CAIN AND ABEL — EXCUSES AND RESPONSIBILITY

	Well, welcome once again to The Journey.  I’m glad that you are here today, as we continue our teaching series on Cain and Abel, those of  you in Jersey City as well as those of you here in midtown Manhattan.  Over the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at this relationship between the first two brothers mentioned in the Bible, Cain and Abel.  We have been looking at some of the dynamics that existed in their relationship and in their lives and how that relates to us.  The first week, we looked at the dynamics between selfishness and sacrifice.  And last week we looked at the dynamic between obedience and stubbornness.  And today we are going to look at this dynamic between living a life of responsibility and living a life that’s filled with excuses.  Now, if we are honest, if we are all honest, we have to admit that we all make excuses.  And I’ve noticed that one of the areas that we tend to make excuses a lot is when we are late for work.  Now, I’m sure none of you are ever late for work, or ever make any excuses about being late to work.  But studies show one out of every four Americans make up fake excuses as to why they are late to work, and the number one excuse that people have is transportation.  Whether they are stuck in traffic.  Stuck on the subway.  Stuck on the pass train.  That’s the number one excuse that people use.  I don’t know if you have ever done this before, but sometimes if you know  you are going to be late for work, and you run down to the train and as soon as you hop on the train, the doors close, you hope the train gets stuck in the station so that you can use it as an excuse.  Right?  Then you get to work and you say—I’m sorry I’m late.  My train was stuck in the station.  Even know the train was only stuck for 30 seconds, and you were 30 minutes late for work, but we like to use that as an excuse.   I’m sure none of you has ever done that.  But recently, I found a list of some of the weirdest excuses that were actually used and actually told to bosses as a reason for being late.  One of them, a guy actually told his boss this—I’m not actually late.  I came in earlier.  Saw you weren’t here and went out looking for you.  I don’t know if I would try that.  I don’t know if it would work.  Someone else said, she said this to her boss—I dreamed I was fired, so I didn’t both to get out of bed.  And then another one that was really used, and this is my personal favorite—I thought you would rather I sleep than come to work tired.  And you can try that on your boss this week.  I don’t know if it would work, but if we are honest, we make excuses whether they are true or not, because it’s more convenient and it’s easier on us to blame something or someone else for the mistakes that we make in life, for what’s going on in our own lives.  And sometimes we make excuses, and it’s pretty inconsequential, but if we live a life where we are continually making excuses that leads us down a dangerous path.  And we see this in the story of Cain and Abel, in the book of Genesis.  Cain is the older brother.  Abel is the younger brother.  And this is a tragic story of how making excuses can lead to destruction.  In fact, to give you some background, on the story of Cain and Abel, Cain, the other brother is a farmer. Abel, the younger brother, is a shepherd.  And one day God asks them to bring an offering before Him.  And Abel, the younger brother, brings his very best from his flock to offer to God as a sacrifice, as an offering, and God accepts it and is pleased.  Now, the older brother, Cain, brings from his crops, not his best but his second best, what is left over at the end.  And it disappoints God and God rejects Cain’s offering.  And that’s where Cain makes his first excuse.  He makes an excuse.  He doesn’t take responsibility for bringing a second rate offering, instead he makes an excuse blames his brother, Abel, and begins to get mad at his brother.  This is where our story picks up.  If you have your message notes, you can find the passage at the top of the front page.  It says this, “Later Cain suggested to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out in the field’ and while they were there, Cain attacked and killed his brother.  Afterwards, the Lord asked Cain, ‘Where is your brother?  Where is Abel?’  ‘I don’t know’ Cain retorted.  ‘Am I supposed to keep track of him wherever he goes?”  This is Cain’s second excuse. But the Lord said, “What have you done?  Listen, your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.  You are hereby banished from the ground you have defiled from your brother’s blood.  No longer will it yield abundant crops for you, no matter how long you work.  From now on, you will be a homeless fugitive on the earth, constantly wandering from place to place.”  You see, in the story, Cain makes two excuses.  He brings a second rate offering and then says—hey, it’s not my fault, I brought the second best to you.  It’s not my fault.  It must be Abel’s fault.  That excuse leads to a really big sin, the sin of murder.  And then after he murders his brother, he still doesn’t take responsibility.  He makes another excuse and says—I’m not responsible for where my brother is.  You see, Cain refused to take responsibility for his actions and as a result, God cursed him.  And as we begin today I want to give you a definition of responsibility so you know exactly what we are talking about here.  Here’s our definition.  Responsibility is being accountable for the decisions that I make.  Responsibility is being accountable for the decisions for the decisions that I make.  Being responsible is doing what you know you should do.  Being irresponsible is knowing what you should do, but making an excuse as to why you didn’t do it.  You see, every day of our lives, we get to make a choice, a decision about whether we are going to make excuses for the way we live our life, make excuses over why our life has turned out, or whether we are going to take control of our life by taking responsibility for the decisions that we make.  And there are consequences for whatever we choose whether you choose to make an excuse, or whether you choose to take responsibility.  And here I want to lift out some of the consequences.  These are the bullets in your notes.  
