilty over my sin, you're guilty over your sin, but we can be affected by each other's sin.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

But that sense of community in the story in 1 Chronicles, we see David get some pushback. His accountability group, his general Joab, right, pushes back.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

He does. David, what are you doing? Don't do this, don't do this. This is not a good idea. David says, I'm doing it anyways.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, he's doing it anyways. And so often I think that's a true reflection of not being able to listen to the Christian voices that are around us. First of all, David was surrounding himself with the right type of people, but then he wasn't actually listening at that point, right? In that moment. No, and it feels like we're kind of picking on David here a little bit. But the reality is in 1 Chronicles 21, he has this huge transformation. He does. And God is right at the center of it. And, you know, the prophet Gad tells him really to erect an altar in this strange location on a threshing floor, um, symbolic if you know the scriptures of historically of what's going to unfold here and the building of the temple. But first Chronicles 21, 24, you know, David goes to purchase really this place to create this altar. And the owner, Ornan, says, No, no, no, let me just give it to you. I'll give you the burnt offering, I'll give you the oxen for it, I'll give you the wood, I'll give you, you know, everything. And David says, and I quote from scripture out of verse 24, he says, I will not offer what costs me nothing. Nothing. How does this quote, Jared, from David, really show us this transformation that has occurred in David's life?

SPEAKER_03 18:52

It's a great question. I mean, go to his earlier life, right? David took what was not his. Ain't that Bathsheba? Yeah. He took Bathsheba. Uh, how about he took Uriah's life? You know, to cover up his sin with Bathsheba. Right. Uh he took a census to build his own name. Now, in this moment, in 1 Chronicles 21, David refuses to take a free sacrifice. That's transformation. Look at it in terms of before and after his experience with grace. Before grace, David took what cost others. After his experience with grace, he gives what costs him. And there's a real big difference there. It really is indicative of the transformation that took place in David's life. Um, so repentance, which we see in David's story, is not just saying I'm sorry. Repentance is a changed relationship with cost. And David is is is really illustrating that well here in 1 Chronicles 21. Uh, grace had changed David so deeply, I think that he's no longer asking the question, what can I get away with? As many of us do. Yeah, he's asking the question, what does love require of me? And there's a again a transformation in his heart in this moment that we see so glaringly in this this particular biblical passage.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Well, and it all happens at this altar in the old testament that oftentimes will glide right on past in the story. Um I think if David were alive today, what what do you think that transformation would look like? Look, I mean, let's make this more practical. Uh, in our modern suburban context, why what would be something that David would reject so that he can show the true transformation that's occurred in his life?

SPEAKER_03 20:51

It's a really good question to try to contextualize it. Uh, because we're not building altars on threshing floors in America anymore.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

No, but we do build altars, don't we? We do.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

I I think one thing David would do now, and you know, the lesson we can take to contextualize it, is when we actually fail to publicly own that failure instead of trying to protect our reputation. I mean, so many of us when when we stumble and fall and fail and we get caught up in besetting sin, we try to protect our reputation. When you know, I I think if David were here today, he'd publicly own his failure. You know, and then he'd probably then lean into grace and say, even though I failed in this moment, there are natural consequences to my failure. I'm gonna trust ultimately in the grace of God to save me eternally. I think it could mean go simply going to counseling. Could it be that easy? Uh maybe it's stepping out of leadership for a season until you you you know you get yourself right again with the Lord and with other people. Uh, it could be making financial restitution, you know, for some for someone that you wronged. We talked about the guilt offering that he's offering out. On this, this, this altar on the threshing floor of Ornan, the guilt offering, which is one of the five offerings we see in the Old Testament. There's the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and now the guilt offering. Part of the guilt offering is offering restitution, not only in uh in uh the equal amount of what you took, but to also add 20% to it.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Right. We kind of see that in the uh uh Zacchaeus story.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

We do, we do. Uh four times. Anyone I've wronged, I will pay them four times what I've taken. You know, I'll give half my money to the poor. I'm glad you brought I'm going to talk about Zacchaeus on Easter morning uh in terms of uh the the power of Christ in a life. So just a sidebar for a moment.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Well, it's I mean it is uh you know the sermon that we just went through was was for Poem Sunday, right? And I mean we see you know his story play out a little bit there, but I uh you know, Jared, I'm I struggle really with this because our leaders don't look like this today, do they?

