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But 1 John chapter 5, as we were camping out, as we continue our study through 1 John, kind of wrapping that up in the next two weeks. And so God has been working in my own heart through this book as I've continued to just remember the foundational truths of what we believe as Christ followers and how that impacts our everyday life. Like, as we've said, our vertical relationship with God is always going to have an impact horizontally on our relationship with people around us, okay? If it's not, then we need to ask the question, okay, what do we really believe about God? Because as we receive the love of God, we cannot just keep that to ourselves. It comes out of us. It's something we have to express to others. And so I feel that constant uh growing and stretching that God is doing as I get into his word. And particularly as we've worked through the book of 1 John, it's so practical and simple, and we're going to come back to that word in a minute, and just saying, how am I actually loving God and loving people? How am I loving God and loving people? So, 1 John chapter 6, and as you guys are continuing to turn there and get settled in, anybody like to take tests? Hi, I see one hand. Okay. So every now and then you get you know get some people in the room that uh like to take tests. Uh I don't really enjoy tests. I don't I don't especially don't enjoy preparing for tests. And uh and and periodically people come up and they'll ask for prayer and they're saying, like, I gotta take this test so I can get my certification on this. And you know, adults, we uh we've kind of lost the art of studying for tests, you know, over time. And uh when you're a kid, it's like normal part of your routine. But it's it's tough to take tests, isn't it? But one of the things I remember as a kid is I really hated true-false tests. Anyone here ever like true-false tests? It's okay if you do. I'm not, you know, saying, yeah, okay. You got a 50-50 chance of getting it right, you know, so it's like it's true or it's false. There's no like third option, true or false. And uh the reason why, though, I hated true-false tests is because I would read the question or the statement, and you're supposed to evaluate it, and they told us they'd give us these tips to evaluate if the statement was true or if it was false, and I would read it, but then my my brain would get kicked in and I would start overanalyzing it. And I would start thinking, oh, well, maybe they're trying to trick me, and maybe they're trying to say this word because it's because it's really not true, or maybe there's this there, but maybe maybe, oh, maybe that is okay. And so like I would just start overthinking it, and then pretty soon I'm confused. And I remember a teacher one time saying, like, look, just go read the statement, and whatever you feel when you read it the first time, like, just go with it. I was like, I can't do that. I feel like I gotta, you know, I gotta break it down, I gotta analyze it. And I and I and I would get so frustrated when I take true-false tests. It should, you know, some of you in this room are like, that's that's silly. I never have had that problem. But for me, that was a problem. But I was thinking about that this week because here's the thing. Um, I think when we come to our faith, when we come to Jesus, when it comes to Christianity, uh, I think we tend to overthink stuff. I think we tend to overcomplicate things that the Bible teaches us. Now, when you hear me say that, you might be thinking that I'm saying that the Bible's not complex. Uh, and I want you to know that there are some things in the Bible that are really confusing. Uh, when you read it, especially for the first time, you've never really read the Bible, you're reading like, whoa, what is this story? And what are they doing? And these you read like the book of Leviticus, you're like, what in the world is this in the Bible for? Um, and so it kind of wigs you out, you know, trying to understand some of that and can bring some confusion. So I'm not saying that, but I am saying the basic message of the Bible, the overarching narrative, the overarching theme of the Bible is actually not really complicated. It could actually be summed up in one word: redemption. That could really, I mean, you could use other words, but I think redemption is a is a capturing word because the Bible's all about God and his redemptive work. What he has done to redeem mankind, what he has done to bring life to humanity when we chose to disobey and it resulted in death. It resulted in separation from God. So redemption is really kind of an overarching theme of the entire Bible. But here's here's what I am saying when I say we confuse it or we complicate it, we make it more complex than it needs to be. Um, when I meet people who don't believe in Jesus, and it's very possible that in this room today there's folks that are sitting here that have never put their trust in Christ. Uh you've never said, hey, I believe in Jesus, I want to follow Jesus, and you're exploring faith. And I want you to know that Point Community Church is a safe place to explore faith. It's a safe place to ask the tough questions about God, about his word, to wrestle with those things. But I also want you to know, you're going to consistently hear us use language where we say life is in Christ. Life is found in Christ. And I want to talk about that today because I think sometimes we get really confused