Merry Christmas Fierce Fam!
Picture Jesus as a trustworthy guide leading you through a dense forest. Through biblical stories, we see trust in action and its impact on our relationship with the divine. We close with an invitation for a commitment or recommitment to Jesus, fostering a personal, trust-based relationship. Join us for a spiritual reawakening as we celebrate the birth of Christ and His Promise to us.
Merry Christmas Fierce Fam!
Picture Jesus as a trustworthy guide leading you through a dense forest. Through biblical stories, we see trust in action and its impact on our relationship with the divine. We close with an invitation for a commitment or recommitment to Jesus, fostering a personal, trust-based relationship. Join us for a spiritual reawakening as we celebrate the birth of Christ and His Promise to us.
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1:My wife and I, we are in Philadelphia. This is a couple of years ago. I was on sabbatical and we wanted to just go to Philadelphia. I'm kind of like a revolutionary history, pseudo history buff and we went to see all the things there. But this is a great picture. We're very happy.
Speaker 1:A couple of days before this, I was starting to get a little panicked. Okay, so we get into Philadelphia and we're like we're gonna stay in a bed and breakfast kind of off to the side of the city, we're just gonna walk in. We don't need like a car or anything, because then you have to park it and we don't wanna do that. We got this great plan. We're gonna go get on the under the city subway system. The problem is we get there and we're ready to go and we're like, oh, we don't really know how to do that, and so we start to research online. How do you get onto the subway? Like what do you gotta do? Where do you go? Do you need tokens? Like I see tokens in the movies and I've never done this. And even though we got online and we're looking around, there's not a lot of really easy, accessible information we don't know. It's almost as if, like they're like surely no moron is gonna come here and not know how to do this, and so we have to like I'm starting like oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? I don't know how to do this. You've ever been in a situation like that where the very thing you need to do, you don't even know how to find out how to do it. So we ended up going. We had to like do down all these tunnels and find some lady behind a counter. I'm like we're idiots. Can you just help me get on the train? We don't know what to do. And she was very helpful. But that moment of panic was memorable to me.
Speaker 1:I believe it's a similar emotion to what the disciples are experiencing in today's passage. We're gonna study that in just a second, but let's remind ourselves we're in a series called God With Us, and that's really. We're taking the word Emmanuel that you've seen. You see this all the time, you see it on Christmas cards, you see it on somebody's fridge. Emmanuel means God With Us, and we wanted to just take a few weeks and say what does that even mean? Because we hear that all the time and maybe it's a little bit important.
Speaker 1:It's a promise. It's a promise from God that he's gonna send his son, jesus Christ, to save people from their sins. Here's where it's referenced in the New Testament, pointing back to the Old Testament, matthew 1, 21,. The angel is talking to Joseph. Jesus stepped out. He says she, mary, will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name of Jesus because he will save people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet 750 years earlier. The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God With Us. Let's not rush too far past verse 21, where it says because he will save his people from their sins.
Speaker 1:I'll talk a lot about sin in pop culture today. So what does that mean? That he will save people from their sins Is sin just like when you do something naughty and somebody's like shame on you. It's actually much different than that. Sin means to miss the mark. So picture like a bullseye, target and a bunch of arrows that every time miss the bullseye that's missing the mark.
Speaker 1:Sin is leaving something undone that you were supposed to do, that would have been good, or not doing something that you should be doing, or not doing something you shouldn't be doing. Sorry that you shouldn't be doing. You get what I'm saying. We feel we've all done this. You've experienced a pinprick of your conscience that tells you. That's the creator's alarm bell going off inside of you, saying you are now not doing the thing that I made you to do. I've made you to do things that cause human flourishing and you're stepping outside of the boundaries. Now we can start doing good like we. Okay, I'm gonna turn around from that. I'm gonna start doing good and that's great. You can't really make up for the good that you didn't do. You can have restitution, but you still have that debt before God. You can do good, but you can't pay for what happened in the past. But there is one who could. So you'd have to be sin free If you always hit the target and you were God himself and you would have the capacity to come down, be formed as a baby and pay the price, obeying perfectly someone. If they did it for you, they'd be able to do it.
