Canceled Death

We've had conversations about things that we need to cancel in our life , things that Jesus has canceled , and tonight we're going to talk about something that is a little heavier . I'm going to be real honest . I'm just going to start it off from the beginning .

Tonight's message is going to be a little heavier and we're going to talk about something deep , and tonight I want to give you the title of my message . So if you are taking notes on your phone and you are going to be responsible with your phone , I want you to write this down , okay , or take a picture of it .

The title of my message is Canceled Death , canceled Death , and I want to share a story , and this is like I said . We're going to start off real deep . This is not going to be a happy , fun story . This is actually going to be a sad story . Okay , but we're going to go with it .

So , maybe 10 years ago , maybe a little longer than that , anybody in here have animals , raise your hand , got animals . Okay , I got about 10 , 12 years ago we had three cats . I say had because one died , right , I'm going to tell you a story about how she died . We had three cats . One was for my sister , my older sister she's four years older than me .

One was for me all right , I had a cat . And one was for my mom all right . So we had three cats in the family . About 10 years ago one of my sister's cats started to get old all right , she was maybe about 15 , 14 , somewhere around there .

She started to get old and started to get sick all right , and if anybody maybe have had that happen to them , you know what it's like to watch your animals get sick , and it's not fun . And so we would have taken her to the doctor . But this cat was kind of an animal that hated people all right , she loved my sister , but she hated everybody else .

All right , if you tried to touch her , she would try to bite you and claw you , okay , and so she only loved my sister . So that means if we were to try to take her to a vet , she would probably kill the vet , all right .

So we didn't do that because we didn't want to have that on the insurance , okay , we didn't want to deal with that , so we didn't take her to the vet , so we couldn't get her healed , we couldn't get her what she needed , and so she started to get sick .

She wasn't eating , she was losing a lot of weight , she was drinking a ton of water and then eventually she began to walk funny . And what do I mean she walked ? Funny is that every time she walked , it looked like her feet were hurting , it looked like she was in pain , and we ended up finding out . We Googled it .

Everybody Googles things when they're not feeling well . Right , we diagnosed ourselves , so we did it for our cat and we ended up finding out that she actually had diabetes , and when you have diabetes as a cat , your feet start to hurt and your feet you just lose weight and eventually you'll die .

So what ended up happening is we let it go on for a little bit , but if anybody , I just want to ask and we can be real honest here has anybody ever had an animal that's died ? Anybody ? Okay , a lot of us , all right . So let me ask another question Did you have to watch your animal be sick While they were no , a couple of people ?

So we had to watch our animal be sick . And eventually we got to the point where we were like all right , we have two options . Either we , a continue to just let this happen and make her suffer , or , b we put her down . Anybody in here put your animals down before Couple ? Okay ? So we decided we're gonna put her down .

She was old , it was just that time so we couldn't take her to a vet , remember . So we had to bring the vet into the house . And so we brought the vet into the house and they laid out a whole mat and processed the whole thing . I'd never seen this done before .

And basically , to put the animal down , they had to just shoot them with something , with a needle , and that's how it worked . And so she did that and she slowly just started to pass away and she said to us this is what got me the worst . She said do you have the vet ? She's like do you have any other animals in the house ?

And we're like yes , we do . And she's like is this cat close to those animals ? And we said , not really , but sort of , they kind of get along , kind of don't .

And she's like well , you're probably gonna want to show the other cats that this cat is dying , because if you don't , then the other cats are actually just gonna keep wondering what happened to this cat . And it was actually kind of sad because we did this and we took our other two cats and we sat them in front of her name was Isabel .

She was dying , the Isabel . We sat her in front of Isabel and they just began to sniff her , they began to look at her and it was the weirdest interaction , because with humans we do this , we look at each other and if we know somebody's dying , you have that in your face , you have the look on your face and your eyes , you just know .

And then these two cats that were watching this just had that look .

It was the weirdest thing ever , right , and eventually she ended up passing away and we got rid of her and it was super sad , but I had never had to deal with death up until that point , and some of y'all might be like you , little loser , you're crying over a cat or you're sad about a cat . Listen , it got me okay and we still have .