	If I choose to make excuses, it leads to me being selfish while responsibility leads to me being reliable.  Excuses lead to being selfish.  Responsibility leads to being reliable.  Understand, when I make an excuse, I am thinking of no one else but myself.  I am thinking of myself.  I am trying to get all of the responsibility and all of the blame off of me and onto someone, or something else.  That kind of person is not reliable.  Because when the chips are down, they are going to blame someone else.  They are not going to take responsibility, but a person who takes responsibility, that person is reliable because they’re not making a decision just on what’s best for them.  That’s the first consequence.  
The second consequence is this—excuses come with being fatalistic while responsibility leads a person to choices.  If I make excuses, I am being fatalistic.  If I’m responsible, it leads to choices.  Here’s what I mean.  A person who makes excuses is saying that they can’t change, they can’t effect the direction in which their life is going.  You know, I can’t help it.  The circumstances conspired against me and I am trapped by them. And so that’s my excuse as to why my life is the way that it is.  That’s my excuse as to why that happened.  It’s like, I’m a twig on the crest of a  mighty wave.  I’m just being carried along in life and there is nothing I can do about it.  So I don’t make changes to my life, I make excuses.  But a person who takes responsibility has choice.  They realize that they have the power in the decisions that they make today to change the future.  
The third consequence of excuses versus responsibility is this:  excuses come with fear, and responsibility leads to courage.  Excuses come with fear, but responsibility leads to courage.  We make the excuses because we are afraid.  We make excuses out of fear.  We are afraid of the consequences of taking responsibility.  For instance, if I’m late to work, I make an excuse because I’m afraid of what the consequences of taking responsibility for my actions would be.  In another scenario, if I’m going through a breakup in a relationship, even a divorce, I’m afraid to take responsibility for my part in it, because if I say I’m partly responsible, I did something wrong, it means that I have to change.  I can’t keep being the same person.  But you see, this is what happens.  If we let fear get the best of us, and we say it’s someone else’s fault, we keep ourselves from changing, because if it’s not our fault, if we have no responsibility, there is no need for us to change at all.  But when we have the courage to say—I’m responsible, it leads to change.  That leads us to the fourth consequence.
Excuses come with regret, but responsibility leads to growth.  You see, Cain makes two excuses.  He makes an excuse for his poor sacrifice—it’s not my fault.  It’s my brother’s fault.  He makes an excuse for murdering his brother.  Hey, am I responsible for where my brother is?  And as a result, he has to deal with some pretty stiff consequences.  He has to live with regret.  You see, an immature person makes excuses and then gives into them.  They yield to them.  A mature person, you still have to deal with the temptation of excuses, but you find through the excuses, you take responsibility for your life and your choices, and when you do that, you begin to grow, even into a better person.  Listen, there is not a lot you can do with some of the things that are going on in your life.  You can’t help who your parents are.  You can’t help who you were born to.  Some of the natural talents that you were given, when you were born.  You can’t help your height, or maybe some of the different, or the way you look.  There are some things you can’t change.  But for the most part, everything else, you have an effect on.  You are responsible for.  So the important question becomes—what am I going to do with the life that I have been given.  Am I going to stand on the sidelines making excuses as life carries me wherever it wants, or am I going to take control of my life, take responsibility and get into the game?