and we we overcomplicate things, and it's why I think a lot of people are walking around not really certain what they what they really believe about God or what they really believe about Jesus or the gospel or the Bible, is because we've overcomplicated it. Now the way this works in my world, I see this is as I meet people, whether it's in a coffee shop or whether it's a restaurant or someplace in the community, I'm out in the neighborhood, and I meet somebody, and they, of course, ask me the question uh at some point, what do you do? It's one of those common questions. And so I'm a pastor, so I, you know, I answer with the death question, which really really I say I'm a pastor, and that's like the end of the conversation right there, right? You're like, uh, oh, okay. They start backing away, you know. Um and so, but the thing is I've I've learned kind of how to engage people where they are, and and and I when I say that, I already anticipate that there's gonna be some some little bit of awkwardness or this sense that that uh oh man, I don't know if I want to talk to a pastor or what do you think about me is kind of what I feel like they're thinking a lot of times. But if we get into a spiritual conversation and I say, well, what do you think about Jesus? What do you think about the Bible? And almost inevitably they want to have a conversation, a side conversation about things that have impacted what they think about the Bible. So they want to talk about the church in hypocrisy, like people who say they believe in God but are very mean or rude or angry or hurtful or any of those things, right? And and some of you in this room, you have experienced wounds from those kind of people. In fact, there's been people in your life who said they were Christians and acted very unchristian, unchrist-like, right? Because Christian means little Christ. They've acted unchrist-like, and so for you, like that really tainted your view of Christianity. It retained your view of the church. And for many of you, even the fact you're here is a miracle because you have all this baggage thinking about how people have treated you in the past, and you're like, I don't think I want to have anything to do with that anymore. I've experienced these pains, these wounds, these hurts from people. So I get that. And so we get the we get these conversations with people and they want to talk about that. And I'll say, no, no, listen. Like, I want to know what do you believe about Jesus? And they'll say, Well, I believe in evolution. I believe in that, you know, there's no way that God just spoke this thing into being, and this is, I believe this, and so I can't, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, listen, what do you believe about Jesus? And they'll say, No, uh, I can't believe that that Jesus can be born of a virgin. I don't believe that He uh, you know, that that uh that God created the world in six days. Uh they'll go into all these different issues, and and I just keep saying, well, no, what do you believe about Jesus? And the reason I say that this morning is because I genuinely believe that the enemy that the Bible tells us about, the devil, that what he wants us to do is he wants us to get sidetracked with all these side issues. Now, I'm not saying there's not an appropriate place to have the conversation about creation and evolution and conversations about you know Jesus' divinity and in the in the Trinity and divine, you know, uh, virgin birth and all those things. We can have conversations about that, but listen, at the end of the day, Christianity is summed up in what you do with Jesus. Are you with me? Like it's summed up in what you believe about Jesus. So I'm gonna look at this passage this morning because I think John helps us get some real clarity about this because he's dealing with these false teachers that have been telling them uh these things about Jesus that aren't biblical. They're not they're not true to who Jesus was. And John's been trying to build their confidence in who the real Jesus is, and he's been helping them by giving them these little tidbits of uh you know specific detail about Jesus' life. And why could John do that? Because John was a firsthand account. Like he he basically spent uh a portion of his life, at least three years, walking alongside of Jesus, right? He says this in the very beginning of his book that he heard, he saw, he touched the real Jesus when he was here, which is awesome. That'd be that'd be incredible, right? And you're hearing from him, and he's giving trying to build confidence in this. And what he this is what he says about Jesus. He says, Jesus Christ, verse 6, he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the spirit is the one who testifies, because the spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify the spirit, the water, and the blood. And these three are in agreement. Now, we're gonna stop there, and I'm just gonna open up. Anybody want to come up here and explain what we just read? Okay, I'm just I'm just messing with you. I mean, I read this this week and I'm like, what in the world is John talking about? Water, blood, spirit, all these things, how they work together. Okay. I, you know, one of the things I love doing as a pastor is getting to study and to learn and continue to get to God's word. And I never have taught from this passage before, and I and I understand why now, because you kind of avoid those tough passages, right? But when you're teaching