Well, it is good to be with you all. Mitch shared a little bit about me, but I am Andy Lutz, pastor of Edgewood Baptist Church in Anderson, Indiana. That's near Indianapolis. And so I wish my wife could be with me. I've been married nearly 28 years. My wife's name is Heather. She is more than my better half, so if I give any advice to young guys, marry up. So it goes well. But we have our annual Winter Youth Retreat on Thursday. next week and so she teaches eighth grade science and was unable to take off to come to this one and to be able to go to that one so usually at youth retreats I'm a Neal I'm the guy who has to get everybody where they're going and I bring in the speakers so it's a different role for me this weekend to get to come and to minister God's Word to you but I'm excited to be here just a few I have three children and almost two son-in-laws. two daughters, and they're both graduated from college, and one is married, lives just a couple hours away from us. The other one is getting married in May, and she lives right now, she's at home, but when she gets married, obviously that won't happen. So they're getting married in May, we're looking forward to that, and excited as I've come to this. It's been a long time since I've been here, I'm not sure I know that the last time I was here, Baltimore Ravens were in the Super Bowl, and I've told several, Joe Flacco was quarterback. He's now the old backup guy in Indianapolis. Kids were all wearing Joe Flacco jerseys. If you had them now, you can get them cheap in Indianapolis. Then I have a son who is at Cedarville University and he is a sophomore there. So that's a little bit, but I want to kind of walk through what the Lord has done in my life and how he has brought me to himself and how he has brought me here. So if you have your Bibles, if you'll turn to Galatians 2.20, It should be a pretty familiar verse to a lot of you who've probably grown up in church. But in Galatians 2.20, Paul writes, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Try to come back to that in a little bit, but that verse has been very instrumental, not just in conversion, but even growing in grace in my life, learning what it means that I have been crucified with Christ. And so my testimony is one of God taking a good little boy, and good is in parentheses. We know that there's none good, but just go with me for a little bit. Don't correct me yet. But a good little boy who grew up in a good Christian home, went to a Christian elementary school, went to a good Reformed Baptist church, The most I got in trouble for as a little child, with a few exceptions, was being incredibly terribly shy. I got spanked every Sunday for not saying hi to somebody and hiding behind my mom. I was painfully shy. I still am what I would describe as introverted and not extroverted. I don't get energy out of people. They suck it out of me to be in front of them. So that's the way I am, but that's I still love people. I love being in my job and ministering to them. So I got in a lot of trouble and my mom helped me to not be so shy with the rod. So that's how that went. But that good little boy in that good little home, in that good little church, in that good little school, God taking that good little boy and doing the miraculous, tremendous, desperate thing that I needed, and that is giving me grace. I think a lot of times when you grow up in church, you think, my testimony is not that great. You go off to college, and I'd hear of all these people that miraculously, they were converted, and they were out of drugs, and out of alcoholism, and out of all of these things, and praise God for that. But everyone who is converted, you do not ease into conversion. You must be born of God. It requires grace, no one earns it. So I grew up in a Christian home and I'm just gonna list a few things and try to help you as you try to understand your need of grace and what grace looks like and how this is. Christian homes are a blessing, but they do not save you. I was raised in a Christian home. I was raised in a pastor's home. You know, when Paul tells his testimony and he talks about his works as kind of the BC before Christ days, you know, I was born of the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. I was circumcised on the eighth day. He can list all these things that everybody would say those are wonderful things. They were attached to Judaism. Well, even within Christianity, our works don't save us. Just because your parents are Christian, just because you've grown up in a good church, does not mean you're a Christian. And sometimes you have to come to understand that. You think, well, surely I'll just kind of ease into it. Good churches are essential. They're so important. They're so vital. We'll look at that a little bit in the book of Ephesians when we get there, but they don't save you. The people who grow up in church, many of them God does choose to save. He does work in their life. We know that he works through the preaching of his word. That's a means of grace. And so if you're completely absent from that, that's a bad thing. But just because you're here in church, It's not the same thing as being saved. I was brought up in a Reformed Baptist church, not just a church, not just a Baptist church, it was a Reformed Baptist church, it was a confessional Reformed Baptist church. It's the same church I'm the pastor of now. Mitch already hinted at that, but there are people that I minister to that changed my diaper. You want to talk about a difficult transition into ministry. That was my first