SPEAKER_00: Week and so we've kind of turned the auditorium into Route 66.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have been on Route 66 before?
SPEAKER_00: All right, a couple of you.
SPEAKER_00: Very good.
SPEAKER_00: I heard you get your kicks on Route 66.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we're gonna be taking the kids on a three-night journey through really the grand story of Scripture, the big idea of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we can get caught up in a lot of the minutiae of Scripture and trip over what the Bible's all about.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk to the kids really about three big pictures, which is the fact that God created the world, created it out of nothing, He created it in perfection.
SPEAKER_00: And on the second night, we talk about how it all went wrong, how God had given clear commandments and Adam and Eve had broken the commandment of God, and mankind was cursed, and they became sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And we talk about the consequences of the fall.
SPEAKER_00: But the ultimate picture is what we're going to talk about tonight, not just the fact that or this morning, not just that God created the world and that the world was impacted by sin, but we're going to talk about that work of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has redeemed us to God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm going to talk to you about this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said all week I was going to preach through the whole Bible in 35 minutes, and someone said, you can't even preach in one passage in 35 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: And so you pray for me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I don't preach fast enough, you just don't listen quickly enough.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll try to preach at 65 miles an hour with gust up to 90, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And uh we'll try to get through that way.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand together.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna read just one verse of scripture and springboard into the grand drama, the unfolding drama of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: When I use the word redemption, I'm using a theological word.
SPEAKER_00: It means to purchase or to buy back.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly the word that the Apostle John uses here in Revelation chapter 5 and verse number 9.
SPEAKER_00: And they sung a new song saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God, by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read that verse together.
SPEAKER_00: Ready, begin?
SPEAKER_00: And they sung a new song saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof.
SPEAKER_00: Thou hast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
SPEAKER_00: Father, bless the reading and the preaching of your word today, and we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, and please be seated together.
SPEAKER_00: Is it even remotely possible to encapsulate the whole story of the Bible in one simple word?
SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe a much smaller beta test, would it be possible for us to tell lesser stories and encapsulate them in one word?
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna give you uh a great historical character, and maybe someone in the room can guess the one word that describes their life.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so uh let's start with uh let's start with an easy one.
SPEAKER_00: If I say the name Solomon, okay, his whole life is encapsulated in you're you some of you are gonna embarrass me right now.
SPEAKER_00: I know you are, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Known by what?
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: I thought somebody was gonna say women, but they said they said wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the right answer.
SPEAKER_00: How about how about Benedict Arnold?
SPEAKER_00: Trader, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh Thomas Edison, light bulb.
SPEAKER_00: I have the word innovation, but I'll I'll accept that for 200 Alex.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um Billy Grimm, Evangelism, uh, Albert Einstein, genius.
SPEAKER_00: I heard the word genius, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Samson, strength.
SPEAKER_00: So it's possible to take a larger story and to encapsulate it into one main thought.
SPEAKER_00: Can we do that with the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we look at our Bible, I hope you have a copy of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a copy of the Bible, um, see me after church.
SPEAKER_00: I I have one of my favorite things in life is to give people a copy of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: But I hope you have a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: In my hand, I have what we call the Holy Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's divided into two testaments.
SPEAKER_00: We have 39 books in the Old Testament, we have 27 books in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We have 66 books that comprise the Old and the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: In those 66 books, there are 1,189 chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Those 1,189 chapters are divided into 31,102 verses.
SPEAKER_00: In those 31,102 verses, there are 791,000 words.
SPEAKER_00: And out of nearly 800,000 words in the Bible, there's a growing thread, a theme.
SPEAKER_00: Shall we call it a stream that meanders through each page, sometimes as a roaring mighty river, at other times a hidden flow, but always always moving, always advancing, always flowing forward.
SPEAKER_00: Someone's called it a scarlet thread of mercy that travels between the guttermost to the uttermost.
SPEAKER_00: Our one word reaches to kings like David in palaces, it reaches to paupers like Bartimaeus on street corners.
SPEAKER_00: It reached publicans like Matthew the tax collector and prostitutes like Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: Our one word was planted in the soil of Eden.