Video.
Well, I want to take the rest of our time together today to look at five areas of our life we need to take responsibility for.  I want to look at five actions that will help us take control of our lives, no longer making excuses, letting life carry us in the direction that it goes and making excuses for it.  Five decisions that we can make that will give us control of our lives.  Five areas we are responsible for.
1.	I am responsible for whenever I say yes.  I am responsible for whenever I say yes.  Whenever you say yes to someone, you make an agreement, you are then responsible for following through and doing whatever it is that you agreed to.  Now, I want to be clear, you aren’t responsible if you say no.  If someone comes and asks you to do something and it’s not something that you feel comfortable with, you can say no.  When you say no, you are not responsible.  So you have the freedom to say no when you are asked, except with the exception of saying no to God.  And we are going to talk about that a little bit later.  Understand, when you say yes, you are then responsible for following through with doing what you say.  Look at what Matthew 5:37 says.  I want you to read this verse out loud together.  This is what Jesus is saying on Sermon on the Mount.  Ready?  It says this.  “All you need to say is yes if you mean yes, or no if you mean no.  Anything more than this comes from the evil one.”  You see, there are two important principles that Jesus is teaching.  First of all, responsibility means saying it and actually doing it.  See, when you say yes to someone, you then have an obligation to do what you said that you would do.  You see, some of us here have an issue with this.  Most say yes to someone, but we won’t follow through and do what we said we would do, for one reason or another, we will say yes and then we won’t do it.  And the problem is, in God’s eyes, when we do that, that’s a sin.  Now, sometimes we’ll make this claim—well, you know, I really didn’t put my name down, or I didn’t write it in blood, I didn’t swear on the Bible.  Jesus says when you say yes, that’s it.  You made an agreement.  Following through with your yes, and let your yeses be yes.  That’s the first principle.  
2.	The second principle is just as important.  That is—it’s okay to say no.  Jesus said let your no be no.  Some of us have a problem with saying yes too much.  Those of us who do, we are called people pleasers, right?  I’m a people pleaser.  I hate to say no to anybody.  I just want to say yes all the time.  And some of you are there.  Somebody asks you—yes, yes, I’ll do this, yes, yes, yes, and pretty soon you have overwhelmed yourself.  You see, when you are a people pleaser and you say yes too many times, (1) you do yourself a disservice because you pile way too much on yourself, and you get anxiety and worry because you have too much to do.  But (2), you do a disservice to other people because you say yes so much, you can’t fulfill all of your obligations and let other people down.  Look at what Paul writes in Galatians 1:10, he says, this is one of my life verses that I remember.  It says, “Obviously, I am not trying to be a people pleaser.” Paul said, I make people upset with the things that I do.  He said—I’m not a people pleaser.  “Instead, I am trying to please God.  If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.”  I think one of the things that we need to learn to apply to our lives is what I call the “cringe factor”.  You know what the cringe factor is?  It means that whenever someone asks you to do something, and you feel the cringe, your skin begins to crawl, and the voice in the back of your head says—don’t do it, don’t do it, you should say no.  Don’t say yes.  I’m not talking about sometimes you get asked to do something that you should do and it’s hard and then we will cringe a little bit, but we know we should.  I’m talking about those times when you are asked to do something and that voice inside of your head tells you—you shouldn’t be doing this.  Or you begin to cringe a little bit and there is a little bit of doubt in your mind.  That happens.  Maybe you are asked to go out on a date with someone and this person is very attractive, but you also know they don’t share your same standards and they don’t share your faith and you get the cringe, you feel the skin crawl, you hear that voice saying—don’t do it.  You should say no, then.  Or maybe you get this great business opportunity and you know it could make a lot of money, but you know the person you would have to partner with maybe lacks some ethics or morals, and you begin to feel a little cringe and you hear the voice saying—don’t do it.  In those situations you shouldn’t do it.  You see, to say no means we have to be strong enough to disappoint some people, it also means that we have to be strong enough to say no to something that even know it might have a lot of good things, there is some part of this that you are just not comfortable with.  If you don’t learn to say no, you are going to regret it in the end.  Have you ever been in a situation where you didn’t listen to that little voice in your head and you felt a cringe, but you didn’t listen to it, but you went ahead and made an agreement and said yes, anyway.  Then you lived to regret it.  If you have ever ignored the cringe factor, you know what I’m talking about.  You see, mature people won’t allow themselves to say yes to something when part of themselves is saying—I should say, no, it’s not right.  So, number one, you are responsible whenever you say yes.  