SPEAKER_03 23:00

A lot of them don't, particularly in in politics. Even some people, some leaders within the church, uh dare I say, you know, there's not a willingness to to offer public apology, to try to make financial restitution, to seek counseling, to step out of leadership willingly for a season. Uh you know, they there's some other things I think David would would encourage us to do, and that's simply uh confess to the people you've hurt instead of quietly moving on. How many of us want to just quietly move on and pretend something didn't happen? Right. Um putting guardrails on your life, saying, okay, this is a place where if if I if I cross this line, I'm gonna stumble, so let me put a guardrail up so I don't cross that line anymore. Um you know, uh submitting the accountability. You know, uh having somebody else hold a um hold some leverage or accountability over you just to say, hey, you uh you're wrong here. You're stepping into uh a place you shouldn't be. Uh you've sinned. Like Gad did or Nathan did with David in his story. Like uh, you know, you gotta love that, you gotta love the way Nathan tricked David into David realizing what he did with Bathsheba and Uriah by using the parent. The man is you, right? The man is you, you know, and that is just a incredible uh moment. If I could go back real quick to the idea of corporate um consequences versus uh uh what was it, corporate consequences versus private sin. I'm sorry, corporate consequences versus corporate condemnation. Oh, okay. That's where I want to go back to real quick. And I I I mentioned that corporate consequences, my sin affects others and others' sins affect me, but corporate condemnation is I'm morally guilty for someone else's sin. That's not biblical. Again, biblical, the Bible teaches that we're guilty of our own sin, but we're affected by other people's sin. But as the one another religion, we do have a responsibility over one another in community. The illustration I wanted to give is that of a boat. Say somebody drills a hole in the boat. If they do that, everyone gets wet, right? Yeah, I would imagine so. But not everybody drilled the hole.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

So so in the Bible, in the biblical response, it's not shame, blame shifting, or false guilt. The biblical response is simply repent where I am responsible, lament where I've been affected by somebody else's sin, intercede where I'm called upon to intercede, like Nathan or Gad were in David's life, and then help repair what is broken. Um that to me is a the biblical corporate mindset to what we're talking about without the added toxic guilt. Guilt is of the devil, shame is of the devil, right? You know, the Lord says there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8.1. Um now there might be natural consequences, and you know, we as we as a collective corporate body need to help spur one another on and moving in healthy directions.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Um we need to look at the process here, Jared, because you kind of laid that out before us. Look, I mean, here's the order of operation of David. Private sin led to corporate consequence. His reaction to that, even after being uh condemned by a, you know, I won't say a peer because Joab wasn't a peer necessarily, but he was one of his trusted advisors, right? Uh, you know, David goes, listens, builds the altar, fire falls on the offering, it consumes the offering, and the judgment of the Lord ceases, the angel that the Lord had set to bring this plague. We read in scripture how the angel is told to stop from the Lord. So why then, Jared, do we so often look for opportunities for us to get cleaned up before we confess? As opposed to doing what David did. Yeah. In the midst of the mess, you hit pause and you do what you're convicted to do by the Lord and by the Spirit, which is to repent in that moment immediately and go to him. David does it, doesn't he? He he does it, he immediately stops everything and he goes and does it.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Uh in that sermon, I talked about how you know this altar was different in the sense that David built this altar in the middle of his failure.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

He didn't wait till everything was cleaned up or till he was made perfect. It was in the middle of failure that he built this altar. And I but however, with that said, I think a lot of us think that God wants the a cleaned up version of ourselves, not the real version of ourselves. That couldn't be farther from the truth. And there are a lot of really great biblical illustrations of that. How God just wants the real version of us, not the cleaned up version. Um, prodigal in Luke 15. Yeah, still went home smelling like the pigs, right? The woman at the well came after five failed malad marriages. Uh Zacchaeus, who you brought up, uh, came to Jesus mid-corruption, right? Um, the thief on the cross, mid-execution, right? Um, David builds an altar while the angel of judgment was still out there killing the Israelites. It was in the middle of failure that he built this altar. And that's when we we are called to come to God, not when we clean ourselves up, but the just in the midst of our mass. And and that's the that's the beauty of the Lord. You know, he hung on a cross and shed his blood for our salvation, not while we were cleaned up, but while we were in the middle of our mass. I I heard a pastor once say so often the church, we try to clean the fish before we catch them. No, catch the fish and let the Holy Spirit, the work of the Holy Spirit, clean the fish, you know, and sanctify them and make them more holy.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