year and a half of having to have these people who had changed my diaper now realize that I'm pastoring them and now I've done many of their funerals and so it's come full circle. But that's the context. I didn't know that I would ever end up that way but I've been in that church, remained in that church, have been blessed by that church. I was taught the boys and girls catechism along with our parrot. Mitch probably remembers that, but we were always taught, you know, who made you? God. What else did God make? God made all things. And my mom would teach us that as children. We also had a little parrot that she would teach that to, and he would, you know, who made you? God. And then the bird would add things. I don't know, it was like it had a bird brain, but it would add things. And he'd go, yes, he did. God's a good boy. And so he didn't get in trouble for that. I would have. but he could answer a few of them and I'm very thankful for that upbringing. I didn't know anything different and I'm glad about that. I was spared a lot of pain and a lot of misery from those who were brought up and are allowed to enter into sin and scar their life and harm themselves and harm relationships and there's a blessing to it and I understand that blessing. But I wasn't saved until I was in high school and I was about 14, so it was right before high school. And I had been in that home and in that church all 14 years. That home didn't save me. That church didn't save me. Over 5,000 days without those things making any difference in my relationship with God. likely, I did the math, because I was an accounting major, so that's what we do, 1,500 sermons, not including all the conferences and retreats that I would have attended, likely 1,500 sermons that didn't make a difference in my life. I sung approximately 3,000 hymns. and songs that made no difference. You get the math, right? Robert Murray McShane wrote a hymn that echoes those 14 years. I once was a stranger to grace and to God. I knew not my danger and felt not my load. Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, Jehovah said, can you was nothing to me. I oft read with pleasure to soothe or engage Isaiah's wild measure and John's simple page, but even when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree, Jehovah said, can you? Seemed nothing to me. I wasn't rebellious. I answered all the questions in Sunday school. I knew I wasn't fighting it. I was more like what's described in the book of Revelation as neither hot nor cold. Lukewarm. It's not what God desires. There were some warning signs that I was not truly good. I did get in really big trouble. I think I was about four years old when I was learning the catechism question, and I got in really big trouble because the first question that we got to where it became a problem was, who was the first man? You guys all know the answer to that, right? Anybody? I couldn't say that for whatever reason. I went through every superhero I knew. Who was the first man? Superman. Who was the first man? Give the right answer. Spider-Man. The answer is Adam. Who was the first man? Incredible Hulk. I went through, I have no idea exactly what I was thinking, but already my sin nature was beginning to show. Eventually, it got to the point where I had to get spanked for every wrong answer. This went on for like 15 minutes. So I wasn't perfect. And then we got to the next question, who was the first woman? You would think I would have learned my lesson, and so I did, and I said Wonder Woman. So that nearly tore my hind end apart. But along with that, I won Bible sword drills. Do you guys still ever do those? We do those in Sunday school, different things like that. I got a gold star on my poster for attendance and bringing my Bible and all those little things that you do. didn't save me. I also would say religious experiences don't save you. I remember when I was in elementary school I would ask my mom a lot of good questions. I remember her telling me a lot of deep, you know, for a 19-year-old you were asking good theological questions. And sometimes as a parent you think, oh that's it, that's salvation, they're asking good theological questions. It's good to ask good theological questions but just curiosity didn't save me. It was so much that I would even think about it that I would dream the same dream every night. Now you're going to think I'm really weird and Mitch is going to think I'm going off some crazy here, but I would dream, and I could know I was going to dream it every night, and I would dream in vivid color. People sometimes ask, do you dream in color or black and white? I don't understand what that question's about. It's color every time. And it was vivid, bright colors about a king and a treasure. And it wasn't just that I was having a dream about a king and a treasure. There was the quest to find the treasure. I knew exactly who that king was. I knew exactly what that treasure was. I'm like nine, 10 years old. A lot of people will trust in some emotional moment, or I've heard testimonies of people who are like, I had this dream, or I had this, But again, good deep thoughts, deep dreams didn't save me. Christian education can be very helpful, but it won't save you. I went to a very conservative Christian school. We had lots of rules. We had chapel every week. I was one of the best students and the best behaved kids in the school. I was so good that my kindergarten teacher forgot I was in the class. I was so quiet, never caused any trouble. It got to the time where there was a play and everybody was