through a book, you you get you come to those passages, you got to teach it, you learn. So I was looking into this this week, and and what what you see there is there's some people assess that, oh, he must be talking about the water and the blood that flowed from Jesus' side when the spear stuck him, right? When they stuck him when he was on the cross. That's what he's talking about, water and blood. Uh, some say, well, water means like, you know, when when Jesus was born as a human being, there's water and blood involved in birth. I mean I was like, that's kind of a gross thought. But yeah, okay. Uh but then what I can started to see is that the the the the interpretation of this passage that really makes sense because we're not there in first century uh Ephesus where John's writing this letter. We're not there, we don't know the whole scene, we don't know all the details of what was going on with these false teachers. But if you pick up on enough of the clues around this, you start to understand what John is saying is he's addressing and refuting the false teaching that's coming from these guys who had stood up and said, Jesus was born of Mary and Joseph. He was just a human being. He wasn't divine, he was just a man. Okay? And then you track along with Jesus through his life, and Jesus comes to a point when he's around the age of 30 and he gets baptized. You guys remember this? He gets baptized. And at his baptism, they believe that when that moment happens, that the spirit of Christ entered into this man named Jesus. This just ordinary man born of Mary and Joseph. That this that at that point the divine spirit of Jesus entered into this person, this human being. Well, I want you to understand this morning that that's not true. That's not true. That Jesus, when he was born, and we're getting ready to come into Christmas season, and we're gonna talk about the story of Jesus' birth, he was born fully God and fully man. Now, can I wrap my brain around that in complete uh ability to understand all that? No. But I know that's what the Bible teaches us, it's what the scripture tells us. And so he was born fully God. And so he doesn't say he he was he came uh came in the water or he came, he came at the water. It says he came by the water, through the water, as in he was already God. And at his baptism, you guys remember the scene? If you don't know the Bible that well, or if you haven't been in church much, maybe you don't know the scene, but let me just tell you what happens. In the book of John, uh, same guy who wrote the letter, first John, he records a story where here's Jesus, he's coming down to a place where John the Baptist was actually baptizing people, and Jesus comes down and he says, John, I want you to baptize me. Now, anybody in here in the room want to volunteer to baptize Jesus? Like, I mean, this isn't this is cool. Like John before, I mean, John is saying, I'm not even worthy to touch his sandals. And then John looks up and sees Jesus coming down, he's saying, I want you to baptize me. But in the scene of the baptism, Jesus comes down to the water, and John baptizes Jesus. He baptizes him. Now, there's a lot of weeds we could get into here, but I want you to understand, if you want to know why Jesus, why baptism is important, just stop right there and think about the fact that Jesus himself was baptized. It's important, isn't it? It's a very, very important act. It's not what saves us. Jesus didn't come to salvation through his baptism. Jesus was perfect. He was sinless. He didn't need to be saved, he didn't need to be rescued. We do, but we don't get our salvation through that. But baptism is an important act where we symbolize what Christ has done in us and through us through the person of Jesus, right? But Jesus gets baptized, and when he comes out of the water, something awesome happened. I'm sure this happened at your baptism, right? The heavens open up, this dove descends and lands on Jesus, and then this voice speaks from heaven, and it says, This is my son. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. What an awesome, awesome moment. That the Holy Spirit, as represented by a dove, and this voice speaking down as the Father, God the Father, says, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. So, what was God saying at that moment? This was what what's considered to be kind of the inauguration or the kickoff of Jesus' official earthly ministry. What was he saying? He's my son, he's divine. It's not just the son of Mary and Joseph, this is my son. He is of me. So at that moment of baptism, we can know that Jesus was God. He was fully man, he was fully human, but he was also but but he was full of divinity. Okay? So we know that. And the baptism shows us that. But then what about this issue of the blood? What about the blood? Well, the blood, when you think about Jesus and blood, when you think about the story of Christ's life, what happens at the end of his life? The end of his earthly ministry was a suffering moment. In fact, the most suffering any human would ever endure, where Christ went to the cross for our sake, and he shed his blood to redeem us. He shed his blood to redeem us. So John is not only saying that we can know that Jesus is who the Bible says he is, and who the apostles were teaching he was from the baptism scene, but also he is God's Son and He is the Savior, the Messiah, because He died on the cross to redeem us from our sin, to rescue us from our sin. Because some