Gary Wilkerson reflects on the profound accomplishments of Jesus, emphasizing that His work on the cross was not merely about finishing a religious mission but about transforming lives and reconciling humanity to God. He shares personal stories and biblical references to illustrate how Jesus' sacrifice brings freedom, righteousness, and a deep sense of belonging to those who accept Him. Wilkerson encourages the congregation to recognize their worth in Christ, highlighting that Jesus is satisfied with the work He has done in each believer's life, making them His masterpieces.

I kind of come to you on a bit of a bittersweet Sunday for me. It's just a delight to be here with you, but also just in memory of, it was this day three years ago that my father passed away in a tragic car accident driving on a small road down in East Texas. But I say bittersweet because we miss him, but at the same time just want to get the chance to look to see what God has done here in this church. We delight in that, that he lived his life well and he's with Jesus. That's really good news. There's a new movie out called Heaven is for Real and I haven't seen it, but it seems a little strange to me like this little boy goes up into heaven and the angels ask him like a question, like you want us to sing you a song, and he goes, do you know we will rock you? I'm not sure that's really what heaven's like, but I think my dad knows, my mom knows what it's like. They've gone to be with Jesus and I know they know the real thing. I'm not saying the movie's not real, but I'm just saying they know the real thing, right? All right, are you hungry for the word of the Lord, church? Are you hungry for God's word? This is not my message, but I've just been stuck in Nehemiah chapter 8 and the last couple Sundays at my church I've just opened this up and read it to them. It's Nehemiah 8 and verse 4. You don't even have to turn it, but listen to how the people of this day loved the word of God, how thrilled they were that the word of God could be spoken to them. I think sometimes we need to be reacquainted with this type of passion for God's word. It says here in Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 4, Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform that had been made for the occasion. To his right stood, and it mentioned his names, and to his left stood another group of names, verse 5. And Ezra stood on the platform in full view of the people, and when they saw him open the book, they all rose to their feet. Then Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people chanted, Amen, Amen, as they lifted their hands, and they bowed down and worshiped the Lord God with their faces to the ground. Do you see what's happening here? This is not a choir. This is not a worship team. This is a man standing up on a stage in front of a pulpit, and he gets ready to speak the word of the Lord, and he opens the book, and all the people began to stand and shout, Amen, Amen, Amen, to the word of the Lord. He hadn't even started preaching yet, and they were shouting, Amen, Amen. See, I'm into my sermon, you haven't even said Amen once. But he was just, here's what he did. He went like, I wasn't looking for that. He just opened it, and the people go, Amen, Amen, glory to God. And some of them, and we don't have space to do this here, but some of them just jumped to their feet and their arms spread out, and others fell down on their knees and on their faces and said, we get to hear the word of the Lord today. We get to hear the words from the mighty God of heaven. He's speaking to us in the assembly today, and all the people just began to shout, and they chanted, Amen, Amen, Amen. It's like, he opened the books, today I'm going to be preaching from, and he couldn't even start. It's like, Amen, Amen, glory to God, and his presence, so real in a place, so alive. And that's what I hunger for, is that we as the church of Jesus Christ, and I believe this last generation before Jesus comes, get so hungry for the word of the Lord. It's not sermon tasting, it's not sermon critiquing, it's not, I liked his first point, you know, it's not, they finally got Gary to wear a tie, it's not any of that stuff, it's the glory of the Lord, demonstrated through the power of his living word in the church today. So, I'll tell you what, why don't you stand with me, and let's just raise our hands, and let's just say, Amen, Lord, to your word. We say, Amen, to your word. We say, Amen, to your word. We want to hear your word, God. We want to hear your word today, God, not my words. We want to hear your word, Jesus. Speak, Jesus, we are hungry to listen to you. Speak to us today, God, mighty God, great God, wonderful God, glorious God. Speak, oh, when you speak, God, the heavens and the earth shake. Your kingdom comes, your will is done. When you speak, lives are changed, hearts are transformed, addictions are set free, children come to Christ, marriages are restored, healing takes place with one word from heaven. We thank you, God. We thank you for your great and mighty word. