SPEAKER_00 0:01

We celebrate Jesus today. Celebrate, we have a faithful God. Amen. Amen. We have such a good God, man. I love here's this verse in Deuteronomy that talks about He's the God whose faithfulness extends through generations. It isn't an end. He's the same God yesterday, today, and forever. That's what Hebrews says. We get to celebrate him today. We also get to dive into his word. Anyone excited about that? That we get to dive into his word and just hear from him, hear about him, and hear what he wants from our lives. You can have a seat. If we haven't met before, my name is Jacob Vance. I'm the Next Steps pastor here. If you're newer to Crossroads, y'all are my people. Y'all are my people. So if you're newer, I would love to meet you and help you get connected here. That's where we're gonna be today, is John chapter five. We're continuing this series through what we're calling seven. And what we're doing is over these, over this summer and over the early part of the fall, we're gonna be just looking through the Gospel of John piece by piece, section by section. And we're gonna we're jumping into John chapter five today. If you don't have a Bible with you, I would invite you right now, whether you don't have a Bible at all, or maybe you just don't have one with you right now, you can just raise your hand. We would love to give you a copy of God's word. We have the Bible is not just any sort of book. Yes, it was written a long time ago, but it's it's alive today. Uh, if you want to know anything about God, you gotta know it through his word. If you want to know what God wants for your life, you gotta know it through his word. So we want you to have a copy of that to take home with your name on it. You can take that home. That's our gift to you. If you need one, just raise your hand, keep it up until you get one. We got ushers around the room, they're ready to give one to you. It's an exciting morning. We're continuing. John chapter 5. Let's dive in. Hopefully you're there, John chapter 5, or at least you're getting close. Let's dive in. We'll start in verse 40. We're gonna read from there to the end of the chapter, verse 40. This is Jesus speaking. He says, This, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people, but I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my father's name and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you that you're here with us. God, you're you're God who's omnipresent. What that means is that you're everywhere, all the time, all at once. It's so beyond what we can even fathom. But God, you're here with us and we celebrate that. We just acknowledge that. And because you're here with us, we just lay down everything on our minds. Get every anxiety going through our minds, every distraction that might creep in right now. We just lay it down before you. We pray that you would prepare our hearts right now to receive your word. I believe you have something mighty to say to us today. We pray that we wouldn't walk out of these doors the same, but that we would walk out changed, that we would walk out seeing you more clearly than we did when we walked in. That we would walk, that we would walk out of these doors more like you than we were when we walked in, and that we would walk away changed. God, have your way in us. Bless our time. We love you, we thank you. In Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Amen. Let's dive in. I'm just gonna jump right straight to what we just read in verses 40 through 47. Jesus is a savage, he's a savage. Like just he just lays it on these people. We're gonna do a little bit of investigative work later on. We're gonna find out who he's talking to, why he's talking to him this way, and everything like that. But just immediately, Jesus is a savage. Okay, he's laying on him. Like I'm just skimming through this real quick. Uh he says, like verse 42, uh, I know that you do not have the love of God within you. That's pretty weighty, like that's pretty confrontational, if you ask me. Verse 44, he says, How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Like that's a that's a smack in the face verbally, if I've ever heard it, metaphorically, not literally. Jesus wouldn't smack someone in the face. I'm saying metaphorically, Jesus, that's a that's a heavy, hitting uh sentence to say to somebody. Uh it follows it up. Verse 46 through 47. But if you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you don't believe his writings, how will you believe my words? These people, he's he's confronting them pretty bluntly. I find that really interesting here. Jesus is not being rude, he's not being a jerk, he's not being petty, he's not being cruel. In fact, I would actually argue that he's being loving. There are multiple reasons for this. Number one, because sometimes bluntness and love can and do coexist. I think that's one thing we gotta get our minds around as a culture. But then also on top of that, just look at verse 40 real quick. Just check that out. This is what Jesus starts off with. This is him speaking. You refuse to come to me that you may have life. You refuse to come to me that you may have life. Can you hear the heartbreak in Jesus' words here? Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. There's nothing that Jesus wants more for every single person than to give them life in his name. There's nothing that he wants more. And these people, for one reason or another, we're gonna dive into that, but for one reason or another, they're refusing it. They're rejecting him, and he's confronting that. He's speaking the truth into that situation because they're refusing it. I want to just point this out. Jesus here, he's speaking with bluntness, but he more than anything, he's speaking with the key word of the day, I think. He's speaking with authority. He has authority, and he's speaking with a type of authority that these particular people hadn't really heard of before. And these particular people weren't used to experiencing at this level. He's speaking with authority. I feel like we struggle with authority really badly. Um I am probably one of the most stubborn people that I know. I'm sure a lot of you in the crowd got me one-uped big time, but we got a lot of stubborn people in the roof. Just by a show of hands, if you would say you're a little on the stubborn side, just just raise those hands. If