We Need a Little Christmas | Week 4 | Pat McCalla

Easter. We're celebrating Christmas. Why are you talking about a crown of thorns with Christmas season? But but I'm gonna suggest to you that the crown of thorns absolutely

belongs in the Christmas season. In fact, what I hope we see today is that the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus are intrinsically linked. You cannot separate them. If you and I are gonna understand the depths

of what we celebrate during the Christmas season, that Jesus came to earth and took on flesh, we have to understand why Jesus had to die.

So here's what I want us to do, and if you've heard me speak before, you know I do this often. I want us to go get in a time machine in our imagination, and the reason we have to use our imagination is because Elon Musk is wasting all his money building spaceships

instead of time machines. If you build a time machine, it'd be way cooler, okay. So we have to use our imagination, and we're gonna do two different time machines, okay. So we're we're this half of the the room, you're gonna get in one time machine, you're gonna get in another one, and I'm gonna let you pick. Do you wanna go to Nazareth or Bethlehem?

Bethlehem? Alright. Good choice. You'll see why. Alright. He chose it. You're going to Nazareth, alright. So we get into time machine. We're going back two thousand years. We land in this little remote village in the Galilee region, rolling hills, Nazareth,

and we meet this young man, this young woman, Mary and Joseph, find out she's pregnant. She's pregnant, not a miraculous pregnancy because she's she's a virgin, and yet she's pregnant. We find out not just with any birth, but but this is the Messiah, the long awaited Messiah, God in the flesh,

and so now we take this journey with Mary and Joseph. This is why he chose right for his side of the room, because we have to walk 75 miles, most of it uphill to get to Bethlehem. 75

I didn't choose, he did. K? 75 miles you have to walk, most of it uphill. You finally get to Bethlehem, and you're with Mary and Joseph, and they're going from a place to place. You remember the story, right? They go place to place trying to find some place to stay. There's no room for them, so now you end up in a stable.

And all of a sudden, you hear Mary utter these words, it's time. And now you're in the room as she's screaming, as she's giving birth, going through the birth pains, and finally you see this little wrinkly cone headed baby wrapped in cloths and laid in a

manger, a feeding trough. Okay, stay there. Alright, good choice because we're going to the outskirts of Bethlehem. Two thousand years ago, right outside of Bethlehem, it's a chill, cool night, there's a crisp into the air, It's almost silent other than you hear a couple of sheep in the background, meh, meh.

Couple of snoring shepherds.

You're awake with one or two shepherds watching over the sheep and all of a sudden there's this angel standing there and you're like, what? And this angel is saying, I bring you good news of great joy. He's announcing the long awaited Messiah has finally arrived and then all of a sudden there's not one angel, there's a whole set of angels. The sky is full of angels, and these angels are telling you that the long awaited Messiah has arrived, and then they say, go into Bethlehem, you're gonna see. And this is why it was the right choice. You don't have to go 75 miles like they do, you just go a few miles into Bethlehem,

and you walk in there, and you end up at the same place, the stable, and you see this this exhausted looking mother and father, and there's this little wrinkly cone headed baby lying in the manger.

And all of us as we meet there, we're all starting to elbow each other going, you gotta hear what I witnessed and what I experienced. But but as all of our attention turns to that little baby, we're overwhelmed. We're in awe. If we have any idea who's laying in that manger.

That that this is is the God that the universe can't even contain, and now he's laying in a feeding trough.

That this is the God that Isaiah six writes about saying that constantly around the throne of God, angels are flying twenty four seven and saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. That's the one who's laying in that feeding trough.

This is the one that Revelation says is the king of all kings and lord of all lords. This is the one that in Philippians two it says, someday we'll come come back and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is lord. That's the one in the feeding trough.

And as we sit there in awe and wonder, we we start to scratch our heads and we all we all start asking the same question, why? Why? Why would he do this? Why would he leave his throne and and and come to earth like this?

And certainly there's some answers that maybe some give. They go, well, well, he came so that he could understand the frailty of what it is to be a human, and yeah, that's part of the answer, but it but it's not all of it. He he came

so that he could fulfill the hundreds of prophecies given in the old testament that he was gonna Well, certainly that's part of the answer, but that's not all of it. He came so that he could really live out one of the names given for God. Emmanuel, God with us. Well, that's part of the answer.