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. I want to talk today about what Jesus accomplished. When he said it is finished, when he stretched his hands out after the cross had done its work on his body and his life, and he breathed his last, as he's breathing his last, he says, it is finished. I want to tell you what he accomplished in that finished work. It wasn't just that he finished religion or that he finished his 33 years. It wasn't just that he finished his sermons or that he finished his healing ministry. He accomplished something that is profound, that is outstanding, that may surprise some of you, what it is that Jesus accomplished. When I was a freshman in high school, first semester, it was kind of boring, but then the second semester, I don't know if any of you young, if there's some teenagers here in the room, some of you young guys or some of you older guys remember this when you were, if you remember back 75 years ago, Pastor Carter, when you were a teenager. If we remember those days when we started high school, every once in a while, here's my story, a new student teacher came in, so I was probably 14 at the time, and she was young, she had just got out of college, so she was probably 24, 25, just my age. Perfect, you know, a 14-year-old boy, enamored with this 24, I've never forgotten her name, it's been years, her name was Amanda. And so, I just, I wanted to find out what, I wanted to get in Amanda's class so I could just, you know, just stare at her. And so, I found out she taught a class and I signed up for the class. Now, this was in Texas, I'd moved from New York to Texas, my freshman year of high school, and so I was trying to fit in and everybody wore cowboy hats and wrangler jeans and drove pickup trucks and wrangled horses and, you know, I grew up in New York, so I didn't, I didn't even hardly know what a horse was, let alone how to, wrangling, I thought I was stealing horses, I didn't know what, so, you know, I wanted to fit in, but this was not a good choice if you wanted to fit in because the boys didn't do this in Texas, but there was a home economics class that was taught by Amanda. And so, I signed up my second semester for home economics and I was the only, I was the only boy in the home economics class. And so, she gave a project, we did several small projects, but she said, you know, this is your, all semester long you have to work on one particular larger project and to do this project you either, you know, you bake a big meal for the whole class and that's your final grade, your final test, so to speak, or you can make a sweater, and I thought that looks, both of those don't sound too good, and I found one project in this little book that you can choose from where you can make a t-shirt. I don't know if that's easy enough, you know, it's just like some material and you cut holes and if there's four holes, you know, one for your waist, two for your arms, one for your neck, it's good. So, I made a t-shirt that semester for Amanda and, well, it was for me, but to get, you know, her to impress, to be impressed with my craftsmanship and I got done with it finally and I tried it on before, you know, I had to model it for the class and I was so embarrassed because the neck, I had cut the hole in the neck like about three times too big. It looked like one of those, you know, those sweaters that women wear on purpose where the shoulders fall off. It didn't look right on me, you know, and it's not the kind of t-shirt you want to wear in East Texas. It'd be fine here in New York City, but not in East Texas. And so, I think I got like a C minus. I have no idea where that t-shirt is. I probably threw it away. I don't really remember what I did with it. I probably just left it at the school like in the trash can. It had no value to me. It didn't keep my interest. It wasn't anything that I wanted to hang on to. Now, here's another short story for you. I was in East Germany just days, literally days, the first week or two after the Berlin Wall had come down. Do you remember Ronald Reagan got up and he said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall. You know the story. And so, Gorbachev decided to open up the two countries there. If you remember your history, Eastern and Western Germany was split after World War II and they put up this wall. And when they put the wall up and they divided it between these two, East and West Germany, East Germany becoming communist and West Germany democratic. West Germany became very prosperous. East Germany got stuck in horrific poverty and in a government that was full of control. People that were filled with fear. And sometimes when that wall went up, families were split. Mom and Dad on this side and college student kids on this side. Brother on this side. Brother and sister on that side. And so there was great divisions. And after years and years of this wall being up, some people had never even seen each other. And some were so desperate to get out of East Germany they would try to crawl over the wall. And some of them, many had gotten shot and killed. And so when that wall came down, you could imagine, right? Could you not imagine the hearts of those people on both sides of that wall? And we actually got to see there where they were actually throwing grappling hooks over sections of the wall on the West German side. And young men and women would be pulling on that wall. And then to see that wall come down in one fell swoop, a large six foot section of that wall just crumble to the ground and break into pieces. And to see on the East German side the faces of those people with joy. The wall is gone. We're one. I can go see my family. There's freedom now. And my wife and I and my little son who were there, when that wall fell, we saw a little piece of stone and it had some graffiti on it. And I picked it up and I gave it to my wife to put in her purse. That's what men always do. They don't carry a purse. They complain about how big their wife's purse is. And then they put everything we have in our wife's purse. And so I took that little piece of stone and it just became a treasure to me. A piece of history in my hands. A piece of history now in my home. That's an artifact that