you're not raising your hands, that's just proof that you're stubborn and don't want to admit it. So just raise your hands, all of us. It's okay, we can admit it. This is a safe place. We're good. We're all kind of stubborn people. I even for stupid things, things that don't don't even matter, and things that shouldn't bother us, we get bothered by. Um, literally, I was the other day, I was driving somewhere, I can't remember exactly where it was, but I was driving, and I, because I'm directionally challenged, I pulled up, I pulled up my phone, I put put the address into Apple Maps, and that's why I mapped it. And it wasn't that I didn't know everything about the route, it's that I just didn't know like one or two turns, you know, kind of how you do that. Like, okay, I know most of it, but there's like one turn that I have no idea where it is or or how to get there, and it always sneaks up on you. So you just you just map it just to be safe. But I so I did that, and I'm on my way there, and I'm I'm going through my the familiar areas. The areas that I go, I just literally drive this this area every single day. It's like down Park Avenue, down some different roads like that. I literally work here, so I drive this every single day. And I find myself, it's it's telling me, because I I can't, I wish there was like a setting where you could just tell it, hey, tell me what I don't know, not tell me everything I do know. But I found myself, it was telling me, hey, turn right on Park Avenue West. It's like I I do you think I'm stupid? Like I know this. Like, and I I just find myself getting, I'm I'm upset. Like I said, shut up, Siri. Like I already know this. Um maybe this is for you. This isn't this isn't necessarily true for me because, well, I know, I know how God's wired me and I know not to do this, but it's true for some of you. You get furniture from IKEA, and you get up, you get they they they wrap it up all nice for you. They put it in the box and they they give it to you, and they put this really, really cool thing in there called an instruction manual. If you've ever heard of it, there are some of us in the room where you just you just find that you're digging through the box, you're getting all the parts out. I was gonna say you pull them out like this, and you don't do that. You you have it upside down, you you shake it out, you get all the pieces out, you find that instruction manual, and then you just like rip it up and throw it in the trash can because for some reason you feel like you know better than IKEA about how to build their own furniture. Um we're just we're naturally stubborn people. We don't like to be told what to do, and yet there's this side of Jesus that we have to come to terms with. There's this whole side of Jesus. I think it's it's it's one thing for us to grasp Jesus as loving, as gracious, as merciful, kind, compassionate. Just keep keep on down the list. The the Jesus that went to the cross for us, the Jesus that loves us, is obsessed with us, and and will give his life for us. And all of those things are true. We have to live in light of those things. We're called to abide in his love for us, is what he told us in John 15. So all those things are true. But there's this other side of Jesus that's just as real. He's not just the lamb, he's also the lion. He's not just the savior who went on the cross and died for us because of how deeply and how much he loves us. He's also the same God who walked out of the grave three days later because he's victorious. He's also the same God who not only walked out of the grave but now is seated on a throne with a crown on his head, surrounded by millions of angels bowing down before him, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, is, and is to come. This is the same God. And we have to wrap our minds around both. That he's not just Lamb who loves us, would do anything for us, is obsessed with us. He is also king. He is also Lord, and he has what's called that again the key word, authority. He has authority over us. Here, here's this one thing I want you to get today. This is it. I always have the one thing, this is the one thing. Jesus is Lord, and that's a good thing. Jesus is Lord, and that's a good thing. I don't know about you, I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself. I tend to like to feel like I have a lot of control and and put a lot of weight on my shoulders as a result. But when I acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, that that's actually not a something that gets put on my shoulders. That's him taking the weight off my shoulders because I can recognize and rest in how he is Lord and I am not. There's beauty in this. It's a blessing that he is Lord. And here's the reality that we have to face today. This is another thing. You will never experience the fullness of life in Jesus until you acknowledge Jesus as Lord. You'll never experience the fullness of life in Jesus, the fullness of the life that Jesus wants to give you, the way he wants to bless your life, the way he wants to just fill your life with him and everything about him and wants to bless every area of your life. You will never experience that until you acknowledge him as your Lord. Now I'm not saying that everything's always going to be easy and pretty and that your bank account's gonna look a certain way or anything like that, but I am saying that you will not experience the joy and fullness of even you won't even fully grasp how deeply he loves you unless you acknowledge him as Lord. These two things cannot be separated. When we separate them, we get a version of Jesus that doesn't exist. It's our own version of it, a counterfeit version. This is the true Jesus, lion and lamb. And we're gonna look at how he talks about that today. Let me just ask you a question. We talked about Jesus speaks very bluntly. If he were to speak to you that way, maybe not saying the same things, hopefully not saying that exactly the same thing, but if we were to talk to you with that level of bluntness and authority, how would you respond? Would you listen? Would you be shocked by that? Would you be receptive or not? This is the Jesus that we gotta discover today. There is not a part of your life that Jesus wants distance from. There's not a part of your life that Jesus wants distance from. And in order to fully experience all of it, we