SPEAKER_00: It germinated under the feet of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: It grew into a mighty oak and a forest of oaks and prophecy and Hosea and Joel and Isaiah and Obadiah.
SPEAKER_00: Until the day that the oak of redemption received the axe blade of God's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The oak of redemption was felled, and out of its timber was formed an old rugged cross on which the Prince of Glory died.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is in one word, this word.
SPEAKER_00: Redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it.
SPEAKER_00: Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed through his infinite mercy, his child, and forever I am.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you can say this morning, I've been redeemed?
SPEAKER_00: The creator coming to seek and to save that which was lost.
SPEAKER_00: 2026 marks the 100-year anniversary of the development of Route 66.
SPEAKER_00: Route 66 unites Chicago with Santa Monica, California.
SPEAKER_00: It travels 2,448 miles.
SPEAKER_00: Since its founding, Route 66 has symbolized freedom and Western expansion and nostalgia.
SPEAKER_00: One route carried dreams and soldiers and wanderers.
SPEAKER_00: One road seemingly connected an entire nation.
SPEAKER_00: But far greater than America's highway.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible builds a redemptive bridge from earth to heaven, paved with the marvelous grace and mercy of Jesus Christ to redeem the fallen back to God.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna walk for several minutes through the pages of the Bible in four easy steps.
SPEAKER_00: So easy.
SPEAKER_00: A caveman can do it.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, creation.
SPEAKER_00: Let me talk to you about creation, the way things were.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all say that together.
SPEAKER_00: Creation, the way things were.
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
SPEAKER_00: We read from Genesis chapters one and two, maybe three, uniting themes about the creation of God.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it was a perfect creation.
SPEAKER_00: It is God who stepped back from the canvas of his creative power and said, It is good, it is good, it is good.
SPEAKER_00: He created man and said, It is good, and then he took a rib from Adam's side, and out of his rib he made a woman, and then God said, Fellows, it is very good.
SPEAKER_00: A perfect creation.
SPEAKER_00: A complete creation.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God finished the work of creation.
SPEAKER_00: It is my belief, based on my reading of Scripture, that God did not set the world in motion and allow it to evolve to the situation it is today.
SPEAKER_00: It is that God spoke the world into existence.
SPEAKER_00: He spoke everything out of nothing, and he completed his work.
SPEAKER_00: It is Charles Darwin who 8,000 times in his famous treatise said, we may well suppose, but it's 3,800 times in the scripture, the Bible says, Thus saith the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says God created the world and God completed that which he started.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not only perfect and complete, it is united.
SPEAKER_00: And what we discover from the way things were is that man was united.
SPEAKER_00: Man was united with his God.
SPEAKER_00: It says in Genesis 3.8, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
SPEAKER_00: In the way things were, man was in perfect fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Science now tells us that no one uses more than 10% of their brain potential at any given time.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're married to a man, you probably know that's scientifically accurate, right?
SPEAKER_00: But before the fall, Adam and Eve had an unbroken potential to be aware of the presence of God, to know God, to walk with God, to commune with God, in perfect fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And aren't you glad?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to bury the lead, I'm going to get to the end of the sermon really quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you glad that we're going to go to heaven someday and we will once again be able to perceive and know what there is to know about God as they did, but far greater, we shall see him as he is.
SPEAKER_00: Man was united with God.
SPEAKER_00: Man was united with others.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 2.25.
SPEAKER_00: They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: Perfect harmony together.
SPEAKER_00: That's the world God made.
SPEAKER_00: Man was united with himself.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says they were naked and unashamed.
SPEAKER_00: Man had a capacity to be fully known and to be fully loved and to be fully at peace.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis said the human machine was made to run on God.
SPEAKER_00: God himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, if you've ever owned a computer, you know this is true, that your computer has an original operating system and is often infected by a virus.
SPEAKER_00: The original operating system, the default settings of the human person was to honor and to serve God and to love God and to worship God, to respect others as representatives of God, but we all recognize that a virus has corrupted the system of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1 and 2 recount how things were, but Genesis 3 begins to describe how things are.