Speaker 1:So the first week of this God with us series, we studied the fact that Jesus came and he was really to be a servant to us. There's a lot of ways that he helps us through the personal Holy Spirit. Here's some of the things we said. I'm just gonna run through them. Jesus, we said. He was your good, he's your portion. He's the author of your destiny. He keeps for you what is yours. He's given you himself. He counsels you, he protects and defends you. He won't leave you to die alone.
Speaker 1:Everybody's got a relationship with God, whether they even know it or not, even people that they're like I don't even believe in God. Well, if God's real, you're still relating to him in that You're just ignoring him. But we all have a relationship with God. Every time we do anything to one another, we're doing it to God too. God is there, he says. I'm taking that personally. We've all got a relationship with God.
Speaker 1:In week two last week, we said even if we have a relationship with God, sometimes we're distant from his heart. Sometimes we're not loving people the way he loves them. Sometimes we're trying to arrange life, so it's all about me, instead of trying to get my heart over to how God feels about people. So it's all about other people. And now this week we're saying, hey, man, god with us is not just about God coming to the planet in the form of Jesus. It's not just about maybe like a home improvement project in my heart, which God does do through the person of the Holy Spirit, but it's also a promise that still has a fulfillment to come, and that fulfillment is God with us, with you, with me, in heaven. That's really what God with us is all about. We can think it's about Christmas, and it is, but Christmas is only the first fulfillment of it. I'm going to show you that today.
Speaker 1:Now let's jump back to the disciples, because they're worried. They're nervous, just like I was Walking into that subway station, not knowing how to do it, not knowing what to do. They've been with Jesus this whole time. This past three years they've been following him. It's the night before he's going to be crucified and they're having their time together and Jesus has been saying some like scary stuff. He's talking in riddles. And he's talking about he's going away. And then he brings up somebody who's like not even you know, raising their hands. Someone's going to betray him in the circle. That's a little freaky. And then he says, by the way, you're all going to fall away. And so they're getting a little bit more trepidation. And then he even says Peter, you yourself, man, you're going to deny me three times. Well, peter, dude, he's the rock, he's the confident one. If he's going to fall away, what about the rest of us? And so they're like Jesus, what are you talking about? Where are you going?
Speaker 1:You're freaking us out, man, because the only reason we even did anything right in the past three years was because we were with you. You were the one who was showing us what to do. Maybe some of you have experienced this. When you have had some like insurance or legal documents, you look at this and you're like I don't even know what to do with that. Or maybe you're at work and the boss comes in and hands you some new software and they're like you're going to do everything on this now. And you pop it open and you're just staring at it and white noise begins to go off in your mind. You're like I don't know even how, where to start with this new software program. That's what the disciples are like right now. I don't even know where to start.
Speaker 1:Jesus, if you go away, what does that even mean for us? We thought we're going to have this great, awesome kingdom. That's where we start, john 14 one. It doesn't sound like a Christmas passage, but it is. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Jesus says you believe in God, believe also in me. My father's house has many rooms. If we're not, so what? I have told you that I'm going there to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you may also be where I am.
Speaker 1:You know the way to the place where I'm going, thomas, I love Thomas. Thomas said to him Lord, we don't even know where you're going. So how can we know the way I feel like? Thomas is a great. Every man Sometimes, peter, he's so zealous and he's so like stubborn and he's so like quick to decide that I can't always relate to Peter. Thomas is back and forth all the time, if you like Thomas in the New Testament. One minute he's doubting, the next minute he's like I'm ready to go die for Jesus today. So if you are sometimes waffling back and forth, depending what day it is, if one minute you're doubting and the other minute you're super excited, there's a place at the table for you. Like Thomas, thomas gets a bad rep.
Speaker 1:Jesus loved Thomas. Thomas was part of the deal, he was part of the crew. Jesus loved him like he loves you. Let's finish it up. Jesus answered I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Here's what we're going to do. The bottom line is this because God with us is about heaven, we must trust Jesus' faithfulness. Now I like to do a bottom line. A bottom line is a summary of everything that the Bible's trying to say in this particular passage.
Speaker 1:We're going to pull apart this summary now. We're going to start with number one God with us. Jesus came the first time and he's going to come back because he loves us. Remember what he said I will come back and take you to be with me. I came the first time because I love you. I'm coming back again later.