gotta see him as both lion and lamb. And we're gonna dive into that today. I mentioned that we gotta do a little bit of investigative work because we started at the end of the passage. We started in the middle of Jesus speaking to these people, and now we gotta discover, okay, who are these people and why is Jesus talking this way? We gotta do a little bit of investigative work here. So let's let's do it together. This is the way I study the Bible, by the way. This is the way you should study the Bible. If you're just kind of like, okay, how do I how do I study this thing on my own? This is the way to do it. Ask good questions. Just ask questions and find the answers to it. Like, okay, who is Jesus talking to here? We're gonna find that together. Let's let's go back to verse 15. So if you need to flip there, go ahead and flip there, verse 15. We'll go back. So here's a little bit of context. Just last week, Pastor Chris preached a phenomenal message about Jesus healing a man at the pool of Bethesda. This is a place near the center of Jerusalem. There's a pool there where they believe that any anyone who is sick or paralyzed or disabled in any sort of way, if they got in the pool at a certain time, they would be healed. This man had been sitting there, this paralyzed man had been sitting there for 38 years. Jesus comes and heals him. And this is an incredible thing. So this is that man that they're talking, this is talking about here, verse 15. The man, that man that Jesus healed, that man went away and told the Jews, let's pause there, the Jews is not just the Jewish people, not just the crowd, and not just everyone who is a Jew. This is always in specific reference to Pharisees and the Jewish leaders, the scribes and Pharisees. That's important to know. So the man went away and told the Jews, or the Jewish leaders, that it was Jesus who had healed him. Verse 16, and this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. So Jesus healed this man specifically. The Sabbath is every single week, God instituted one holy day of rest called the Sabbath. He established this way back in Moses' time, generations before. The thing is, when God established it, he established it pretty uh pretty, I would say pretty pretty just surface level. He didn't he didn't give a whole lot of specifications surrounding what work you could do and couldn't do. He just said, hey, here's the day, keep the Sabbath day, keep it holy, and rest on this day. Refrain from work. And he wasn't very specific in a lot of different ways. And so there were generations after that, there were some different Jewish leaders who felt the need to make that more specific. So what they did was they literally, if you could you can Google this, you do some research on this, literally what they did was this. They created law after law about what you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath. They created what are called 39 Avat laws. What those are is that 39 categories of types of work you couldn't do on the Sabbath. Not 39 different tasks that you couldn't do, 39 different categories of tasks that you couldn't do. So what Jesus did, that one of those included healing. Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. He wasn't disobeying God the Father. He was he was fully obeying God's law, but he wasn't necessarily in line with the Pharisees' law and with the Jewish leader's law. And so they get upset about this. They say that that's why they were wanting to persecute him because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. And here's Jesus' response. I love this. This we could just camp out here forever. We don't have time, but uh, we could just camp out here forever. Verse 17. But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now and I am working. My father is working until now and I am working. Did you pick up on that? He doesn't say our father is working until now. He doesn't say the father is working until now. He says, My father is working until now. He is talking about God the Father in a very personal way, in a very intimate way, and in a way that implies one thing and one thing only, that he is the Son of God. And that by way of implication, he has the same authority that God the Father does, that he is equal with God. This is how they understand it. Verse 18. This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him. This was blasphemy in their eyes. To associate yourself with God the Father in that way is blasphemy, and the only punishment they saw, that they thought was uh was justifiable was capital punishment. So they were seeking to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, not only was he breaking that, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. This is the claim that Jesus makes throughout the book of John. By the way, this is the third chapter in a row where Jesus makes this claim. You ever picked up on that? Chapter three, he talks with Nicodemus, the Pharisee, and he has this one-on-one private conversation with him, and he calls himself a son of God. Chapter four, he has this private conversation, again, one-on-one conversation with this woman at a well in Samarit, Samaritan woman at a well, and he talks to her and he says that he is living water. He literally says, I am he, I am the Messiah, and now here. This is the first time, specifically, the first time publicly that he is saying that he is the son of God. I've been online long enough, and I've seen all the videos, all of the comments, all of the theories of from people saying Jesus never claimed to be the son of God. And they use that as an argument against Christianity and against our belief in Jesus. I mean maybe you're in the room and this is you. Like you've heard those things, you maybe even have believed those things. I'm just gonna ask you, I'm not even like to belittle you, I'm just asking you, where do you find that? Like where in this book do you see that Jesus doesn't claim to be the son of God? Because it's it's actually pretty explicit throughout the entire word of God, especially in the Gospel of John. This is like the lightest version of it where he says, My father is still working. This is like the most like under the radar version of it. Later on in chapter 8, I'm gonna learn out for a moment. Later on in chapter 8, he's literally gonna use the words before Abraham was, I am. I am being