SPEAKER_00: So the second phase of this grand story is not just how things were, it describes to us how things are.
SPEAKER_00: And the fall describes to us the nature of the world in which we live today.
SPEAKER_00: I think we'd all agree, as what I just described is not true of our world as it is today.
SPEAKER_00: It is not now as it was then.
SPEAKER_00: Sin has complicated the perfection and pleasure of God's world.
SPEAKER_00: For with disobedience of Adam came sin into the world.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture says in Romans 5.12, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and death has passed on all men, for that all have sinned.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Only once in my ministry did I ever say, how many of you do believe that you've never committed a sin?
SPEAKER_00: I had one person raise his hand and said he never committed a sin.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You just did, because now you are a liar.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_00: Sin is now the way things are.
SPEAKER_00: And from Genesis 3 on, we see a couple things that are very descriptive of our world in which we live today.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, think about broken relationships.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, man suffered a relationship break with God.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 3 describes the home of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says at the end of the chapter, God drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.
SPEAKER_00: Man and God are now separated.
SPEAKER_00: And I say to you, it is not God that's moved from you, it is that we have moved from God.
SPEAKER_00: All we like sheep have gone astray.
SPEAKER_00: We've all turned to our own way.
SPEAKER_00: We've all walked away from the known will of God.
SPEAKER_00: And sin is any area in our lives when we disobey the commandments of God.
SPEAKER_00: We have broken relationships with God, but we have broken relationships with each other.
SPEAKER_00: When I read the Bible, I see an unbroken succession of broken relationships.
SPEAKER_00: There's the severed relationship of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, and Saul and David, and David and Absalom and Jacob and Esau and Isaac and Ishmael and Philemon and Onesimus and Paul and Peter and Paul and Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: It's an unbroken line of broken relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: It was Tim Keller who observed, because of sin, our relationships tend naturally toward conflict, toward blame, toward manipulation, toward isolation.
SPEAKER_00: How are things today?
SPEAKER_00: Broken relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we see a groaning creation.
SPEAKER_00: That's how things are.
SPEAKER_00: We might imagine the beauty of the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_00: I was just reading an article recently where they they think they found the Garden of Eden, and they did really good scientific work.
SPEAKER_00: They they looked between the Euphrates and Tigris River, and that's really good because that's kind of the land between the rivers.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it all got started.
SPEAKER_00: But they're never going to find the Garden of Eden because it was corrupted because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The next time we see Eden is when Jesus Christ rules and reigns upon this earth.
SPEAKER_00: Abel is slain by his brother Cain, his brother's blood cries from the ground.
SPEAKER_00: The harmony of Eden was replaced by the disruption of natural disasters and storms and decay and sand spurs and drought.
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, you can read of a drought into the ministry of Elijah, famine in the days of Joseph, a plague of locusts in the days of the prophet Joel.
SPEAKER_00: In Egypt, we read of hailstones and a moraine of cattle and other plagues that persisted.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible speaks of earthquakes and pestilence and even hurricanes, and I don't mean to give you PTSD this morning, but all of these natural disasters were not part of the way things were, but they're part of the way things are.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 says, We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
SPEAKER_00: And every time you hear a growing pain, a groaning pain of natural disaster, it's just the ground crying out, even so come, Lord Jesus, come.
SPEAKER_00: What about the way things are?
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, will you notice there's shattered souls?
SPEAKER_00: Someone said we live in the age of the fractured self.
SPEAKER_00: Because we were made for God's pleasure, because we were made to find joy in God and harmony with one another, our inner world has become a world of turmoil.
SPEAKER_00: Inner turmoil explains why the prodigal son desired the father's house and the far country.
SPEAKER_00: It explains why Paul said that the good that he would, he couldn't do, and the good that he wouldn't do, that's what he did.
SPEAKER_00: It seemed as if there was a great struggle occurring in the soul of a great man.
SPEAKER_00: The inner turmoil explains why Demas forsook the Apostle Paul, having, quote, loved this present world.
