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Welcome to the live big broadcast with Derek Greer. We believe this teaching from God's word will empower you to live a full, impactful life in Christ. Let's dig in.

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We're gonna begin in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5 and verse 13. The apostle Paul is speaking by the Holy Spirit and he says this and he says it with a little bit of attitude. For if we are beside ourselves, the NIV reads out of our minds. The new living translation reads, for if we are crazy. If Paul was out of his mind, he was in good company because you need a little crazy to keep things fun. Mark chapter 3 and verse 20 says this about Jesus. Then the multitudes came together again so that they could not so much as eat bread. The crowds at this point in Jesus ministry were so overwhelming that he and his disciples could barely find time to eat. But watch this. But when his own people probably included his family, his kinfolk heard about this. The Bible says they went to lay hold of him. For they said to each other and probably to his face, he is out of his mind. You see, we look at these scriptures in hindsight and because we weren't there, we don't get the full context and import of all that was happening. Jesus left a prosperous job to become a traveling preacher. And then after becoming a preacher, he refused to back down from the conflicts he had with both the political and religious leaders who had far more earthly power and natural education. And here was this man that was a blue collar worker. The city of Sepphoris was at far. So he had a lot of work. Some say that Jesus was a stone crafter, not necessarily a wood carpenter, but I don't know, he probably did it all. But the short of it is he worked with his hands all his life and people knew him. But all of a sudden Jesus was performing miracles. Then on top of that, he's traveling with this unlikely group of disciples that caused everyone in their right minds to question his judgment. One was a tax collector. We had zealots among them, we had fishermen. We had this diverse group of people following him. But none of them were the educated, aristocratic, at least to the degree that folks would have liked it. So all this is going on and Jesus captures the imagination of the nation and the crowds are going absolutely wild. If progress could get messy for the perfect Jesus, don't be surprised if sometimes progress gets a little bit messy for you and I. 2nd Corinthians 5:13. Paul said, for if we are besides ourselves, if it's not sometimes a mess, it's not progress. Paul's all in, willing to go all out and do whatever it took to get the job done. Attitude gave his critics a whole lot of ammunition. You see, at Calvary, Jesus proved that he was crazy about us. So Paul felt that the least he could do was be a little bit crazy for him. In fact, I rather people think I'm out of my mind and be happy than be normal, bitter and unfulfilled like everybody else. So like I said, Paul has a little bit of attitude here. He said, for if we are besides ourselves, it is for God. Somebody says you gotta go out of the limb because that's where all the fruit is. But I also want to say to you, you're never more safe than when you are in the will of God. David said it this way. He said, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Whom shall I be afraid? Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war may arise against me, in this I will be confident. There is nothing more threatening or more attractive at the same time than a person confident in their God. The NLT reads these verses this way. It says verse 13, well, 12 maybe. If it seems we're crazy, it's to bring glory to God. And if we're in our right minds, it's to your what benefit? You see, we need people like the apostle Paul in our lives to help us push past our comfort zones. Because God specializes in using the unlikely to do the impossible. But it always starts with God giving somebody somewhere a crazy, all consuming vision or dream. God gave Abraham a dream. The Bible said darkness came upon him and he slept and it was a furnace and there was a torch and all the rest. And in this dream, God spoke to him. And because of the dream, Israel. Even when they went into captivity, they knew one day they'd be free. Because of Abraham's dream, God gave Jacob a dream. And Jacob wrestled with God to teach us to hold on until he blesses us. And if it doesn't end in blessing, we let go too early. Joseph had a dream of the moon and the stars bowing down before him. And the fulfillment of this dream actually spared his entire family in famine. We have Samuel, we have Solomon, we have Daniel, we have actually Joseph. In the New Testament, the father of Jesus was given a dream and he took the family to Egypt. The wise men were directed by dreams, and wise men still dream today. Here's the deal. Don't ask if your dream is crazy, ask if your Dream is crazy enough to be God. Next verse. For the love of Christ compels us. There are as many different motivations as there are people. But when the love of God really compels you, you move to a whole new level of living in life. But here's the deal. Yes, people will hurt you, but God will heal you. Yes, people will knock you down, but God knows how to lift you up. Yes, people will judge you, but give it a little bit of time. God will make sure he justifies you. Your life is God's gift to you, but what you do with your life is your gift to God. Make your gift glow. It says, for the love of Christ compels us, motivates us, persuades us, moves us, gets us out of neutral into drive. Because we judge this. Watch this. That if one died for all, Jesus did not just die for a certain group of people. He died for all people. No one is left out and no one