Speaker 1:Jesus' arrival was like no other arrival that had ever happened. When he arrived, everything changed. It was a message from God himself. God knows how to communicate a message. Sometimes we don't do so well communicating messages. Sometimes we figure out that texting is probably the absolute worst way you could ever communicate to somebody, because there's so much that you could infer by it. There's so many nonverbals that you're not seeing and you can just imagine all kinds of wrong ways to take that God knows better. And when so much is really important to you, you take the time to not just send him a text. You meet with him face to face. So God came to meet with us face to face, in the person of Jesus. Now, he could have come as a bird if he wanted to talk to birds. He could have come as a cow if he wanted to talk to cows, but he wanted to talk to you and me. So he came as a human being. He didn't send a politician. He didn't send an angel. He didn't send a clerk. He didn't send somebody else. He says this is such a big deal. I love them so much I've got to go myself. I'm not even sending an ambassador.
Speaker 1:God, the Bible says, is love. God is love. That means love is at the core of God's essence and being. That doesn't mean anytime anybody loves that. That's like God somehow. It means everything that God does he does out of a heart of love. Even when he brings corrective discipline, he's still doing it out of love and he loves you. He loves everything that he made.
Speaker 1:Listen to this Psalm 145,9. The Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all he has made. Well, god made the planets and he made the stars and he made the plants and he made the animals and he loves it all and has compassion on it all. And he made you and he loves you exactly the way that you are. You're not an accident. Even if you were an accident to your parents, you were never an accident to God. He sent you on purpose and he loves you with his complete love. And every time your heart beats, every time you take a breath, that's God saying I love you. I love you and I'm for you and I'm with you. Because God with us is about heaven. We must trust Jesus' faithfulness now. So God with us. Number two heaven, a manual God with us. The ultimate goal of that is that we're in heaven with Jesus.
Speaker 1:What did the Scripture say? If I go and prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me. See, jesus knows. He knows we're not going to hit the mark. We're going to miss the target. He says but I'll hit the target. Jesus says I'm going to come and I'm going to live for 33 years. I'm going to do everything right and then I'm going to credit you everything that I did right. I'm going to give it to you and I'm going to take everything you did wrong and I'm going to go and I'm going to die on the cross in order to get you to a place in heaven. That's what I'm doing. He's trying to reassure us. Even if you have great intimacy with me here, that doesn't stop at death. Boom, it explodes. It's way more intimate. In heaven, what's powerful, it's to prepare a place for you. That means it's specific, god's very specific. He knew before you were born. He's prepared a place for you in heaven and he knows all about it. He's thought about it. It's not just like you're going to show up at the bus station Like okay, well, you're here, you're getting in line, let's go, and you're kind of carted off to where new arrivals come. Now he's thought about you. And there's a very special place.
Speaker 1:In 1997, my wife and I had been dating for a few months. At that time she was my girlfriend and I wanted to do something that would show her just how much she meant to me. And I knew this is going to take some preparation, this is going to take some planning. And so one day my roommate and I we decided we're going to go out to Home Depot and we're going to buy hundreds of pounds of sand and we're going to sneakly take it up into our dorm room and turn the entire thing into a little beach so we can have a little beach picnic on February 14th. And I was determined to impress that girl. But the reason we did that was because I was thinking about Mackenzie. I was thinking what can I do to show her the depth of my love? How can I prepare so that she knows she's a big deal to me? Well, jesus tells you make no mistake, I'm preparing for you Like I'm getting it ready, and it's not just ready for humans, I'm getting it ready for you because I love you in particular, not just humankind in general. That's a powerful thing if we let that thing sink in.
Speaker 1:He says my father's house has many rooms. It's really many. It's not technically like a bedroom or something. It's a dwelling space, a space to dwell with Jesus. It's specific that God has set apart for you and there's plenty of room. Don't worry that there's not enough room. This is in your nose. But Revelation 7, 9, after. I looked at this talking about heaven, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every tribe, nation, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Maybe heaven's big. Don't worry that there's not. It's going to be crowded or something. There's a specific, wide, open, abiding place for you.
Speaker 1:A few years ago we did a series called the Good Place. You could probably go on our YouTube channel and subscribe and you could find the entire series there. One of the messages that we did was things you'll love about heaven and some of the things we discussed that the Scripture teaches in heaven you'll be sinless, with a body that doesn't malfunction, that doesn't get diseased. There'll be no judgment, there'll be no anger, there'll be no haste, there'll be nobody in a hurry. Everybody will be in love with each other constantly.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like earth. Take out all the sin and selfishness. Look at all the beauty and all the great things that you see around earth. Earth remembers that it was once a paradise. Now it's been tainted by sin. But check this out.
