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We just got started. You've already got your money's worth. Church. Hey, before you have a seat, speaking of, as that song said, Jesus be the one who gets all the glory. Church, I want to share some exciting news with you. And Jesus is who gets all the glory because he came out of a grave on the third day because he rose from the dead. We got to celebrate that resurrection last week in church. And over 35,000 people came to one of our services and got to hear how good he is. And church. 668 people gave their lives to Jesus last weekend. Can we make some noise? High five. Somebody punch them in the chest. Whatever you gotta do. Have a seat. Welcome to Red Rocks Church. We say this all the time. We're just a bunch of messed up, imperfect people. But we love to get together like this and party and praise and pursue a perfect God. So welcome home. Welcome to the family church. I have such a good introduction, announcement, whatever you want to call it that I get to make for you today. And it's about the speaker of this weekend. And if this is your church, you'll know that for the last few years, in the summer, because I always love to be able to recommend to you as a church family to all of us, like, really good books that honor God and I think can change the game for all of us. And we usually do that in the summer and we'll do like four or five weeks in a row. We've been calling it book club. Well, we've stopped doing that. And so just a few times during the year, I decided I want to do just that. I want to invite one of my close friends who I feel like God is using in a special way. And so we get to do that today. And the coolest part is it's not anybody from outside the family. The person that is gonna be speaking with us this weekend and wait till he comes up here, but we're about to go crazy. The person that is speaking with us this weekend is family. He is the better half and better looking pair of the Weckenman brothers. He just wrote this new book. It's called Free Me from me. And I'm telling you, I've been. I've had the privilege of talking to him along the process of him putting this together. And it has helped me in so many ways already. So I can't wait for you to hear about it. I asked him to come speak this weekend on it and he literally called me and was like, no, no, no, no, please, I don't need to do that. It's probably not a good idea. And I'm like. And that's why I want you to do it even more, bro. And so I love his heart. I love how humble he is. This dude is gifted. He is a brilliant, brilliant and godly man. He's who helped me write both of the books that I've been able to write. He's the only reason why my books even sound like I understand the English language is because of this man. And so, anyways, and then if you're. He's going to be here all weekend, he'll be both services on Saturday nights, all three other campuses on Sunday. So if you're. If you're there and he happens to be there, I bet if you ask him, he'd sign a copy for you. But I'm so excited for you guys to hear about this. And know this. Any of you who do decide to buy one of these out in one of the lobbies, any profit that we get is going to our correctional facilities. What's up, men and women at the correctional facilities, we love you so much. And so, church, I love you. This is going to be an amazing weekend. You will be so glad you're here. Get on your feet and help me welcome my brother, the one and only Pastor Ryan Weker.
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Red rocks. You guys excited for a good day at church? Here's the the honest truth about all those conversations Pastor Sean and I have had over the years. If you read the book, it's mostly just embarrassing stories of me getting this concept we're about to talk about wrong. And so I would, like, sit down with him in his backyard and be like, I have all these stories and I'm writing them, but they're, like, really embarrassing. Like, can I share these stories? And I remember, like, over and over again, he would just be like, hey, how's anybody else going to find any freedom if we're too afraid to talk about what's really going on in our lives? You guys excited and glad that we have a pastor who leads the way in vulnerability and authenticity? Pastor Sean, I love you so much. I am. Oh, by the way, we can't move too fast past this. Did you say 668 people put their faith in Jesus last week? Church. We exist to make heaven more crowded. And that is happening. Let me give you one verse if that is you. You made the best decision you will ever make. Let me give you one verse just to start this entire sermon off. Second Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ at every location. If you raised your hand last week, you are now in Christ. That is your new identity. It doesn't matter what the world says about you. Your identity is you are in Christ. And if that is you, here's the really good news. The new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. Make no mistake about it, you are a brand new creation. Now, here's the problem. Here's what I want to talk about today. If that's you, I remember when that was my moment. The question that I found myself asking was, well, now what? Like, what do I do