SPEAKER_00: The inner turmoil is why Esau sold his birthright for a pot of stew.
SPEAKER_00: It's why Tom Brady, who after winning his third Super Bowl, said, Why do I have three Super Bowls and still think that there's something greater out there for me?
SPEAKER_00: Because listen, guys, Super Bowl trophies don't fill the void deep down inside your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Only Christ can do that.
SPEAKER_00: The splintered soul.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, interesting that during a pandemic it was sexual activity that actually decreased among human beings.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they are not the top vices that people turn to to fill the void deep inside that inner struggle, but they do turn to endless entertainment.
SPEAKER_00: They turn to social media and pornography.
SPEAKER_00: We've turned to prescription medications and fantasy.
SPEAKER_00: Someone said they've turned to a world of digital distractions.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard for some of us to sit in a room and hear a 35 or 40 or 50 or hour-long sermon on Sunday because we've been conditioned to live our lives in sound bites 40 or 50 or 60 seconds at a time.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's the fractured soul, is the way things are, but it's not the way that they were, and it's not the way God designed it to be.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah called the things that we turn to broken cisterns that can hold no water.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon in Ecclesiastes said that all life away from God consolidates to his vanity and vexation of spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Paul in the book of Romans notes that all of these are attempts to worship the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is why things are not the way they are supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: But let's go to the third part of this grand story, and that is this redemption is the way that things could be.
SPEAKER_00: We started with the way that things were.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you maybe have heard a young person caricature the entire Old Testament as the diatribe of an angry, warmongering, and fantasidal, bloodthirsty God.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that on every page of the Old Testament, we can see a long-suffering, merciful God who is not willing that any would perish, but that all should come to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: It was God that sent the flood in Noah's day, who gave him 120 years to preach the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It was God who sent his own people into captivity, who gave them centuries to repent.
SPEAKER_00: And I say to you today, it is the same God of mercy of the Old Testament that is the same God of mercy today.
SPEAKER_00: He is not willing that any would perish.
SPEAKER_00: And may I just say, if a man chooses to go to hell, he will do so stepping over the bloodstained cross of Jesus Christ, who shed his blood, so that we could have forgiveness of sin through the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that hell was prepared for the devil and his angels.
SPEAKER_00: We have a merciful redeeming God.
SPEAKER_00: The whole time in the Old Testament, the Bible was telling us that a redeemer was on his way.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 3.15, we have the first promise of this Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: It is said that God would put an enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between his seed and her seed, and his seed would bruise her seed's head or hill, and her seed would crush the serpent's head.
SPEAKER_00: He's called a prophet in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 15 The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, like unto me.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Samuel chapter 7 When thy days be fulfilled, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.
SPEAKER_00: I will set up after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels.
SPEAKER_00: I will establish his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Forever.
SPEAKER_00: For unto us a child is born.
SPEAKER_00: Unto us the Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: And because this Redeemer would be a Jew, the Bible must describe the formation of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: It described the promises to the nation Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And it kind of describes Satan's battles against the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: Did you ever read the story of Esther?
SPEAKER_00: Esther's a story of God's people being captive in the land of Iran or Persia.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a wicked man by the name of Haman that had orchestrated the extermination, shall I say, the Holocaust of the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: And we ought not just think as we read Old Testament Holocaust stories like that story or the story of Pharaoh killing all the male babies, that this is just an attempt at ethnocleansing or cleansing this globe of a certain race of people, that these genocidal attempts in the Old Testament are not just about eradicating a nation, they're about the war for this messianic seed that is promised would come to the nation of Israel, through the tribe of Judah, that a king was coming who wouldn't just sit on an earthly throne, but would sit in a heavenly throne, not just a king to set us free from political bondage, but would set us free from our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan has always decided to fight that seed that would produce the Messiah, whose name is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Redeemer would be a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament describes tabernacles and temples and the system of sacrifices and blood atonement.