people that were those teeth that were teaching in John's day said, no, that when Jesus came to the cross, that he actually left Jesus right before he died, so that God didn't really die on that day, or at least the divine Jesus didn't really die that day. It was just a human again because the Spirit of Christ left him. Are you still tracking with me? Okay. I thought you might find this interesting because John is specifically refuting that, saying, God was in Jesus from the beginning, he was God, and he was God all the way through from his baptism to his death and every place, because that was the only way that you and I could receive forgiveness from our sin. He was the ultimate sacrifice because he was perfect and he was complete when he went to the cross. So we know that today. So as we read that this morning, um, John's just trying to continue to build the case that we can trust who Jesus is. Now notice he goes on to say that the Spirit also testifies to this. The Spirit also testifies this. Now, who's the Spirit? It's the Holy Spirit. It's God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And so he's saying that the Holy Spirit also testifies this, to this, that Jesus is the Son of God. Now think about that for a second. That's pretty awesome. You know, that God sends his Spirit to testify. I mean, it says that in John, the book of God, the Gospel of John, and in chapter 14, chapter 15, and 16, he sees some bits and pieces and how the Holy Spirit will come and it will point people to Jesus, that he is the Messiah, that he's the Savior. But John goes on in his argument and his encouragement to them. And he says that all these three they work together, they're in agreement, they all testify about Jesus. And then in verse 9, he says this I'm gonna read just a few verses here. If we accept the testimony of men, God's testimony is greater, because it is God's testimony that he has given us about his son. The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about his son. And then verse 11. And this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. So when I hear the word testimony, I think about what I'm supposed to do in telling people about what God has done for me. I mean, the word testimony really the connotation of witness, to witness to what's happened to me. In fact, even in Scripture, when Jesus tells them, you need to wait on the Holy Spirit, and then I want you to go and to witness, to share what you've experienced through me. Okay, he tells the apostles that, and that's that's going to be the message you're gonna take out to the world, is this this witness, this message of what Christ has done for you, what I have done for you, specifically as he's speaking to his disciples. And so he says that we go and and witness. But what's interesting in this passage is he says that not only does should we witness, but what God has a testimony. God has a testimony, God is witnessing to something. And what is God's testimony? Our testimony is how we met Jesus and how he changed everything. If you're a Christ follower and you say, you want to share your testimony, you talk about how you came to faith in Jesus, how you put your trust in Jesus, and how he's changed your life. You share about that, right? You testify. Okay? But in this passage, what does God testify to? What is God giving witness to? Well, he says specifically in verse 11. So it's not obscure, it's not hidden. He says, This is God's testimony that he has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. Our testimony is what we have benefited from. Because we're the beneficiaries of that. But in God's testimony, he's saying, Here's what I've done for you. Here's what I've offered you. Are you with me? He's saying, I've given eternal life, and that life is found in Jesus. I've given you eternal life, and that life is found in Jesus. Now, as I said a while ago, people want to have a lot of side conversations and they want to talk about all these reasons why they shouldn't believe in God, or they want to undermine the authority of the Bible, they undermine the authority of our faith. But the question at the end of the day is what do you believe about Jesus? What do we believe about Jesus? And he says that God's testimony to the world is that you can have eternal life, and that eternal life is found in Jesus. John 3 16, we've quoted it several times through the series because this is the same writer, and he says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. Now, there are multiple reasons why we struggle to believe, but John here, he just makes a couple of points. First, in verse 9, notice what he says in verse 9. He's kind of backtracking up. He says, if we accept the testimony of men, God's testimony is greater because it is God's testimony that he has given about his son. And one level, John is basically saying, look, if you can believe people, you can believe God. Right? Now, any of you had to serve on a jury? Uh you had to go to court and serve on your jury. So just a couple a couple weeks ago, I had to go serve on a municipal court here in Austin. And and uh, you know, it's funny because we love our freedoms and our liberties, but man, everybody gets there and they're like, oh, not the jury duty, you know. Everybody's like burdened by this thing. You're gonna waste my day doing jury duty. But I got called to serve on the jury, and and I I knew it was gonna happen. I got on the front of towards the front of the line, and sure enough, I ended