I'll always want to keep because it speaks to freedom. To see the faces of those people when that wall came down. And something was accomplished. Something amazing was accomplished for them. They were now free. They were now restored, reconciled, so to speak, with their family. It was a great day and a week in our life there in West and East Germany. To be able to cross over into East Germany. It was something that I'll treasure forever and have that little piece of stone of the Berlin Wall for the rest of my life. Same thing happened to me when we were in South Africa about three months before Nelson Mandela was set free from Robbins Prison in South Africa. And to go into Soweto Village there, Soweto Township, and to see the people there and to hear them sing this song. And they sang it in their language, but it was interpreted for me. And the song was so beautiful. Have you ever heard South Africans sing? And the harmonies are so natural. And they were just singing the song. We see a new Africa. We see a new Africa. We see a new Africa. Hallelujah. We see a new Africa. And I was going, whoa, that's amazing. That's so beautiful. From people that are oppressed, from people that are shot at, from people that are chased by police dogs. And they have this little glimpse of hope. Mandela is no longer in prison. And now they begin to see a new Africa. And so I bought on the street corner a T-shirt that said, We see a new Africa. That's a much greater treasure to me than the T-shirt that was misshapen, that was of no value. The Berlin Wall I'll never give up. The T-shirt I want to keep forever. The heart of that new Africa. And when Mandela was freed, and I could just picture him when he stood in that presidential palace, once labeled a terrorist because of his violent youth, and then to be tempered in a prison for 30-something years, and then to now be an elder statesman who wanted to bring people together and brought forth what was called peace and reconciliation, where there was no retribution but the biblical principle of, if you confess, you can be forgiven. And that brought peace to the nation. For him to stand in that presidential palace and look across that nation, to stand in that balcony and see thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people gathered around for that day when they said, We see a new Africa, and now they saw a new Africa. When they wanted to see a new Germany, and they saw a new Germany. Things that were not yet even accomplished. They saw the future of something that could be accomplished, and they believed and they sweat for it and they bled for it and they believed for it and they waited for it and they fought for it and they marched for it, and then they get to see it with their eyes. It is accomplished. Look, this is a new Africa. This is a new Germany. This is a new country. This is a new people. You see, things that are difficult to attain, things that cost you much, things that cost you lives, that cost you blood and sweat and tears, things that cost you a long battle in a slow direction, but in the same forceful movement to the things you want to see accomplished. Those are the things you appreciate greatly. Not a half-hearted t-shirt that you want to just try to do to be able to stay in somebody's class. Not like a neighbor who won the lottery. They weren't our neighbor at the time, but they won the lottery a few years back, and it was $3 million, and so they came into this neighborhood where I was living where moderately priced, middle-class homes, suburbanites, and you're on this little one-quarter acre of a lot. I know that sounds like a lot of land here. That's probably worth $100 million in New York City, but for us, you can buy a quarter acre or so and build a nice little family home in it, but they bought like three acres at the end of this cul-de-sac and started building a home that was probably four times as big and four times more valuable, well over a million-dollar home at the end of our street, and it went to about probably three-quarters of the way complete, and after it was three-quarters of the way complete, I noticed the building had stopped, and I asked the neighbor, what happened with that big mansion down the street, and they said they bought SUVs and Hummers, and they went on vacations, and they bought this land, and they bought the home, and they ran out of money in about six months. Six to nine months, they ran out of money. See, it came easy to them. There was no real value to it. It didn't cost them anything to obtain what they had, and so they were not wise about how they... It went out fast because it came in fast. It was nothing that they fought for, that they lived for. It was nothing that they really accomplished. And I want to ask you the question here this morning, what is it that Jesus really accomplished? What was it that he was after? What was he looking for? And I want to suggest to you that some of the things that we think Jesus was after was really not his agenda at all. He was very different than what many of us see Jesus as. He's preached in many churches as the political Jesus, isn't he? That he came to kind of set a new political way of living about caring for people in a certain way. It's sort of the democratic Jesus, the Democrat who likes to help people on welfare. Others see him as the right-wing Republican Jesus. And he's a moral issue teacher, and he stands for righteousness and justice. And so we see Jesus sometimes politically, but he didn't come to accomplish a political system, did he? And some see Jesus as a therapist. And he is this. He's a comforter. But we see him sort of sitting there with