[0:00] John 3, beginning in verse 31.
[0:24] ! The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.
[1:00] Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
[1:11] May God add a blessing to the reading of His Word. Would you please be seated? I know that I've shared with you all before that I am a fan of true crime books and shows and docuseries, and I've learned that I'm definitely not the only one that this genre has become increasingly popular over time.
[1:35] You've probably heard of or maybe even watched one of these true crime docuseries like Making a Murderer or The Staircase that are on Netflix.
[1:45] Certainly most of you know about the mysterious murder of John Bonet Ramsey and the mystery surrounding D.B. Cooper and the Zodiac Killer.
[1:55] Any time a new show comes out about one of these individuals or about one of these cases, people automatically watch because we are interested to find out.
[2:09] To have this mystery solved, we're eager for some new light to be shed to tell us more information that we didn't know before. Why?
[2:20] Why are we so eager? Why is this something that seems so appealing to so many of us? Well, I think it's because deep down inside, we know that the truth is out there.
[2:32] The truth is out there. And especially when we're dealing with issues where justice has not prevailed. The killer maybe has gone unpunished.
[2:46] The family has not received closure. We know that there is someone out there that has information, who has answers. And so we want for that person to come to the light.
[2:59] We desire for justice to be done. Sometimes in these cases there's enough circumstantial evidence gathered so that they can press charges against someone.
[3:13] Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect to a conclusion of fact.
[3:24] For example, take the scenario of Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry were overheard by witnesses having a heated argument early on in the day.
[3:35] The next day, Jerry was found dead at his home. Tom's fingerprints were at Jerry's house. Tom doesn't have a really great alibi for where he was when Jerry met his demise.
[3:49] Therefore, we can infer from that evidence that Tom must have committed the crime from the circumstantial evidence.
[3:59] And there may be enough to convict him. However, say there was an eyewitness. The neighbor across the street saw into Jerry's house and saw Tom enter it and saw the altercation take place and then notified the police.
[4:19] Well, then there's a great chance that Tom is going to be convicted because eyewitness testimony is more concrete than circumstantial evidence.
[4:34] And so here's where I'm going with this. There's a lot of people who believe in God based solely upon the circumstantial evidence that they have of him.
[4:47] And the circumstantial evidence is convincing. Though atheism is on the rise, the vast majority of people in this world believe in God or in a God or in some kind of a higher power.
[5:06] In large part because of the reasonable and rational circumstantial evidence that testifies to us that God must exist.
[5:19] There is the circumstantial evidence of cosmic wonder. Cosmic wonder testifies to the reality that something cannot come from nothing.
[5:29] Everything must come from something. Everything must come from something that has already had its being or has its being. This means that there must be some unique being that exists without a cause that did not come forth from nothing.
[5:45] But as its own cause and then also the source of everything else that exists. That one being who is being itself is God. Even science testifies to the fact that something cannot come from nothing.
[6:03] Yet we live in a universe full of somethings. How did these somethings get here? Well, we rationally and logically conclude there must be some thing, some unmoved mover, some pure being who self-exists and who then is also the source of all that does exist.
[6:31] There is also the circumstantial evidence of intelligent design. Some people refer to this as cosmic fine-tuning. Most scientists agree that the universe is perfectly fine-tuned to support life.
[6:47] That even a minuscule variance in one of these things would throw everything out of order. It would not make the earth or the universe habitable for life to exist.
[7:00] The odds of everything being so perfectly tuned to support the existence of life are one in billions of trillions.
[7:13] And so I say it takes more faith to believe that we are here by accident than to believe that we are here by design of a greater power.
[7:25] Even Stephen Hawking, who many considered to be the smartest man in all the world. And he would kind of go back and forth from agnosticism to atheism, where I think that's where he was when his life was ended.
[7:43] But even he said the remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.
[7:53] The implication of this evidence can be drawn out through an illustration. Imagine that there is a man who is going before the firing squad.
[8:05] And the firing squad, say there's ten of them. They're sharpshooters. They're marksmen. And they're only about ten feet away from the prisoner who is to be executed.
[8:19] Now say that all ten of them shoot and all ten of them miss. Is there a probability that that could be the case?
[8:31] There's a probability, right? Maybe a bug flew in the mouth of one of them. Maybe, you know, somebody sneezed or coughed or had the hiccups. I mean, there's a probability. But if you were there and you saw that happen, what would be your most rational conclusion?