up being on the jury and serving on this jury, and it was just a traffic deal. And uh and so these, you know, they come into the room, and this lady, she's uh she's got a she's basically defending herself against the the uh uh the other lawyer that's really trying to get her convicted. That's the word. Struggling with my word. And so convicted of this crime, and so here she is, and she's trying, and the whole time the problem is that the guy who, the cop who actually pulled her over is sitting behind her, and she keeps turning around, she's giving him dirty looks, and she's just angry, you know, she's just angry about this whole thing. But in the court of law, they told us when we went in there, they said, listen, you can't take uh anything outside of this courtroom to make your decision. You gotta focus on what? The testimony of the witnesses. The testimony of the witnesses in the courtroom. That's what you gotta stick with. You gotta make your decision. And if the jury, you know, basically if the jury is Is divided or somebody doesn't agree with that, then that person gets off. They're free to go without any of the convictions of charges. And so I just was thinking about that again and how we had to just like go off of the testimony. And the lady was clearly guilty. I mean, it was like a no-brainer, like guilty. Um, but we we ended up giving her a nice uh we we lessened her fine, so we we felt good about ourselves, right? We lessened her fine. But here's the thing if we can believe in the court of law a testimony of somebody, John's basically saying we if we can believe the testimony of a person, why would we not believe the testimony of God? And maybe you're asking the question, well, where's God's testimony? And let me just tell you, God's testimony is in his word. God's testimony is in his word this morning. And his word tells us that Jesus is God's son, that he is the savior of the world. This is his testimony. Okay? And not only is his testimony in here, but his testimony is in creation, where he declares that he is God. He declares that he is divinely over all things. And people can reject that and they can they can overlook that, but but God declares his testimony. And God declares his testimony through our lives. He declares his testimony through our lives. When people see next shock in my neighborhood, they ought to see something different about me because I have been changed forever because of the grace and mercy of God in Jesus. So my life should declare that testimony. In fact, the next verse even says, verse 10, he says, The one who does not believe has made God a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about his son. But he even says, the one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony where? Where is the testimony? Within him. It's inside of him. Why is that? Because when you put your trust in Jesus, who comes into your life? Jesus, the spirit of Jesus is in you. And so when you wake up in the morning and you're doing life, guess who's testifying, witnessing to you and to your spirit all day long? The Holy Spirit is. Holy Spirit's saying, you belong to Jesus. You are, and this is consistent with what John's been saying this entire book, this entire letter, he's been saying to them, listen, the Holy Spirit reminds you that you belong to Jesus. Now, some of us we've lost sight of that, or we've blocked that out, or we've gotten so busy and the noise is so loud in our lives that we don't hear it. But I'm telling you, if you get still and you get quiet, you will hear the Spirit say, You belong to me. I don't know what it's going to sound like to you. I know for me, when I get still and I get quiet, I hear God say, I love you. And it's not like it's some come from the skies, it's not like it's audible, like everybody else hears it. I just sense in my spirit God saying, I love you. When I read his word, I open it up and I'm reminded, God loves me. I'm his child. And I believe the Spirit of God uses his word to remind us of that fact. He is witnessing to us. So, the testimony is that life is in Christ. And John, in case we didn't get this and we're not crystal clear on it, the next verse, he gives it more clarity. He says this the one who has the son has life, and the one who does not have the son of God does not have life. The one who has the son has life, but the one who does not have the son does not have life. So let me make this very direct and simple for us this morning. The question you have to ask yourself is do you have Jesus? Do you have Jesus? Because if Jesus is life and he who has Jesus has life, that's the most important question we should ask ourselves. It's the most important question that we need to answer and address. Not just at a head level, but at a heart level. Do we have Jesus? Well, maybe you're asking the question, well, how do you have Jesus? That isn't, I mean, how you know, I have money, I have clothes, I have a job, how do I have Jesus? Well, if you think about all the things that you have, all of those things do something for you. Right? So, money, if I have money, it helps me buy what I need. If I have a house, it puts a shelter over me when the storms come and uh just a place to sleep, all those things. When I have a job, it provides income for my family, right? I have those things. All those things, they provide something for me. So when we say we have Jesus, what does Jesus provide for us? Eternal life. John 10, 10. Jesus says it this way: the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come to give you life. And life to the fullest. Eternal life doesn't start when you die, it starts today. It starts when you put your trust in Christ. And eternal life is not just gonna be this thing where we're gonna continue to experience the same aches and pains and sufferings that we've always experienced in this life just for eternity. That would be terrible. Okay, right? Like if eternal life is that, I don't want it. Like I don't want to just keep living in suffering and hardship and difficulty. That's not what the scripture says. The scripture says when we have eternal life, we have eternal life through Jesus, and that means Jesus' finished work is gonna happen on our behalf, which is gonna be the restoration of all things. All the things that are broken are gonna be fixed, all the hardships are gonna be made right, all the messed up things that we're dealing with, whether that's death or sickness or job loss or relationship struggle and strife, all that stuff's gonna be fixed. And we're so it's not just gonna be eternity with more problems, it's gonna be eternity without problems. Isn't that awesome? Like eternity without marriage issues, eternity without job crisis, eternity without hunger and poverty, uh, and injustice, all the things in this world that just stress us out, that bring anxiety, that cause us to be discouraged, and even many of us in this room depressed today. Those things are gonna end. I was talking to a woman between our pre-service that we do for those that serve the kids during this time and the service starting today, and she just said, I feel so much weight on me right now. I just feel like life has been so hard. I feel so stressed. And I just said to her, You know that the stresses and the worries of this world are temporary, right? Like, I just want the Spirit of God to remind you of that, that it's temporary. And I want you to know that you've got a family of believers around you that we want to help support you and encourage you and come alongside. Tell us what we can do to serve you. Because we're all gonna be serving each other in our needs until Christ comes back and there will be no needs. So eternal life starts now. We get to be restorers now. We get to see our city and our families and our homes, we get to see our lives restart, start the process of restoration now. They won't get complete, this side of heaven, but we can begin that process and that journey because eternal life with Jesus starts today. Jesus came to give us life and life to the fullest. That's what he says. Now notice what he does not say. Because I think this is really important. John does not say he who has religion or moral superiority has life. That's not what he filled the blank in with. He didn't say, hey, listen, if you are a religious person, then you have life. Because religion defines is a man-made system in which we try to accomplish works to get God to approve of us or to attain a salvation, right? That's what religion really is all about. It's all the things that we do, we do, so that we can become a certain status or gain a certain acceptance. That's not that's not what the gospel is. That's not what Jesus taught. That doesn't bring life, religion doesn't bring life, religion brings uh burdens, like we talked about last week. Religion brings hardship, religion brings frustration, religion brings these sense that I can never add up, I can never make it, I can never be good enough. That's what religion does. But Christ brings life. And he says your religion and your moral superiority will fail you again and again and again, but I never will. My forgiveness is sufficient for you. My perfection is perfect in your weakness. Our redemption is not in doing, our redemption is in Christ being done, finished. He also doesn't fill it in and say, uh, he who has superior intelligence and has the world figured out has life. Right? As I said a while ago, there's a lot of people who don't have side conversations about belief. And I just want you to know this morning, um, you don't have to have a college degree, a master's degree, uh, you don't have to have a theological degree to put your trust in Jesus. Children can put their trust in Jesus Christ. In fact, it may be easier for a child to put their faith in Christ because they don't overcomplicate the things that we tended to overcomplicate into coming to the person of Jesus. The way I've heard it before is that salvation is simple enough for a child to understand, yet complex enough that men will spend their entire lives trying to figure it out and never will. That's that's the reality. But childlike faith in Jesus is what brings salvation, not us figuring everything out or having superior intelligence. Because there's always things we don't know, there's always things we're gonna wrestle with in our in our minds. And the truth is this morning, you don't need a God that you can explain. You don't need it, you don't need a God that you can completely figure out and put into a little box. In fact, if that's your God, it's not He it's no longer the God of the Bible, you actually have become God. That you've you've actually made yourself God. He also doesn't say he who has the best life has life, as in he who has the most money, or who has the most the biggest house, or who has the best marriage, or who has the best kids and behavior, or he who has you know most accomplishments, or he has the best job. Like you guys know this, but