And only through the spirit can that happen now.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

Only through the spirit can that happen. You know, we are saved by the blood of Jesus and we are formed and transformed and conformed into the image of Christ by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

So, what's the difference then, Jared, between laying something down once and then continually doing it over and over and over again, living free from it daily, because so often it's the guilt that you mentioned that's not from God that makes us think back to the sin that we had laid down and then makes us pick it back up. Use the illustration of the rocks in the backpack, right? Uh, at the end of your sermon. And I loved it because there's so many times we're carrying around this baggage and this heaviness and a little insider information, Jared. That bag was a little heavy, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 29:48

It was. I am once I got all I didn't uh anticipate how heavy that bag was going to be once I put all the rocks in it, but it got pretty heavy.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Illustration's gone wrong, but in a right way. I realized it would have only been more clever had the bottom of the bag busted out. But we joke about it, but it's so true. So often we pick up these rocks, these sins, and when we hand them over to God, it's like, here you go, God, I'm leaving this at the foot of the cross. And then we end up going back to the cross and picking it back up. What do you what do you say to someone like that that is in this terrible cycle?

SPEAKER_03 30:22

Yeah. Um I had the joy of uh after service meeting with a woman in the prayer chapel who was just broken, and she was thinking about how unworthy she was of the sacrifice of Christ. And uh, we had a really great conversation about no, what makes you worthy is the sacrifice of Christ. It is the blood he shed.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Amen.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

You know, that the his righteousness by his blood has been imputed to you, therefore you are now worthy of the kingdom of God. And so Paul, you know, talks about in his letters how uh in Ephesians, by nature we were objects of wrath, but we have been transformed into the children of God by the precious work of Jesus on the cross and by his blood that was shed. And so, therefore, because we have been transformed into his children, we are now deserving of, say, the inheritance of heaven. We are deserving of a place in God's family. And I gave the illustration to this woman. I said, Look, you you have a child. Um, if your child ever felt came to you and said they were unworthy of the inheritance you wanted to leave them, what would you say to them? You'd say that's nonsense. You're one of you're my son. Of course I'm gonna leave you an inheritance. Well, how do you think God feels about us now that we're his children?

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Of course he's gonna leave us an inheritance of heaven because we're we're part of his family, we're his children. And so maybe we were unworthy before we uh we allowed the blood covering of Christ to make us worthy, but because of that blood covering, we are now worthy. And so we we need to live as people who are worthy of the calling to which we have been called. If I could again quote Paul from the letter to the Ephesians. Going back to though, laying something down once versus um living free from it every day. When you lay something down once, it's a moment in time. When you live free, it becomes a practice in your life. So so one is a decision, the other is discipleship. So living in the freedom that our salvation in Christ offers us is not just one altar, one prayer, one confession, one emotional moment, although that may all be the start. It's obedience, it's a daily dying to self. I die to myself every day, all day long. It's daily remembering not only who you are, but whose you are. And you don't just lay that down once, you live that every single day. Every day, Lord, it's it's I'm resurrendering myself to you before I even get out of bed. I belong to you. This day belongs to you. What you have me do, what you don't have me do is up to you. It it's gotta be a daily surrender.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

And when we actually do it, we finally get freedom. Amen. Yeah, that's that's the beauty of all this. Jared, you know, as we turn the page here, um I gotta, I gotta know, you know, where do where do you live this out personally? Like this had to have been something like me where you were reflecting a lot on this passage and seeing a lot of our own self in the mirror. Um what part of this sermon really challenged you the most? It's a great question.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

Uh was that a real question for real people? It was, yeah. Um and I've been trying to try to reflect and prepare for that question to answer it and ooh. Um I I think for me it's it's it it's maybe where we just ended. It's knowing in my soul that I've become worthy because I'm I'm now a child of God. And and like I said to that woman yesterday in the prayer chapel, is every time you feel unworthy, just start crying out the blood, the blood, the blood. And in remembering the blood, you're reminded that it's the blood that covers you with the imputed righteousness of Christ that has made you worthy. Um you know, sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror, I don't like what I see. And that's not just because my hair is all messed up and I wake up, right? It it's okay, I'm seeing the old version of Jared, but that version is now dead because of Christ. You know, Christ has resurrected me into something new. And what he has resurrected me is something beautiful, and and I just have to constantly remember that. You know, I I can't let guilt and shame take over my life because that's not of the Lord. Again, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Um, we we have been set free, as you said, and in in the you know, continually pick up that bag of rocks that are our proverbial sin. You know, we're we're in a sense when we do that, what we're we're almost saying is the cross wasn't enough. You know, but the cross was enough.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