The second area that we are responsible for is this, I am responsible for my response to difficult circumstances.  I am responsible for my response to difficult circumstances.  Now, let’s be clear.  You are not responsible for all of the difficult circumstances that enter your life.  You aren’t responsible for all the things that happen.  There are things that happen in your life that are completely out of your control.  Some of them are really bad things.  It just happens in life.  I’m sorry that they happen, but they are out of your control.  But what you are responsible for is how you respond to those circumstances when they enter your life.  You see, in a poker game there are two contributing factors to whether you win or whether you lose.  First of all, there are the cards that you are dealt.  And then number two is how you play the cards that you were dealt.  You see, it’s the same way in life.  It’s the cards that you are dealt in life, the circumstances that you have in life, that you have no control over, but it’s also how you respond and how you play the life that you have been given.  Now, let me tell you.  Let me tell you what someone who is immature, someone who is irresponsible does.  They get the cards that they have been dealt in life, and their response is—oh, woe is me.  Look at this.  There is no way that I can make anything out of this, and they start making excuses for their life.  I’m not going to be successful.  It’s not my fault because I was deal these cards in life.  Let me tell you what a winner does, someone who is mature, someone who is responsible.  What they say is—look, these are the cards I have been dealt in life.  What can I make out of this?  What can I do to make the most out of what I have been given?  Listen, we are all going to face failure, disappointment, tragedy, loss, it’s unavoidable.  What distinguishes successful people with character with others is how they respond under pressure, how they respond during difficult times.  Look at our next passage, James 1:3.  It says, “You know that under pressure your faith life is forced to the open and shows its true colors.”  You see, the true measure of a person is found in how they deal with life, how they deal with difficulties, circumstances and disappointment.  You don’t find out what’s on the inside when you have smooth sailing.  You find out during the tough times.  It’s the person who loses their job and has a choice of quitting and giving up or taking the steps to get better so that it doesn’t happen again.  The person who goes through a divorce and has the choice of getting bitter or getting better.  It’s a choice of making an excuse and taking responsibility.  Understand that the reality is nothing good is going to happen in your life until you are able to deal with the difficult circumstances that are inevitably going to enter your life.  If you can learn to deal with the bad, then you are ready for something good to happen.  But until you can deal with the bad, the good things aren’t going to come.  So don’t go through life trying to avoid difficult circumstances or using those difficult circumstances as excuses as to why you aren’t doing well.  God wants to use those challenges to grow you, to shape you into the person He wants you to be.  Look at what James 1:4 says, “So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely.  For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”  So there are two ways for you to live life.  There are two ways to deal with difficult circumstances.  You can choose, easy hard or hard easy.  You can live your life easy hard, or live your life hard easy.  This is what that means.  When you deal with the difficult circumstances, you can choose the easy route first.  That means that I make an excuse.  The reason I’m not succeeding, the reason I’m not reaching my dreams is because of these circumstances.  And it’s easy because you’re not taking any blame or any responsibility initially, but what happens is, you deal with the hard part later on.  The hard part of not making your dreams. Of living a harder life.  A disappointed life.  And if you choose easy first, the harder is going to last a long time.  But you can choose another way, and it’s to do the hard part first.  That means, I’m stepping forward, I’m taking the responsibility, I’m going to make the choices now to prepare for my future.  Yeah, it’s a little bit more difficult in the front end, but the easy part comes later on, the part where God blesses you and it lasts so much longer.  So, I am responsible for when I say yes, and I’m responsible for my response to difficulties.