It's so funny though . So this was like 10 , 12 years ago that this cat died and the other two cats we still have them . It's kind of remarkable . My cat that I have is 18 years old . The average age for a cat is like 15, . All right , my cat's about to die , okay , I'm just kidding , he's not , but he's just old , okay .

But I wanna talk about this idea of death , and death is kind of a scary topic to talk about , and some people we don't like to talk about it . Right , no one wants to witness death . No one wants to experience death . We don't wanna talk about death . We don't wanna be in the same room as somebody that's dying sometimes .

We don't wanna acknowledge that somebody might be dying . We don't wanna acknowledge

that our cat dies . Listen , me and Miranda . We cry over our two cats that are perfectly healthy right now , worrying about the day they're gonna die . All right , it would be like me looking at Miranda going I'm gonna cry because you're about to die . She's not about to die . Why would I do that ? But we cry about our cats .

Anybody else do that with their animals . You just look at them . You love them so much that you're just like I don't want you to die . So I'm gonna cry right now , even though they're healthy , yes , and so we don't wanna talk about it right . Once on , miranda , she had our cat Samson . He's a big fluffy orange ball .

If I had a picture of him I would have put it up . But he's a big , fluffy orange ball and Miranda was petting him and I just looked over after I was on my phone like this , just laying in bed and I just looked over and her tears just coming down her eyes . I'm like what's wrong and she's like I just don't want him to die .

I'm like he's right here , he's fine , he ain't going nowhere , he's not dying , calm down , it's okay . But we don't wanna talk about this , right , and this is just funny because it's animals . But when we talk about death , some people get uncomfortable and so I don't want you to get uncomfortable tonight .

We're not gonna talk about it too long , but I wanna hit a point across . We are all , at some point , are going to die At some point . Some of us we will die and there's a place where we can go . We talked about this in church . I'm not talking about this tonight .

But we can go to heaven or hell and the choices that we make on earth , but nothing that we do on earth today will stop that . It doesn't matter what education you get , it doesn't matter how much money you make , it doesn't matter the things that you collect on this earth , it doesn't matter the popularity that you have , the fame that you have .

Nothing is going to stop that . It all makes us equal . It all makes us the exact same , because nothing is going to stop us from the day that God has for us that when we're gonna die , it doesn't matter what you do . And I wanna ask you a question , but I want you to think about it .

Don't raise your hand , don't answer it out loud , just think about it . Do you ever feel hopeless when you think about death ? Just think about that to yourself . Do you ever feel hopeless when you think about death ?

See , I know there's so many of us in this room that we've experienced this and , see , I've only , I've been blessed to only experience this with an animal , but I know there's some of you in here that you've experienced it with another human . You've experienced this with somebody in your family .

Maybe it was a grandparent , a great grandparent , maybe it was a friend , maybe it was an uncle , maybe it was a parent , a sibling , a nephew , and some of you have experienced this and the somebody that you know has probably passed away and the idea of thinking about this is just so scary .

The idea of thinking about death just gives you no hope for yourself or maybe for your family , and it's just easy to want to give up when we think of this idea .

See , there's a scripture version Isaiah 25-8 that says he will swallow up death forever and the Lord , god , will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from all earth , for the Lord has spoken To love how this talks at the beginning . He will swallow up death forever . The Lord will wipe away tears from everyone's faces .

See , god has a plan from the very beginning for every single one of you that are in this room right here right now . God had a plan for your life , but God had a plan for Jesus's life when he came to this earth . And Jesus's job when he came was to defeat death , to die for our sins , and he did it by sending his son Jesus .

And see , I wanna recap Jesus for you . Maybe you've heard of Jesus , maybe you've never heard of Jesus , maybe you don't know the story . I wanna tell you the story real quick . So what happened is God sent his son Jesus to be born of a virgin on this earth . So Jesus was born . He lived a life like you and me , right .

So he had feelings like you and me . He had emotions like you and me , so Jesus walked this earth . If I were to pinch Isaiah right now , he would feel that Jesus is the same way . He would feel that he was a human like you and me . He was God in human form . Jesus lived on this earth for 30 years before he began his ministry .