Why did he come? The birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus are intrinsically linked. We cannot understand what we celebrate at Christmas if we don't understand what we celebrate at Easter. Why did Jesus have to die?

He came to eventually die, but why did he have to die? Now here's what's interesting. There's a lot of memorable deaths throughout history, right? So so you'll see some pictures on the screen. Chadwick Boseman back in 2020,

kind of shocked most people. He's a famous actor. No one really knew he was struggling with cancer, battling cancer, and at 43 years old, all of a sudden he's dead. Everyone was shocked. How about back in 2009, Michael Jackson died, shocked the world. Everybody's like, oh, he's too young. Or how about 1997,

Princess Diana, remember the crash in the tunnel, all the conspiracy theories? Speaking of conspiracy theories, how about 1963, JFK assassination? Or Martin Luther King Junior, 1968, the hotel in Memphis, right? Let's go back to the eighteen hundreds. Abraham Lincoln, right, Ford Theater, these are all memorable deaths,

and because I always have to weave in this one, how about thirteen o five, William Wallace, right? I always have to weave in Braveheart. That's not William Wallace by the way. Some of you will get that a little bit later. But see, throughout history, there's been memorable deaths, and there's memoirs

and biographies written about these famous people, and here's what's interesting. In all of those biographies, the the part about their death is usually a miniscule part.

Most of the biography written about them is about their life, and what they did, and what they accomplished, and then you get to their death, and there's a few sentence, maybe a few paragraphs. If it was a very memorable death, maybe a chapter of their biography.

What's interesting is the most memorable death in all of human history was the death of Jesus.

And a couple of decades after Jesus lived his life, died, rose from the dead, and ascended back into heaven, four guys sit down and they write a biography about Jesus. We have it in our bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were all witnesses and they sat down and they wrote a biography about what they witnessed.

What's interesting is a third of those biographies, if you put them all together, a third of it talks about his death. Why would someone writing a biography about this Jesus spend a third of it talking about how he died?

Well, maybe I quote someone from a few hundred years ago, John Bunyan said, there is no Christianity without the cross. There is no Christianity without the cross. There is no hope without the cross. We're not celebrating Easter if the cross didn't exist.

So so why did Jesus have to die? The birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus are intrinsically linked. Why did Jesus have to die? Before I answer the why though, let me give you a few false explanations

on why Jesus had to die. You'll see them on the screen. We're gonna leave these up for a bit. I'm gonna go through these pretty quickly. Okay? These are if you went into some religious

studies class in a college, they might talk about some of these. Why did Jesus have to die? We know he did historically. Some would say he died by accident. You know, he he went up to Jerusalem, he was betrayed by one of his followers, the Romans tricked him and they come into the Garden Of Gethsemane that night, if you remember reading this, and they arrest him and he dies, and God's up there in heaven going, oh, no, I didn't see that coming. That's certainly a false assumption. That's not how it happens, because if you read the biographies, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will see that for months leading up to the crucifixion,

Jesus said, I'm going up to Jerusalem and I'm gonna die. I'm going to Jerusalem and I'm gonna die. I'm going to Jerusalem and I'm gonna die. In fact, in John chapter 10, Jesus said, no one takes my life from me, I lay it down. So it was not an accident that Jesus died.

It's like similar to that one or likewise, Jesus died as a martyr. People say, well, you know, there's been a lot of martyrs throughout history. You know, they they came and they they fought for a good cause, and they died for a good cause as martyrs, and and Jesus was fighting for the marginalized, and he was killed as a martyr. I was way more than that.

In fact, in Acts chapter two, it actually said that it was God's foreknowledge and plan. That the cross was planned before the creation of the world. Do you get that? The cross was planned before God created anything.

Okay, this last one, if you're a theologian in here, this one may make you bristle a little bit. This may bother you a little bit. Jesus died to appease an angry God. That's a false explanation.