3.	I am responsible for my growth.  Write that down.  I am responsible for my growth.  Now, this is an important point.  Because no one else is responsible for your growth other than you.  Now, I’m talking about your growth professionally, intellectually, physically, emotionally, relationally, and especially spiritually.  You see, other people cannot force you to get better.  Other people cannot force you to grow into decisions that you have to make.  You have to invest in ourselves and our own growth.  If you are still waiting for someone to come into your life who is going to make you grow, who is going to take you to the next level, you are going to be waiting for a long time, because the world doesn’t work that way.  You have to take responsibility.  And this is especially true when it comes to spiritual growth.  You see, I’ve met some people who have come to The Journey Church and they have come to me and they have said—I wasn’t growing at my last church, so I’m glad I found The Journey, so I’ll have a place where I can grow.  And that always makes me go—uh, oh.  Because I picture them sitting there saying—I’m ready to grow now.  I’m just going to sit here and it’s just going to come to me and I’m going to grow.  You are responsible for my growth.  You are going to make me grow.  But then there are other people who have been here for a while and say—I’ve grown while I’ve been here at The Journey, but over the last month, I haven’t been growing.  So I’m going to leave the church to find another church that will help me grow.  And what they are saying is, you’ve got to make me grow.  I’m going to be honest—there is nothing as the pastor that I can do to make you grow.  There is nothing that we can do as a church that will make you grow.  Now as a church, this is our commitment to you, our promise is what we try to do is to provide the right environment, the right opportunities for you to grow, to give you the tools to grow, so that you can begin to take responsibility for your own growth.  To show you how to do a quiet time.  How to share your faith.  How to read the Bible.  And provide opportunities for growth groups where you can get around other people that will help you grow, and do those things.  But as a church, we can’t force you to grow.  We can’t make you grow.  You have to do that yourself.  It’s sort of like a baby.  When you have a baby, you put the baby in a high chair and then you have to feed the baby.  That baby doesn’t feed itself.  You do the little thing—here comes the airplane, open up.  And you feed the baby and it grows.  But eventually, you hope the baby learns to feed itself.  It’s cute to feed a baby, but it’s not cute to feed a 42 year old, is it?  You know—here it comes.  It wouldn’t be cute.  There would be something wrong.  This person hasn’t grown.  He hasn’t matured at all.  He’s still being fed by his parents.  He’s 42 years old.  That’s not right.  But some of us are that way spiritually, if we are very honest.  You know, we are like—I’m still a baby, feed me, feed me.  I’m not going to take any responsibility for feeding myself, and when we do that, we are going to stop growing.  Let me ask you an honest question.  Do you want to grow this summer?  Do you want to grow this summer?   Do you want to be closer to God, do you want to be a better person at the end of August then you are today at the beginning of June?  Is that something that you want?  Or are you thinking to yourself—I’m just going to glide through the summer.  I don’t want to grow, I’m going to glide.  And a lot of you probably haven’t even thought about it, if you’re honest.  You’re like—I hope I grow.  Maybe God will give me something over the summer, I’ll trip and accidentally grow this summer.  I hope that happens.  I don’t know. But have you thought about it.  Have you made a decision that—hey, I want to grow this summer.  I want to be a better person at the end of the summer than I am now.  If you do, you have to take it seriously, and you have to take responsibility for it.  So I want to challenge you to make the decision to grow.  One of the things that we have been talking about are The Journey’s summer growth groups.  And they kick off really soon.  And when you get into a growth group here at The Journey, it’s a group of 12-15 other people where you study all different kinds of topics, but you are challenged to grow.  You have other people around you.  You’re praying together.  You are reading and studying.  You are learning more about the Bible, and you are going to grow if you get in.  Now, some of you are thinking that’s a risk for me to join a group.  There are going to be people in there that I don’t know.  Isn’t that a risk?  But yes, but let me tell you this.  You have to take risks to grow.  A risk is simply taking one step beyond where you are currently comfortable.  