supposed to be in the graduation play. They had to make up a part for me because they had made the whole play up and I was nowhere in it. The worst trouble I can remember getting in in elementary school, and it, made me not like school very well. But it was in second grade when I turned around on the way to chapel and told the kid behind me, we're not allowed to talk in line. And the teacher cracked our foreheads together. That would not happen in school today. But she cracked our foreheads together and said, no talking in line. And so that was terrible trouble for me. But I got in trouble because I was telling him what the rule was. So they even at the school gave invitations, which is very different from what my church would have been, and your church, if you wanted to be saved. I remember coming forward, probably about fifth grade, and they took you into a side room, and they somehow used our five fingers to lead us through a sinner's type prayer, which there's not necessarily anything wrong with a sinner's prayer, but at the end, I don't remember what it was, but I remember I had to do something on each finger. They told me, well, you're saved. And then I went back into the classroom and they announced to the whole class, Andy gave his life to God. He's saved. And everybody cheered. And I stood there and I'm like, nothing changed. Why are they cheering? I mean, it felt good to have people cheer for you. But it didn't save me. Good works don't save you. In sixth grade, I left the Christian school and went to a public school. I went from being a good kid to being a great kid. People even called me a Christian. I was so good when I went from the Christian school to the public school. I remember the thing I got the worst trouble for in junior high in the public school was I was disrespectful to the teacher because I said yes ma'am. So it was so foreign the way that I was acting. Now this is all somewhat external. Internally I know I'm not right. But all these things that we can set up that you may mark that this is what saves you and this is, no works could save me. I was not perfect but better than all of the kids in my class. I had to draw lines even because I knew I wouldn't do certain things that they would do. But when reality set in and I had to go to bed at night, I had no peace, no life, no salvation. And it was at that time that I remember we had our family Bible conference and Pastor Al Martin, who helped train Mitch, he came to the family conference. Does anybody know who Al Martin is? Okay, so you have some image in your head, but at that time he was younger, so he was an intimidating physical presence. I remember getting in trouble one time for not giving him a firm handshake when I was even younger, and I never wanted to shake his hand again. He was a big intimidating man to me as a child, but I had a great respect, he was a great preacher. So that kind of figure came and preached on the doctrine of hell, And I remember sitting there after the last night on a Thursday night and he had taught us about hell and the wrath of God and the fire to come and the bottomless pit and isolation from God and being eternally punished because of our sin and our rebellion against him. And I can remember crying and I can remember my cousin asking me, what's wrong? And I can remember brushing it off and going off to the next activity. And then when we got back to church, we went and we told our testimonies at church and I told everyone how the sermon had impacted me. And I remember this time it was not like the classroom when they cheered for me in fifth grade. I remember people coming up to me and I was very confused because they said they'd be praying for me. I thought everybody was going to applaud again. I couldn't. It wasn't emotions that were going to save me. Augustus' top lady in the Rock of Ages says, not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands. Could my zeal no respite? No. Could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. It's kind of hard when you grow up surrounded by all those good things that really are a blessing. to realize that you're a sinner before a holy God and you need grace as much as the drunk or the murderer or the thief on the cross. But grace can save the good little kid. whose Christian home can't save him, whose Reformed Baptist church couldn't save him, whose good works couldn't save him, God's grace could save him in grace alone. So I spent the summer trying to go to sleep every night, not able to escape my fears and yet not being saved. I knew Jesus had died on the cross, but it didn't make any difference in my life. I could get no peace. with my list of things that I had done or not done. And then a very young pastor came at the end of the summer named Mitch Lush, a very different temperament, but he came and on a Sunday evening he preached on the life of Daniel. He spoke a very simple message, how Daniel survived in Babylon, What was the difference about Daniel from all of the other captives who had been taken away? And I can remember him saying something to the effect that Daniel had a relationship with God within his heart. And that night, I realized I did not. All the things that people look at and go, you must be a Christian, you must have a relationship with God. In my heart, there was sin. and God was not. I remember telling my mom I didn't feel like I was a Christian. And I remember her telling me it's not a feeling. And so again, I went back up into bed that night. I confessed my sins before God. I believed that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, took