Yahweh. Like they immediately pick up on this and they're gonna get all riled up because of this. Then in chapter 10, verse 30, he uses this exact phrase, verbatim. I and the Father are one. And it's that moment that immediately the Jews and the Romans catch on, and they be in this whole trial to arrest him, to bring him to trial, and then later to have him crucified. His claims is what got him killed. So he he's always claiming to be the Son of God. It's just what do we do with it? What do we do with it? And what we're called to do is receive and acknowledge him as Lord. But I would love to do this. Is this what Jesus does? So this this whole passage, verses 19 through through the rest of the chapter, is Jesus having this conversation with the Pharisees and with the Jewish leaders. Specifically, what he does is this is he, I don't I don't think he, you could say he defends himself, you could say he argues for his what's called divinity, his defined nature. You could say that he's doing those things, defending himself, arguing. That those are true. I think under the surface, he's actually doing something much more profound. Because Jesus says has nothing to prove, he has nothing to need to defend himself, and he also, again, he has nothing to prove, he doesn't need to argue necessarily and win an argument. But deeper down, what he's doing is this he is inviting everyone who's listening to him to acknowledge him as Lord. Because it's only when we acknowledge him as Lord that we receive life, it's only by acknowledging him as Lord that we receive life, including for the scribes and Pharisees, the people who knew the Old Testament front to back, the people who were seen as the most religious people in the room, that Jesus gave this invitation to to receive him as Lord. What we do, what we see when we dive into this, I'm spending a long time prefacing all this because it's really important. What Jesus does is throughout this conversation, he gives different angles of what his relationship with the Father actually looks like. And I believe that when we look at that, here's what we see. We see four reasons for why Jesus being Lord is a good thing, for why Jesus being Lord is a blessing for us. So I just want to dive into that for the remainder of our time. Let's dive in. We're gonna be at verse 19. So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing, and greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. Here's what Jesus is saying. He's saying, this is he phrases it very interestingly. He says, Truly, truly I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord. The son can do nothing of his own accord. Here's what he's not saying. I'm I'm gonna give clarity to this. Here's what he's not saying. He's not saying, Oh, I'm incapable. He's not saying, Oh, I'm weak. He's not saying, Oh, I'm so I'm so dependent, I'm so I'm so fragile. What he's saying is that if you're questioning what I do, you can rest assured that everything that I do is exactly. What the Father does. Why? Because exactly what the Father wants is exactly what I want. So therefore, what I do is exactly what the Father does. We are one and the same. That's his point. We're one and the same. It is impossible for me to do anything that the Father wouldn't want me to do because our desires are the exact same, our minds are the exact same, and therefore our actions are the exact same. Jesus' actions, every single thing that he did, including healing this man on the Sabbath, is justifiable because he is Jesus, because he is who he claimed to be. He is Lord, He is the Son of God. That's what He's saying here. And here's the implication for us. Here's the point. Here's why I love this fact for us that Jesus is Lord. That's a good thing. The reason number one is that his work can be trusted. His work can be trusted. Got any control freaks in the room? Just by a show of hands, we're doing a lot of confession today. I love this. We should make this a more regular thing. Stubborn people and control freaks. This is what this room is full of. This is where we're what we're where we're at today.

unknown 22:59

Can we be both?

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Absolutely. You probably, I'm sure most of us are both, honestly. I am definitely both. Here's what Jesus does. He says, His work can be trusted. I think sometimes I struggle to trust other people that they're gonna do like as good of a job as I do with certain things. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I like to have a plan for my life. I like to have a plan for how things go in my job, and I like to do things all my own because I know it'll get done well. And there are also moments in our lives where we can very easily question what God's up to. We can very easily become discouraged because we don't know what God's up to. Here's the danger. I mentioned earlier this week, we have this, we see Jesus in one side. We see him, we see the Lamb, we see Him as loving, gracious, all of these things. But when we don't see Him as lying to, what happens is we can feel this. When we're in the middle of something really, really difficult, we can feel like Jesus is enough to give us peace, and He's enough maybe to comfort us, but I also have to take matters into my own hands. He's gonna be with me in the midst of it because he loves me and you know He He cares about me, all these things, but also like I can't fully trust Him to take care of this, so I gotta do it on my own. This is why Jesus being Lord is such a gift, because even when things are overwhelming, even when things are difficult, even when things are uncertain, I know that I serve a risen King who has not stepped off of his throne, who is not surprised by anything, and we have a God who, no matter what I'm walking through, I know that the destination is gonna be worth it and that he won't waste a thing in the journey. You're tracking with me? Like the destination, I I don't know what it what it is. I got I can't, I don't know what the journey is gonna lead to, but I know that he's not gonna waste a thing on the way to get there. And I know that at the end of the day, because all things revolve around him, because he is alive, which we're gonna dive into in a moment, because all of this is about him. At the end of the day, no matter what I walk through, it's gonna lead me closer to Jesus than I was before. I