[8:46] These guys got together. They talked it out. There's a conspiracy afoot. This is not the way that it should be. It is possible that all the physical constants just happen to be perfectly tuned in our universe in order for there to be life.
[9:08] But it is much more reasonable and rational to believe what the evidence suggests, which is that everything necessary for life to exist has been tuned precisely by who?
[9:22] By a higher power. Another piece of circumstantial evidence is the evidence of morality. How do we know right is right and wrong is wrong?
[9:34] And how come this evidence seems to go beyond culture? You can kill somebody here and we know it's wrong. You can kill somebody in some small country in Africa and they still know the same thing.
[9:44] It's wrong to do these things. How do we know what is right and what is wrong? How does it seem that this law has been written into our heart? Well, because there must have been some great law giver who wrote it on our hearts to know the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad.
[10:05] And so all these circumstantial evidences, though very reasonable and rational, still are not strong enough to force belief. They simply make belief in God rational.
[10:18] And I believe they reveal, again, that it takes more faith to not believe in God than to believe in Him.
[10:30] All of creation bears testimony. And all of the evidence tells us that we aren't here by happenstance.
[10:43] As evident as all of this evidence seems to be that God exists, the Bible presents us with more than circumstantial evidence of God's existence.
[10:57] This evidence tells us who He is and what He is like and what He wants. And this evidence primarily comes through an eyewitness.
[11:09] That eyewitness is Jesus Christ. And so the question that we have is next, can we believe in Jesus' eyewitness testimony of God the Father?
[11:24] Well, first, before we turn back to the Bible, a few pieces of information that are factual are helpful for us to consider.
[11:37] One is that of all people who have ever lived, no one's life has had greater continuing impact on the world than Jesus of Nazareth.
[11:49] And make no doubt, He was a true and living person. Even secular historians testify to the fact that Jesus was a real, living human being.
[12:06] Western civilization has been shaped largely by the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ. The laws that we have of human rights that we've established, they're rooted in Scripture, in the teachings of Jesus Himself.
[12:23] Jesus' influence doesn't lie only in the past. Today, a greater percentage of the world's population than ever before is Christian. The gospel continues to spread, especially in nations and in places where their leaders don't want it to.
[12:39] Christianity is the religion that is most equally distributed throughout the world. No other faith has so extensively crossed the cultural divisions of humanity and found a place in so many diverse cultural contexts.
[12:57] Why has Jesus had the effect that He has had? Well, the answer can only come from looking at His life, listening to His words, and observing His actions.
[13:12] And they all testify, I believe, that He is God's perfect witness because He is God Himself.
[13:22] So here's the main idea for this morning's message. Jesus Christ is the perfect witness of God because He is the Son of God, sent from above and is above all.
[13:37] Those who trust in His testimony have eternal life, but those who reject it will suffer eternally. And so as Christians, we understand, or we should understand, that it's our mission to share the gospel with unbelievers, to go and to make disciples, that people would know Christ as Lord and Savior.
[14:03] That's our hope. And so as best as we can, we must look at these verses that I read earlier and model Christ's example in His witness.
[14:17] Now as an unbeliever, you may hear all this and still be very uncertain about all of it. Perhaps you believe there is a God, but you're not certain what to believe about God.
[14:32] Maybe even thinking about God is uncomfortable for you because again, you're not sure what you believe or what you should believe.
[14:43] So maybe instead, you suppress thinking deeply about Him by keeping yourself distracted so that you never have to have that conversation with yourself and with Him.
[14:59] But then, things happen like the tragedy that happened last Sunday where many families tragically lost their lives or had loved ones lose their life.
[15:13] I'm talking about the tragic helicopter crash that included Kobe Bryant and his daughter. And when tragedies like that, when they happen, especially when it happens to somebody who's so well known, listen, these things happen every day.
[15:32] Unfortunately. It's part of what it means to live in a world under the curse of sin. But when it happens to someone who is so well known, someone who is still so young, and someone who is so beloved, it's shocking.
[15:49] It shocks us. I remember, you know, hearing about it and not believing that it could be true and then as the days progressed, listening to people on the news, on SportsCenter, talking about Kobe Bryant and the one thing I could kind of boil all their comments down to was this isn't the way it should be.
[16:14] And when things like that happen, we are forced to come to grips with our own mortality. We realize that life is fragile and we realize that our life could come to an end in a moment's notice.
[16:39] Death, especially our own death, is a topic that many of us would rather not think about. And so when those tragedies happen and they just slap us in the face with the reality of our own mortality, our own fragileness, all of these thoughts that we'd rather suppress about death and our own death, they come flooding to the surface.