Let let me explain why, I'm gonna give you this quote. I'm gonna explain a little more after this, but maybe you wanna write this quote down, especially if that bothers you a little bit that I say that that's a false explanation, because some of you have heard this before.

Here's why, Jesus does not save us from God, Jesus reveals God as savior. Jesus does not save us from an angry God, Jesus reveals God as a savior. Jesus is God. Jesus doesn't save us from his anger, he reveals himself as a savior. That's who God is. He's a savior.

Jesus' death was to show us that God is a savior, that God had a heart to save. Now, why did why did he die then? If these are false explanations, why did he die?

Okay. We're gonna get to Romans. Alright. We're we're in this series about Romans. We're gonna get to Romans. So if you have your Bibles, open to Romans three. We're gonna talk about this in just a moment. But one of the first, there's really five explanations to why Jesus had to die. The first one is is atonement. Okay. That's a churchy word. Let me explain it a little bit. This is where we're gonna get into Romans. Okay. Atonement.

We've been in this series, if you've been here the last couple of weeks, going to the book of Romans. And the first couple of chapters of Romans is a lot of bad news, if you've ever read it. It basically is saying, we're all, as Bill said, we're all on the naughty list. That's what it's proving.

No one, no one, no one is not a sinner. We're not mistakers, we're sinners. If we were just mistakers, I can solve my mistakes, I can't solve my sin problem. That's what Romans one and two and early two and early part of three is showing. We are all mistakers. And then as Bill said, finally, you get to chapter three verse 29 or verse 21, and there's finally good news. It says, but now.

Oh, finally some good news. But then you get to verse 23, and it says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's more bad news.

Here's what Paul is doing, and and all you've gotta get this. Rock Point, if you if you fell asleep, wake up right now. Okay? You gotta get this. Remember, the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus are intrinsically linked. We cannot understand what we celebrate at Christmas if we don't understand why he died. What Paul is doing in Romans is he's creating this theological argument

that that that that should bring us to this massive theological problem, That if we are all sinners, we're not mistakers, and God is a just God, he cannot just ignore our sin. An unjust God is not a God. An unjust God is not a God.

An unjust God is not a God. So God could not look at our sin problem and say, you know what, they're such special people to me, I'll just pretend it didn't happen.

We don't even put up with that with our judges, right? If we had a judge that started letting rapists go because he said, you know what, I'm a loving guy and he's turning rapists back out on the street, murderers back out on the street.

We wouldn't look at that judge and go, good job judge. We'll vote you in next time. That's not a, you're not a judge. An unjust God is not a God.

So we got this this huge theological problem that Paul brings us to and he's saying, okay, we have this just God and we have this sin. A just God can't deal with or put up with sin, can't just ignore sin. So what does he do? Alright. Look at this. Look at this. Okay. Acts or Romans chapter three verse 24. Yet God

in his grace freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through who? Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins, but we're still left with that problem. Okay, but how did he do that? He can't just ignore it.

Look at verse 25. Oh, verse 25 is so good. God help us get this. Help us get this, God. Verse 25, for God, this is how he did it, for God presented Jesus as you should circle, highlight, underline, star that next word, the. Really?

That word, the, yeah. Circle it in your bible. Highlight it, underline it, star it, and then the next word, sacrifice. Same thing, separate circle, separate underline, separate star. God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. Here's why I told you to circle star underline sacrifice.

Some of your translations will read a sacrifice of atonement. It's where we actually I'm gonna give you a big theological word. Yay. K. It's where we actually get this big theological word propitiation. Try to spell that out. K. Propitiation literally means a covering.

If you have a study bible, some of you may actually go down where it says in in in verse 25, you may go down there and they'll talk about this word sacrifice or sacrifice of atonement means a propitiation, a covering.

Here's what's really cool. Remember it was written two thousand years ago in Greek in a different language. The word that is used in verse 25 for sacrifice or sacrifice of atonement is the same words that used in the book of Hebrews to talk about the mercy seat.

Yeah, none of you are going, you're all looking at me like, so? You gotta get back in the time machine then with me, okay? Get in the time machine, we're gonna go back fifteen hundred years, and you're gonna see why you should go, what?