just know it because that's the way God is. He does not waste a thing in our lives. Especially the things that we that we actually lay down before him. All of the good, the bad, and the ugly. He doesn't waste any of it. His work can be trusted. I have this, I talked about this last service. I hesitate to always talk about this because I know some of us have some mixed feelings about this, but I'm not really much of a tattoo guy, but I did get one because I'm not like one of the I don't have like sleeves, like I got just nothing on my neck or my face quite yet, at least. Um we'll we'll see. Um, but I got this one, and I thought about I I the I had two options. The first was like get like a bird down my back with like wings on my arms so I could like fly. Um, but my wife didn't like that very much. So this is what I settled for instead. This is option B. And so I did this. Um it is it's it's an empty tomb with the words, because he lives underneath. That's what it is. Some of y'all immediately your mind goes Gaithers. The 1970s, the Gaither tune. We don't talk about the Gaiters enough, man. The Gaiters had some bangers. Um that's part of what it's inspired from. But here's the reality. Whenever, whenever I have an experience in my life, it just makes me question why, God. Or whenever I have a moment in my life where I feel overwhelmed and I feel anxious and I feel uncertain about what tomorrow holds, I can look down on my forearm and know that he's got it. If he was still in the tomb, I would know that he loves me in the midst of it. But because he's risen, I know that he's got me next. He's got me tomorrow. I know he's got me every single step of the way. His work can be trusted. One of the greatest works that he does is what he follows with. It's it's verse 21. We'll continue here. He says this for as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. Let's jump down, so just bear with me, jump down a couple verses to verse 24. We'll we'll continue this other ones eventually. Verse 24. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who has who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming, it is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. The reason number two, the second reason for why Jesus being Lord is a good thing, is he gives life. He gives life. The whole point of the book of John, we we talked about this week one. This is probably a few months back at this point. But we talked about was the whole purpose behind this entire book. John writes very uniquely. He's not necessarily just trying to give the most thorough historical outline of Jesus' life. He's specifically trying to make an argument. Here's the argument, he says it at the end of the book. He is that I write all these things that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. That's the whole point of the book of John. And so Jesus, again, this is the third time, third chapter in a row, he's mentioned that he gives life. Chapter three, we had John 3, 16. God so loves the world that any that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. He sent his only son, whoever believes in him would have eternal life. And then chapter 4, he is living water. Now here, chapter 5. Verse 24, one more time. I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. I love that word, okay? Again, this Bible nerd out for a moment. Just bear with me. There's this word in the Greek. The New Testament's written in Greek. There's this word in Greek. What Jesus uses for give life. That word give life, it's one Greek word. It's the word zoopieo. If you're looking for baby names, I got you. Zoopieo, that's the baby name. It's actually, it's it's kind of interesting. So it's two Greek words combined to make one. It's the word the Greek word zoe, or where we get our name Zoe, it means life. And then we also have uh the other half of it, which is specifically to give and to establish. In order for life to be established or to be given, something has to be dead before. Or at the very least, it has to not have life before. Like when I was born, I was, I have life. Even before I was born, when I was I was just a I was just in the womb, I was I had life. But in order for me to be given life, I had to not have life before. Same thing is true for us. Any single area of our lives that that we want Jesus to give life to, we have to just simply acknowledge that it's dead before. We have to acknowledge that we need that life. Jesus, he's talking about two things specifically. He he specifically mentions eternal life, and that's that is the most exciting piece of this. That's such a that's a that is the piece of it that I think we can wrap our minds around. That Jesus gives us eternal life. That that's the point that he wants to have eternity with us in heaven because of the salvation that he purchases for us. Absolutely. But it's not just that, it's also that he wants to give us life now. He doesn't say that I might eventually give you life. He wants to give us life now. He wants all of our lives, every single piece of it, to be filled with the joy of it, that of what it is to have a relationship with him. Every single part of it, your marriage, your home life, your family, your job, even your finances, and everything in between. He wants to fill with life. He wants, he later says in John 10, 10 that he came that we may have life and have it abundantly. Now I'm not saying that everything looks easy because of that. And I'm not saying that everything looks all sunshine and rainbows because of that. What I am saying is that there's blessing when we recognize that Jesus is the giver of life. There's no life outside of him in any area of our lives, not just our need for salvation to be in heaven one day, but also our need for salvation from the power of sin in our lives right now. You don't have to live the same way you did when you were before you had a relationship with Jesus. You don't. Jesus has given us life in him, and he gives us life. Let's continue, verse 22. Jesus is still speaking. He says, For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. This is the third reason why Jesus being Lord is a good thing, because he is a just judge. He is a just judge. This one might be the hardest, excuse me, the hardest one for us to see in a positive light. I mean, there's there's clearly some some truth to this. So Jesus, at the end