a notepad, and we get to lay down on Jesus' couch and tell him all of our problems. And he goes, Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, tell me about your mother. It's probably something to do with your mother. And so I'm not putting down therapists. But we see Jesus as sort of the great therapist in the sky. But Jesus didn't come for psychology. Did you know that? He didn't come for religion either. He didn't come to build a religion. He didn't come to say, You know, I kind of like the Jewish thing. My mom was Jewish. My dad was Jewish. I sort of like Jewishness, but I think I want to start Christianity. It has a nice ring to it. My name's Christ, and Christianity would be a good way to go about starting a new religion. But he didn't come to start a new religion. He didn't come for philosophy. He didn't come to try to equate himself with Socrates and Plato and Confucianism. He didn't come to try to start some kind of wise, clever words of, Man, he came for something totally different. If you'll turn in your scriptures to Isaiah 53, verse 11, I want to read one verse, Isaiah 53, 11. I'm reading it from a different translation. This is not my study Bible, so please don't e-mail me about using this very liberal. It's the new living translation. Don't worry. I'm a King James guy as well. And so you can send all your e-mails to carterconlon at aol.com. And that's not actually his e-mail address. But I like this. Look at this verse. Isaiah 53, 11. I believe that they put it up on the screen. If not, just more listen to my words because they're slightly different. But I think some meaning comes out of here that I think is extremely important. Verse 11 says, when he sees, this is speaking of Jesus, when he sees, picture now, picture Mandela standing in that presidential palace when he sees. Picture those East German, that brother that hadn't seen his sister for 40 years. And that wall comes down when he sees, when she sees. Picture this. When Jesus sees, when his eyes are set upon the delight of his heart, that thing that blood, sweat, and tears fought for, the thing that he laid down his life for, when he sees it, when he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, it didn't come to him easily. It cost him his life. It didn't come to him easily. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. I don't often think of Jesus as being satisfied. The word satisfied comes from an old English word. It comes from two different words. Satis, meaning completely done. And the second part of that means already. So the word satisfied means already completely done. When I look at it, it's already, my nation is, South Africa is free. The Berlin Wall has come down. We're free. It's done. It's accomplished. And so it's saying here, when Jesus sees this, he's satisfied. He sees it is completely done. It is completely done. Well, what is completely done? Is it he came to build his church? Yes, absolutely. He came to do that. Yes, he came to set sinners free. Yes, he came to touch lives. Yes, he came to see, raised up a holy remnant of God. Yes, there were some political implications to it, obviously. There were some philosophical implications. There were some social implications. All those things. But Jesus didn't come to start a political movement. He didn't come to start a religious movement. He didn't come to say, hey, you know, I hope by the 21st century, we have more numbers of Christians than we have Muslims because we want to be number one. I want to start the number one religion in the world. Jesus has no interest in any of that. When he sees with his eyes what he's accomplished, when he sees something, he goes, oh, that satisfies my soul. That was worth laying down my life. That was worth the nails in my hand. That was worth the nails in my feet. That was worth the bloody crown of thorns on my head. That was worth the spear in my side. That was worth having to breathe my last. That was worth even having to feel rejected by my Father, whom I am one with, whom I love with all my heart and loves me. And now I had a sense of, my God, my God, my Father, my Father, why have you forsaken me? Feeling forsaken, he says, it's going to be worth it all. I'll be satisfied having gone through all that anguish. And because of his experience, he says, my righteous servant will make it possible. Now this last part is God the Father talking about Jesus. He says, my righteous servant will make it possible. Make what possible? That Jesus gets to be satisfied. Satisfied at what? At what he's accomplished. What is it that he's accomplished? And here's where I'm going to throw maybe a little twist in your theology here. A mom I heard speak of about 10 days ago, she was saying that she lived a wild life and started living with this guy, got pregnant. And in her pregnancy, the boyfriend didn't want to stay and help her through the pregnancy. He didn't want the responsibility, so he bolts on her. He splits and leaves her alone to have this baby. She has the baby, and she's having financial difficulties, and she's under stress, so she starts smoking pot. And the pot doesn't do enough, and then she starts taking pills. And before long, she becomes a hardcore drug addict trying to raise this boy. Three or four years of addiction, four years of almost near homelessness carrying this little boy around, trying to find a job that she could sustain to keep this boy fed, feeling broken, feeling down, feeling worthless, feeling lifeless, feeling unloved, feeling unneeded, unnecessary. But there's someone who wants to accomplish something. And in her life, a little four-year-old boy walks up to her, never been