let me just remind you this morning, all those things are not gonna satisfy you, right? I don't care how great your hobbies are, I don't care you know how great everything in life is, how much money you make, um, listen, those things will never satisfy you. Because life's not found in them. In fact, every time we're not satisfied and we kind of hit that wall, we recognize that it's a reminder that only Jesus is life. Only Jesus can satisfy. And I'm thankful for that because then what that means is I can enjoy my kids and my family, and I can enjoy my hobbies, and I can enjoy my job, and I can enjoy everything I do because I don't worship it to satisfy me or meet my needs, but I get to participate in it and to enjoy the fact that God's given those things as gifts. They're like icing on the cake. There's things that I get to experience. That I get to love my family, and I get to love my friends, and I get to and enjoy life because they are not life. Jesus is life, and they're in the right place under Jesus. So what if we don't have Jesus? He says if we don't have Jesus, we don't have life. John 3.36 says it this way. The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. We just heard that. But the one who refuses to believe in the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him. This is why I'm so adamant and passionate when I stand up here every week. Because there's only two choices, life or death. I say this all the time. I know this. There's only two choices. You're either with Jesus and you have life, or you're without Jesus and you don't have life. That's it. That's what the scripture teaches us. And John goes on to say in verse 13, I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. I just want to say a word because this is this is a this is really significant what John just said. He says, I have written these things to you who what? Who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. So what is he saying? I'm writing to people who said they believe in Jesus, which means they have Jesus. Right? Because how do we have Jesus? Believe.

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Right?

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John 3.16 again, whoever believes in him will have eternal life. He'll have eternal life, which is Jesus. Jesus is life, it all fits together. But he says, why is he trying to encourage believers so that they would know that they have Jesus and know that they have eternal life? Anybody in here ever had doubts about your faith? Anybody in here ever wake up in the morning and say, I don't feel like a Christian? Anybody ever woke up in the morning and said, I really don't think that I believe in God or Jesus? Or maybe I'm just struggling to figure this thing out. Maybe you're going through hardship right now, you're going through circumstances that just don't seem to make sense, they don't add up, and you're thinking, I don't know if I'm really a child of God. I don't really know if I believe this Jesus stuff anymore. I don't know. Am I really saved? Am I not saved? Am I forgiven? Am I not? Am I going to have eternal life? Am I not? Let me just remind you, like John did, if you have believed in Jesus, you have life. So we don't have to just play the doubt game all the time. And every time you have a doubt, and if you're a believer, if you've had a moment where you put your trust in Jesus and that doubt comes into your mind, I want you to know you can just declare out loud, Jesus is life and I have Jesus. That's all you just say that. And just know that that's where life is found. So let me wrap this up this morning for us. A true-false test. I want to make this as simple as I possibly can. Here's the statement. Jesus is life. True or false. If you said true, you have eternal life. You have eternal life. If you said false, you have the offer of eternal life on the table today. Because Jesus says, whoever would come. You see, Christianity is not an exclusive club. It's an open invitation. It's an open invitation to everyone who would receive. Jesus doesn't exclude us. We exclude ourselves by wanting to work it out on our own or figure it out on our own or saying, God, you couldn't really like me. You couldn't really want me. You don't know my issues. You don't know how bad I've struggled. You don't know how bad I am of a person. Listen, this morning, what Jesus says to every person in this room is, I love you and I offer you the gift of eternal life. He does. So you don't have to perform for it. You don't have to figure everything out. You don't have to fix yourself. You just have to receive it. Jesus is life. And for those of us who are believers this morning, we need to ask God to help us believe that again with fresh passion. Because if that's true, our lives cannot look the same as everybody else's. Our lives should not look like people who don't believe. Because we have eternal life, forgiveness of our sin. We have life forever. And we need God to refresh our hearts in that so we don't just sit and mope around through life and going, Yeah, I'm waiting for heaven. I mean, I think some Christians are like that. It's like literally like walking around, I'm just waiting for heaven, you know. Listen, we're not just waiting for heaven. We get to live now. We get to enjoy life now. We get to be full of life today. And yeah, we're gonna have hardships and struggles and difficulties, but we've got life now. Because of Jesus. Jesus is in us, and he is life. Let's pray.