Speaker 1:God has a plan for the earth. I know that sometimes we mess up the earth, we do things wrong. God has actually made us stewards of the earth and we haven't always gotten that right. Rest assured, god is going to fix the earth. God is going to take care of everything that he loves and he's going to have us there. It's going to be earth part two and it's going to be perfect. And if we'll think about this, god gives us an eternal vantage point. See, the world around us right now screams at you and I, and it tries to get our attention on. You need this thing right now. You need security right now. You need this romantic relationship right now. You need to be sexy right now and everything is right now. It's trying to pull our focus.
Speaker 1:Sometimes when I'm teaching, it's kind of funny. I'll be in a context like maybe at the grove or in another situation. I'm kind of up to the side and there's something on the screen and I'm talking and yet people are looking at the screen and it's not even interesting. It's like picture of a cloud or something and I'm like it's funny. I don't care, but it's funny because I'm like I'm talking for like 40 minutes and all you stare at is the cloud, because the screen is sucking their eyes into it. Other times the family and I were watching a movie, and I'm into it. I'm watching and then I pick up my head and look around, everybody's looking at their phone instead of the screen, cause they got their own, closer screen that's pulling their attention from the other screen and I'm like I didn't even want to watch this movie. Why? Why are they on their phones? But the point is like screens pull your focus and you miss a lot of what is going on around you.
Speaker 1:The world screams that you look at this, look at the temporal things and don't think about the eternal things. And yet, if we'll just think about heaven, think about all the people you're gonna be reunited with, think about God with us in heaven, because God with us is about heaven. We gotta trust Jesus' faithfulness. Now, number three trust Jesus' faithfulness. Jesus has been faithfully showing these guys. He's been showing them the way. The whole time he's been with them. He said do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. Let's pull that apart.
Speaker 1:First, jesus puts himself right up next to the Father. This is something that Moses would have never said, abraham would have never said, david would have never said. He said hey, man, just like you believe in and trust in and the word believe actually means trust just like you trust in the Father, trust in me the other patriarchs. They never would have said anything about put your faith in me. This is a subtle way, but Jesus does it throughout the scripture. He keeps referring to himself as the great I am all the time. So if you ever heard anybody say well, jesus never claimed to be God, are you mental? Did you read the scripture? Yes, he did. He does it all the time. And he's saying you've trusted God.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, to the guys there, or, ladies and gentlemen, to everybody here you believe in God or you trust Pistueo. You trust, which means you cling to, you believe this is gonna happen. You trust in him. So trust in me, I've got you. Man. When we trust somebody, we say even if it appears that what you're saying isn't true, I'm still gonna trust you, that it's true, I'm still gonna rely on you, I'm gonna give myself to just look. I'm just believing them. This is true and the truth is, my friends, you and I trust a whole lot more than you ever think you do.
Speaker 1:If we'll just pause and think about it, think about the things that you trust implicitly, like you don't even ask the question Most of us. When you get on the elevator, you don't like try to open a panel and be like is this thing working right? I just wanna make sure, before I go up, that this thing is okay. Now you know there's some, there's a chance that this is gonna all go bad, and yet you're like, ah, just trust it. What about? I mean, this is maybe the most frightening to me. What about stop lights? Like you're just trusting those are all timed the right way Instead of like, well, this one's two seconds off and boom. And yet we're trusting. You're like, ah, it's probably good and you trust it. And you trust it. What about? I mean, here's another scary one. What about, like you know, in the grocery store, like the ground beef underneath the saran wrap or whatever is under the saran wrap, you're trusting that's probably been in a good place instead of who knows what else is in there, but you're trusting. Or what about? You go to the pharmacy and the pharmacist gives you some pills and you just gotta trust. This is probably good for me, this probably is the right thing and I'm going to ingest it.