Go back fifteen hundred years, the Israelites are wandering around in the wilderness, finally they come to Mount Sinai, and there God gives them the 10 commandments, but he also gives them the instructions for the tabernacle which would later become the temple. Remember part of the tabernacle of the temple was you had the holy place that only the priest could go to, and then you had the holy of holies where the ark of the covenant sat, and on top of the ark of the covenant was the mercy seat.

And what happened with the Mercy Seat is once a year, only once a year, and only the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, they would take a sacrifice of atonement, and they would sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, and it would become a propitiation, a covering, a covering for the sin.

So, but here's the problem, imagine that my fist represents sin, okay, and this is the covering.

When the high priest would do that once a year on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and they would sprinkle that blood sacrifice, the sacrifice atonement on the mercy seat, it was a covering, but if you took away the covering, what was still there? Sin.

So guess what they had to do next year on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The high priest had to go back into the holy of holies, take the sacrifice of atonement, sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, so it became a propitiation,

a covering, but if you pull back the covering, what's still there? Sin. So guess what they had to do next year. I won't keep going because this is fifteen hundred years of history. We have to do this over and over again,

But what the Bible tells us, what's what Paul's trying to get us to understand in verse 25, what the writer of Hebrews will later try to get us to understand is Jesus was a once for all sacrifice, so that when he gave that sacrifice of atonement, it became a propitiation,

a covering, but it will never have to be done again, because now if you take that covering away, guess what's not there anymore? Sin. Your sin and my sin are gone forever. Isn't that good news? Yeah. Thank God for that.

That's why I told you to highlight and underline that word the. Remember in verse 25, it says, for God presented Jesus as the sacrifice the sacrifice of atonement, the propitiation. It doesn't say a. You see, what they used to do every year is they would give a sacrifice of atonement. They would give a propitiation,

but Paul is saying Jesus wasn't just a sacrifice, he was the sacrifice once for all. You see, if we don't understand why Jesus had to die, we don't really understand the depth of what we celebrate at Christmas and why he came. Look at the second reason why Jesus had to die. It was for a ransom.

Look at Mark chapter 10 verse 45. It says, for even the son of man, Jesus, came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a as a what? As a ransom for many. And you know what a ransom is, if someone is kidnapped,

the kidnappers may say, okay, if you wanna get them back, if you wanna free them, you have to pay a ransom. So we were we were we were hostages to what? We were hostages to sin. We were hostages to death. We were hostages to hell, and the bible says that Jesus' death ransomed ransomed

us from that. It bought us back from hell. It bought us back from death. It bought us back from our addictions. John eight says, when the son sets you free, you are free indeed. You see again why we we have to connect the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus, otherwise, the birth of Jesus doesn't really mean that much.

Look at the third reason why Jesus had to die, revelation, to reveal something. So look at Romans chapter five verse eight, but God showed or revealed, but God revealed his great love for us by sending who? Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

See see, one of the reasons that that Jesus had to die was to reveal the character of God, to reveal the love of God, and the mercy of God, and the grace of God. How did he do that? He died for us while we were sinners, while we were his enemies. Look at the fourth reason why Jesus had to die, victory.

If you've been at Rock Point, you know that a couple of months ago, we were working through this series about the devil, and one of the things we said is the devil is real. You have an enemy.

Like when you all woke up this morning, you you might have thought, well, I I don't really feel like fighting today. You don't have a choice. You're in a battle, you're in a war.

You have an enemy and he is hell bent on destroying us. John 10 says John ten ten says that enemy's only goal is to steal and kill and destroy everything that God has for you and me. So one of the reasons Jesus had to die was to give us victory over that enemy.

Look at this verse in Colossians chapter two verse 15. In this way, he, Jesus, disarms the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by, how did he do this? By his victory over them on the On the cross. Okay. Look at the fifth reason. Look at the fifth reason why Jesus had to die, relationship.

This this right here, this narrative, this story, the bible, from cover to cover, it's all about relationship.