And if you want to grow, you are going to have to take at least one step beyond where you are currently comfortable.  For some of you that’s to say—you know what, I will be in a growth group this summer. Now some of you are making excuses as to whether or not to be in a growth group.  It’s summer. . .my kids. . .it’s crazy. . .I don’t know if I’m going to be able to be there.  You don’t have to be there every week.  You can be there when you can be there.  Then even if some of you are going to be gone half the summer, if so that’s okay.  We have two or three special groups that are going to be meeting in the park and you can just drop in any time during the summer.  You can sign up for them.  They are individual lessons that are disconnected, so you can drop in and meet people any time and be in a group.  But you have to take responsibility for it.  We can’t make you grow.  We can’t make you be in a group.  You have to say—I want to grow, and I’m going to take that step.  I’m going to take that risk.  Look at what Colossians 2:7 says, “Let your roots grow down into Him and draw up nourishment from Him so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you are taught.”  No excuses, make the decision to grow this summer.  Get in a group.  Then. . .
4.	The fourth thing I’m responsible is this—I’m responsible for the people around me.  I’m responsible for the people around me.  Now, a lot of times we resist this principle because as Americans, our tendency is to think this—I’m responsible for me.  You are responsible for you.  Let me take care of myself.  You take care of yourself.  But if you look at the story of Cain and Abel, we have been looking at it over the last few weeks, God makes it very clear that we are responsible for other people.  He expects us to be responsible for them.  You see, in our story, after Cain kills his brother, God confronts Cain about it.  And this is what He says, “Afterwards, the Lord asks Cain, ‘Where is your brother?  Where is Abel’  ‘I don’t know’, Cain retorted.  ‘Am I supposed to keep track of him wherever he goes?’”  You see, Cain is asking God—am I supposed to be responsible for my brother?  Am I my brother’s keeper?  And I imagine he is saying this sarcastically.  He’s making an excuse and God’s response is—yes, you are responsible.  I wouldn’t have asked you if you weren’t responsible.  You need to understand this about following Jesus, about being a Christian.  In God’s eyes, you are responsible for the people around you.  If you are a follower of Jesus, you are.  I want you to turn to the person sitting next to you and I want you to say this—I am responsible for you.  Go ahead and do that right now.  I am responsible for you.  Now, turn to the person you just said that to, and say—great, can I have $5?  Because you might as well take advantage of it if they are going to be responsible for you.  Look at what Jesus says about this in Matthew 22.  You have heard this before.  Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  And what does He mean?  He means the well-being of neighbors should be just as important to you as the well-being of yourself.  You see, Cain was responsible for the physical well-being of his brother.  And did you know that we are responsible for the spiritual well-being of people around us?  You see if there is someone in your life who doesn’t know God, that there is something in your life who is a long ways from God, they don’t know how great it is to have God’s presence and power in their life, and they are looking toward an eternity separated from God.  If there are those people in your life, then you are responsible for their spiritual well-being.  You are responsible for what you do, or how you live your life in a way that will help draw them closer to God.  You see, one day, I’m afraid I’m going to stand before God and I’m afraid the first question He is going to ask me is the question He asked Cain.  He asked Cain, “Cain, where is your brother, Abel?”  I’m afraid I’m going to stand before God and God is going to say—Kerrick, where is Katherine.  Where is Kim?  Where is Bill?  Where are the people that you work with?  I’m going to say—well, God, you know, I just took care of myself.  I did what I had to do  to get to Heaven.  You know, I said yes to you.  I took care of myself.  Am I really responsible for them?  And God is going to say—yes.  Yes you are responsible for them.  Why do you think I put you in their lives.  You had a relationship with Me. You were close to Me.  They were a long ways away.  They didn’t know Me.  It wasn’t an accident that I put you near them so that you could live your life and you could do whatever you could in your life to draw them closer to Me.  It wasn’t an accident.  You are responsible for them.  Who are the people in your life who are living a long ways from God?  That God has put you around?  At work, at school, in your apartment, in your family?  