SPEAKER_00: The world is full of all kinds of challenges, problems, difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: People are desperate for solutions to their problems, to their circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: There's the global issues, there's the national issues and challenges, there's family challenges, there's personal challenges, there's all kinds of challenges.
SPEAKER_00: And even in a country that's as wealthy as we are, even in a country that has as much opportunity as we have, we can still be overwhelmed with our our struggles and our difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: And today I want to preach something very simple to you, and uh and I can see by my time that it's gonna have to be simple and short to you today because I want to give you and tell you what the answer is.
SPEAKER_00: The answer is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Now that may sound simplistic, but if it sounds simplistic to you, it's because you don't understand who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is the answer for our lives, and it may seem oversimplified, but it really is Jesus that's the answer to our lives.
SPEAKER_00: If you would like to join me, please you can remain seated.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read some verses here, but if you'd like to join me, you can look in your Bible in Colossians chapter 1, verse 16 through 20, and just kind of follow along with me for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to notice as we do this, I've done this before, but I want you to notice as we do this, the word all, A-L-L, as you read in these scriptures, uh, as we read these scriptures together, so just follow along with me.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians chapter 1, verse 16 through 24.
SPEAKER_00: By him were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him.
SPEAKER_00: He is before all things, and by him all things consist.
SPEAKER_00: He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.
SPEAKER_00: For it pleased the Father that in him should dwell all the fullness, uh, in him should all the fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.
SPEAKER_00: By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: All things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer for whatever your circumstances are, whatever your situation is, then look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's where you will find your answers.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation chapter number 22, Jesus said, I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
SPEAKER_00: The next verse says, Blessed are those that do his commandments, that they might have the tree of life and enter through the gates to the city.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer for our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer for your circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: He will meet your needs.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus preached at the Sermon on the Mount or in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: I won't read all the verses, but I'll read in verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, take no thought, saying, Who, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
SPEAKER_00: For after these things do the Gentiles seek.
SPEAKER_00: For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things.
SPEAKER_00: But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: Seek Jesus first.
SPEAKER_00: Seek the kingdom of God first.
SPEAKER_00: He is the answer, and all these things will be added.
SPEAKER_00: Take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take thought of itself.
SPEAKER_00: This is a promise from Jesus that if we seek the kingdom of God, if we seek him first, that our needs will be provided, that our needs will be supplied, our physical needs, our our spiritual needs, that he will supply our needs.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not just asking God for some food or asking God for something, but but it's that God takes care of us.
SPEAKER_00: When we seek him first, the answers come through him.
SPEAKER_00: As Paul says, it makes him preeminent in all things.
SPEAKER_00: It makes him first in all things, it makes him our first direction, our first look.
SPEAKER_00: And that may sound like that makes sense sitting here today, but the problem in our culture and our the challenge for us in our wealthy society is we have a lot of resources that are available to us.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're not careful, we look to those first.
SPEAKER_00: It's our human nature.
SPEAKER_00: So look first because Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Look first to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna supply the need for your life, he's gonna supply the need that you have.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus healed people physically and emotionally here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: He had compassion on people, and he still has compassion on people that are suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And he still wants to speak to you, to minister to you, to embrace you, while others were afraid of the illness and afraid to get close to somebody because they were ill or they had died sometimes, and they were afraid because this is going to make them unclean.
SPEAKER_00: They may catch something.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus embraced people.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't afraid of their sickness, their illness, because he was the answer for their lives.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, in the messianic prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah 53, the word of the Lord says he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.
SPEAKER_00: That's all kinds of problems.
SPEAKER_00: That's all kinds of difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: That's all kinds of needs that you and I may have that the Bible tells us, even prophetically, Isaiah is saying, these will be fulfilled through the sacrifice that Jesus makes for us.
SPEAKER_00: He is the answer for whatever it is that we are struggling with.
SPEAKER_00: His death made it possible for us.
SPEAKER_00: James writes in James chapter 5, verse 14 and 15, Is there any sick among you?
SPEAKER_00: Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.
SPEAKER_00: And if he's committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
SPEAKER_00: And so when James writes, he recognizes that Jesus didn't just die for healing, but he also died for forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can receive both at the hands of Jesus, at the sacrifice that Jesus made.
SPEAKER_00: It's the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah that the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross gives us what we need.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: And he came to give us the power to overcome.
SPEAKER_00: He came to give us the victory to overcome.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 John chapter 3 and verse 8, it says, He that commits sin is of the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: For the purpose, for this purpose, the Son of God was manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: For this purpose, Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, to destroy the consequence of sin, to destroy the chain that sin has on your life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer for that.
SPEAKER_00: To set you free, to give you hope.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, everything bows to him, to his name.
SPEAKER_00: Wherefore God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.