[17:10] There's a saying, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. And that saying sums up a lot of people's attitudes towards death. The logic of our sinful nature says indulge today.
[17:25] Don't miss out today. You only live once. Don't worry about death. Push that off till tomorrow.
[17:39] Satan would want nothing more than for us to live our life as if this life was all that there is ever going to be. When he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, she knew that God told her that if she and Adam ate from the tree of life that they would die.
[18:00] And Satan immediately scoffs at that suggestion, telling her instead, if you remember, you will not surely die.
[18:13] And so I believe Satan does not want us to consider death much, if at all. because when you consider death, it means that you must consider what happens afterwards.
[18:31] Hence the reason why Jesus dedicated so much of his teaching about death. Have you ever noticed that? This is what I was thinking as, you know, trying to process everything that happened and thinking about the fact that Jesus talked about death a lot.
[18:47] A lot. He talked about not wasting your life as we've gone over the past couple of Sundays. He talked about the fact that we need to be thinking about what comes next, that we need to be living our lives, not for today, but for the life that is to come.
[19:05] He talked about death a lot. Don't believe me, search through the scriptures yourself, and you'll see. Mark 8, 31 through 38, for example.
[19:18] Jesus telling us that there's more to life than this life. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed.
[19:30] And after three days, rise again. And he said this plainly. This is what I find interesting. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, right? No, no, no, let's not talk about death.
[19:43] People don't want to hear that. Especially about you. Forbid it, Lord. Forbid that you speak of it. Forbid that it would happen. But look at what Jesus says to him.
[19:56] But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. For you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, ride an instrument of death.
[20:16] For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sakes and the gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
[20:29] For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this life, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the son of man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with his only angels.
[20:45] I've been reading a book called The Gospel According to Satan written by Jared C. Wilson. He's an instructor up at Midwestern. It just came out. It's a very interesting book.
[20:56] I encourage you to read it. I want to share one of the quotes that I really like from that book. He said, Jesus says that to reject him is to reject real life as he himself is life.
[21:10] To choose to do life without him is to choose a death worth than death. To choose the second death, the spiritual death that comes after physical death. And the spiritual death is far worse.
[21:24] But to choose Christ, this side of death, is to have life forevermore. You may die physically, but those who live in Christ forever, he concludes, they have eternal life.
[21:35] And so my question to you this morning is, do you believe in Jesus' testimony? Believing in God's existence, the Bible says, is not enough to save you.
[21:54] even Satan believes in God's existence. And listen, Satan knows that Jesus is the risen son of God. He knows these facts.
[22:05] But knowing facts and trusting in Christ in faith for salvation are different things. Romans 10, 9 says it plainly.
[22:19] But if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.
[22:33] And I'm telling you, Jesus wants you to believe in him. He wants you to believe in him. He is the perfect witness of God.
[22:46] His testimony is true and you should believe it. Why should you believe it? Well, in the context of the scripture that I've read this morning, John 3, 31 through 36, John the Baptist testifies to the supremacy of Christ and gives four reasons for why we should receive his testimony.
[23:10] And the first is this. Jesus is the perfect witness because he has first-hand knowledge of God the Father. Verse 31. He who comes from above is above all.
[23:22] He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. And so, for a witness to be a good witness, they must have first-hand information.
[23:36] They must have seen or heard that about which they are giving testimony to. And so, for this reason, in the court of law, no judge will allow any kind of hearsay evidence into a trial.
[23:53] Verse 31 says that Jesus possessed first-hand knowledge of God the Father. As such, he has supremacy over all other teachers and any other prophet who has come before him.
[24:06] They all may have possessed some part of the truth but could only report of what God had told them. Jesus, however, John says, was God, is God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity.
[24:22] His origins were heavenly and eternal and he has revealed truth to us perfectly out of the fullness of his complete knowledge and understanding.
[24:35] He has first-hand knowledge. knowledge. If you were going to go someplace, like Hawaii, for example, and you wanted to know, you wanted to have a great vacation, you could go to somebody who's been there before, who maybe lives in Oklahoma like you and they could tell some things about you that would be helpful but wouldn't you agree that it would be much more helpful and beneficial to hear information about Hawaii from somebody who is from Hawaii, from somebody who has lived there because they know things that you can't know if you only visit for a week or two or maybe even a handful of weeks.