in church a day in his life, never listened to Christian radio or television, comes up to his mom and says, Mom, last night, God told me he's real. He's real, and he loves us. And the mom just got angry, said, Son, I don't know who's been telling you this stuff. That's a bunch of hogwash. That's no more real than the Easter bunny or Santa Claus. There is no Jesus. There is no God. He's not real. And the little boy just, Mom, God came to me last night, and he told me he's real, and he told me he loves us. Hallelujah. A four-year-old boy is having an argument with his mom, and he's winning the argument because he's experiencing something that has been accomplished for him and for his mother. And his mother decides to go to church, and long story short, she and her four-year-old son come to the altar hand-in-hand to receive Jesus Christ, and there are new creations in Christ Jesus. I want to say to you, that's what Jesus accomplished. He accomplished that woman's life. He accomplished that little boy's life. When he looks, what he's satisfied at is not this building here as beautiful as it is, not the songs as pretty as they are, not the religion of Christianity, not the theological, not the philosophical, not the sociological, not the psychological stuff that we read in the Bible, no, when he looks at something, he's satisfied when he looks at you. When he looks at you and says, aha, there's the work that I wanted to accomplish. There's the work I wanted to accomplish. Ephesians 2.10 says it so clearly, for you are God's masterpiece. Isn't that beautiful? When he's finished with you, he doesn't go, it doesn't fit. It's exposing my shoulder. I don't like it. You are far more than a country that finds its freedom in Berlin or in South Africa. You are far more valuable than a piece of stone that I might have in my house or a t-shirt that says, we see in New Africa. When he looks at those things, he says, yeah, praise the Lord, or praise me, I guess you might say. Those things are good that have happened. Politics, good things happen in politics sometimes. Good things happen sometimes in national movements. Good things happen in civil rights movements. Good things happen in the justice system. Good things happen when laws are changed. But the good thing that Jesus is really satisfied is when he looks at that mom and her little four-year-old boy and says, that really makes me happy. When he looks at your life, as broken as you think it might be, as distraught as you might be, as hopeless as you might feel, as downcast as you might seem, as deep a sinner as you feel, condemned and convicted by your rebellion and your anger, and you're running from God as much as you don't even feel at home here in a crowd of thousands of people. You're here in a Christian setting, but you don't feel like you belong. And maybe you feel that wherever you go. There is a masterpiece that Jesus is doing, and it's called you by your name. He knows your name. He knows the hairs on your head. He knows your heart. He knows you're going in and you're coming out, the Bible says. And Song of Solomon says it so beautifully, just with one glance of your eyes towards him, you became his Amanda. Look, he just, yeah, what's your, what's your name? Elena. Elena. Jesus looks at you and goes, ah, Elena. How beautiful. She's mine. She's mine. How about you, just clap your hands. What's your name? Betsy. Jesus just goes, ah, my Betsy. That's my Betsy. Have you met my Betsy? She's so sweet. I just love. See, we don't see Jesus that way. We say, Betsy, try harder. Betsy, when's the last time you cooked for your husband? Am I going to get you in trouble? Is that your husband? No? Oh, sorry. Changing subjects. Oh, man, he just, he sees you and he knows you by name. You ever sing that song? He knows my name. He knows my every heartache. And something's still the same, I don't know. Maybe we could sing that at the end of the service today. Oh, man, he just knows you and he loves you and he cares about you. And the good news is, he's satisfied. He says, yeah, I'm satisfied. Because I say to him, thank you for knowing my name. Thank you for loving me. But I know you're not satisfied with me yet. But I'm working on it. You saved me. Now, you made me righteous. You made me justified is the theological word. Just as if I've never sinned before. In other words, I'm now in right standing with God. But since you've done that, I'm coming to you still unclean. And a lot of bad thoughts. And a lot of bad deeds. And a lot of bad actions. And a lot of bad motives. But since you did this for me, I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to work on getting better. But it's the same power that justifies you, that sanctifies you. And in much of scripture, I know we read the word sanctification in more of a progressive sense. We're going to progressively get more and more sanctified. But about 90% of the time, the word sanctified is mentioned in scripture. It is mentioned as something that's already done. You were sanctified. Having been sanctified by the blood of Jesus. You are washed. You are cleansed. You are sanctified. That's... I can't really wrap my mind around that fully. I can't fully understand that. But I can believe it. That he has done the work for me. He is accomplishing his work. He is accomplishing. When he looks at what he's accomplished, past tense. He looks at accomplished and he sees a life that's clean. He sees a life that's holy. He sees a life that is pure. Many of us in this room today can't say to ourselves, I am the righteousness of God in Christ. We might say, I'm working to become the righteousness of God in Christ. But