is too broken for the grace of Jesus to fix. Watch the reasoning. That if one died for all, then all died. You see, all of us were dead for whom Christ died. You see, salvation is not just a moral reformation. It's a resurrection. And if God could free us from death itself. What's that little sin you're stressing over? What's that little sin you're struggling over? Is there anything too hard for God? Somebody in this room ought to give me a little bit of help. And he died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves. He died so each of us could live for something bigger. But living for something bigger requires us to reach for something deeper. That those who truly live. Watch this. Should no longer live for themselves. So God chose people who had disappointments, who had hurts with pains and memories. But he chose people who would refuse to let those things become the axis and center of their universe. You see, one day the devil saw me and my head was down. And he got excited until he heard me say, Amen. Hear what I'm saying here this morning? Prayer. Prayer changes things. You see, the key to staying sane is learning to laugh loudly. The key to staying sane is learning to laugh. Often the key to staying sane is learning how to, above all, laugh at yourself, knowing that God got you anyway no matter what you did, didn't do. God got Jew. He died for the special folk. He died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose from again. Pay attention to me. Stop being so easily baited. Stop being so easily Manipulated into daily anger and rage by those who want to use your pain for their purposes. You see, those who are no longer living for themselves learn to scare, skip the small battles with petty people because they know they're living for a larger purpose and bigger idea and goal than all that. One of the things I had to learn really, really quickly in my journey was that the first step to finding myself was getting over myself. And then Paul and Jackson. Therefore, because of this, from now on, we're in the world, but we're not of the world. We don't fight our battles the same way the world fights their battles. I'm strongest when I'm on my knees. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Now, what we see here is that the first century church had many of the same problems that we have today. They had the same proclivity of putting people in certain little neat boxes based on certain superficial appearances and characteristics and never letting those people out. In the first century, the debate and the challenge was Jew and Gentile. But today we deal with male and female, Republican, Democrat, educated, uneducated, white and black. But we will never see big changes thinking this small, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh. You see, Paul not only saw Jesus preach, he was probably one of the Pharisees that confronted Jesus. All Paul could see about Jesus was that Jesus was not one of us. All he could see was that Jesus didn't go to the same schools. All he could see was that Jesus didn't travel in the same circles. All they could see is Jesus had a different plan and a different view on how to deal with the Romans. But the issue was Jesus went deeper than the superficial. His top priority was not overcoming Rome, but first overcoming our own selfishness and our own sin in the human heart. It's so easy to talk about what God ought to do in the White House. What about your house? God's concerned about your house making your house right? Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh. And what's amazing about God is he doesn't require everyone to be exactly like him in order to have a relationship with us. So here's the question. Why do we require. Why do we demand that everyone be exactly like us before we have a relationship with them? You know, super famous, y'. All. You know, I don't know if this is helping you or hurting you, but I'll tell you, it's good stuff. Stay up, pay attention. A famous economist said this. He said, if two people always agree, one of Them is redundant. The fact that I sometimes think differently than you is what makes me necessary in your life. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, they saw his height, they saw his complexion, they saw his style, they saw his swag. But the problem was they stopped there. But this is important. And this is also where people get weird. Don't get weird. People started to say, well, I don't see color. One of the first things I notice about people is their gender and their color. It's only a problem if I stop there and I don't see anything more. A person in God's image, a person in God's likeness, my brother, my sister. If I reduce people to just a few outward traits, that's when we get in trouble. Someone said, God's family is not colorblind. It's color blessed. 2nd Corinthians 4:7. Paul gives us some advice. He said, for we have this treasure. Watch this. In earthen vessels, literally jars of clay. Say with me, treasure. In fact, tell your neighbor, treasure, treasure. We have this. What treasure? In earthen vessels. There's a reason for it. God designed things this way for a purpose. God has a strategy for what we look like and how weak physically at times we are. So let's see what it says. Really, it's for the glory that it contains. But we have this treasure in earth of essence, that the excellence may be of God and not what of us. So God in his wisdom, God in his creativity, God in his brilliance, intentionally made black clay. God intentionally made white clay. God intensely made brown clay, red clay, pink clay, yellow clay. It's a foolish thing to miss out on the treasure because of the color of the clay. It has nothing to do with the clay, everything to do with the treasure. The gold, the silver. More important than gold, the treasure on the