Is it possible that God put you in their life in order for you to help drawn them closer to God?  So that you can help them find the most meaningful relationship they will ever have in their life and that’s the relationship with God.  Beginning next week, we are kicking off our new summer teaching series, and it’s called God on Film.  In fact, when you came in today, you should have received 10 God on Film invites.  If you have those, go ahead and pull those out.  On the front it says, 10 possible ways to use the invites, for those of you who lack imagination on how to invite your friends.  But we are kicking off this brand new series called God on Film and we are looking at some of the biggest blockbuster movies of the entire summer.  And these movies have different themes.  What we want to do is take the themes of these movies and redeem them, find what’s spiritual and then find out what God, what the Bible has to say about some of these different things.  We have always had a great time.  A lot of people come because it’s a lot of fun, but it’s also very meaningful.  One of the reasons why we do God on Film is to give you an opportunity to be responsible for the people in your life, people who don’t know God, but you can invite them to be a part of the series, because they will come because they are familiar with the movies and it’s a lot of fun.  And we are going to do something next week that we did last year and worked really well, and we had a lot of fun with, we are going to give a free movie ticket to every first time guest in the metro New York area who comes to the kick off of God on Film next Sunday.  And we are also going to give a free movie ticket to  you  if you invite them to come with you.  So we will give a free movie ticket to everyone who invites a friend to come with them, and to every first time guest who come.  And we do this.  I mean, it’s fun and you can go see some of the movies that we are going to be talking about, but also, it’s an opportunity for you to be responsible for the people who are in your life, for you to invite them to church.  For you to help find people in your life who are a long ways from God and help bring them a step closer to God.  In the end, I am responsible for my yeses, when I say yes, and I’m responsible for how I respond to difficult circumstances, and I’m responsible for my growth and I am responsible for the people around me.  But in the end, I am most responsible for this last thing.
5.	I am responsible for my response to God.  The most important responsibility in my life is how I respond to God.  When God gives me an opportunity to do the right thing.  When God gives me an opportunity to use my life to make a difference in someone else’s life, to serve someone, just to give my life in a way that honors Him, what is my response to God?  I mentioned earlier that you are responsible if you say yes, but sometimes when the circumstances aren’t right and you know it’s not best to say yes, you can say no.  But what I want you to understand is it’s never okay to say no to God.  Because God always has your best interest in mind.  God always has the very best for you.  He knows what’s best for you.  He knows the best way for your future to go.  Anytime we say no to God, we are saying no to the very best for our life.  We need to say yes to God.  So here’s the other thing about God, excuses don’t work on God.  They don’t.  You can’t tell God you were stuck in the subway train.  He doesn’t buy it.  He knows that you weren’t.  You can’t even tell God—I didn’t know that you wanted me to do this.  Because you see, God knows our heart.  God knows our mind.  He knows what we are thinking.  He knows everything about us.  Look at what Proverbs 24:12 says.  It says, “Don’t try to avoid responsibility by saying you didn’t know about it.  For God knows all hearts and He sees you.  He keeps watch over your soul and He knows you knew.  He will judge all people according to what they have done.”  You see, we can fool people.  We can make excuses and we can throw off responsibility and blame on other people.  But we can’t fool God.  We can give excuses and get away from God.  So in the end, we will be responsible to God.  See, the most important decision we will ever make, the decision that will determine our eternity, that we will live with eternity with, is the decision as to whether or not we will believe in and follow Jesus Christ.  You see, the Bible says that we can’t save ourselves.  No matter how good we live our life, no matter how good a person we try to be, we can’t earn our way to Heaven.  The Bible says the reason we can’t is because of the sin in our lives, because of all of the times we messed up, all of the mistakes we have.  We carry them around our shoulders like the weight of sin.  And it prevents us from experiencing God in our life now, and it prevents us from earning our way into Heaven.  