SPEAKER_00: Because this Redeemer would be a king.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament tells us about the reign of David and the downfall of Israel, and would provide, listen, sufficient and overwhelming proof, not just to the first coming of Christ in Bethlehem, oh, but to the second coming of Christ as he rules and reigns over all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Redeemer is a bridegroom, the Bible describes covenant, faithful love, and his story of redemption is told through the marriage of Abraham and Sarah and Israel and Rebekah, or excuse me, Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob and Leah.
SPEAKER_00: Prophets?
SPEAKER_00: Moses, Elijah, and Jeremiah, yeah, they're just prefigures of the Messiah, who's also a prophet who is to come.
SPEAKER_00: This Messiah will come as God in flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible describes the manner in which the Redeemer will die.
SPEAKER_00: Seven hundred years before he comes, Isaiah says he was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: The Redeemer comes and will hang upon a cross.
SPEAKER_00: He became the curse for us.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, guys.
SPEAKER_00: He took our sin, we receive his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: He took our separation, we get his unity with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He took our death, we receive his life.
SPEAKER_00: He took our hell and we receive his heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God for the wonderful grace of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says the Redeemer will be sold for silver.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: I said, If you think good, give me this price, and if not for bear, so they weighed for my price, thirty pieces of silver.
SPEAKER_00: Thousand years before Messiah hung upon an old rugged cross, and John says, For these things were done that the scripture might be fulfilled, a bone of him shall not be broken.
SPEAKER_00: A thousand years before that event, David wrote of Messiah in Psalm 34, verse 20, and he says, His bones will not be broken.
SPEAKER_00: It was B.
SPEAKER_00: B.
SPEAKER_00: Warfield who said, The Old Testament is a room furnished but dimly lit.
SPEAKER_00: The coming of Christ floods the room with light.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ came to redeem us from our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Creation?
SPEAKER_00: Well that's that's the way things were.
SPEAKER_00: The fall, well, that's the way things are.
SPEAKER_00: Redemption, that's how things could be.
SPEAKER_00: Number four, the Bible speaks of restoration.
SPEAKER_00: This speaks of the way things will be.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that one day Christ will make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: Sin will be removed, death will die, all of creation will be restored, God will dwell with his people.
SPEAKER_00: The story ends.
SPEAKER_00: Peace returns to the universe.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is cast into the lake of fire.
SPEAKER_00: The redeemed will be with Jesus, and Christ will receive all glory.
SPEAKER_00: I heard the story of a young boy who's reading a book, maybe a book about cowboys and Indians, and I'm not sure which side of that war you'd decide to follow, but he was reading this book.
SPEAKER_00: And his mother called him to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Johnny, come on in.
SPEAKER_00: Supper's ready.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Mom, I'll be there in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: And she called again, Johnny, supper's ready.
SPEAKER_00: Come, it's hot on the table.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be there in just a second.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, she said, I'm not going to say this again.
SPEAKER_00: Supper's ready, come to the table.
SPEAKER_00: And he hurriedly ran to the table.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Where have you been?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm sorry, Mom.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I was just reading this great story and uh I didn't have quite time to finish it, but I went to the last chapter and I needed to read it because I just needed to see who wins.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just tell you guys this morning, we're not waiting to see how all of this turns out.
SPEAKER_00: The battle was won 2,000 years ago on an old rugged cross when Jesus Christ bowed his head and said, It is finished, and he was buried and rose again.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just go on record this morning and say we are on the winning side this morning?
SPEAKER_00: You can watch the news and get worked up about it.
SPEAKER_00: You can watch Bloomberg and CNBC and read the newspapers and get all worked up about things that'll probably correct next week, but I'm just telling you, there's a reality that I live by today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not searching for victory, I'm fighting from victory because we are accepted in Christ and He has died and risen again.
SPEAKER_00: We have victory in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Can all God's people say amen?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you take that to work with you tomorrow?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you take that home with you today?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you take that into your next obstacle?
SPEAKER_00: We are on the winning side.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm trying to figure out if God will get on my side.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you're looking at your life entirely wrong.
SPEAKER_00: There's a character in the Old Testament's name is Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua had taken over for Moses, and he's a little bit trepidatious about the war that is to come because Joshua's a great man, but he didn't think he's like Moses.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, a beautiful, a beautiful angel appeared to Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua thought to himself, whoa, who is this?