now? Okay, cool. I raised my hand, I put my faith in Jesus. What do I do now? Or let's take this a step further. What do you do when you put your faith in Jesus and the old is gone? The new is here. But then you go out to the parking lot and you get a little angry and you flip somebody off 15 minutes after you just put your faith in Jesus. Like, the old is gone. But is it back now? What about a couple years in when you still have an addiction that you're trying to break out of and every once in a while you find some freedom, but then you have a bad day and you find yourself relapsing back into it. The old is gone, but is it back now? These are real questions. This is the topic of free me from me. This is what I want to talk about. This is the question I've been obsessed with for the last three years. Now that we have been set free, how do we learn to live free? And it all comes down to a four word prayer that I've prayed about 10,000 times over the last few years. I want to teach it to you today. It's simply this. Lord, free me from me. Lord, free me from me. The old is gone. But if you're anything like me, the residue still hangs around a little bit. And so, Holy Spirit, would you free me from my old self? Because I want to follow you. And so at every location, let's pray together. Lord, free me from me. If you're still standing, you can take a seat and welcome to Red Rocks. Now I got to start with a confession. Is that okay to do in church? Safe place. On April 19, 2020, I nearly overdosed on self help. Okay, here's the story if you're newer to Red Rocks. Several years ago, Pastor Sean came to my brother Doug and our best friend Ethan and I and said, hey, it's time to start a Red Rocks location somewhere. What if you guys moved to Austin Texas to start a Red Rocks campus in Austin. And so in 2018, we moved down there. January of 2019, we began a camp, a Red Rocks campus in Austin. And that first year was so much fun, but it was also really hard. You remember this space, it was like the shared workspace where we had to set everything up every day and then we tear it down at the end. Cause we would only had it on Sundays. So after a year of like working really hard, the church would grow from like 100 to 150 to 200. Well then in March of 2020, one of our friends, their church left the building that they were in. And so we got to rent that space. And so suddenly we found ourselves with an actual church. And so on March 1, 2020, we moved into this actual church. And 800 people showed up. And it was like this amazing. Like, I called Pastor Sean on the drive home. Like, this might actually work. March 8th was even better. And then you guys remember what happened in March of 2020. The entire world shut down. And so by April 19, I found myself sitting at my kitchen table playing the service that we had worked on all week on my laptop and watching it on YouTube. And the counter on YouTube said 25 people are currently watching this. I've read most church building books. I think I'm pretty sure 800 to 25 isn't really like what we're going after, right? And then the worst part about YouTube is then I realize that my device is open. So I'm one of those 25. And then my mom texts me and she's like, the service is great. And I'm like, I don't know that anybody besides family at this point is watching. This isn't. This isn't good. I start spiraling. I start feeling like, like this whole thing, all this work, everything we poured into, like this isn't going to to work. And so I do the only thing I know how to do. I go into my garage and I start working out really hard. And then I get in my cold plunge. And then after that I do some breath work. And all of that helps a little bit. You know, like all of the. This world has this narrative for us. Here's how you can actually change, here's what can actually help. And you get online and you scroll through and it's all this self help advice that can be good things. The problem is just because a little self helps doesn't mean that a lot of self help is going to help more. But I thought that maybe it did. It would So I worked out again, and I got my cold plunge again. And then I kept doing breath work. And at a certain part of the breath work, you're supposed to hold your breath. And I thought, what if I could be outside in my backyard with my bare feet in the grass, that then maybe I'll feel a little bit better. And so don't do this, by the way, as I'm going through this, I, like, hobble through my kitchen holding my breath, and I open my slider and I put the chair in my backyard and church. That's the last thing that I remember. I pass out in my own backyard. And what's ridiculous about it is, like, I'm laying face down in my backyard, and I don't know, I live by myself. And it's Covid. It's locked. It's locked down. So I don't know if it was like five seconds or five minutes, but I'm just laying there and I come to and there's like a bug crawling up my arm. And I look around and I realize I just took self help to its extreme. And what I found is it doesn't actually work. And as I'm laying there, this image pops into my head. In the beginning, God creates all of this. And the image that popped in my head as I'm laying on my ground and a bug's crawling up my arm is God at the center of all