But the Bible says that God saw our situation and He loves us so much that He made an incredible decision.  He made an incredible offer to offer to us.  Listen, there is one thing that you no longer have to be responsible for.  There is one thing that you don’t have to be responsible for.  I will take the responsibility away from you—that is God says you no longer have to be responsible for your sin.  You don’t have to be responsible for the mistakes.  God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and as He did that, Jesus took upon Himself all of our sin.  He took upon Himself all of our mistakes, all of our mess ups, He took responsibility from that away from us, off our shoulders and He took it upon Himself.  Jesus could have said—hey, this isn’t my sin.  These aren’t my mistakes.  I don’t have to take responsibility for this.  But He didn’t do that.  He stepped up to the plate.  He took responsibility where we couldn’t take responsibility.  And because He did that, we can spend eternity in Heaven with God.  We can experience God in our lives, right now.  All  we have to do is believe in Him, say yes to Him and follow Him.  You see, we don’t have to be responsible for our sin.  But we are responsible for the decision we make to say yes to Jesus and to follow Him.  And if Jesus decided He would take responsibility for my sin, I have no excuse left not to say yes to Him and to follow Him.  Look at our last verse.  It’s found in Romans 3:25.  I want us to read it out loud together.  Ready?  “For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins.  We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed His blood, sacrificing His life for us.  God was being entirely fair and just when He did not punish those who sin.”  Let’s bow our heads and pray together.
With your head bowed and your eyes closed, I want to challenge you over the next few moments just to get serious with God for a moment.  All God to look at your life and examine your life, because there are a lot of us here who are living a life making excuses.  Making excuses for sin in our life.  Making excuses for saying no to God.  Making excuses for not reaching out to other people.  Making excuses because our life isn’t the way that we want it to be.  Let today be the day when the excuses stop, you step forward and take responsibility for your life, and you say yes to Jesus.  There are some of you who are here who have never said yes to Jesus before, and you are walking around with the burden and responsibility for your sins and mistakes on your shoulders.  If today you want to turn that over to God and let Him take responsibility for that, maybe you want to pray in your heart this prayer as I pray it out loud.
Father, I am carrying around all of my sin, all of my mess ups on my shoulders.  But I believe that Jesus died on the cross to take responsibility for my sins away from me, to forgive me.  So today, God, all excuses end.  I’m saying  yes to You.  Take responsibility for my sin away from me.  Forgive me and allow me to experience You in my life.  Today, I’m saying yes to You.  
There are some of us here today who have excuses in other areas.  Maybe we aren’t doing what God wants us to do.  We are dealing with a certain sin in our life.  
Maybe there is somebody that God wants us to reach out to and help grow closer to Him.  Right now, with your eyes still closed, I want you to find those cards, the invite cards to God on Film that we talked about earlier.  I just want you to hold those in your hand.  Grab them in your hand and hold them, because I want to pray for you right now.
God, there are a lot of us here today who have friends, or co-workers, or family members who are a long way from You, but You have us in their lives for a reason.  God, this week, give us opportunities, give us the right words to say so that we can invite them to church with us next week, so that we can help them grow closer to You.  God, today, in my life, and in our lives, the excuses stop.  And we say yes to You.  We pray this in Jesus’ name.  Amen.
This sermon transcript is a free resource provided by Nelson Searcy and Church Leader Insights.  For other resources visit www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com.
	
Nelson Searcy is the founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church in New York City. The Journey is an innovative, multi-cultural, multi-site church in Manhattan and Jersey City.  The Journey is one of the fastest growing churches in the United States and was recognized by Outreach Magazine in 2006 as one of the Top 25 Innovated Churches in America.  The church is recognized for its creativity, media and relevant approach to life changing teaching. Nelson is also the founder of www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com - a website devoted to resourcing pastors and church leaders.