my penalty, and bore God's wrath for me. I believed The word of God that said, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved. And I can remember the spirit causing me to recall the verse, ask and you shall receive. I was born again. The word that meant nothing to me for 5000 days now was my only hope. The righteousness that I had done was nothing to me. And the Jehovah said, can you that was nothing to me, now was everything to me. And so I believed and I was baptized later that summer. But that was just the beginning, that wasn't the end. At 14, I had lived very little life. God used retreats like this to help form friendships, to show me I wasn't alone. Growing up in a public school, I knew people that went to church. I didn't, even in my church, we had a very small youth group, about five or six of us at that time. I didn't know any other Christians in our youth group. And God used a number of people. I go to a pastor's conference now every year with a friend that we met. He was from Kentucky, I was from Indiana, and God used him to show me what a Christian young man looked like who was my age. And I praise God for Chad and his life. And he says, in some ways, I made some comment to him about why he shouldn't have listened to some music group. And he said it helped him. We held each other accountable on some things, different things like that, where we able to, back then you had to write letters, you couldn't text and things like that, but we were able to keep in correspondence. And he is walking with the Lord in Georgia. And I'm walking with the Lord in Indiana, and God has used things like that. So I praise God for these good things that are full of blessing. They can be mightily used of God once that grace is realized. I think for those of you that are converted, one of the big struggles of growing up in that kind of bubble is that I found that I still sinned. And sometimes as you're saved at 14 and then you go through your teenage years where you're fighting for your independence with your parents and you're beginning to date girls and you're beginning to, that I still found that I was still trying to navigate and I wasn't perfect. And sometimes you want to just wish, can I just get saved all over again? and trying to look. And that's where the verse in Galatians that I have been crucified with Christ and therefore I no longer live. That wasn't something that I was hoping to come true. It was the realization of from that time until college sometime coming to understand that that was the reality of who I was and God was then making me that through sanctifying me. But God viewed me through the righteousness of Christ. God viewed me through the cross of Jesus Christ that my sins were atoned for. It was finished. It was completely paid for. Grace continues to save you from sins, past, present, and future. Jesus is not just your hope for a moment, not a kickstart. He's what you need to be saved. He's what you need to be being saved, and He's what you need to be saved in the future. We call those different things in church, we call it justification, sanctification, and glorification. Grace continues to work, it's constantly working. But in that, sometimes it feels like you take one step forward and two steps back in the Christian life at times. Whether it's you or the people around you, it's not, you think you're gonna get saved and then everything's gonna go that way, and it does. but it's learning how much you need grace and how much it's all of grace throughout that progression so many times within life. And that evens the grace of God that he peels back layer after layer. It's not, I think we'd be overwhelmed at our conversion if he just said, here's all of your sin. there is an element where that's what you have to see and he did he exposed that to me like you are a sinner you're a sinner like the thief on the cross you're a sinner like him you have sin deep within your heart that you need redeemed from but he continues to show me the layers of how deep that pride goes and how deep that selfishness goes and then he continues to remind me and that's why Jesus is your righteousness These are the sins he fully paid for upon the cross of Jesus Christ. And we start to see his might and how well he knows us. I know so often, it's difficult when you come to realize, and this is something you realize, that God is all-knowing, he knows all of your sins. You can't hide them. You know, Adam and Eve, they sinned in the garden, and the first thing they did was try to cover themselves up, because they're like, oh no, now God's gonna see we're naked. Like, what are you thinking? You've been naked the whole time. But for the first time they realized they had something that they needed to hide from God as if they could. And that's the way before grace you are, but then after grace you realize, praise God, he knows every one of my sins, past, present, and future. Because if he didn't, maybe he would have missed one. when Jesus died on the cross. But he knows all and he didn't and grace covers all. So we confess our sins and continue to find him faithful and just to forgive us our sins as Christ atones fully for us. God used so much of his providence in my life. I don't want to go on for hours, but I'm thankful for not only his grace, but his providence. In my pride, I think he used so many different things in my life. I love sports. I love basketball. I tore my rotator cuff. The doctor joked that would end my professional baseball career. I had no shot. It did end, as a young boy growing