God is satisfied in a different way. And he has accomplished something different than what we think we need to accomplish. When he says he accomplished it, he accomplished your complete and total righteousness. Now you're going to grow. You're going to mature. You're going to find some old ways. A way in your life. Some habits and hangups. Things that you'll get healed and delivered and repent of. But when he looks at you, it's not like, you know, you're almost there, but you're not all the way there. Years ago, my father and our ministry, World Challenge, as I said to you earlier, moved down to Texas. And in Texas, we bought a piece of property to take Teen Challenge graduates who wanted to become pastors and leaders and evangelists and opened up this training center. And 400 acres and buildings on it, beautiful buildings, gym, cafeteria, dormitories, houses. It was quite a spectacular place. And then my dad got it in his heart. As you know, to move back here to New York City. So he wanted to do something. The Lord put something on his heart with that piece of property, 400 acres and millions of dollars worth of buildings. He was going to allow Youth With A Mission, another ministry down in Texas, to have it for what, I remember the phrase, everybody kept throwing around, $0.10 on the dollar. You know what that means? It's pretty obvious. So if it's worth $2 million, you get it for $200,000. If it's worth $3 million, you get it for $300,000. I don't remember what they valued the land at, but they ended up selling it for $0.10 on the dollar. Probably $200,000, $300,000. Now, although it was a gift in one sense, if you were the recipient of that, if you were Youth With A Mission saying, I got $3 million worth of property, 400 acres, for $300,000, in some sense you would say it's a gift, right? But in another sense, no, because you still owe a little bit. You still have to, each month, write that check out and say, here's $1,000, here's another $1,000. Eventually, I'll pay off that $300,000, and then it will be satisfied. The debt will be satisfied. It will be paid in full. You see, some of us approach our faith like that, that Jesus wanted to give us what Romans chapter 5, I think it's verse 17 says, the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall cause many to reign in Christ. It will cause you to reign with Christ. And the idea is there's an abundance. And that word there in the Greek is hupo, which means hyper. So he gives you hyper grace. Isn't that awesome? I mean, it's not just grace, but it's like grace on steroids. I mean, it's hyper grace. It is crazy grace. And then he gives a gift of righteousness. But many of us don't see it as hyper grace. It's just grace. It's not extravagant grace. It's just grace. And many of us see it as a 10 cents on the dollar righteousness. So he paid 90% of it. He did that at the cross. But he's waiting for that check every month from you. Pay off the rest. Make yourself righteous by doing all your good deeds. And if you lack in one month, he sends, you know, Joey from Brooklyn. Where's my money? It's not right. It's not. That's not what Jesus means here when he says he was satisfied. He's not satisfied. Hey, how's the payment going this month, Joey? It's not what satisfies him. What satisfies him is his word on the cross. It is finished. I'm totally satisfied because you've been made righteous. Past tense, the hyper grace, the grace abounding has been poured out on you. It's been poured out on I. And now we have that kind of grace. Could you imagine? And I'll close with this. Could you imagine being a bystander in heaven when this work was being accomplished? And the father was looking down and saying, watch this, guys. My servant's going to make it possible. Going to make what possible? That you and you and you and you and you and me, that we could be loved by God. That we could be acceptable to God. That we could be seen as righteous. That we could be seen as the apple of his eye. We could be seen as the light of his life. We could be seen as one who could keep company with great joy now. Not one who's trying to earn a place in God's table, but one who's been given a place at God's table. And could you imagine being a bystander sort of looking over God's shoulder? Odds are if you weren't already fully sanctified or if you weren't at the place where you were tracking with God's heart, you would say, no way. No way that you could accomplish through one act on the cross. No way those drops of blood could cause the father God in his just purity and his holiness to find a people now that are made righteous, holy, and acceptable to come into that very throne room of grace, the curtain torn. If you were a bystander in heaven watching that, you said, there's no way that's possible. There's no way, but Jesus made a way. Hallelujah. He made a way for it to be possible for you and I to come into places that you never thought we could be before. And it shows the great value that he has for you. You're not an afterthought. You're not a mistake. You're a miracle. All right. And some here today, some here today just simply knew that the acceptance of God through the provision of his finished work for you, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness and moves us from a place of being far from God and outside of his family life into being accepted by the work that he finished for us. There are some in this room today that need to make that step of faith saying, Jesus, take me from the kingdom of darkness, a family that's not been, a member who's not been born yet into the family of God and save me today, Jesus. And others, it's the idea