30 years later , after he was born , he began to walk around and he began to preach to people about what God could do in their life .

He began to tell people about how they could be saved , that he began to perform miracles and heal people and do all these crazy things that if today , if that were to happen , it'd be all over TikTok and social media and Facebook and Instagram . People would be talking about it left and right , and Jesus started to heal people .

He began to do all of these amazing things for three years . He began to do all of these amazing things for three years and as he did these things , he grew a group of people that just hated him . I don't know about you , but I don't know if I wanna walk around with a group of people that just hate me .

Jesus had people that hated him , wanted to kill him , wanted to end his life , wanted to get rid of him , and eventually they succeeded at that . They took Jesus .

They took him , they beat him , they whipped him , they hung him on a cross to die , they stabbed him in the side with a spear , did all these unimaginable things that you would never wanna have happen to your family or to a loved one , or to you yourself . So Jesus was on that cross , he hung and he died . He went to the grave for three days .

He was dead for three days and eventually what happened is God then decided oh , get up out of that grave , yo and Jesus rose from the dead three days later , defeating death , and see , jesus is God . So that means Jesus himself decided I'm going to defeat death . And so he did . He defeated death .

He's the only person to do it himself and see , that's what Jesus' mission was to die for us . There's a scripture verse in 2 Timothy 1 , 9 through 10 , and you can take a picture of this on the screen if you want to .

It says who saved us and called us to a holy calling , not because of our works , but because of his own purpose and grace , which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began , in which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Saviored Christ Jesus , who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel .

See , jesus broke this idea of death . He ended it . He ended it on the cross . Jesus canceled death . That's why the title of this message is canceled death , because Jesus canceled death . See , we don't have to live with this idea of hopelessness about what the future holds . We don't have to live with this idea of being scared .

See , jesus , he died for us all . He died for you , he died for me , he died for every single human being on this earth . And I want to read another scripture for you . It says Romans 6 , 12 through 16 , says this Let not sin . Therefore , reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions .

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness , but present yourself to God as those who have been brought from death to life , and your members to God as instruments for righteousness , for sin will have no dominion over usage . You are not under law , but under grace .

See , I love this scripture verse because God has saved us Every single one of you in this room and now we're going to flip the switch and talk about something else . God saved us . He died for our sins , so we don't have to live in sin . The last few weeks we've been talking about this idea of sin , and maybe you don't know what sin is .

But as I was thinking about this idea of sin , sin is stuff that we do that is not where God has maybe calling us Stuff that we do that God is not for . Sin is stuff that we do to ourself unrighteous , unholy things that we might do to ourself . And as I was thinking of sin , a lot of you know what your sin is .

We all got it , every single human in this room . We got sin . We got stuff that we're dealing with . And as I began to think about this idea of sin , I asked the question when I was writing this why do we sin ?

Right , because there's a scripture verse in the Bible that says Paul was writing and I don't know where it's at but he says I do what I don't want to do . Paul was saying I do what I don't want to do , which means is I sin and I don't want to do that , but I do it anyway . And so I asked myself why do we sin ?

And I came up with two conclusions , and they're real basic . But two conclusions one is because it's fun . If anybody ever tells you that sin is not fun , they are lying to you , 100% lying to you . Because sin is fun . We wouldn't do something that's not fun right In the moment . Sin is fun In the moment . We do those things because it is fun .

But the worst part about sin is the second step that comes when sinning . Yeah , the first part is fun , but the second part brings the worst part . I don't know if you've ever experienced this , but when I've sinned before , I know what I'm doing is wrong . I do it anyway , but I don't really want to do it .

I do it , I feel great about it sometimes , and then the moment after it's done , I feel like the worst thing ever . So much shame comes upon me , so much guilt comes upon me . I begin to beat myself up . I get to get so mad at myself because I just did something I didn't want to do . So , number one , it's fun , sin is fun .

And number two , it's because sin has controlled you . There's some of you in this room tonight that you have allowed sin to control your life . What do I mean by that ? Some of you have allowed this addiction in your life to control you . Maybe it's to something on the internet . Maybe it's to vaping .