of the day, I'm we we can delve into all the weeds of it another time. We don't have time for it, but there's there's there's a reality. Jesus speaks to it in Matthew, but then there's also the reality it speaks to in Revelation. We're at the end of all things, when Jesus returns, there will be a day where we all stand before him. Specifically, stand before him at a judgment seat where he is the judge, and we will stand before him. We will give an account for everything that we have done, everything that we haven't done, every single good intention, bad intention, everything in between. We will give an account for all of it. Whether you're a Christian or you're not, we will give an account, and Jesus will judge. I think naturally there's a little bit of fear that creeps in our hearts because of that. And I'm not, I'm not, here's what I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna say that that's wrong, because I think there is such thing as a holy fear, and there is such a thing as a holy respect for Jesus. Like at the end of the day, we answer to him. He's the one in charge, not us. And so he's gonna hold us accountable. But but here's the reality. Here's why I think this is a good thing, and here's why I think this is a reality. There, there's one group of people in our, I think in our nation, but also in our state, especially for us as Ohioans, that we couldn't hate more. And it's not just it's not the team up north. I'm not gonna say them. We pick on them enough. Um, poor Pastor Michael, he's just it's it's it's tough, okay? Um here's the actual group. It's referees. That's the actual group that we can't stand. It's referees. We can't stand them because we don't have control over what they're gonna call, what they're not gonna call, and they can it can really decide how a game goes. We hate them until it's your kid on the field, until it's your kid on the court or on the field, and they get absolutely pummeled by another kid, and a call is made, and then you're just like, yeah, good call. Like if we we we we hate it, we hate the accountability, we hate the justice until we're the ones needing it. And here's the reality this is why it's a good thing that God is a good that Jesus is a good judge, because we don't have to worry about getting even with people, we don't have to worry about getting vengeance. At the end of the day, every single sin that has been committed against us, Jesus will have his way, Jesus will have justice. But then here's another reality. Just get this. If we just look and we've we've looked outward, now if we can look in the mirror for a moment, here's what I know. When I there's so much mystery around what that moment's gonna be like when we stand before him, and what that's gonna be like, what it's gonna consist of. There's so many different ideas and theories about it and beliefs, and there's a lot of unknown. But there are three things that I know for sure because I have a relationship with him, three things I know, and I hope this encourages you today. When I stand before him, I will do three things. I will look at look at the cross, I will lay down any rewards at his feet, and I will enjoy him forever. That's it. I don't know anything else for certain, but I know those three things. That when I stand before him, I will not be able to look at my res to tell Jesus to look at my resume. I won't be able to tell him to look at my preaching, I won't be able to tell him to look at my marriage, look at how I've loved and served my wife. I won't be able to tell him, hey, look at the friend I've been, look at how moral I've been, look at what the boxes I've checked, the boxes I've I've I've kept for you, look at all this, the fact that I've been a pastor for this long, whatever it is, hopefully all those things are true of me. But when I stand before him, I will not be able to say any of those things. I will only have one choice, and that is to look at the cross, because the cross did for me what I could not do for myself. That's the only thing I'll be able to do. And then as a result of that, anything else that I do on earth, like I'm I'm gonna I'm on my grind, man. Like I I hope I hope that's true for you too. Like we're grinding, trying to get as many rewards in heaven as possible. But here's the reality: all of those, all those crowns that we get, we're just gonna lay at his feet, anyways, because he's worthy. Because he is king and we're not. And then at the end of the day, we will enjoy him forever. And that's the greatest reward we could. It's not one that we earned, but one that we've received. And because he's a just judge, he has given it to us and he will he will keep his promise to give it to us. Last thing is this. This is let's reread verses 22 and 23. Jesus says this for the father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the son. Verse 23, that all may honor the son, just as they honor the father. Whoever does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him. The fourth reason for why Jesus being Lord is a good thing, is because he is what life revolves around. He is what life revolves around. Notice this in verse 23. This is so Jesus says, The Father has given all the authority to judge. He's actually like giving that to me. He's saying, like, he's giving that to the son. And then he says in verse 23, the reason for that is that all may honor the son. That all would honor him just as they honor the father. Here's the reality: Jesus is what life is all about. If there's any dysfunction in your life, it's because you failed to recognize it in some way, shape, or form. And I'm not trying to pick on you, I'm not trying to try to belittle you or make you feel bad. I'm just being straight up with you. Any dysfunction in my life is because I've shifted my attention off of Jesus and because I've made it about me, or because I've made it about something that isn't him. He is what life revolves around. In 1610, which I know some of you guys were alive then, in 1610, Galileo discovered something. You know what it is. This is what he's most known for. He discovered, he just studying astronomy, he discovered that for the longest time we thought that the sun revolved around us, and that we were, the earth was just at the center of the solar system, and like, okay, we're we're we're we're we're what everything's about. The sun revolves around us. And