[25:13] You know, I think about being from Kansas City and one thing Kansas City is known for is our barbecue. Praise the Lord. But, when you visit Kansas City, so people find that out and if they visit Kansas City or they just want to know what's the best barbecue places, well, if you go there, you can only hit so many of them so time because even as great as barbecue is, you get tired of it after eating it all week long.
[25:38] But being from there, having eaten at those places multiple times, having able to have more than one meal there and also knowing some of the places that aren't as well known, I'm able to give that kind of first-hand knowledge.
[25:50] So you see, there is value in having first-hand knowledge and of all the religious teachers of the world who claim to have any kind of knowledge from God, only Jesus claimed to have first-hand knowledge.
[26:07] And so when Jesus speaks about God and about heaven, he's not speaking from limited experience. He testifies to what he's actually seen, to what he's truly heard because Jesus is God the Son.
[26:22] He knows the Father fully and perfectly and he was sent from above to bear witness to all of these things. And so Jesus' testimony is superior and his teachings are superior to anyone else because his knowledge was not second-hand.
[26:40] Earlier in John chapter 3, remember when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus told him, truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know. We testify to what we have seen.
[26:52] Later on in John 8, 26, he'll say, he who sent me is true and the things which I heard from him firsthand, right? I speak to you.
[27:03] To his disciples, he declared in John 15, 15, all things that I have heard from my Father, I've made them known to you. Even Jesus' enemies acknowledged in John 7, 46, never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.
[27:22] Like Christ, we are called to testify to the firsthand knowledge that we've received from him. Your testimony.
[27:33] People may deny Christ, but let me tell you that they can't deny you of the grace that you've received from him. They can't deny you of your testimony.
[27:44] They can't deny you of your salvation. They can't deny the new creation that you have become in Christ. And so, we are called to, like Christ, bear witness to the goodness, to the truthfulness of him.
[28:01] Matthew 5, 14-16, Jesus implores us, you are the light of the world. The city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
[28:13] In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they might see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Acts 4, 18-20, after Christ has ascended, the disciples are going out and they're bearing witnesses.
[28:28] They get in trouble for this. They get arrested for this. And so, those who wanted to suppress their teaching, they called them and charged them not to speak or to teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
[28:51] 1 Peter 3, 15, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you.
[29:05] Yet do it, this is important, with gentleness and respect. There's no doubt, no doubting that Jesus claimed to be God, claimed to be sent from heaven to testify to truth.
[29:24] You may not believe that his claims are true, but you shouldn't deny that those were the claims that he made. He was the perfect witness because he had first-hand knowledge.
[29:36] The second reason you should believe Christ's testimony is because he was a willing witness. Jesus is the perfect witness because he was a willing witness.
[29:47] beginning of verse 32, it says, he bears witness to what he has seen and heard. And so, in order for a witness to be a good witness, they must be willing to give their testimony.
[30:04] See, in many of the 80s, even before then, 70s, 60s, when the Italian mob was bigger than it is now in New York, and they were always trying to pin down those mobsters, but they never could because anytime they would get a witness, the mob would get to that witness first.
[30:21] They would threaten that witness, or they would threaten that witness's family, and so that witness wouldn't show up, or they would change their testimony because they were afraid, because they weren't willing to share the truth because of what it would cost them personally.
[30:37] However, Jesus was willing to testify knowing full well that his witness would lead him to the cross, but he was willing because that was the Father's will for him and also his own.
[30:56] John 10, 17 through 18, for this reason, Jesus says, the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.
[31:09] I have authority to lay it down, I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. And then, interestingly, in Luke 22, verses 41 through 42, as Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, moments before his arrest, moments before his trial and later his crucifixion, it says he was with his disciples and he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and he knelt down and he prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.
[31:39] Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. The cup that Jesus is talking about there is the cup of divine wrath.
[31:53] See, Jesus wasn't only willing to be a witness, but he was willing to be a sacrifice. Jesus' words do not imply that there was any conflict between the will of the Father and of the Son.
[32:08] It was a perfect expression of his humanity in contemplation of the price that he would soon pay.
[32:20] The one who knew no sin on the cross would become sin. Sin was so abhorrent to him, but he took it on himself anyway, and he drank every last drop because it was the will of the Father.
[32:39] He is a willing witness. In his crucifixion gave testimony, Romans 3, 23 through 25, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
[33:03] This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he passed over former sins. Jesus is the perfect witness because he was a willing witness.
[33:16] He willingly came. He willingly humbled himself by adding humanity to his deity and he willingly died in the place of sinners enduring God's wrath for our sins in our place.