Maybe it's to hanging out with your boyfriend or girlfriend and doing things you shouldn't want to do or shouldn't do . Maybe it's cussing . Maybe it's anger problems . Maybe it's not treating your loved ones with respect . Maybe it's disrespecting your mother and your father . Maybe it's bullying people . Maybe it's talking while I'm talking .

I don't know what your sin is . I don't know what your story is , but we all got something that we have allowed to control our life , and some of you have allowed something in your life .

You have allowed it , you've opened the doors , you've welcomed it in , you've accepted the idea of it , and now all you can do is do that thing , because now sin is actually controlling you . You don't control yourself , sin controls you . Your life revolves around this idea . Your life revolves around other people . Your life revolves around this sin .

Your life revolves around cussing . If you don't cuss , man , you're not who you should be . You're a different person . If you're not vaping , oh my gosh , the world is gonna end If you are not getting angry at people .

Oh my gosh , if you're not bullying that nerd that you bully every day , the world is gonna end because sin is controlling your life and you're doing things that you shouldn't be doing and you're allowing these things to control . You See , you will make sin your master if you are not choosing to actively obey God .

If we do not choose to actively obey God , then sin will become our master . Sin will become our master . See , there's a scripture verse in the Bible that says you cannot serve God and money . I wanna flip that for a second . You cannot serve God and you cannot serve sin . You can't serve both .

You can't cuss people out over here and then gallop to church on Sunday and be like I'm a Christian , like no , this is not how it works . Okay , you laughing , but it's true . But that's what we like to do as Christians . We like to dabble in sin . Pastor Michael talks about it all the time on Sundays . If you hear him , he's like man .

You like to do things on Saturday night and then you like to walk into church and put your hands up and raise them like you just don't care and praise Jesus and act like your life is perfect , but we have allowed sin to control us . We've allowed our life to become a lie , and I know this generation .

You have allowed your life to become a lie so that you don't get caught . You wanna know how ? I know that Because I did that . Well , I was your age junior high . All the way up to high school , I would lie so I wouldn't get caught . I would lie , and lie , and lie . I was a good liar too . I got away with a lot of stuff .

I got away with so much , but I was allowing sin to control me . I was allowing I'll tell you two things that I allowed to control me in high school , in junior high , the first one I allowed to control me was pornography , biggest thing that controlled me for like 12 years of my life . That controlled me .

And the number two thing I don't really know how to word this . But the second thing was I allowed myself to be put in situations that I should not be in . I'll just say it like that Two things throughout high school controlled me Pornography and the idea of putting myself in places that I knew that I should not have been , but I was there anyway .

See , you will make sin your master , if you do not actively obey God . See , I want to encourage you with this . Sin will take you places that you shouldn't be , but Jesus will take you places that you need to be . And some of you , for a long time , have been allowing the enemy Satan .

If you didn't know this , we were in a battle every single day , and the enemy is trying to take you out , kick you in the shins , knock you on your feet and make you not do what God wants you to do . And some of you have been allowing the enemy to drive your life .

You have been allowing the enemy to take control of the vehicle of your life , and he is driving the front seat . Pick the car you want , I don't care , but he's driving it . And Jesus is sitting in the back , all the way in the back , just sitting in the back seat , like Jesus does , waiting for you to allow him to drive the car .

But you have allowed the enemy to drive the car . Instead , you're allowing your sin to drive the car . Instead . You're allowing that diction to drive your car instead . You're allowing your anger problems to drive the car . Instead , you're allowing all of these things to drive your car because you're too worried you're going to get caught .

Can I tell you , when I was dealing with pornography , I did everything in my power to hide it . The moment that I got found out , the moment that I told somebody , can I tell you what happened ? It was the most freeing thing that I had ever experienced in my entire life , because I had been living years and years and years and years of a lie .

And it's like as soon as the words left my mouth , the biggest weight just came off my shoulders and it was like I could be who I was called to actually be . See , I don't know what your sin is , I don't know what's driving your car , but sin will take you places that you shouldn't be . It will put you in places that you don't want to be in .

And Jesus , if you allow him to say , if you allow him to get into the front seat and drive your car , and you allow him to drive , can I tell you he will take you where you need to be . He will give you what you need to have . See , we all have that sin that's allowing us to rule our life . See , where is your sin ?

