SPEAKER_00: First Timothy three, verse sixteen reads as follows: Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, and this is our phrase for this Christmas time, believed on in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally taken up in glory.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, well, Wednesday, a few days ago, my family went to Sasqueahana State Park up in, I don't know, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_00: They all blend together right around there.
SPEAKER_00: And we hiked a loop.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important to me that you visualize this with me.
SPEAKER_00: It's personally significant here.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a clock, you know, from 12 all the way around, back again.
SPEAKER_00: The loop goes, you know, starting from 12 and goes around.
SPEAKER_00: We parked at the 11 on the clock.
SPEAKER_00: So you're following with me?
SPEAKER_00: We're at the 11.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a bridge between the 11 and the 12 that you couldn't see from the parking lot.
SPEAKER_00: Google Maps said the bridge was out and you couldn't complete the circle.
SPEAKER_00: But it made it sound like it was for cars, and you don't consult Google Maps for hiking.
SPEAKER_00: So we wisely went a different way.
SPEAKER_00: We went 11 all the way around to circle back to the top.
SPEAKER_00: Wisely.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, on the way, I see a guy playing Frisbee the Dogs, and I ask him, I was like, hey, is the is the bridge open and we go around the loop?
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I don't know why it wouldn't be.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, all right.
SPEAKER_00: The guy had dogs, he must be wise.
SPEAKER_00: And then we so we go down from the 11, you know, 109876.
SPEAKER_00: There's a bridge across the river the first time.
SPEAKER_00: That one's just great.
SPEAKER_00: Little trestle bridge, railroad style was perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Across it.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're walking up along the river, and it's starting to get dark, and you know, I just have that nagging thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, people might call it a conscience, I guess, in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: And so I found some other guy, like an older gentleman with a walking stick and like a marmot jacket.
SPEAKER_00: He looked like the real deal.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked him, hey, is the bridge open up there?
SPEAKER_00: And he says the same thing, like, yeah, I don't know why it wouldn't be.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So we press forward.
SPEAKER_00: But as we got around like the one o'clock part, you could start to see the bridge to the trees, and you could see that significant amounts of it were missing.
SPEAKER_00: And you could hear construction equipment, like vrrrrrrrrr.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so at that point, my family is like, the bridge is not there, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, you guys wait here and I'll run ahead and check because I needed to see with my own two eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the bridge wasn't was not there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so at this point it is significantly dark, and now we have to walk all the way back around, all the way to the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to file that story in your minds because we will return to it later.
SPEAKER_00: The short version is never doubt Google Maps.
SPEAKER_00: It knows all things.
SPEAKER_00: Christmas is a time of celebration, and of course, it is a time of mystery.
SPEAKER_00: It is very difficult to explain what Christmas is to somebody who's not familiar with the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm even talking about basics, like, so you're telling me that God became man, and you say, yes, but you know, not all of God became man because the Father didn't become a man, and the Holy Spirit didn't become a man, but yes, all of God, because all of God is in the Son, and so yes, in that sense, but no in another sense, and you, you know, you and it's confusing right away.
SPEAKER_00: That's the paradox or the mystery of Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: I want to walk us through this little phrase in the middle of verse 16 here, how we see the mystery of Christmas, how we see the mystery of Christmas, and I'm focusing particularly on the phrase towards the end of verse 16 that Jesus was believed on in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is an early Christmas hymn.
SPEAKER_00: It's the oldest Christmas hymn as it goes through these six declarations about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: All six of these declarations, there's part of a song about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: All six of them are in the passive voice.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they're all six things that happened to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Most Christian songs sing about things that people do or singeth about things specifically that God does or that Jesus does.
SPEAKER_00: But this song is opposite of that.
SPEAKER_00: This song is singing about things that were done to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: For example, he was manifested in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody acted upon him to reveal him.
SPEAKER_00: He was vindicated by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit acted upon Jesus to vindicate him.
SPEAKER_00: He was seen or beheld by angels.
SPEAKER_00: Angels looked at him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not active in this verse.
SPEAKER_00: The angels are the ones acting by looking and contemplating him.
SPEAKER_00: And then last week we saw that he was proclaimed among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: The people took the news of Jesus Christ and launched it into the world.
SPEAKER_00: In this morning's passage, he was believed on in the world.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, you see the mystery of Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: It's seen in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's the he here.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one on whom people believe.
SPEAKER_00: The action here is done by us.
SPEAKER_00: People are believing on him.
SPEAKER_00: And it's odd to see that phrase, the verb believed, paired with on.