[33:33] The Bible testifies that God is righteous and that we aren't. So the question becomes how can sinners be made righteous? Well, the answer then is clearly.
[33:45] Through the cross of Jesus Christ. Where in faith we receive the gospel and our sins are taken from us and they are placed on him and his righteousness is taken from him and placed on us.
[34:05] He truly became sin. He truly endured God's wrath for the sin that we've committed so that we could be clothed in his righteousness. And this is an amazing thing.
[34:20] This is amazing grace that God would come as a willing witness to die for sins that he did not commit so that he could save us and give us eternal life.
[34:41] That's amazing. Thirdly, Jesus is the perfect witness because he has given us reliable testimony.
[34:54] Verses 34 through 35, for he whom God has sent utters the words of God for he gives the spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands. Jesus' witness was consistent.
[35:08] It was complete and therefore it was reliable. He did everything that he said that he would do in his first coming. And his empty tomb serves as the proof that all that he said and did was accomplished.
[35:26] He gives the spirit without measure, John testifies there. Some different interpreters have tried to understand what this difficult verse in the Greek says, but basically this is what I have come to believe it to mean.
[35:41] It's that this speaks to the communion, the perfect communion of God, the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Resulting with the Father's guaranteeing the truth spoken by his words that they are totally reliable as evidenced by all the things that Jesus was able to say and to do in his earthly ministry as proof that the Holy Spirit was working mightily in his ministry.
[36:12] Other religious leaders have come. They have claimed to have some truth, but they've never claimed to be the truth.
[36:24] They claim that they could help others down the path of salvation, salvation. But Jesus said that he is the way, that he is the only way to salvation.
[36:38] He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
[36:49] And so you can't have Jesus without the claims that he made of himself. To ignore his claims or to try to reinterpret them or deny them is to make a God and Savior of your own fabricating.
[37:11] It is to make God in your own image. And let me tell you, you can't have it both ways and that God of your own making cannot save you.
[37:25] If what Jesus said is true, then he is the only reliable witness to who God is and what God requires. So, what should we do with this witness?
[37:39] Jesus is the perfect witness, so you must trust him. The rest of verse 32 and 33 and verse 36 say, yet no one receives his testimony.
[37:50] Whoever receives his testimony sets the seal to this that God is true. And then verse 36, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
[38:06] And so another quote from the book by Jared C. Wilson that I've been reading, it's just interesting how this scripture and that book as I'm reading them together go perfectly in line.
[38:16] I want to share another quote from him to you. He says, Jesus knows living like you only live once is to ensure you will die after you die.
[38:28] You must be born again because if you live once, you will die twice. But if you live twice, you will die once and after that, eternal glory.
[38:40] the fruit of the now looks pathetic in light of eternal life. The devil wants you to believe that you won't die.
[38:52] Barring that, he wants us to believe only this life counts and that this is all there is. But he's a liar. He wants us to waste this life because he wants us to waste what comes after it.
[39:04] After we die, it will be too late to change our minds. It will be too late to get our act together. There is no moment to delay. If you have not done so already, seize eternity this very second.
[39:20] Have you believed in Jesus' testimony? Do you know him as Lord and Savior? And I know, listen, this sermon is only 30 or 40 minutes long and there's not enough to get into all of that other circumstantial evidence because there's more.
[39:36] And I understand too that you may still be in the thinking process and so I encourage you, I'd love to have these conversations with you. And there are people in this church who would love to have these conversations with you.
[39:48] And so if you're feeling that burning in your heart, there's something here. There may be something here that I'm just totally missing. Please do not leave this morning without letting me or somebody know so that we can continue to have this conversation.
[40:06] So what does this mean for our church? Well, we know that we are committed in 2020 to being the best Highland Park that we can be. This is in comparison to the past. This is a matter of fact that Jesus gave his best to us and so we should always be giving our best to him.
[40:20] And why shouldn't we be pursuing being the best church that we can be? Amen? That should be our goal. And so firstly, how do we build community with this scripture, with this truth?
[40:33] Well, I think like I just said, it means that we testify to each other. We let people know what's going on in our lives, what God is doing, or maybe the uncertainties that we have, the prayer requests, the doubts that are festering in our mind.
[40:54] It means that we go to church, our Christian community that we belong to, and we say, hey, I'm going to be real. I'm going to let you know that I've had a really bad week.
[41:05] But you know that the people who you are going to share that witness with are going to be there to love you, to encourage you, to pray for you.