of this. The Bible begins with four really important words. In the beginning, God. Not in the beginning, Me. Not in the beginning, you. Not in the beginning, that relationship or that business or that meeting or any of the things that you're stressed out about right now. In the beginning, God. And when you Keep reading Genesis 1, you realize that this God starts creating and he creates all these amazing things. And then in verse 27, we find out this God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God. This is who we are. He created them. Male and female. He created them. And so the way that this is supposed to work is God at the center with us as his image bearers, like orbiting around, reflecting his glory to the world. And when we do that, everything works really well. The problem is it's really hard to actually do that because if you know the story, it keeps going. If you were here last week, Pastor Sean talked about that Tree in Genesis 2 and that decision that we had to make. And the serpent says this in Genesis 3, verse 15, or verse 5, excuse me, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. This is the lie that has been getting human beings from the beginning. Hey, God created you in your image, but in his image. But you could actually be like God. Don't you want to be like God? And Adam and Eve fall for the trap. And I would argue we've been falling for that trap ever since. We've been falling for the lie that if I just put myself at the center of all of this, I'll find the rest and the contentment that my soul is longing for, only to get there. And come on. We all know this. You realize that when you try to start with self, you end up inheriting all of the pressure that comes with life. You end up having to try to save the world on your own. The really good news is church. You don't have to save this world on your own. Because we have a savior, and his name is Jesus, and he's very, very good at sa. And so I'm laying in my backyard, and this image is going on in my mind. I'm a very simple person. That's the image that pops into my mind. And by the way, psychologists have a phrase for this. They call it the spotlight effect. Like our tendency to think that there's a spotlight just on us and everybody else is watching us and judging us. You ever feel like your life is just like one big audition? And every room you walk into, you're like, I gotta say more. Why am I not saying enough? I gotta be funny now. That was meant to, right? I gotta be smart now. That was too smart. Now I sound like a know it all. Stop talking so much. And it's like this internal dialogue, right? And then you go home and you're like, did I do a good enough job? Like, did I. Did I nail the audition? Did everybody think that I was okay? When in reality, everybody's stuck in their own spotlight effect, so they're just thinking about themselves. Psychologists have a phrase for putting ourselves at the center of the story, but I'm not a psychologist. I'm just a lowly pastor. And so I call it something different. I call it the me maze. The me maze is what happened in Genesis 3 when we decided to put ourselves at the center of the story. It's a phrase I made up, but it sounds right, doesn't it? Because when you put yourself at the center of the story, it's like you're constantly trying to escape this maze that you just can't get out of. And in the book, I walk through the four different Levels of the mimes, the four different ways I know that I'm stuck in the mimes. It's what I'm trying to perform. Okay, when you read Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, they sew fig leaves together and they go, they try to put on this performance for God and then they start blaming each other and they start comparing each other. So beneath that performance is this comparison. And then they run and they hide. And so beneath that is this our tendency to avoid. And then beneath that, honestly, at the bottom of that is control. Is that anytime I'm trying to control or avoid or compare or perform, I know, oh God, I'm doing that thing again. I'm trying to save myself. I'm trying to find freedom. I'm to trying on my own. And that's where I end up stopping and going, Lord, free me from me. Lord, free me from me. So all that to say, that's the idea that, that starts to take root as I'm laying on the ground. Because as I'm laying on the ground in my own backyard, here's what really the thought going through my mind is, this isn't working. Anybody ever felt that way. Like, like everything that I'm trying to do right now. It's not a lack of effort, it's just that I have the wrong strategy. Something about this is, isn't working. And here's the really good news. The Bible has a different strategy for us. In fact, let me say that stronger. The entirety of the Bible is the Bible yelling at us to stop putting self at the center of the story. Because when we put God back at the center of the story, that's where we find all the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness that we are searching for. I could give you examples for days. Let's just do one. The Apostle Peter. We remember if you were around for our Good Friday service. The campus pastors did such a good job laying out what happens as Jesus journeys to the cross. One of the