Speaker 1:And every time my friends were kind of taking our life into our hands. And what do we do? We say, well, you know what can I do? I'm just gonna trust it. And you. Then you put it out of your mind and Jesus says if you can do that about elevators and pharmaceuticals, put your trust in me, because I always hit the mark. I'm the one who's always perfect. I'm the one who's always gets it right. You can trust me, trust him. He's been teaching them the way. Trust him about the way you know the way to the place where I'm going. And I'm gonna say, jesus, we don't know the way. That's what Thomas said. He says, guys, I've been teaching you the whole time the way. Don't you remember when I chose you 12 as my apostles? You trusted my decision at that point that I was right about that. Don't you remember when I fed the 5,000? You didn't know how I was gonna do it. You said five loaves and two fish and then I was teaching you that whole time. Trust me, I've got it. Even when you don't have enough resources, I've got you.
Speaker 1:Remember, peter, when you decided you wanted to come out on the waves and walk toward me, you did that because you trusted that I somehow was going to hold you up until you looked away from me, and you trusted my love, that I was gonna grab you and get you out when you stumbled. I've been teaching you to trust this whole time. Remember when I didn't come on time for Lazarus and he died, but that was all in the Father's plan. You can trust me that I'll come, even if it seems too late to you. I'll come at the right time and then raise him from the dead and do the right thing so God gets the most glory instead of the little glory that they would have planned instead.
Speaker 1:Remember, peter, remember you were sitting there in your boat and you'd worked all night and you're like Lord. We fished all night. We didn't catch a thing. And I told you well, go ahead and throw it right now on the right side of the boat and you'll catch a haul. And you brought in so many fish, the nest began to break. You remember that, peter. I was teaching you then that it doesn't matter what you don't have, it doesn't matter your wisdom, what you say you should do. My wisdom is the right wisdom and I'll put you, I'll give you the right direction. He's been teaching them that he is the way the whole time. Trust me, that's the way.
Speaker 1:One more really important one a couple minutes ago, in this narrative, a couple minutes before, jesus had been washing everybody's feet, and Peter says no, lord, not me. You can't. You're too awesome, too holy to ever touch my feet. Not me, lord. And Jesus says Peter, I know you think this is only about me serving you, but it's about something else too that you're gonna understand a whole lot better later. If I don't wash you, you can't have any part of me. And he's teaching that to Peter and teaching to us hey, jesus is the one who cleans you. Can you trust it? Can you trust that Jesus cleans you? You can't clean yourself. Jesus says you'll miss the mark even trying to clean yourself. I'll do it. You can trust me to forgive your sin and to wash it away. Now, if we're gonna trust people, we've got to spend time with them. That's one of the reasons I'm not trying to give you a hard time.
Speaker 1:But if you don't come to church a ton, one of the reasons you should is because you get to know God better, and when you know Jesus better, you trust him more. I mean, think about that. Think about the people you probably trust most in the world. You probably know them pretty well. That's why you trust them. It's the same way with Jesus. You say, carter, well, I can just go out in the woods and have church there, and I would tell you I can too. Like, the woods are great, the trees they do preach sermons. In the sky and the water they preach sermons, but honestly, they only know about four sermons. They know, hey, man, God is majestic, god is awesome, god is big. Calm down, settle yourself down. Those are awesome sermons. I need those sermons sometimes, but there's a whole lot in the Bible that the trees don't mention at all and we preach about them here at Fierce. That's why you should come, because we all need it to trust God more and better and deeper. Thanks for saying amen on Christmas. I'm gonna take that as a Christmas present to me.
Speaker 1:And Jesus says I've already showed you the way. And, guys, I am the way, the truth and the life. Let's start with truth. He says I'm the truth. I'm the one by whom, or against which, all truth is measured. I'm the scalpel that cuts down the middle of, seems to only be true to actually is true. Jesus says I'm utterly dependable, I'm utterly credible, I'm the one who will always have your back. I'll always tell you the truth. Jesus says I am the truth and I am the life. Jesus says I've got life in me, it's resident with me and y'all. It's fading, it's going away, but I've got spirit, life that I can just give to people. I can raise the dead. Jesus says I give you my life. My way is the way to truth, my way is the way to life. And Jesus says and I don't miss, I don't miss, I'll teach you the two way relationship with God.