SPEAKER_00: His identity was the angel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua said, Are you for us?
SPEAKER_00: Are you for us or are you for them?
SPEAKER_00: And the angel said, Nay.
SPEAKER_00: As captain of the Lord of hosts, I am come.
SPEAKER_00: You know what he was saying?
SPEAKER_00: He was saying, Joshua, I'm not here to take sides.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to take over.
SPEAKER_00: It was Lincoln in the Civil War who said, the question is not, is God on our side?
SPEAKER_00: The question is, are we on God's side?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling you, Jesus Christ didn't come to take sides.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't take sides with the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come to take sides with the Jews and the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: He's not coming to earth to choose sides between the Republicans and the Democrats, the Yankees and the Rednecks.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna come and He's gonna take over someday.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that illustration of the North and South.
SPEAKER_00: I used to say the South will rise again, but I'm not sure it's ever coming back.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We're on God's side.
SPEAKER_00: And we have victory in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we live between redemption and restoration.
SPEAKER_00: The cross has already secured victory, but the creation still waits for the king to finish what he started.
SPEAKER_00: None of our lives reflect how things should be.
SPEAKER_00: Sin has ruined our world.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: Christ came into the darkness and he shattered it with his light.
SPEAKER_00: The whole Bible tells you and me this great truth that we really truly do need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: A couple years ago, one of the advantages of living out west was seeing some amazing places.
SPEAKER_00: A couple of years ago, we came through the desert towards Las Vegas and up into Utah, one of the most breathtaking places I've I've ever seen in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And we came into Zion National Park.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have been to Zion before?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you have you have to go to Zion National Park.
SPEAKER_00: It was raining a bit that day, and as I look back, I'm kind of grateful it was raining that day.
SPEAKER_00: It's as if the rain had washed so much dust off the palette of God's masterpiece he painted in the desert.
SPEAKER_00: A beautiful place.
SPEAKER_00: The park ranger told us an interesting story of two American painters, one by the name of Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt, who came to that part of the world at the beginning of the 1900s.
SPEAKER_00: They observed glowing skies and breathtaking valleys of the American West.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the Mormons had pioneered much of that country.
SPEAKER_00: They came to Zion and they said, surely this looks like heaven.
SPEAKER_00: They named it Zion.
SPEAKER_00: These two painters that came and they saw the breathtaking beauty of these valleys and had painted a number of portraits of Zion.
SPEAKER_00: They came back east to New York to sell these paintings.
SPEAKER_00: And they couldn't sell them.
SPEAKER_00: Stories told that people thought there's nothing that could possibly be that beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: It's fantasy.
SPEAKER_00: Some accuse the artist of exaggeration.
SPEAKER_00: Because no one could imagine such glory actually existing on earth.
SPEAKER_00: But when travelers later stood in places like Zion or Yosemite Valley, their eyes fixed upon towering cliffs and blazing sunsets, and they discovered that the artist, listen, the artist had not overstated the beauty at all.
SPEAKER_00: If anything, the paintings had fallen far short of its natural beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Eye hath not seen.
SPEAKER_00: Ear has not heard.
SPEAKER_00: It hasn't even entered into your mind the things that God has prepared for those that love him.
SPEAKER_00: So it will be when Christ restores all things.
SPEAKER_00: The prophets describe deserts blooming and creation rejoicing and wolves lying down with lambs.
SPEAKER_00: When Christ restores all things.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that there are ten times the number of police officers in our country that serve as mental health therapists?
SPEAKER_00: It seems so fantastical that peace and safety in inner shalom would rest in every heart, but I'm telling you, this is the power of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And unlike Route 66, many roads lead west.
SPEAKER_00: But only one road leads to God.
SPEAKER_00: And his name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: History is his story.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible, his love letter of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: The way things were is not how things are.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus came and will come again.
SPEAKER_00: And everything, listen, everything lost in Eden has not only been regained, but will be multiplied in the restoration found in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I encourage you to turn to him today.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all pray, may we?