things that's going on is Peter says, hey, Jesus, I'm with you. I'm with you to the end until the heat gets cranked up. And then he starts running away and he follows at a distance. And then he starts denying Jesus. In fact, he denies Jesus three times. And Peter thought he had this down. He thought he was doing a good job with this. And then he makes a couple of mistakes and the enemy starts whispering shame into his ear. And he gets caught in the me maze. And we see him just start to avoid all of it. And eventually he just Runs away and goes and goes back to fishing, goes back to the thing that he knows best. But a couple weeks later, if you know your Bible, you know that that same guy would stand up and preach a sermon so powerful that 3,000 people put their faith in Jesus. Now the question is, what happened to Peter? What's the difference between Peter at the end of the Gospels and Peter in the book of Acts? Is it that he got a cold plunge and a sauna and that he started locking in his morning routine? By the way, all those things are great. Full disclosure, I did all of those things today. Those things are great tools. It's just that we got to be really honest right now. They are powerless to actually save us. And so they can be great additions to our life. But that's not what was going on with Peter. What happened with Peter was something so much more profound. Let's pick up the story in Acts, chapter 2, and verse 1 says this. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Now, if you're new to the Bible, the New Testament begins with four. We call them Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's the story of Jesus. It's a great place to start. If you're looking to dive into the Bible, pick any of those four and jump into it. The second book you should read is the book of Acts, the one that we're reading from today, because this is the story of after the death and resurrection of Jesus. It's the disciples starting the early church. And so what you're going to get all throughout the 28 chapters of Acts is all of these stories of God working through very imperfect people as they start this movement that eventually would. Would make heaven more crowded. And by the way, it's like, so fun to read now because what Jesus said is, go to the ends of the earth and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And like, at the time, Denver, Colorado was the opposite side of the world. And yet here we are today in 2026, singing praises to the same King of Kings, to the same Lord of the Lords. Why? Because it actually works. Well in Acts, you start to see the, the.
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The. The first few years of them building the church. And anyways, Acts 2, the verse that we just read, we find out that Pentecost is at hand. It's a Jewish festival that's celebrated 50 days after Passover. So 50 days after. Think about, like, the Easter story, what we celebrated last week. Fifty days later, everybody would come back into Jerusalem. And at the time we learned, the church is all gathered together in this upper room. We learn elsewhere that there's about 120 of them at this point, and they are looking around just like, hey, how are we going to do this? Like, Jesus told us to go make disciples to the ends of the earth. We're just us. I know us like Peter's. Like, I just denied Jesus three times. I don't know that. That I'm like the guy for this. And I just. It's important to stop there because I've known that feeling so many times in my life, which is why I'm really grateful that God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And he takes the people who are willing to. To go, hey, I'm here with all my imperfections. But God, if you want to use me, the same thing is true about you today. And so they gather together and it says this. Acts 2, verse 2. Suddenly. Let's pause there for a moment. That word feels important for some people at every single one of our campuses. Suddenly, God's work happens gradually, and then sometimes it happens suddenly. And so the work that God is doing in and through you, yeah, it's the long game. And, yeah, it's about making wise decisions and all of that. And then sometimes God moves in. And so the doctor and the diagnosis may say one thing, but suddenly the Holy Spirit can change everything. Your marriage may be struggling right now, but suddenly the Holy Spirit can change everything. That addiction that you're struggling with, that you feel like this, I guess, is just always going to be my story. And sobriety is impossible for me. Maybe that's been your experience so far. But suddenly, suddenly, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them. Here's our important phrase. We're filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, if you're new here and you're like, holy Spirit, what is the Holy spirit? Let me 20 seconds here. Try to catch you up. What is the Holy Spirit's? The wrong question to ask. The question is, who is the Holy Spirit? Because the Holy Spirit is God. Trinity in 20 seconds. Here we go. God exists as one being, three persons. Father, son, Holy Spirit. That's why in a couple weeks when we do baptisms, we're going to, like Jesus tells us to do in Matthew 28, baptize people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because God is one and yet three at the same time. Now that mystery is a mystery that we're going to be wrestling with and trying to understand more and more for the rest of eternity. But the beauty of it is that the Holy Spirit is God. So what we just saw in Acts chapter two is we just saw God show up, says we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, First Corinthians 6, verse 19. Paul says this. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? Hey, if you have any shot at actually changing, at actually experiencing some. Some transform this week, you gotta understand this verse. Paul says that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, which means the Holy Spirit moves in. Holy Spirit moves in. Here's Jesus about the Holy spirit in John 14. But the helper. I love that word. The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the helper. So here's where I'm going with all this. You know what's a lot better than self help? God's help. You know what's a lot better than our power is God's power. And all those other things, those are great, but it starts from getting out of the center of the story and going, God, I'm powerless without you. And so, Holy Spirit, would you come and bring the transformation that my soul is desperate for? Let me illustrate it like this. About 10 years ago, I got really into apologetics, which is how you defend your faith, and became friends with this guy named Nabil Qureshi. And he was absolutely brilliant. He would travel around and answer everyone's questions and been in the room with a lot of smart people. And Nabil was smarter than all of them. I'm saying was he. Tragically, he passed away a couple of years ago, but his legacy lives on. Amazing man of God. Well, he was in town on a Sunday, and so we decided, hey, let's bring in a whole bunch of skeptics from our community and just have like a. Ask us anything about faith. Doesn't matter what you believe, Ask us the hardest questions you want. And I'm really excited about it, like, as we're planning it. And my job for the day is to hold the microphone, to be the moderator, you know, and to ask people their question before and then. And then let them ask Nabil. Well, I walk into the church and it's packed and like, I don't recognize anyone and so I start panicking because I'm like, oh, no, what if they ask us a question we don't know the answer to it? Like, what if maybe this was a bad idea? And so I make a beeline for backstage. And I'll never forget, Nabil was just leaning back in a chair, drinking a bottle of water, cracking a joke, making the entire room laugh. And I go up to him and I'm like, hey, this is no time for jokes. We gotta talk about this. You know, like. Like, I'm holding the mic today. Which questions do you want me to avoid? And he just looks at me and he goes, oh, no, we'll be good. And I'm like, no, Nabil, talk to me. Like. Like, problem of evil, you know, exclusivity of the gospel. Which ones do you want me to stay away from? And I'll never forget it. He just smiled and he goes, hey, we're going to be just fine. Not with arrogance, just with confidence. And I've never forgotten that image, because what he was really saying is, first off, Jesus is the way the truth and the life. And truth isn't afraid of questions. So we're fine. But also, and I'm putting words in his mouth, he didn't actually say this. He wouldn't have said this. What I interpreted him saying is, hey, I'm a lot smarter than everybody else in this room. We're fine. Church. I walked out with so much confidence. They're like, ask anything. You know, what do you got? Now, if we actually believe these verses that we just read, that the Holy Spirit moves in, that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, that God's help is coming with us. Do you know how much confidence we should walk out our front door with every single day if we're filled with the Holy Spirit? Like, if God moves in and is going with us, it changes everything. Now, some of you are looking at me like, okay, great. But you said this sermon is about how to actually change. How does the Holy Spirit actually change? So glad you asked. Go a layer deeper. Lots of ways to think about the Holy Spirit moving in. My favorite, the one that helps me, is that the Holy Spirit is like a roommate. If our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit moves in like a roommate. I remember the first time I had roommates in the real world. And real world is important there, because in college, Doug and Ethan were my roommates, and we just threw parties all the time. Years before Red Rocks Austin, we would just throw parties and kind of enable each Other to not take life too seriously at all. Long story short, for another day, God got a hold of our lives, started changing everything about our lives. And one of the things we like to say is we're still throwing parties every single weekend. Except these ones look a lot different and heaven gets more crowded because of them. My point is, for a while there we had no rules. Like if you got home at 2am and still hadn't worked out, like, no problem, just go work out. You know, like the other guys will probably get out of bed and join you because nobody had class until noon anyway, so it's all good. Well