of knowing that once he has poured out his blood, once he has looked at the work, he's satisfied with that. He sees you as valuable to him. He's really happy about you. Lastly, and then Greg, if you guys come back, maybe we can sing that song, He Knows My Name. But I was watching this TV show. Now be careful what you hear right now because this is a little tricky. I was watching this TV show called Pawn Stars. Okay. Pawn, P-A-W-N. All right. I wasn't watching anything else that might sound like Pawn Stars. Pawn, P-A-W-N, Pawn Stars. And I was watching this show and it's in, I think it's in Las Vegas. And people bring in items, you know, and a lot of stuff is sort of not real. Like, you know, this was Elvis's toothbrush and things like that. And, you know, they want $50 for it. Or sometimes there's somebody that brings in a, somebody brought in one time a sword from a civil war. And they got like, you know, $1,000 for it or something like that. But there's this one guy, he has an old electric guitar and has the signature of Jimi Hendrix. Do you remember Jimi Hendrix? Some of you are too sanctified to know Jimi Hendrix. But you do. You know him. You just don't want to say you know him. You're in church. So Jimi Hendrix had signed his guitar here. He was left-handed, so he signed under Jimi Hendrix. But the guy who owned it wasn't quite sure whether it was real or not. And was thinking, man, I think it might be real. And from what I heard, it was the last guitar he played on before he overdosed on drugs. So he was thinking, man, I might get $5,000, $10,000 for this thing. And he'd probably be happy to get $10,000 for it. And he walks in, and the guy looks at it and goes, man, it's from the right era. It's right time. And it's the kind of guitar he played. And it's stringed left-handedly. And it looks authentic. But he calls somebody from the music museum in town to come over and take a look at it. And the guy sees it and goes, whoa, you got the real thing here, man. This thing is valuable. And so the guy who owns the guitar and the guy who owns the pawn shop is there with this scholar about musical instruments and history. And the guy says, that guitar is worth between $0.5 million and $750,000. And that's what they did. Everybody in the store went, oh, my God. Gee whiz. So the guy is expecting it to be worth $10,000, and it's worth half a million. And so the guy at the store says, okay, I'll give you $300,000 for it. The guy says, no way. Wait a minute. He only wanted $10,000 for it. No, I want the $750,000. The guy says, I'll give you $4,000. I can't go over $4,000. I'm not going to. No. Okay, I'll give you the half a million. Now, I'm going to sell it on auction. I think I can get that $750,000. Isn't that wild? What was it? It was the fact that that guitar had worth and value because somebody said it was real. It was authentic. It was the right thing. Yeah, I am satisfied that it's the real thing. And so to Jesus Christ, those who become his children, those who walk in faith, those who walk in the family of God, you're like that guitar except a billion times better. It's like he's saying to you, he's saying, hold on. He's saying, I see you may think you're worth $500,000 or $1,000,000. And this is not a, please don't hear me saying something you might think I'm saying. This is some kind of pop psychology where I'm going to have you all go home and look in the mirror today and say I'm good enough. By golly, I'm kind enough. People love me. It's not self-help. It's not self-improvement. It's not even having to do with self-worth. This is having to do with the worth ascribed to you because Jesus looks at you and says, that's what I want to accomplish. That finished work right there, that person who was lost is now found. That person who was in darkness is now in the light. That person who was addicted is now free. That person who was confused now understands life. That person who was just unable to make ends meet now finds a way to get through life with freedom and victory and joy. That person who was not sanctified has now become sanctified. That person who was unrighteous has now become the righteousness of God in Christ. That person that was in bondage to slavery and sin and fear and darkness has now become a child of the light, a child of the most high, a beloved of God, a friend of God, a delight of his heart, the desire of his heart, the apple of his eye with the one glance of your eye towards him. The Bible says his heart was completely captured by you. He loves you that much that you were the one he wanted to accomplish. Amen. Stand with me if you would. You know that song, Greg? We're going to sing the song, He Knows My Name. And I want to open up the front of this church to pray for people who either have never been grafted in, as the Bible says, or adopted into God's family and you want to become a child of God today. Or if you are a child of God and you've just been struggling, you've been feeling down and discouraged, and you've been feeling, man, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about myself. If you question yourself, if you doubt yourself, if you get discouraged in yourself, I want you to come to the front here today and just let Jesus look at you again, look over you with his eyes upon you, casting his eyes upon you and say, Oh, I love you. I pour out my love on you. If you need that, would you step out of your seat wherever you are, in the balcony, in the annex? In the annex, you can come to the front of the annex. Is that how you do it, right? In the annex, you can come to the front of the annex. Here in this building, if you'd come down to the front, we're