At the very beginning of the story, we see where God creates all of this, everything in the universe, but he creates one thing in his image, only one thing in his image, that's you and me. We're the only thing created in the image of God. The angels aren't created in the image of God, nothing else in all of creation. He created you and I as human beings in the image, in his image, in the image of God. Why did he do that? Because he wanted a relationship with us, but we screwed that up,

and then God had to take the initiative to solve that problem, and so look at second Corinthians five verse 18, and all of this, meaning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, all of this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ, who brought us back into relationship through Christ,

who reconciled us back to himself through Jesus Christ. See see, why did Jesus have to die? He had to die so that he could be that, not just a propitiation, not just a sacrifice, but the sacrifice, So now when you pull back that covering, that propitiation,

there's nothing there. He had to die to take all of your sins and my sins away. He had to die to ransom us. He had to die to give us this this picture of, and revelation, and reveal the the mercy, and the grace, and the love of God. He had to die to give us victory.

Victory from hell, victory from death, victory from addictions. He had to die so that we could be in relationship again.

You see why I say that that crown of thorns belongs in the Christmas season. I know when you first see it, you're thinking you're mixing the holidays. We're not mixing the holidays. In fact, maybe you should go home and Google and try to find a little Christmas ornament that is a crown of thorns.

And maybe what you want to do is purchase that and just hang it on your Christmas tree and for now on, for years to come, when you walk by your Christmas tree and you glance over and you see that little crown of thorns hanging as an ornament, you remind yourself

the depth of what we're celebrating Christmas. That Jesus came so that thirty some years later, he could go to the cross and die for us. Remember how we utter those words, either internally we think them or we utter them out loud from the time we were children. That's not

Yeah, but take that to the other end, take that to the logical end. Okay, there was a professor

who had a class, college class, he told the students, he said, listen, there's gonna be three grades, a paper at the end of September, a pen at of October, a paper at the end of November. I do not accept late papers. So the end of September shows up, a couple of he asked for all the papers, a couple of students raise their hands, they, you know, John is like, hey, man, was on the football team, we had homecoming, I'm sorry I didn't get the paper in time,

then he's like, alright, get it to me next week. The next one, Beth, she raises her hand, she gets a little break, she's like, I didn't get it done either, I'm on the cheer squad, homecoming,

sorry professor, she's like, get it to me at end of the week. End of October comes, next paper is due, professor's asking for them to all come forward. Couple of them come up there and they're kinda sitting there, you know, a little sheepishly, and finally, you know, one of them, Bill, he says, man, I'm sorry, I had some family obligations, I didn't get my paper done,

he's like, get it to me by the end of the week, okay. And then Wendy comes up, and Wendy doesn't even have good excuses, hers are just all lame excuses, even the other students are like, give me a break, and the professor is like, get it to me by the end of the week. End of November, third paper is due.

The professor says bring your papers up. One of the students in the class raises her hand and said, professor, man, you know we had Thanksgiving holiday and it was really busy, I forgot to bring my computer home, I didn't get in, he goes, you got an F. All of sudden the class is like,

and another student kinda raises their hand now a little scared, little nervous saying, professor, I didn't get mine done either. I wasn't, he doesn't even let her finish and he said, you got an f. And it's like, Finally, some brave soul in the class said, that's not fair. The professor says, oh, you want fair?

You want fair? Okay, John, remember your late paper at the end of September? You now have an F.

Beth, remember your late paper? You have an f. Bill, remember your late paper? You now have an f. Wendy, remember your late paper? You now have an f. See, the point is is that from the time we were little, we would utter those words. That's not

fair. But if you take it to the logical end, you should thank God that things aren't fair. Because what Paul is trying to get across to us in Romans, what we celebrate at Christmas and Easter, and remember you cannot, you have to keep those linked, they're intrinsically linked, is that

we have a sin problem, not a mistake problem that we could do nothing about. And you know what was fair? Certainly not what we're getting, but we have a God who is so full of grace and love and mercy that He took the initiative to solve a problem that we could not solve. Guess what? That's not fair to God,

but he did it for us. Wow. Listen, to conclude this message, I want to invite someone to the stage, and if you've been at Rock Point for very long, how many of you have been at Rock Point back in the days when you were at Higley High School? Raise your hand. Okay. I see some of you. Okay. You may remember

this woman spoke with me once way back in those days. It was actually her birthday that day, and so you gave her a birthday cake. She had very few birthday celebrations when she was growing up, and so you as Rock Point gave her a birthday celebration that day, but she has an amazing story.