then eventually I graduated and I moved to California and I moved in with some real adults and I realized very quickly, like, I've got some bad habits. I got up, I. I got in one night pretty late and thought, oh, I haven't worked out yet, no problem, I'll just work out. I got a pretty strongly worded text from one of my roommates the next morning that said, hey, so let's not do workouts after 10pm anymore. And it hit me like, oh, I've got this massive blind spot in my life. Like that guy's an actual adult. You know, he's not like Dugger Ethan. Like he's an architect. He has to like go in and like have important meetings and places, like he has to sleep. I realized I have this blind spot. It's not until I have a roommate that I start to see it. Now the same thing happens with the Holy Spirit. You put your faith in Jesus, you start walking in step with the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden it's like, I used to be able to make that joke and not think twice about it. Now all of a sudden I'm like, I shouldn't say that anymore. Yeah, you got a roommate now. Oh, there's a show or a type of movie that I used to be able to watch and not really think about, but now I'm watching like, this isn't right. This isn't who I want to be. Yeah, you've got a roommate now. The Holy Spirit is moving in and beginning to lead you toward abundant life. Are you with me? This is how transformation works. The Holy Spirit moves in like a roommate. Now, last level and then we'll talk about you. This is like this whole sermon is like an entire semester of spiritual formation in one. But you all are smart. You got this. The problem is there's times where we don't want to listen to our roommate. Anybody with me, Like, I've Got moments where I'm like, yep, walking in step with the spirit. And then there's other times where I'm just like, nope, don't want to. Don't want to hear about it right now. The Apostle Paul talks about this a lot in the New testament. In Romans 7, you hear him, like, wrestling with it where he's like, why do I keep doing the things I don't want to do? It's like this wrestling match that is happening. And the Apostle Paul uses the word flesh to describe this. So what is going on in your life right now? You put your faith in Jesus, whether it was last week during Easter or it was 20 years ago. Is the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in you like a roommate? And your flesh is at times going, I want to be back at the center of the story. I want to make this about me a little bit more. And you see this constant wrestling match. We could throw so many verses up there. Go. Galatians 5. So I say, walk by the spirit. I love that word, walk. By the way Paul goes, hey, the journey is about walking with the Holy Spirit. And you will not gratify the desires of the flesh for the flesh. Notice the. The contradiction here. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh, that they are in conflict with each other. So that you are not to do whatever you want. We could pass the mic around and go, yeah, all of us understand this. All of us have felt this before. It's a constant wrestling match. But here's the really good news, and here's this free me from me journey that I've been on so, for. For so long is I just realized early on that if I can just start going, God, I don't want to listen to my roommate right now. But I also don't know what's best for me because I've only been on this planet for a couple of decades. So would you free me from me, and would you teach me how to walk in step with the Holy Spirit? And the more that you do that, the quieter the flesh becomes. By the way, that's why we do what we do here at Red Rocks when we say we want you to know God, but also live on purpose. The live on purpose part is us giving you a whole bunch of ways to walk in step with the spirit instead of gratifying the desires of the flesh. And so why do we tell you, like the writer of Hebrews says, don't neglect meeting together. Like, get to church every Weekend. It's because when you get here, you may have had an argument with your spouse on the drive here today. But then we start singing Jesus be the name and it's like, oh yeah, I remember. What really matters is glorifying God and loving each other, right? Why do we tell you? Why do we tell you to get into groups? Because it's so easy to, throughout the course of your week, to fall and to stumble and to gratify the desires of the flesh. But when you come together and confess that to each other and talk about it with one another, which, by the way, the flesh does not like at all, the spirit comes alive within you. Why do we tell. Why do we invite you to serve and be a team member here at Red Rocks? Can I tell you, you may have a really stressful job. You may have a very full plate when you show up here and just help people in the parking lot, park cars and smile at them and get to the end of two hours of not thinking about yourself, how much more free you begin to feel. And it's just because you weren't thinking about yourself for a couple of hours. You were walking in step with the Spirit. And by the way, if that's you and you want to learn more about all the different ways you can serve here, your next step is to go to welcome party this weekend. We would love to tell you more about our mission and our vision and the role that you can play within it. Because make no mistake, we are change. God is changing the world in and through us. But my goodness, what God can do with a group of people who are ready to pray. Lord, free me from me. This isn't about me. Would you just use me to make heaven more crowded? So one verse to end and ban, you can come up. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. Brothers and sisters, he tells us who our identity in Christ. We are called to be free. But then I love this next part because sometimes I hear that I'm like, great, you can do whatever I want. He says, no, don't use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Flesh. You now know what that word is. Don't use your freedom to put yourself back at the center of the story. Rather, serve one another humbly in love. Let's take a moment on those last few words. Start here. Serve. What does it look like to actually lay down your life for others? Jesus, in the middle of a world that just wanted to be great, wanted to be great, wanted to be great, constantly just showed us that greatness Looks like serving. In fact, the night he was betrayed, the disciples are literally arguing about who's the greatest. And instead, he gets down on his knees and begins washing their feet. He begins serving them. He flips the whole thing upside down. But if you understand this idea of actually we're meant to put God at the center instead of ourselves at the center, he's not actually turning it upside down. He's actually putting it right side up. In other words, he's going, let me show you how you were always created to be. We weren't created to be obsessed with ourselves. We were created to go, lord, free me from me, because you are at the center of all of this. And I just want to be freed up to love and to serve and to help. And when you start to get that serving man, serving is where all of the magic is. He continues on. He says, serve one another. You know, in the Bible, in the New Testament, they. They use the phrase one another 59 different times. So they go, serve one another, love one another, pray for one another 59 different times. Which means if you're going to read the Bible, you can't get away from the reality that we are in this together, that we're about community. Listen, church, I'm the world's biggest introvert, but I don't get to punt on community just because of my personality type. Jesus calls us to love and to serve one another, which means we have to be in this thing together. He says, serve another. And then I love this word humbly. I talk in the book a lot about comparison, how man, nothing. Few things throw you into the meme is faster than comparison. And that's why this invitation to do all this with humility is an absolute game changer. That if we can be a church that goes, I don't need the credit. That's what I love about Peter. That's what I love about the disciples. All through the Gospels, they want all the credit. They want all the glory. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, after they get filled with the Holy Spirit, they're just like, whatever, doesn't matter. I just want to make heaven more crowded. I just want to tell people about Jesus. I just want to take this message to the ends of the earth. And I'm going to do it humbly. And I don't care what happens to me, because it's not about me. And I'm telling you, church, you only think you want to be in the center of the story, but you don't. It's too much pressure. And we can learn just to go, lord, would you free me from me today? Then we can learn to walk in humility and just look around and go, who can I encourage now? Who can I love now? And I don't need to do this for my own validation. I can do this for others. And then finally, it ends here. He says, when you do this, let's. Yeah, let's put it up on the screen. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly. This phrase, hold on to it in love. When I put myself back at the center of the story, I always know it's because I'm operating out of fear. It's because I'm starting to worry that I'm not enough. And that's why I start performing. That's why I start comparing, in fact. Okay, let me tell you a story about what happened to me three weeks ago. So this is like 30 years ago. Three weeks ago, my brother Doug and I were on this stage ending TikTok Theology, and we were driving to the campus to preach this sermon. This is embarrassing, but whatever. We were in the car, driving here, and we were going back and forth, working on our sermon together, and I had this thought that I thought I was done with, but it just comes back around sometimes. I said my part, and then he started going. And if you know Doug, if you know my brother, you know that he's just, like, a phenomenal communicator. And so I find myself falling back into the me maze, going, oh, he's so much better than me. Like, Pastor Sean, you know this. He has this, like, annoying photographic memory where he can, like, write everything out and then say it exactly how he wanted to say it. And I'm just like, why did you. How. How do you do that? And why am I even here? You should just do it. And I find myself operating in fear again. And think about this. I have an opportunity