up in Indiana, my high school basketball career, though. And that was devastating. I went back the next year. The coach was like, you missed a year, son. And at that point, providentially, I'm 6'3 now. I was 5'3 as a freshman in high school. So if you're 5'3, you never know. I graduated high school around six foot, so it did me no good for high school basketball to grow late, but that was in God's providence as well. But that directed me and helped me, guide me to where I wanted to be. or where I went that I may not have gone and I ended up following my sister over to Cedarville Christian College there in Ohio and begin to be challenged even in growing in my understanding because they didn't hold to all the doctrines of grace that I was taught. Now I was being challenged with people that didn't believe that and having to defend that not just to them but to have to study scripture for the first time and make sure that what I believed was there and then be able to give an answer for that. So God began to use that in my life. The best part of that then was Heather was from Ohio and Heather was at Cedarville and God began to work in us. different things and different plans he was graciously directing. I went to Cedarville. I thought I would go there and get a degree that would make a lot of money. So I did first pre-med and then I remember sitting in labs at six o'clock at night going, I don't want to do this for four years. I can't, I make a lot of money somewhere else. I'm like, okay, financial advisor, I can make a lot of money there. I'll go do that. I was heading that direction. I wasn't kicking and screaming against God. I was growing in the doctrines of grace. I was understanding these things and thinking that was great. Then I was encouraged, still a fairly introverted person. beginning to give opportunities to preach and to lead Bible studies. I wasn't looking for them. Introverted people don't look. Hey, would you put me up in front of 1,500 people? That's usually not what they do. Hey, would you ask me to come preach at your home church? That's not, but all of a sudden people begin to see things. So you need to do this, do that. I begin to do those things, preaching at my home church, preaching at campus. Really not pursuing those things. So then in my junior year of college, heading into business, because I knew what it was like in a pastor's home, I thought. I knew they didn't make much money. I loved God, thought I could make a lot of money. It's great if you make a lot of money, but God had other plans for me. And so he began to direct me. About that same time, I began to get encouraged by friends. Hey, that girl, you ought to ask her out. She has a lot of the same convictions you do. She was a year older, very pretty. I didn't think I had a shot in the world. I thought she was already dating another guy anyway. And then somebody said, hey, I'll give you my motorcycle to take her out on a date if you ask her out. I'm like, where are the keys? So asked her out, got the motorcycle, we went on our first date to motorcycle ride through the country of Ohio and then to eat at McDonald's. So I think the motorcycle is more important if you're looking for advice than the McDonald's. But it went well from there and we begin to grow. She had never heard or met anybody who'd been from a Reformed church, so we had to work through a number of those things as well. But she'd already been studying a lot of those things and growing, and I think those were the convictions that people saw. And so as we began to work on that, then the Lord is calling me into the ministry, and All of a sudden, the guy that's an accounting major, she thinks she's marrying somebody who's not a pastor, is going into the ministry. We're not engaged yet, but we had to work through that as well, and God began to work in both of our hearts, and so off to seminary we went, and then the Lord directed us back to Edgewood, and we praise God that His grace has continued to work in us and keep us, and now, work in our children's lives and keep them. And I pray that as we go throughout this weekend that you'll see more and more of that grace. Do you know that miracle? Nicodemus came to Jesus. What must I do to have eternal life? You must be born again. We're thankful that you're here. Do you have a relationship with God? Some of you may think, well, I've got all these things I don't want people to know, I've hidden them. There is great grace for sinners in Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the young people that are here. I thank you that we get to spend time together. We get to spend time in your word. I pray that you would work and move among us. Father, everything we do, if you don't, if you don't work, if you're not in it, if you don't build the house, if your spirit doesn't show up. Father, we don't want to labor in vain. We know you promised to be here and move. We pray that you would move among us. Let us see your work for those that are Christians, that they would grow in grace, grow in their understanding of it, and for others that you might open blind eyes, remove hard hearts, give ears to those who don't hear that Jesus is nothing to them. He might at the end of this weekend even be everything to them. Father, exalt your son. You promised to and he was lifted upon a cross and now is exalted at your right hand. Father, may we see worth in what Jesus has done in our own lives. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your grace. Continue to make it known. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.