There was enough.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

The cross was enough. And and if you need to keep saying it to yourself over and over and over until you're convinced, then say it till you're convinced. But the cross is enough. Uh and the cross has made us worthy because the the the blood has cleansed us. So that's where I'd go. Um, I I you know, I like David. David is um I I think a a a picture of all of us, you know, full of failures and successes, full of moments where he pursued the Lord, other moments where he defiantly turned away. And uh but but but David had a heart that was after God, right? And um you know, sometimes there's often times when I find myself sinned and I'm like, God, you know my heart. Like, don't give up on me. You didn't give up on David, don't give up on me. And and he's but he's not, he's not gonna because he sent Jesus, you know. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yeah, thank you, Jared. I you know that real question required a real answer to hit deep because the reality is when we try and look at the Old Testament altars, um, the hardest part about transformation is realizing that we live in a post-Old Testament world.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

Amen. Post-resurrection.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Yeah, and that's what we're gonna celebrate this Sunday, where there is hope, there is wholeness, there is uh separation from sin if we allow God um to do this heart surgery that we kind of talk about in Deuteronomy, you know, this heart surgery that allows us to love God more and love each other just as well. Um, you know, if you'd love to submit a question to us, uh you know, please feel free to email me at Robert at churchalakes.org. We'd like to offer that real question, real answer segment each week. And, you know, I I think it adds a little bit of a personal touch. But certainly, Jared, as we head towards Easter Sunday, uh resurrection Sunday, I have to ask you a simple question. What are you looking forward to most when we open the doors here at church on Easter?

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Uh to be able to proclaim the greatest truth the world's ever heard, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, brother. And because of that, uh, the best is yet to come. In Christ, it is always the best is yet to come.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

So I hope people, whether it's here on this podcast feed, whether it's in person at Church of the Lakes, whether it's at their own local churches, I hope people celebrate the resurrection with intention. You know, it's it's an intentional act to celebrate the resurrection. And guess what? It's not just for Easter Sunday, it's in each day of our lives, right? Amen. We had the opportunity to worship our God in such a way, knowing that resurrection has changed us and transformed us, just like we've seen God do so many times in the altars of the Old Testament. And we'll look at that final, final altar in Scripture as we look at the cross. And of course, you can't get to Resurrection Sunday without first going to the cross. And we'll do that in worship on Monday, Thursday, whether that's uh um, you know, going to the rail for communion. It'll be fun to serve communion at the rail, right, Jared? It's something that we both look forward to. And I say that fun in a pleasant sense because it's uh it's by this physical act that we're showing um who we belong to and we surrender. So before we go, I just want to say a big thank you to, of course, Betsy, our director of communication. Len, uh, God bless you, brother. Uh, we've got a tough episode coming up here where you're gonna have to splice some audio together because the fire alarm went off in the middle of our podcast. But hey, you know, that stuff happens. Uh, and of course, I want to say thank you to my wife, Stephanie, who helps get this distributed out on our social media platforms. But once again, if you want to reach out, submit a question, please, please, please send me an email at Robert at churchalakes.org. We'd love to hear from you. And we'll always remember it's our mission at Church of the Lakes to connect all of those to Christ to become helping God and courageous in love. And until next time, God bless.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Thank you for listening to this bonus podcast from Church of the Lakes with Pastor Jared Presett and Pastor Robbie Strack. If today's message encouraged you and helped you grow as a devoted follower of Christ, we invite you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can also help others discover this podcast by leaving a five-star rating or review and sharing it with your friends, family, coworkers, and others in your circle of influence. We're also very grateful for your generosity, which helps make messages like this available to more people. If you feel led to give, please check the link in the description. And if you're in the North Kenton, Ohio area, we would love to invite you to join us in person on Sunday and worship together. To learn more about Church of the Lakes, visit Church of the Lakes.org or visit the website link in the description. Until next time, stay encouraged and keep walking in faith.