inside is more important than anything we see on the outside. You miss out on so much when you only see the clay and miss the treasure. What makes autumn so beautiful is its diversity of colors. God makes us different because different is what makes us beautiful. Pay attention, I'm landing early. Second Corinthians 5:16. Yet now, obviously, there came a change in Paul's life. When I was a child, I thought like a child, behaved like a child. But when I became a man, when I finally grew up, I put aside childish things. Yet now we know him. Thus no longer. At some point, we need to grow up. You see, at first, Paul judged Jesus based on everything outward. What he looked like, whether he had a tan, didn't have a Tan. But all of that changed on the road to Damascus. And what God had to do was shine a light and blind him so he could see. Pay attention to what I'm saying. God blinded him so he could see. And God needs to blind some of us to our foolishness so we can see. Listen, people have told me that I'm a little bit ambiguous. Both my parents are African American, if you wonder. My people have suffered like few people in history. And the right leaning church needs to stop being so defensive. And help us address this. Pretending is not so or diminishing the impact will not make it go away. So if there's any community that needs to deal with this issue, it's us. But I also need to add, unless we want to be speaking Mandarin in a few years, we better grasp the fact. We may have all come on different ships, but we're all in the same boat. Now if we don't fix it, we're going to self destruct. If we don't deal with this thing, we're going under. These are perilous times and we need to deal with this issue with finality. Then he said, therefore watch what Paul says next. He said if anyone, Street sweeper, street walker, once gay, once straight, own an $8,000 house, homeless, made mistakes, didn't make as many mistakes as other folks, took drugs, didn't take drugs. If anyone is in Christ, Okay, I feel you now. You see, in the days of Noah, if you weren't in the boat, you drown. But my Bible says fire next time. And if we're not in Christ, If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. Not just reformed, not just rehabilitated, not just re educated, but recreated in Christ Jesus. You know, the miracle of the new birth is greater than the miracle of creation. In Genesis 1 and verse 1, 2, 3. Through those verses, at the miracle of creation, there was nothing to resist. At the new birth or the new creation, there was nothing to help. And what stood in the way was our stubbornness, our fears, our doubts, our shame, our prejudices and our love for everything wrong. All of that stood in the way. But God looked at me and said live. God looked at you and said live. Despite our mess. Listen. When God created, the devil wasn't fighting, nobody was fighting with God. There was no resistance. Out of nothing he calls being. But with us, he does a greater miracle. Out of death he calls life. The new creation is the greatest miracle that God can do. Matter of fact, it's so powerful that after God recreates our spirits One day he's going to come back and recreate this whole planet and do this whole thing over again. But the recreation starts in our hearts and then spreads elsewhere. He said, if anyone is in, get in the boat. Get in the boat. Get in the boat. He is a new creation. Old things have passed away. So Jesus did not just come to bring us something new. He also came to take away some things that are old. So if God has made us new, if the cross really has some value, why are we still stuck in the same old paradigm? Light skin, dark skin, white skin, black skin. I don't care what anybody thinks. I love the skin I am in. And you need to love the skin you're in just as much. Behold, the language there is telling us. Just pause. Just don't go on and read the next part of this verse. You need to pay attention. Pay attention. Behold. Stop. Pause. All things, everything that matters about you has been made new at the foot of the cross. So the most important parts of us, our true treasure, has been made new. So why are we majoring on things that are the least. You see, I'm black and I'm blessed. But you may be white and all right, Hispanic, without panic, you know, of the Asian persuasion. But I'm here to tell you that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. One cross, three nails, four given. Each of us become a new creation, part of a new family. One father, one elder brother, one spirit, one baptism, one Lord of all. You hear what I'm saying? We become one in Christ. Christ. And that which used to separate us becomes minimized because the greater one came from heaven down to bring us together. Our differences are necessary. Our differences are important. It's the different instruments in the orchestra that make it so beautiful. It's the various voices in the choir that makes it so much better than just a soloist. It takes all of us to be the beauty and to do the things God's called us to. But in order for us to truly be the body of Jesus Christ, we got to get over ourselves. And my prayer today was that this message kind of poked you and prodded you to think about some things in a fresh way. And if you major on the minors, you become small. Be aware. People's ethnicity matters. Their history, their culture matters. Be aware. But when it comes to priorities, that's not number one on the list. Do you hear what I'm saying? My wife is a woman. But first she's a person. Even before she's a person, to me, she's God's. Daughter. She's a child of God and there are facts that God made intentionally. But when we Again Major Almighty, when we prioritize things that should be of minimal importance, we create idols out of things that should not be. Did you get anything out of Today's Word?