Speaker 1:We said earlier that most people have a relationship, some kind of relationship with God, and most people, good people, would say that I have a spiritual. You know, I go out in the woods and I have some kind of church. That's a great first step. But there's a second step and that's the two way. Most people have a one way relationship with God. They're just kind of like tossing prayers into the sky and they're like, and they're meaningful and they're authentic. They're not necessarily expecting any answer or a personalized answer. They're just kind of hoping Jesus unlocks the door of spiritual life to the two way relationship where it's not just that it's kind of poetic or you're trying to think about it in a way that makes Jesus seem more personal. No, it's actually personal.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ himself. We begin to sense, as you know him and trust him, you begin to sense, oh my gosh, he's leading me a different way than I would go. He's laying things on my heart now. He's redeeming stuff in the past. He's talking to me as a man or woman talks with their friend. That's what the two way relationship with Jesus is and that's the life that Jesus opens up and he clarifies.
Speaker 1:He gets so specific. He says, guys, I'm the way. And what he means is it's not that I'm just like a trail blazer with a machete into the jungle making a path for you. I'm not just like another religious leader pointing to the right ways. I'm claiming something outrageous. I'm claiming I myself am the way, as you trust me, and there are a lot of things that the Jewish folks at that time would have believed were an alternative way, just obeying the rules, just obeying the law, that was a way that they might have thought. Or making the sacrifices, that was a way that they might have thought. Or political change rise up against Rome, that would be the way that they thought. And Jesus says none of those are the way. I am the way, I'm the truth and I'm the life.
Speaker 1:Now most compassionate people would say okay, but what about the people who've never heard the name Jesus? What do you do with that? And it kind of occurs to you. That's the right question. That's a compassionate question. That's the heart of Christ that would even ask such a question. We're not the first generation to ask that question.
Speaker 1:In fact, back in the 40s see us Lewis you might know him of Narnia fame he was writing about this very question. Here's what he said. He said is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in him? But the truth is, god has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know him can be saved through him.
Speaker 1:But in the meantime, if you're worried about people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ's body, the organism through which he works. Every addition to that body enables him to do more. If you want to help those outside, you must add your own little cell to the body of Christ, who alone can help them. Cutting off a man's fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more work.
Speaker 1:You say, carter, that's not really an answer. You're right, it's an answer. That's not an answer. But here's a different way to think about it. What has Jesus been saying to us this whole time? What is the obedience thing he's trying to get us to do? It's to trust him. I'm willing to bet if Jesus could come into wherever you're watching from online, or Jesus comes to sit right next to you here in the auditorium and he said to you I'm not going to explain that to you until you're in heaven. Can you trust me? I'll bet you most would say okay, I'll trust you because you just trust the person of Jesus. My friends, that's what he is saying. He's saying I'm not explaining that to you until heaven. Can you trust me? Trust me that I love everybody way more than you, that I've got good plans and purposes, and I don't always tell you my plans and purposes, because there's things that go better if I don't. Will you trust me? You can trust just like you.
Speaker 1:In the New Testament says he saved the saints of all the four in the New Testament Abraham, isaac, jacob, moses, david, all those guys. They were covered by the blood of Jesus. Even though they didn't know the name of Jesus, they still had the faith that they had toward Yahweh and they were saved. Jesus says trust my heart, trust me that I know what to do and that you don't need to have the answer to everything. That's part of trust, because God with us is about heaven. We have to trust Jesus' faithfulness now. So trust Jesus' faithfulness Now.
Speaker 1:Listen to this verse three If I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come back and take you to be with me. That's such an awesome word right there. Just think about that. I'll come back and take you. What is he saying? He's saying when I come back, when you die, there's not an audition now. There's not a form to fill out, there's not some line of credit that I got to check. I'm not weighing your good and your bad and seeing which one is more. I'm going to come back. If you've trusted me, if you've taken the way of Jesus, you say, baby, I'm just taking you, I myself I'm coming and I'm taking you to be with me where I am. You don't have to worry about it, I'm going to come get you First, to really trust Him. There's a couple of ways that we got to do it. There's a couple of ways that we got to do it. I want to encourage some of you.
Speaker 1:You don't have to have the relationship with God that somebody in your family does. Sometimes that's a stumbling block. We've seen somebody else that claims to be a Christian in their life and they're like dude, I don't know. Man, I don't have what they have. You don't need what they have. You know why? Because the Lord is your shepherd and you have everything you need. You have everything you need in Jesus. He's got it all, so you don't need what they have. All you need is your own personal trust in Jesus Christ and, like the disciples, that means when you trust Him, you're trusting Him to teach you the same kinds of lessons. Like Lord, I'm not trusting your wisdom. I'm not trusting when I'm all out of stuff, you're going to help me. I'm not trusting. Sometimes you're going to lead me away, that I don't want to go, but it's actually better for me and for everybody else. I'm trusting you and it's personal. It's not between you and the church, it's not between you and some religious right. It is between you and Jesus Himself. It's a personal trust.