[41:18] And so church needs to be a place where it's okay to not be okay. Now, I mean that in this way. It doesn't mean that church is a place where it's okay to be sinful, however you want to live, right? That's not okay.
[41:28] But it's okay for you to come in here and be real. Too often, people go to church and they feel like they've got to put on a facade. We've got to pretend like we've mastered sin. Oh yeah, sin, that used to be a problem for me, but gosh, I'm over that.
[41:44] Please, don't believe in that lie and let's not present that lie to each other or to this world. Be real. Be real. And that will build community.
[41:55] Second, we take this verse and we apply it to equipping believers. So, we learn from the testimony of Scripture. We've learned from this passage and we've seen that Jesus was the perfect witness of God.
[42:10] We see from Scripture that we are to be witnesses as well and so the more we are equipping one another in church through Sunday school, through the time of the worship service, through the meetings that meet throughout the weeks and the different studies that we have, we are receiving and equipping to be better witnesses to this world that is in desperate need of being witness to.
[42:31] So, we seek to be that city on a hill that shines brightly into a world that needs to see Christians acting like Christ. Thirdly, we share Jesus.
[42:46] That means that we are willing again to be witnesses for Christ. It means that we're willing to sacrifice our own comfort in order to share good news with somebody who we know needs to hear it.
[42:58] It means that when we gather together we make sure that we are always teaching the gospel. That we are always presenting the truth of the gospel. The necessity of the gospel to save us from our sins.
[43:12] And so also we teach the word. After giving witness we are willing to teach and to disciple.
[43:23] I want to close with one last story. I, you know, I wasn't a big Lakers fan but I was a big Shaquille O'Neal fan.
[43:38] And Shaquille O'Neal is a big guy. And if you know anything about the dynasty that he and Kobe Bryant put together when they played for the Lakers they won something like three or four championships together.
[43:49] But then they got too big to coexist with one another. And so they were they feuded with one another. Shaq eventually got traded. He couldn't stand being in L.A. with Kobe. Kobe didn't want him there. And so for years these two guys would insult one another through social media.
[44:06] They wouldn't really want to talk to each other. They didn't want to have any kind of relationship with one another. Then after Shaq retired and Kobe they got together and they resolved those old past issues.
[44:18] And they became friends. Which was good. I was interested I wanted to hear what Shaq had to say about Kobe's passing and what he had to say I think was very introspective.
[44:29] He said that this was going to completely change his life. As far as what he meant was I'm not going to get into stuff with other people.
[44:42] You know I've gone and I've pursued people who I've been out of relationship with and I've sought to fix those relationships because I realized that life isn't worth it.
[44:53] I saw another guy Paul Pierce who was a great guard for the Kansas Jayhawks played for Boston played against the Lakers teams and I heard him talk about with tears in his eyes before one of the games that was played this week how he hadn't spoken to his father in years and how he was going to reach out to him and another guy Jalen Rose was sitting next to him and said I've done that with my father I encourage you to do that all this to say that what does Jesus implore us to do with our lives we've been talking about this don't waste it he says don't waste your opportunities why get caught up in petty things when there is more to life than this one live your life in preparation for the next and so this may sound strange to you but I believe it's biblical we need to think more about our death what happens afterwards because here because I've been thinking about this too since then
[46:01] I know I'm going a little bit over time but it's made me think differently you know I've got stuff to do for school my doctor reading these books that I are annoying and boring but I've got to do it but my kids you know Hazel and Jack they want to play or they just want my attention and in the past I've thought I've got to do this because you know there'll be time for you tomorrow but it changes my perspective because I think now don't tell my teachers I said this who cares who cares I mean I care but that is not nearly as valuable as them and so when you live this is why I think Jesus was teaching this all about you know to think about our death so much because the fact that it could come at any moment's time and so live your life in preparation for what's next make sure that you are right with Christ that your sins have been forgiven that you've believed the gospel and then live your life in everyday thinking about your priorities what matters most in my life do the people that matter most to me know that they matter most to me and more importantly than that do people know how much Christ means to me and so we should live our lives everyday with that thought that's why
[47:27] I think Satan has tried so hard to make us suppress that thought to make it feel so uncomfortable because if we think that way it will make us think with eternity in view and man we will live our lives differently Jesus knew that there was a cross on the horizon and he spent every day of his earthly ministry teaching and going and sharing telling people to believe in him you gotta do the same and to having time!
[48:06] I'll see you next time.