SPEAKER_00: You might believe in something, or you might believe of, you know, this or that, but here your belief is going on to somebody.
SPEAKER_00: That's because it is passive.
SPEAKER_00: You're believing on him.
SPEAKER_00: Like you would sit on a chair, or like you would sleep on a bed.
SPEAKER_00: You are believing on him.
SPEAKER_00: You're putting your belief, what you have inside of you, on Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Your belief goes on him.
SPEAKER_00: It's a motion word.
SPEAKER_00: Your belief is going from you, it's transitive, it's going on to something else.
SPEAKER_00: And that picks up with the flow of this whole song.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this song started in heaven with God, our Father in heaven, acting upon Jesus, the eternal Son of God, to manifest him.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember from the beginning of our studying this song, Jesus was not eternally manifest.
SPEAKER_00: He was eternally the Son of God, he's eternally the second person of the Trinity, but he was not eternally a human.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't revealed on earth until a particular point in time, that first Christmas day.
SPEAKER_00: So God the Father acted upon Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit knits Jesus together in Mary's womb.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is born, and God goes from heaven to earth.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of God is revealed or manifest on earth.
SPEAKER_00: So you want to know what God looks like in human form with a human body and a human soul and a human nature.
SPEAKER_00: You look at Jesus, the eternal God, now manifest in earth.
SPEAKER_00: That happened to him.
SPEAKER_00: So from heaven to earth, and then on earth, Jesus lives his sinless life.
SPEAKER_00: We saw the Holy Spirit aided him in the virgin birth, and the Holy Spirit aided him in his humanity, making him spirit-filled, making him walk in the spirit, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus led a sinless life.
SPEAKER_00: He led the perfect life.
SPEAKER_00: He was above reproach in every sense.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit reveals his deity to the world at his baptism by settling upon him like a dove.
SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, the Holy Spirit aided him as Jesus led a sinless life.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the sinless life ends in his death.
SPEAKER_00: He was put to death on the cross as a substitute for sin.
SPEAKER_00: God took our sin and placed it on Jesus and then punished Jesus for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus dies bearing the penalty from God for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: He is put into the grave.
SPEAKER_00: His soul descends into Sheol, and then he resurrects, regains his body, launches out of the grave back onto earth.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul means when he says he was beheld by angels.
SPEAKER_00: The angel, if you recall, was sitting on the tombstone that rolled away.
SPEAKER_00: The angels saw Jesus down in the grave.
SPEAKER_00: The angels now see Jesus back on earth again.
SPEAKER_00: The angels saw Jesus in Sheol.
SPEAKER_00: The angels saw Jesus throughout his life.
SPEAKER_00: The angels saw all of this and they saw Jesus go from heaven to earth, from the earth to the cross where he bore the penalty for our sin, down to the grave, back out of the grave, and starts walking on the earth again.
SPEAKER_00: The angels saw all of that.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he means in the middle of the verse that Jesus was seen by angels.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, Jesus was taken up to heaven in the company of angels.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember in Acts chapter 1, the angel saw Jesus rise back up into heaven again.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of movement here by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven, earth, sinless life, cross, grave, resurrection, ascension.
SPEAKER_00: The angels see it all.
SPEAKER_00: He's now at this moment back in heaven at the right hand of God our Father, where he remains at this very second, making intercession for us, praying for us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that Jesus' role?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is because Jesus is our mediator.
SPEAKER_00: God has requirements to be in a right relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: We don't meet those requirements.
SPEAKER_00: Namely, for to be a person to be in a right relationship with God, they have to be holy.
SPEAKER_00: We fail in that, so we're separated from God.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't lessen his requirement to meet us.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, God sends Jesus as the mediator to make peace between God and man.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you might my youngest has no concept right now.
SPEAKER_00: My youngest daughter has no concept of currency or what it means or its value or how many dimes are in a dollar at all.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: She's very easily swindled.
SPEAKER_00: Do not take advantage of her, please.
SPEAKER_00: You know, so she might negotiate something like, I will give you$500 for your dessert.
SPEAKER_00: Like sold.
SPEAKER_00: She wouldn't know where to acquire that.
SPEAKER_00: She's looking at like five dimes and thinks she can think, how much is this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: And so there has to be some kind of mediation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one place I could go is I could lower the standard and go like$500.
SPEAKER_00: What I meant is 50 cents.
SPEAKER_00: And then my wife would say, Are you really selling your dessert to your daughter?
unknown: Shh, come on.