going to pray that you would receive this hyper-grace, this hyper-gift of righteousness today and know that you are called by God and loved by him. Come now as we sing this song together. You're still welcome to come as I pray. We're going to pray just as that song we were singing says, that he just knows. He knows my heartaches. He knows every tear that falls. He knows how uncomfortable I am in my own skin sometimes. He knows my failures. He knows how often I've been failed by others. He knows all that, and yet he calls my name. He calls me one of his own. He calls me son. He calls you daughter. And so I want to pray for you right now that you would just receive Abba Father's grace, abundant grace, that for those of you who have not applied that effectiveness of his accomplished work for your own life, that you would allow him to do that today. And so Father, I pray first of all for men and women in this auditorium listening to my voice, here at the altar, even online, other campus, God, that in the annex that they would just know right now that you are wooing them to come to you and to take off the filthy garments of unrighteousness, to take off the sinful nature, not in our own strength, God, but just by surrendering to you, you come and you take out the filth and the weight of the world and the pain and the sorrow and the hurt and the things we've done ourselves that have caused you and others to be grieved, and you forgive all our sins, and you give us the gift of grace and of righteousness. We thank you. Thank you. Lord, if anyone here listening to my voice has just been in agreement with what I've been saying, that I need Jesus to save me, that I need him to move in my life, then you're doing that work right now, God. You're beginning a new work in them, a new creation in their heart, and I thank you for that. Now I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ who have come to the altar, particularly, just saying, God, I feel so unworthy. I feel like there's so much more I have to do, so much more I have to get right. But God, we thank you that as a result of your work of righteousness, you've called us to good works, and we can then stay away from sinful habits, and we can hate things that you hate and love things that you love, and we can repent, and we can walk in holiness, and we can have an agenda to be ambitious about the things of God. But Lord, it's not trying to become righteous. It's as a result of righteousness. You've made us righteous. Therefore, it's like we say, spring up, oh well. A joy of living water has come out of us, and we want to be holy. We want to be righteous. We want to be pure. And you know our hearts, God. And we just pray that that finished, accomplished work of Jesus Christ would so resound with the listeners of this prayer right now, that it would take root in their hearts, and that they would be able to receive right now this grace. Grace is unmerited. It's not we have to get things right first. It's you making us right, Jesus. And you've done that work for us, who just simply in faith, we say, by faith, call it done in my life, God. Thank you. Thank you. You called me cleansed. You called me washed. You called me sanctified. You called me delivered. You called me free. You called me friend of God, and I thank you for that, Jesus. I thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Praise God. Thank you so much, Pastor Gary, for such a lovely presentation of the work of Christ. I was thinking as you were speaking of, remember the Apostle Peter when he went up on the roof, and the Lord let down some images on the sheet, and he told him to partake of it. And Peter said, no, I've never been a partaker of anything unclean. And then he came to him and said, what I have cleansed, you don't call it common or unclean anymore. That means it's neither ordinary, and it's not what it used to be. What I have cleansed is miraculous. It is beautiful. It is a finished, it's an accomplished work. It's something that it's hard for us to imagine, but realistically, you're going to be the pride and glory of God throughout all of eternity. I think the angels stand amazed, even now, when they look down at us and must wonder in their hearts, why are these people so important to God? It is a mystery, even. The Scripture says it's a mystery they long to look into. They long to fully understand why God so loves us. It's an amazing thing. He has cleansed us, and no matter what you or I feel about ourselves, we are not ordinary anymore, and we are not unclean. It is truly a wonderful thing to belong to God. Father, thank you for these precious men and women, and for those in the annex, for those in North Jersey as well. God, for those who've had such a struggle just to feel lovely in the sight of God, to feel accepted, to feel wanted, to feel special. But God Almighty, you're breaking through these layers of misunderstanding, and you're teaching us who we really are in Christ. And so we agree with the song, no more shackles, no more chains, no more bondage. I am free. Father, we thank you for this, and we bless you for it. Let this be a great day for these men and women. Let it be a great day today to walk the streets of New York City saying, I'm clean. Even though I live here, I'm clean. And even though I feel ordinary, I'm no longer ordinary. I'm extraordinary. I have the stamp of God in my life, and I have the life of Christ in me. Father, thank you for these things. Thank you for this wonderful truth, especially for those who never had the voice of a father speaking into their lives. God, we thank you. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.