then Galileo discovers just by studying electromagnetic fields and gravitational pole and all this stuff that's just beyond my pay grade, he discovers that actually, no, it's it's it's reversed. We don't the sun doesn't revolve around us, we revolve around the sun. In the center of a solar system is the sun, and we just revolve around that. Could it be that we've done that exact same thing? That in our lives, in one way, shape, or form, we have made ourselves the center of our world, made ourselves the center of our attentions. Let me just let me just get this out of the way. Worship is more about attention than it is about affection. Worship is more about what you give all of your attention to and not just what you give your affection to. So let me just get this out in the air. If you're worshiping here and yeah, you're you're singing all these words that we're singing together, and you're feeling all of it, and it feels like you're pouring your your affection on Jesus, but you're mostly focused on how good you look when you raise your hands, you're not worshiping. You're not. We're called to give him not just our affection, but our attention. And when we how how often do we this? We're we just make our lives all about us. Our attention is centered on ourselves, on our own convenience, our own comfort, our own control, instead of centering it on Jesus. He is what life revolves around. I don't know about you. I find that freeing. I find that really, really freeing. Because at the end of the day, yeah, life is complicated. Every single imperfection is caused by a series of other imperfections. There's so much, so many things that you could analyze and get to the bottom of. But at the root of it is this issue. Is Jesus in the center? Because if Jesus isn't in the center where he belongs, things are gonna fall apart. If Jesus is in the center, things are gonna start to fall into place. Your marriage? Having marital trouble, I'll ask, is Jesus in the center? If he is, then things will fall into place. It doesn't mean it'll be easy all the time, but it does mean that it'll go where it needs to go and that Jesus will have his way. Having trouble at work, you just feel like you're you're not not able to give it your feel like you're struggling with your work relationships, is Jesus in the center. Or struggling with your all just I could go down the list, just thing after thing after thing, is Jesus in the center. Here's the reality. This is let this free you. This is Philippians 2, 9 through 11. This is what Paul writes. He says, Therefore, God has highly exalted Jesus. He has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. At the end of the day, we will do one thing, whether you choose to acknowledge him as Lord today or not. At the end of the day, when he comes back, when he when when the day of Jesus is here, we're gonna bow and we're gonna confess that he's Lord. At the end of the day, he is gonna receive the worship that he deserves because he is what life revolves around. He is at the center of all of it. I find that really freeing. For the rest of the passage, Jesus does something really interesting. So he acknowledges all these things about who he is to the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders. And then for verses 30, we don't have time to dig into all of it, but I would love to encourage you this week, dive into this this week. Here's what Jesus does. For verses 30 through 47, what Jesus does is he gives a tight argument for why he is who he says he is, for why he is a son of God. And he specifically lists three things that bear a witness about him. Because if he just goes around saying, Yeah, I'm a son of God, but gives no evidence to support it, it can seem a little wishy-washy. But what he does is he gives three things that prove his identity that serve as evidence for it. He lists John the Baptist bears witness about me. So the prophets before me bear witness about me. My own works bear witness about me. Not everyone can tell a paralyzed man who's been paralyzed for 38 years, get up, take up your bed and walk. And he gets up, takes up his bed and walks. Not many people can do that. And then the third thing is really interesting is the word of God bears witness about him. He argues this that the word of God bears witness about me. Do you know that in this entire book, specifically in the Old Testament, so Genesis through Malachi, there are hundreds of prophecies about Jesus. And so far, literally just from his life and ministry, just the short time he was on earth, he fulfilled over 300 Old Testament. Prophecies. Over 300 of them. Here's the that may not sound shocking. Here's the here's the I'm gonna get a little nerdy again. This is my thing. This is like a third time I think I've gotten nerdy. It's okay, guys. We're almost done. Let's get nerdy one more time. Here's the reality. There's a guy some years ago, his name is Peter Stoner. He was a Christian apologist, but also an expert. In the scientific field. And what he did was this: he he did a study, specifically a probability study, to see what the probability would be for one person to meet all of these different characteristics that the Old Testament describes. Like all the different hundreds of prophecies about Jesus, what's the likelihood of one person meeting all of these things? What he did was he took eight, took eight prophecies, and then found, tried to find the probability, the statistical probability for one person meeting all these criteria. What he found was, based on a research that he included non-Christians in, by the way, what he found was this. They found that the likelihood of one person fulfilling eight of those prophecies was one in ten to the seventeenth power. One in ten to the seventeenth power. Here's a visual that I think is really helpful. If we were to fill the entire state of Texas with quarters about two feet tall, the entire state of Texas with quarters, two feet tall, we were to take a sharpie, draw an X on one of those quarters, throw it in the pile, blindfold you, spin you around a few times till you find that quarter first try. You find it first try. That's the likelihood of Jesus fulfilling eight prophecies, and he fulfilled over 300. So here's the reality: that the evidence points to the fact that Jesus is who he said he was. By the way, I'm not even getting started on this. I'm