Her and I were part of a documentary years ago, she was in the documentary. She grew up here in Phoenix. She was raped when she was 13. She became a teenage mom, a drug addict, an alcoholic. She was in and out of prison. She's been shot. She's been stabbed. Her sister was actually killed by a serial killer.

And Carolyn was a story of tragedy to triumph, and so I want you to invite her to the stage. Would you just give her a warm welcome?

Man, thank you. Thank you. Let me tell you something. You're gonna wanna give her another standing ovation when you finish hearing her story because this is a woman with great courage. Because

Carolyn and I for thirteen years, we were traveling really around the country. In fact, she came up to Montana with me once and spoke. Way up in Montana.

But, Carolyn would share her story of tragedy to triumph, and one of the things you always did in those stories is you talked about that bus stop moment that changed everything for for you in those early days. Can you can you just tell us again about that first bus stop moment you had? First, I just wanna say

thank y'all. Thank you. I'm so honored. I get to stand here.

Four years ago, I walked off my post. And so yesterday and right now is the first time I stood back. So this is kind of scary. But I remember what was really scary is that that bus stop. I felt homicidal. I felt suicidal. I felt like I just was finished.

In my neighborhood, there was eight women that came up murdered by a serial killer. These are the women I drank with. I got hired with. I was in and out of jail with. I was working on the streets with and out of all them eight women, I knew four of them women personally. And one of them was my older sister, Janice.

When they found my sister, Janice, and all of my friends dead, I found myself at a bus stop. And I even felt guilty. It's like, I'm worse than any of them. And I'm out there more than any of them. That's not fair. But I'm so grateful. And it hurts me to say, the truth is they have to die for me to live.

I was at that bus stop hollering, screaming on Van Buren, right off of Van Buren on 7th Street. And I'm there. And I'm hollering and I'm screaming. And I'm having a mental breakdown. Emotional, nobody even said nothing. The whole world didn't even move. No cars was moving.

Nobody came up and say, shut up, crazy woman. Nobody said a word. And as I break and and was breaking at that bus stop, I felt god's spirit come on me and I knew that god was doing something new in me. I felt that last night. Know, and I just thank god. I thank god. And I thank god for my bus stop moment.

Well, Carolyn, and one of the things yes.

Carolyn, one of the things that they may not quite understand and what you're you're mentioning is that first bus stop moment you had. I remember you said, if you get me out of this, God, I'll go where you say to go. I'll do what you say to do, and I'll say what you say to say. And you did that for thirteen years. Yes.

But then you had a relapse. Yes. And it was heartbreaking for those that love you dearly. I mean, we spent weeks and months looking for you, and I remember when we finally found you and

ran up and we hugged each other and I I don't know if you remember but when we were driving, I was taking to an in treatment center and when we were driving there, there was a song that came on the radio.

We turned it up, and we were both just singing that at top. It was grace wins every time. Yes. Remember that? We were just singing that grace wins every time as I'm driving you to an in treatment center Mhmm. Because after thirteen years of sobriety, you had fell off the wagon again. Yes. But you were going back. And so when you're telling them that last yesterday,

was the first time after four years Yes. Four years since you've been on this stage speaking, but now to to have the courage to stand up here and share your story,

man, we just honor you for that, Carolyn. But this is why I wanted you here. When we talk about god's grace and mercy and love, you understand that in a special way, don't you? Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, Carolyn, there are some people here that maybe struggling with that.

Maybe some people watching online that are struggling with that. Can can you share a word with them? Just a word of encouragement that that what we celebrate at Christmas and what we celebrate at Easter is that this is done, that Jesus took care of it, that he took all of our sins and our brokenness.