SPEAKER_00: I could lower the standard.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what God does for us with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God has a standard of what it takes to be in a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot meet this.
SPEAKER_00: And our currency makes no sense to God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're coming up with pennies.
SPEAKER_00: Like, does this get it done?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: We're sinful.
SPEAKER_00: So God could respond by lowering the standard and saying, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: The best you got, bring what you got, bring your loose change, and I'll accept you.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what God does.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, God meets his own requirements in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's the mediator.
SPEAKER_00: A mediator cannot be of one party, a mediator has to be of both parties.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus comes as the mediator.
SPEAKER_00: He's God in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He's manifest, meaning he puts on flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He represents us to God.
SPEAKER_00: But he's more than merely a mediator.
SPEAKER_00: He also meets all of the requirements in his own body.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfectly holy.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfectly righteous.
SPEAKER_00: So he meets God's requirement to be in a right relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what good does Jesus meeting the requirement do for us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it does no good initially, it's just that the requirement is met in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But it is going to become good when it becomes our acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, the very terms that God requires, he meets in himself.
SPEAKER_00: And that's so fortunate for us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we are bankrupt, God is rich.
SPEAKER_00: We make a great partnership.
SPEAKER_00: We are lost, God is the way.
SPEAKER_00: Again, a great partnership.
SPEAKER_00: We have nothing, we are empty, God is full.
SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect partnership.
SPEAKER_00: The first way you see the mystery is in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the mystery of godliness manifest in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you see the mystery of Christmas in belief.
SPEAKER_00: God's granting of Jesus, his God's receiving from Jesus the sacrifice, God fulfilling his requirement in Jesus can become ours through that set for the first word in English here, believed on.
SPEAKER_00: He implied was believed on.
SPEAKER_00: The mystery of Christmas is seen in belief.
SPEAKER_00: God meets the conditions to be in a right relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: We receive those conditions as met on our behalf by believing that Jesus did that in our place.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I mentioned this earlier, but it's odd to see believed as passive.
SPEAKER_00: Normally you believe something.
SPEAKER_00: You're the one exercising the belief.
SPEAKER_00: Here Jesus is believed on.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's a clunky phrase here.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit in contrast with the verse or the phrase before it.
SPEAKER_00: He was proclaimed among the nations.
SPEAKER_00: The proclamation goes to the world.
SPEAKER_00: The whole world knows about Jesus' victory over the grave, but not the whole world believes.
SPEAKER_00: He was proclaimed to the nations, but nations don't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Nations don't have the capacity to exercise belief.
SPEAKER_00: But individuals do.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings exercise belief when they receive the sacrifice of Christ in their place.
SPEAKER_00: They exercise faith, they place their faith and their confidence and their belief in it.
SPEAKER_00: A little picture here.
SPEAKER_00: Noah preached the gospel to the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: There weren't even nations in Noah's lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: He preached the gospel to the whole world, but only a handful of people believed.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah preached the gospel to one nation, the nation Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Almost nobody believed.
SPEAKER_00: Now the contrast is that Jesus goes where Jeremiah and Noah couldn't.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah preached to one nation.
SPEAKER_00: Noah didn't even have nations.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the message of him, goes to all nations.
SPEAKER_00: He's preached to the Gentiles, He's preached to the world.
SPEAKER_00: And there are people that will believe.
SPEAKER_00: Belief just means you recognize what Christ did in your place.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, that was true.
SPEAKER_00: That was for me.
SPEAKER_00: He died in my place.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot get to heaven on my own.
SPEAKER_00: I can't meet the requirements on my own.
SPEAKER_00: So I receive his sacrifice in my place.
SPEAKER_00: This is the very thing that a lot of people don't want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I was sharing the gospel with a Catholic recently who said, The reason I cannot believe what you believe is because there's nothing for me to do to meet make salvation mine.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing I can do to make it mine.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do something.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the old, you know, the easy-baked cakes, you know, or the pancake mix, and they they used to say just add water, and then they they said, you know, if you say add water and an egg, the one you add an egg to sells more.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Some ladies feel like they the pancakes taste better if they crack the egg a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: So they they're adding something to it.
SPEAKER_00: The egg does nothing.
SPEAKER_00: The question, what must I do to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: That is the question of every works righteousness person.
SPEAKER_00: I want something to do.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me what to do and I'll do it.
SPEAKER_00: I'll comply, God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that attitude might make a good athlete or a good soldier.
SPEAKER_00: Coach, tell me what to do, I'll do it.