SPEAKER_00: That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, of things in earth, of things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is where you should be looking.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives us hope.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 3, verse 23 of familiar scripture says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: A few chapters later in Romans 6 it says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad we're not left, if you were here this morning, with hell and no solution.
SPEAKER_00: But we are left with Jesus providing us a hope, a hope that goes beyond what we could imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 4 and verse number 10 through 12, the disciples are being questioned, and they're answering the question about a lame man that's been raised, and they're speaking, they say, Be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ, whom you crucified, whom God has raised from the dead, even by him does this man stand here before you whole.
SPEAKER_00: This man that was flame stands here whole today through the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is the stone, they said, which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner.
SPEAKER_00: Neither is there salvation, not just healing, not just recovery of being sick or being lame or being handicapped in some way, but neither is there salvation in any other.
SPEAKER_00: There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer for you today.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 12, after referring to all of those heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, says, Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and every sin which was so which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking not at those heroes in chapter 11, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Looking to Jesus, he's the answer, he's the solution.
SPEAKER_00: So I can't offer you anything else but Jesus today.
SPEAKER_00: Paul preached to the Athenians on what we commonly call Mars Hill, and he proclaimed to them about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, For in him, as their poets had said, we live, we move, and we have our being.
SPEAKER_00: In him is everything.
SPEAKER_00: In him is how we exist, in him is how we're standing here today.
SPEAKER_00: And all that we have, both now and eternity, rest in his hands, in his power.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 14, Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled.
SPEAKER_00: You believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_00: In my Father's house are many mansions.
SPEAKER_00: If it were not so, I would have told you.
SPEAKER_00: I go to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_00: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, that where I am, that where I am, there you may be also.
SPEAKER_00: That where I am, there you're gonna be able to be.
SPEAKER_00: I'm preparing a place so you will be able to be with me.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll say it again, as I've said it numerous times.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what all is gonna happen in heaven, but I don't think you're gonna care.
SPEAKER_00: I think you're just gonna want to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's preparing the place, not so you have walls of jasper, gates of pearl, and streets of gold and a mansion.
SPEAKER_00: He's preparing the place so that you and I can be with him.
SPEAKER_00: He's the whole purpose, he's the whole reason.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be with Jesus, our Savior, our God, our our hope, our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The place is so I can be with him.
SPEAKER_00: And so even heaven, even heaven, Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: My destination is not just heaven.
SPEAKER_00: My destination is being with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13 through 18.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you didn't mind that I read a bunch of scriptures today.
SPEAKER_00: If I start talking too much between the scriptures, we'll be here too long.
SPEAKER_00: But I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
SPEAKER_00: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
SPEAKER_00: For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
SPEAKER_00: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
SPEAKER_00: And so shall we ever be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is who we're looking for.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is coming to get us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus prepared a place.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be there so much.
SPEAKER_00: Not only did he prepare the place, he's coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's not sending, he's not sending angels, he's not sending a fiery chariot.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming to get us.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming so that we can be with him.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming so that we can live with him so we have that hope of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And so today, I don't have any big solutions or any big formulas or any big take these three steps.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a prescription, I don't have a routine, I don't have a training program, I don't have any, I don't have some, you know, vitamins you can take.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have anything else but Jesus to offer to you today.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer to whatever you're facing, whatever you're experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer today.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: I've preached to you fast, but I want you to know when you leave this place that Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: When you come to this front, you're not just coming to meet with me, you're coming to see Jesus, you're coming to meet with Jesus, you're coming to talk to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When you look across the scriptures from the Old Testament through the New Testament to the Gospels, epistles, even Revelation, the truth arises from the words that are spoken that Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer, He's the answer for your needs, Jesus is the answer for your sickness, Jesus is the answer for overcoming evil, Jesus is the answer for eternal life, he's the answer for your future, he's the answer for your hope, he's the answer for your destiny, he's the answer for your eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Everything you need is found in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Every broken place can be healed by him, every loss can be restored by him, every confusion can be clarified by him.
SPEAKER_00: He is the answer you're looking for today.
SPEAKER_00: He's the Alpha, He's the Omega, He's the author and finisher of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who has prepared a place for you, and He's the one that will return for you.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one in whom you live, in whom you move, in whom you have your being.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: And today, right now, He's calling you.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you can hear through the words that I'm speaking and through my feeble efforts that you would hear the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: If you're carrying needs, he can meet your needs.
SPEAKER_00: If you're facing sickness, he can heal you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're fighting battles you feel like you can't win, I want you to know that Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: If you're wrestling with sin that you don't seem to be able to overcome, I want you to know that Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: If you're searching for hope that you cannot find, I want you to know that Jesus is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: You won't find it in religion, you won't find it in self-help, you won't find it in willpower, you won't find it in philosophy, but you will find it in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You will find it in Jesus.