Speaker 1:Now, some of us you kind of had a Jesus take the wheel moment, maybe years ago. If you're honest, though slowly, even from the passenger side, you've been taking that wheel back for a long time and Jesus has not had the wheel, he hasn't been driving. It's more like you've been driving the car of your life and you said, jesus, please bless my driving. And today I want to challenge you Trust Him by giving Him back the wheel. For others of us, you've never really had a two-way relationship with God. You've had a real relationship with God, but it wasn't the kind that says I trust you to invade my life, jesus, and I'm asking you to. I'm asking you to begin to talk to me. I'm asking you to counsel me the same way that you counseled those disciples.
Speaker 1:So we need a personal trust, and we do. You know we need sorrow. We need sorrow for what we needed to recognize. I did miss the mark and I'm sad about that, but I'm also happy that Jesus is my shield against any consequences for that. Jesus is the one who takes that hit and he gives me His record. We need our personal faith. We need sorrow and we need a confident surrender. We need a confidence that gets on the elevator.
Speaker 1:It says I'm not going to think about this anymore. I'm trusting Jesus. We need a confidence that says I'm just going to eat this meat. It's under this Saran Wrap. I'm confidently surrendered to Jesus. I'm saying I'm just trusting Him. I'm believing that he's going to do everything that he says he's going to do, which means I'm confidently letting go. I'm confidently saying my life belongs to Jesus. I'm confidently saying, jesus, you get to make the decisions. I'm confidently saying you're not only my forgiver, you're my treasure, and that's what I want you to be.
Speaker 1:So what I want to do right now is I want to pray. I want to pray for those people that took back the wheel and the people that have never really given Jesus the wheel. We've never embraced that two-way relationship. We're going to bow our heads. We're going to pray. I'm going to pray and you, just you can just think about it if you're in agreement with it. And then I'm just going to do something kind of bold. With everybody's heads still bowed, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand. If you did that, if you trusted that two-way relationship with God for the first time and the reason I'm going to ask you to do that no one's going to see it except you and Jesus, and even you people online you can do it too, because he sees you there. The reason is to have something that it's kind of like a spiritual birth certificate.
Speaker 1:Doing something physical, doing something active, reminds you. I did that. It wasn't just like I'm fleeting thought I had. I actually was at fierce. It's Christmas Eve. I raised my hand. I told Jesus I'm all in on you. Jesus, come on in and invade. That's why we do that. Let's bow our heads right now and we're going to pray. Jesus, thank you so much that the mission isn't done until we're God, until God is with us in heaven. Thank you so much for Jesus. Thank you that you are the truth, the way and the life.
Speaker 1:Lord, we want to ask for forgiveness. We're sorry for the ways that we've taken the wheel for the ways that we've missed the mark. We're sorry for the ways that we haven't always trusted you, but we ask now that you take back the wheel. We ask right now that you give us that two-way relationship with God. Some of us, we've just really been wandering. We've looked here, there and everywhere, but our souls have never been at rest and we want to ask for rest now, to believe that you have really forgiven our sin and that you're really going to be with us now and you're going to come and take us when we die. Would you give us that confidence, god? We believe that Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead. Now. It filled us with your spirit. Now, with every head still bowed, every eye still closed.
Speaker 1:If you ask Jesus today to engineer that two-way relationship, to invade your heart, to forgive your sin, to be the one that's going to guide you all the way to death and then take you to be with himself, with him, in heaven, you've did that for the first time today, on the count of three, I want you to raise your hand. No one's going to look. Every eye is still going to be closed. Let's do it together, on the count of three One, two, three hands up. You're something Jesus today hands up. You do trust Him and he does forgive you. He is with you, he's filling you now. He's giving you His spirit. He's going to take you all the way home to be with Him in heaven. For sure. You can put your hands down, you can open your eyes. Hey, congratulations everybody. Well done. There's folks around this auditorium that trusted Jesus to invade.
Speaker 1:I believe there's people online right now. If you want to go ahead and put like a hand in the chat just to let us know that you did it too. Thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit Fierce Church for more information. If you enjoy this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or whatever. You would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person. Thanks again for listening.