SPEAKER_00: Give me an order, I'll carry it out.
SPEAKER_00: But it cripples you in your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Cripples you.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's nothing you can do to be in a right relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: God's command to you is not do this or do that.
SPEAKER_00: God's command to you is believe.
SPEAKER_00: Hear the news of Jesus Christ and believe in it.
SPEAKER_00: Just believe.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: Not believe and run a marathon.
SPEAKER_00: Not believe and discover a new element for the periodic table.
SPEAKER_00: Not believe and get your finances in order.
SPEAKER_00: Not believe and discipline your kids properly.
SPEAKER_00: Not believe and get better fashion.
SPEAKER_00: Not believe in anything.
SPEAKER_00: Just believe.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: That's all you have to do to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: You are lost, and God knows the way because he is the way.
SPEAKER_00: And the way is through belief.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're believing here the message of verse 16 of 1 Timothy 3.
SPEAKER_00: You're believing that God was manifest in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first part of your belief.
SPEAKER_00: You're saying, I hear the Son of God, the second person of eternity, came to earth born that Jesus had was truly God and truly man.
SPEAKER_00: I hear that and I believe it.
SPEAKER_00: You believe that he led a sinless life.
SPEAKER_00: You believe that he died on the cross and was beheld by angels in his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: You believe that that is the only news by which somebody can be saved.
SPEAKER_00: That that's the message of salvation, priests of the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you believe.
SPEAKER_00: I contrasted this with Jeremiah and Noah earlier, because one of the mysterious things about the gospel is that people do believe it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the first reading of this, it seems straightforward, right?
SPEAKER_00: Believe.
SPEAKER_00: It's way easier to understand than the first part.
SPEAKER_00: Manifest in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Like that was complicated.
SPEAKER_00: But believed on?
SPEAKER_00: That's easy.
SPEAKER_00: People believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: That's when you start thinking about it, like it is very mysterious.
SPEAKER_00: Noah preached, God's going to destroy the earth, get on the ark, and people would not believe.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah preached, you know, the Babylonians are going to defeat this place.
SPEAKER_00: You better repent and get right with God and pack your bags and go to Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: And they wouldn't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Now here comes a message way more ridiculous than that.
SPEAKER_00: That God, the second person of the Trinity, became a human.
SPEAKER_00: He took on human form.
SPEAKER_00: He came to the world and people killed him.
SPEAKER_00: And then he rose from the grave, and that's the only way to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: That's a crazy message.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, people believe it.
SPEAKER_00: It goes around the world.
SPEAKER_00: The way is narrow, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Most people reject it.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, people in every tribe, in every nation, in every culture, in every language do believe it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the crazy thing.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine Peter preaching the first sermon in Acts chapter 2, thinking, okay, this is a crazy message.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to preach my heart out.
SPEAKER_00: And if five people believe, I'll be astonished.
SPEAKER_00: And a thousand people believe.
SPEAKER_00: And the church just catches like wildfire.
SPEAKER_00: And it goes all the way around the world.
SPEAKER_00: It goes to the four corners of the world.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is preached to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: It goes to the four corners of the world, even to such far-flung places like Springfield, Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: The third way you see the mystery of Christmas is that it's in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Is that it's in the world?
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean by that is that the gospel goes global.
SPEAKER_00: This belief happens in the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's paired with the phrase before it.
SPEAKER_00: He was proclaimed among the nations and he's believed on in the world.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, there's emotion.
SPEAKER_00: If you track with Jesus, he goes from heaven to earth, sinless life to the cross, to the grave, resurrects to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: However, that's where I ended earlier, but that's not where Jesus ends.
SPEAKER_00: The message of him gets left on earth and it goes everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: It spreads everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: It's like water that spills on the top shelf of the refrigerator.
SPEAKER_00: That water finds its way in every crevice of the refrigerator, drips down in everything.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens in the message of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It goes all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: Other religions aren't like that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you want to be a Muslim.
SPEAKER_00: Islam is an Arab religion about Arab culture.
SPEAKER_00: And to drive that point to you, all the mosques face one direction.
SPEAKER_00: When you pray if you're a Muslim, you're always facing one direction.
SPEAKER_00: You're facing Mecca.
SPEAKER_00: That's where you face.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very Arabized religion.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a religion for Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the reason Muslims pray facing Mecca is because the story goes that Muhammad originally was praying facing towards Jerusalem because he was believing the religion of the Jews and Christians in his mind.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian religion was Jerusalem focused.
SPEAKER_00: And the angels spun him around.