to encourage the church and open the Word of God. And instead, I'm moving into fear, where I'm trying to compete and compare myself with my own brother. And so we go upstairs and we have this really sweet time where I just tell him that we're at that point now where confession is, like, very easy for us. I go, hey, man, I'm doing that thing again. I'm comparing myself to you. I don't want to be, but I am. This is what's happening. And he just laughed. It's nice to. It's nice to be at that point where we're like, Outsmarting that shame so much that he laughs and he goes, thanks for telling me. And, you know, you don't have to do that. And, you know, I'm on your team and you're on my team, and we're here to make heaven more crowded. Anyways, this isn't about us at all. And we have this sweet moment of confession where we pray together. And I feel myself escape that me maze that comparison was throwing me into. And then I got up on stage and did my best to preach to the best of my ability. But my goodness, the amount of pressure that falls off your shoulders Church, when you realize that it's not about you, man. There's a reason comparison is called the thief of joy. That's exactly what it does. Jesus has a better plan for us. We are filled with the Holy Spirit and the. Our Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, our roommate, is moving in and leading us toward abundance. And it all begins when we pray and continue to pray. Lord, free me from me. Free me from me. Free me from me. Free me from me. That story is embarrassing for me because, like, the book was done at that point. You know, I was like, several years into writing it. Like, I should be better at this. But it's kind of the whole point is that his grace is sufficient. In fact, John 1st, John 3, 16, Jesus says this, or John says this about Jesus. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and our sisters. Hey, you're not going to get it right. You're like me. You're going to pray free me from me a thousand times. It's okay. You know why? Because we're covered because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. This isn't about salvation. That got taken care of because we are in Christ. This is about sanctification, about learning to walk in a greater degree of freedom. So I want to say a prayer because I think there's some people going, like, I need to get out of the mimes for the first time. I need to make Jesus the Lord of my life for the first time. So at every campus, would you bow your heads and close your eyes? Father, we love you, Jesus, thank you for all the people who got saved last week. Lord, we now turn to you and we ask. I ask that you would speak to each person who is struggling right now, for each person who is wondering if today is their day of salvation, who is hearing this message going, I am done trying to save myself. I want to make Jesus the Lord of my life. If that is you right now, just to yourself, just begin praying, Jesus, I'm done trying to live my way. Jesus, I want to make you the Lord of my life. Jesus, I want to make you the king of my heart. Jesus, would you come into my heart? As you're praying that, just boldly throw your hand up in the air at every single location. And as you do, if that's you, if you're praying this prayer, just go. Father, forgive me for my sins. Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross for me. I want to make you my Lord and Savior in Jesus name. And everyone said, hey, Red Rocks Church Heaven just got more crowded. Can we stand to our feet and celebrate? Now, now, now, for the rest of us, for all of us, this prayer, Lord, free me from me. I'm going to give us a chance to practice it for the next couple of minutes. I We're going to sing a song called the Blessing. And this is a song that comes right from scripture. It's Numbers, chapter six. And in number six, the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious. And to you, the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. So here's what I want you to do. We're going to practice getting out of the me maze. I want you to sing this song, and as you do, I want you to spend this time praying for somebody else. Anybody at all of our locations. Anybody have anybody in their life who needs a miracle right now? Yeah, man. The broken world that we live in, there is a lot going on. Can I remind you that miracle is. Is our word of the year. That's right. You're going, man, I didn't get my miracle back in January. It's only April. We got more months to go. You're going to get that miracle this, this year. And here's our word. Here's our word this year, miracles are a team sport, which means we're not going to get into that me maze. We're going to get out of it by praying for and blessing others. And so for the next six minutes, I don't want you to think about yourself at all. I want you to fix your eyes on Jesus. And then I want you to start praying for the person in your life who is hurting. And if you don't know what to pray, just start singing these words. Lord, would you bless them? Would you keep them? Would you make your face shine upon them? Would you go with them every step of the way and give them peace in Jesus name? Can we do that? Church? All right, Church. I love you so much. Let's worship.