Can you share a word with him? Amen. Why I'm so grateful right now is because I had to die physically to my pain, my shame, my guilt. I have to acknowledge. If I don't reveal it, I will never get healed from it. I have to get open. I have to get honest. It hurts me to stand here,

but at the same time, I'm grateful I get to stand here and say, you know what? I was a dropout. I got pregnant when I was 15. Oh, I was one of them smart 15 years old. I knew everything. I ran away from home. I'm so grateful. And I have this little bitty baby girl I couldn't even take care of. I abandoned her.

I left her with my dad and my stepmother. Thank god for them. But I remember just god just renewing me. I remember how it failed to relapse,

to try, fall, and get back up, fall, and get back up. Everybody said, oh, go girl and go girl and in the next couple years, here I am find myself in that broken place again. Here I am find myself in that bad, abusive relationship once again. Here I am hanging out with them people that god told me never to hang out with.

Here I am, my mother finally not looking at me with disgust because it's not that she feel that way about me. She didn't like the enemy she saw in me that was attacking her daughter. See, I got the kind of mother that when I go to jail, then back then you call Colette,

and you go to jail and you say, you have Colette calling from Maricopa County 77. I hear them say that. And then I say, hi, mama. I'm in jail. My mama say, praise god. I know where you at.

Praise god. I know. I ain't got to worry tonight. Thank you, lord. Thank you, lord. And I let all the girls in jail come and hear what my mom say when I call. And they wait on it because some of them have we had been in jail before. You know what, though? It doesn't even matter no more.

If I was it, I wasn't. If I had said it, I said it. If I did it, I did it. If I'm doing it, I'm doing it. I'm a get real with myself. See, a lot of times, when I come back, it's like everybody's fault is just, okay. Now See, other people ain't forgot about the stuff we done.

So, you know, like my brother thought my grandma forgot about him stealing the microwave. You know, but now, we gotta be careful we wanna come back in and then thank our family members and wives and husbands supposed to forgive us.

They do forgive us, but we're gonna have to build that trust back up. It's gonna take a while. If you was a cheater, you're gonna take some time. I'm not gonna trust you right quick. But God, he forgive us, and he don't hold it against us. Uh-huh. Here I am as is. Yes.

Thank you, Lord. Yeah. I'm grateful. Yeah. Well, Carolyn, thank you so much. I wanna ask you to do one more thing. Can you can you just pray,

for us? Can you pray? I know that there's some people in here that are maybe in a very broken place. Yes. I know some people that maybe feel like they're in a really good place right now, but they still look back and they can still go, oh, thank God for what you've done in my life. Can you pray for us a special prayer for us?

I need can I please do that? I need Ashley. Please, Ashley, can you please stand right there? You can do whatever you want, Carolyn. Mhmm.

I met Ashley when I when she was 13, and a 13 year old girl had met met a friend for the first time. And it was a little 13 year old girl that was molested, that never had a friend until Ashley came in my life. Ashley, I thank god for you. Thank you for holding my hand. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you and Ashley,

have repented and asked god to forgive me for my relapse. But I hurt people when I hurt myself and I apologize and I was wrong to make you hurt because I was hurting and that wasn't right And I repent, and I ask you, please. Forgive me. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. You can't thank you, beautiful.

That's my Ashley. Now if y'all wanna see me go back to jail mess with that one. But lord, anyway, father, I just thank you for this awesome opportunity of redemption. Lord, I ask that you would help us to forgive ourself. Help us to forgive us. Help us to forgive others.

Let us know lord that there's no condemnation that you have preached. You have brought us back to you. I thank you father. I ask that you would help that father that's struggling, trying to do the best he can to be a man of his house under the attacks that men are under. Lord, keep him.

And lord, help that young woman, father, that's going through that wanna do right and wanna live right, but her friends over there doing wrong and she she's confused. Lord, help us stay on your side. Lord, I'm just thank you. I ask that you strengthen us. Help us, lord, to know that you've died for our sins. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Hey, can you thank Carolyn?

Hey, as we sing this next song, would you stay standing and would you just worship God and listen to the words of this song? They are perfect for this message in this season.

You.

Better than Jesus. Hey, can we just thank Carolyn and Pat for that amazing message? Man, let us remember that that God is a God of life change and transformation. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io

for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.