SPEAKER_00: And he faced Mecca instead.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Hinduism is an Indian religion.
SPEAKER_00: You can be a convert to Hinduism, I guess, but if you're not Indian, you'll be a second-class Hindu for sure.
SPEAKER_00: Even something like Catholicism, you know, you're gonna receive the sacraments and kiss the ring of somebody who kissed the ring of somebody who kissed the ring of somebody in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: It traces back to a geographical place.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast.
SPEAKER_00: We don't face Jerusalem when we pray.
SPEAKER_00: We don't face the empty grave when we pray.
SPEAKER_00: There's nobody in it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: We sing a song in Spanish.
SPEAKER_00: We sing a song in English.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those English words I had a hard time with.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel goes global.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God wanted to reveal himself.
SPEAKER_00: He came to earth and took on a human form, a human body, a human soul, and led a sinless life and died in your place.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is what he wants you to do with that news.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to, the verse says here, believe in that message.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to hear the news and believe in it.
SPEAKER_00: I described earlier the walking around Sasqueahana State Park.
SPEAKER_00: My problem, as I think retrace my steps, which I had a chance to retrace every one of those steps, by the way, is that I didn't believe what Google Maps was telling me initially.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I was informed by nefarious bad actors.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, I ignored what my conscience was telling me.
SPEAKER_00: At any point though, and there probably was a point towards the end, around the you know, the two o'clock point where I finally settled on the fact the bridge is probably not there, but I kept walking with my feet the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: That's not that's not saving faith right there.
SPEAKER_00: That is not belief right there.
SPEAKER_00: If I was like, ah, the bridge probably isn't there, but I keep going towards it, that's not belief.
SPEAKER_00: Even when I parked my my family believed before I did, they sat down and I ran ahead.
SPEAKER_00: When I finally believed it, spun on my feet, made my way back.
SPEAKER_00: My family's so godly, not a single one of them complained a single time back.
SPEAKER_00: There still to this moment has not been a and I told you so.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not in Christ, if you've never given your life to Christ, do you understand that you've you've walked past the six?
SPEAKER_00: You're walking around, you're going the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: You're leading your life the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: There are those around you who are telling you, hey, you're going the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience convicts you that you're going the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience lets you know that you're a sinner, and your conscience lets you know that God is holy, and your friends are letting you know that Jesus made a way for you to be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is sitting here in front of you, saying, You've got to open to page 992, proclaiming to you that you can believe this message and God will forgive your sins.
SPEAKER_00: That God loves the world is the phrase in verse 16 here, that God loves the world so much that he gave his son that if you believe in him, you will not perish, but you'll have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And believing in him is not saying, I think the Bible is probably true.
SPEAKER_00: Believing in him is saying, my life is going the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is the right way, he is the bridge over the water, he does reconcile me to God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you knew anything about Jesus, you would listen to him when he says, all you have to do is believe in me.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you knew anything about Jesus, you would believe in him even if he told you not to.
SPEAKER_00: If you knew anything about Jesus, you would follow him, even if he said, Stay there.
SPEAKER_00: If you knew anything about Jesus, you would see the majesty of godliness in him, the truly God and truly man in a mysterious union in one person, and you would look at him and you would see his life marked by love, his sinless life.
SPEAKER_00: You would look at him and just be astonished at what an incredible person he was.
SPEAKER_00: If you knew anything about God, you would know that God is love and he wants to be in a relationship with you, and he shows that to you by sending his son to die on the cross to bear the punishment of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned earlier, God doesn't lessen the requirement to be in a relationship with him, he meets it himself in Christ and then bids you to come join him.
SPEAKER_00: How do you respond to that?
SPEAKER_00: You can't keep walking the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: To walk the wrong way is just at some point it just becomes recalcitrant, at some point it just becomes digging your heels and stubbornness for the sake of it.
SPEAKER_00: Rather turn from your sin and believe, take one look at Jesus and believe that he is the Son of God, that he does make a way for salvation, and he does bid you join him in his walk.
SPEAKER_00: Come to him.
SPEAKER_00: God, we're grateful that you've given your son Jesus Christ for us to be reconciled to you, to make a way to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We're so thankful for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's the most beautiful person we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Through his godliness, his humility, his loveliness, his kindness, his truth incarnate.
SPEAKER_00: But in addition to all that, Lord, he's the way.
SPEAKER_00: He's what makes our way back to you.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for the gospel message that he died for our sin, that he rose from the grave because he paid for it, he ascended into heaven because you received him.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.