I'm going to ask you those two questions . I don't want you to think about it in your head . Where is your sin ? The second question I want to ask you what is your sin ? What's driving your car right now ? What's in the front seat ? What's controlling your life ? What's navigating you ? What GPS system are you using ?

And I hope you think about it , because I tell you these things , because it's so freeing to release it , it's so freeing to give it up , and I think tonight it's time to submit that sin to Jesus . I think for some of you , you need to start allowing Jesus to drive your car . And so tonight we're going to do something .

And here's what we're going to do is we're going to worship first off , but I'm going to give you an actual opportunity to find your sin . And what we're going to do is I'm going to give you an opportunity to do this . And what we're going to do is I'm going to get some cards here in a second and I'm going to put them on the stage .

Actually , thomas , can you do me a favor with that buck right there ? Can you grab it for me ? Thomas is going to take these cards and these pencils and he's going to lay some out in front of the stage . What you're going to do is in your own time . If you want to do it .

You don't have to if you don't want to , but I think this is an opportunity for you that you're going to find freeing Just lay them all out on the stage , if you don't mind . This is an opportunity that I think that you're going to find freeing . And what I want you to do is in your own time .

I'm going to have you stand up here in a second , but in your own time , I want you to come up , grab a stack , grab a couple pencils , grab some pens , maybe find a spot in this room if you want to .

You can write it on the stage if you want to , but I want you to write down on your card what your sin is , what you're dealing with , what you're walking through , what the struggle is , what's holding you hostage , what's keeping you from really fully pressing into Jesus and allowing him to take over your life , and I want you to write it on the card .

And then , after you write it on the card , before you go back to your seat , I want you to just drop it on the floor , because what this is , this thing that you can step up on , what this is , is an altar , and back in the day , back in biblical times , what they would do is they would bring offerings to God and they would give it to him .

They would offer up something to God , and so that's what you're going to be doing . Is you're signifying . I'm coming up here , I'm grabbing a piece of paper , I'm grabbing a pencil , I'm going to write down what it is that I'm dealing with and then I'm just going to give it to him . I'm releasing it from myself .

But here's what I want to say one thing before we do this because this is going to sometimes you'll think I was lying to you . You're going to do this and you're going to write something down , you're going to drop it and you're

going to leave . But can I tell you what's going to happen is those things that you write down are still going to come against you after tonight . And why are they still going to come against you ? Why is that addiction still going to be present ?

Why are you still going to want to be tempted to cuss and to vape and to do whatever it is you write down ? It's because God is trying to test you in this moment after tonight , to see if you were actually serious ? I want to know where are they serious about this ?

Were they actually doing it because they wanted to give it up , or were they only doing it because their friend did it and so now they just did it ?

So after tonight you will be tempted again , you will be tested and tried again , and that is your opportunity to am I going to actually give this to Jesus or am I just going to fake it and keep lying to myself ? So I just want everybody to stand up just right where you're at .

If you have a phone , you might not right now , but you might want to grab it , so no one steps on it . But just as we start singing , you can find your way up . Take it in your own time . If you're going to participate , participate .

But here's what I'm going to ask , and I say this every single time If you're not going to participate , please do not be a distraction for everybody else in this room . Second thing we're going to have is all the leaders in the room . Can you just find your way to the sides Just to be available ? Our leaders will be available .

If you want somebody to pray for you , if you want somebody to just talk with about this guys go to guy leaders , girls go to girl leaders . But in your own time , Take this moment seriously . Find a spot in the room , write a paragraph , write the whole card . Take three cards . I don't care what you got to do . Write one word doesn't matter .

You make this about you and what you want to give to Jesus . Tonight I'm going to pray , lord . Just thank you for tonight . Lord , we give this moment to you and we say have your way , lord . Begin to open our hearts to hear from you , begin to open every student in this room . Open their hearts to hear from you .

God , and whatever it is tonight that they put on their card , whatever it is tonight that they write down , lord , I pray they truly give it to you and they truly surrender to you tonight In Jesus' name . Amen , let's do it .