not even getting started on him walking out of the grave. Well, that's a whole, like literally, there's no way to deny Jesus', Jesus was who he claimed he was when we accept those things. We have the evidence, and specifically the evidence points to the fact that Jesus is Lord. What are you gonna do with it? The Pharisees made the mistake of denying his authority, even though all signs pointed to it. In what areas of your life are you not acknowledging Jesus as Lord? And then simply, what are you holding back from him? What are you holding back from him? There's no better way for us to respond to this truth of Jesus being Lord. And that being a good thing, than for us to take communion. On your way in, you should have received some communion elements. We take communion for this reason. So I'm just gonna explain it really quickly. The last supper, so Jesus had his last meal with his disciples the night he was arrested and later on put on trial and then crucified. What he did was he had this last supper with his disciples, and he took bread, he broke it, and said, Take this in remembrance of me, in remembrance of my body broken for you. And then he told them to drink, he took, he poured out wine and gave it to all of his disciples and said, Take this in remembrance of me for the blood that I will shed for you. And so what we do is we take this to remember what Jesus has done for us. The greatest, what he what he accomplished for us, here's what he paid for: he paid for our refusal of him as Lord. In any way, shape, or form that's looked like in our lives from our past, he paid for it. For right now, maybe there's an area of your life where you're just simply not acknowledging him as Lord. You've kept, you've you've put him, quote unquote, on the throne of your heart, but yet you've created little baby thrones in your heart too, where you still reign. You've wanted Jesus close enough to be helpful, but not high enough to rule in your life. And what I want to ask you to do, to invite you to, is to take this moment and repent and turn from that and to acknowledge Jesus as Lord over every area of your life. Maybe there's some hard steps you need to take to make that happen. I'd invite you to take those steps. We'll take communion together to celebrate what he's done for us. Maybe you're in the room and you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. What I invite you to do right now is to do that. It's as simple as this. It's as simple as A, B, C. A, admit. Admit that you need Jesus. I talked about how Jesus wants to give you life. But in order for him to give you life, you have to acknowledge that you need it. So that's the first thing. Just to admit, Jesus, I need you. The second thing is B. B for belief. Believe in Jesus. That Jesus is the answer to that problem. He's the answer to your sin problem. And that he can make things right between you and him. And that hit the cross is enough. And then lastly, C is to confess. To confess him as the Lord. To say, Jesus, have your way. Like just from the inside out, have your way in my life. I'm not going to be perfect, but I'm going to give my life to you because you're the Lord. You are the Son of God. And you're what life is all about. If you want to make that commitment today, just to A B C admit, believe, confess, and you want to accept Jesus as your Lord today. Would you just real quick, just bow your heads where you are? If I see you today, would you can you just do me a big favor? No one looking, can you just raise your hand for me? Just in the room. If you want to make that decision today, I see that hand. Thanks for raising that hand. Just keep raise it high. Raise it high. But we can all see it. Praise God. I see that hand. Thank you for raising that. I would invite you just to pray after me. You don't have to pray this out loud, but at least pray it. God hears you when you pray. Let's pray this together. Dear Jesus, I need you. I thank you for how much you love me. That you would send your son Jesus for me. I'm flawed and broken. I choose to live my way instead of your way. And I've sinned against you. I need you to do for me, but I can't. I believe in Jesus and that what he did for me is enough. I confess you as Lord. Have your way in my life. Come into my heart right now, Jesus. Change me from the inside out. Thank you for life in you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. There were at least five or six people who raised their hand. Can we celebrate them today? Five or six people who place their faith in Jesus today. And now what we're gonna do is we're gonna take communion together. So if you if you would, after you're just taking some time to commit yourself to the Lord, let's take some, let's do this together. Let's open up the bread. We just have it as a little wafer. Jesus said, This is my body broken for you. Take this in remembrance of me. Let's take it. And the juice, what we what they did was wine. What we have is just some grape juice here. We're gonna take this together. Jesus said, This is my blood poured out for you. Take this in remembrance of me. Amen. Amen. Church, what I want to invite us to do is to celebrate. Because the cross, what the cross does is it allows us to receive Jesus as the Lamb. And then what the empty tomb does is allows us to receive Jesus as the lion. And we get to receive both and get to celebrate and worship both today. So I'd invite you to stand to your feet as we worship him together before we head out today. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for the cross. We thank you for the empty tomb. We thank you for life in you. God, the world searches and searches and searches for life outside of you and all sorts of things. But God, we have no reason to look anywhere beyond you. God, we are so we are satisfied when we run to you. We thank you that you are Lord, and that's a good thing. That we can experience the fullness of life in you when we just acknowledge you as Lord. So, God, we acknowledge that right now. That you are not just close enough to help us, but that you are over us and ruling over us. You are leading us, you are guiding us, you have authority, and you have your way in our lives. God, have your way in every area of our lives. We love you, we praise you this morning, and we thank you for the cross. In Jesus' name that I pray, Amen. Let's worship Him together.