1 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:08,000 With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength 2 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,000 You're my soul, my hope is found 3 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:29,000 He is my man, my strength, my soul, is full of his song 4 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:37,000 This song in round, my whole face is proud and strong 5 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:47,000 What I do, what traps the beast, when fears are stilled, when shining seems 6 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:57,000 My comfort, my all in all, here is the love of Christ I can 7 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:14,000 He was the one who took on Christ, from the Solanic world was made 8 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:23,000 His hands of love and righteousness, swore by the ones he came to save 9 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:33,000 Still on the cross, the strange ones cried, the path of God was satisfied 10 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:44,000 For everything, God is still most great, here in the land of Christ, forever 11 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:59,000 There in the ground, his body lay, part of the world by God, the same 12 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:09,000 And bursting forth, in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again 13 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:33,000 And then he stood in victory 14 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:52,000 How lovely is your burning praise, oh Lord all I can give, for my soul and me can thank for you 15 00:03:52,000 --> 00:04:05,000 Oh near my heart, he stands in song, within your presence 16 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:23,000 I see beneath the shadow of your face 17 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:58,000 I'm ready, I'm ready 18 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:48,000 I want to pray, the wonders of your mighty power 19 00:05:48,000 --> 00:06:15,000 By the power, I shall take the world of refuge and strength, and I will know, all that I am, never cease to worship you 20 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:29,000 Shower the glory of our sin, for our majesty raise to the King 21 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:44,000 You are the greatest of the many, one with God the Lord, most high 22 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:59,000 Your hidden glory in creation, now revealed in you, oh Christ, what a beautiful name it is 23 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:14,000 What a beautiful name it is, the name of Jesus Christ my King 24 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:31,000 Nothing come past you then, what a beautiful name it is, the name of Jesus 25 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:44,000 You didn't want to live without us, so Jesus you're forever and always 26 00:07:44,000 --> 00:08:02,000 My sin was greater, love was greater, we're once called separate, it's us now, what a wonderful name it is 27 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:23,000 The name of Jesus Christ my King, what a wonderful name it is, nothing come past you then, what a wonderful name it is, the name of Jesus 28 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:33,000 What a wonderful name it is, the name of Jesus 29 00:08:53,000 --> 00:09:13,000 We therefore not hold you, the path of the world you walk, your silence the boast of sin and grace 30 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:27,000 The heavens are warming, the praise of your glory, for you are raised to life again 31 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:43,000 You have no rights, you have no equal, now and forever 32 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:19,000 We pray for blessings, we pray for pain, comfort for friar army, protection while we sleep 33 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:36,000 We pray for healing, for prosperity, we pray for your mighty hand to ease our suffering 34 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:51,000 And all the world you hear is wrong with me, yet love is way too much to give us rest at least 35 00:10:51,000 --> 00:11:08,000 What if your blessings come through e-trots, what if you're healed in constant tears, what if a thousand sins were stopped, oh what it takes to know you're near 36 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:32,000 What if trots of the night are your mercies in the sky 37 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:48,000 We pray for wisdom, your voice to hear, we cry in anger when we cannot feel you near 38 00:11:48,000 --> 00:12:04,000 We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love, as if every promise from your word is not enough 39 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:19,000 And all the world you hear is desperately, as long as we have faith to believe 40 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:36,000 What if your blessings come through e-trots, what if you're healed in constant tears, what if a thousand sins were stopped, oh what it takes to know you're near 41 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:58,000 What if trots of this life are your mercies in the sky, when friends betray us, when darkness seems to win, we know the pain reminds us hard 42 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:19,000 This is not, this is not our home, it's not our home 43 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:36,000 What if your blessings come through e-trots, what if you're healed in constant tears, what if a thousand sins were stopped, oh what it takes to know you're near 44 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:53,000 What if my greatest disappointment, or the aching of this life, is the revealing of a greater thirst, this world can't satisfy 45 00:13:53,000 --> 00:14:15,000 What if trots of this life, the rain that storms the hottest nights, are your mercies in the sky 46 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:27,000 Alright, praise the Lord, he's already been at work in our midst, and I am grateful 47 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:42,000 Alright, simple mathematics, Larry, what's 3 minus 3? Go ahead, what is it? 3 minus 3 is what? 0, are you sure? Are you positive? 48 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:50,000 Aaron, what's 300 minus 300? Are you sure? Are you positive? Absolutely, without a doubt. 49 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:57,000 Okay, zero is not, zero is like positive and negative both, right, or something, I don't know 50 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:07,000 So, when we were kids we used to do in math, and they would give us sample problems, and they would say, well Johnny has 7 apples 51 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:16,000 And you take away 4 apples, and Johnny has 3 apples, and then take away 3 more apples, and how many apples does Johnny have? 52 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:27,000 And the answer they were expecting was? 0, apples, 3 minus 3, take away 3 more apples is 0, right, they were expecting 0 apples, right? 53 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:41,000 But how many apples does Johnny really have? You say 0, he has 0, if Johnny were real, how many apples does Johnny really have left after he lost his 7 apples? 54 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:54,000 Is it 0? We're all adamant, we all agree it's 0, you agree, Karina? If Johnny had 7 apples and he lost 7 apples, how many apples does he have left? 0, okay, so we all agree it's 0, right? 55 00:15:54,000 --> 00:16:03,000 What if I told you that for most of existence that was not the correct answer? Would you believe me? 56 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:11,000 Grab your Bibles if you would, and go with me, maybe you'll say a little hoo to holler Amen, as we go to John chapter 20, Amen 57 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:20,000 This is God's Word, it is not my Word, I did not write this Word, praise God, it was written a long time, and inspired a long time before I was ever born 58 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:24,000 If it had not been I probably would not be saved, is the truth 59 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:38,000 John chapter 20 we'll begin reading in verse 24, this is going to go by kind of quickly and all three points are kind of dense, they're powerful, they're packed 60 00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:43,000 So be with me and let's observe this and let's grow from it because it's really something, okay? 61 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:57,000 So John 20 verse 24, you know already the story to this point a little bit, I hope Jesus has been resurrected and he appeared to his disciples on that day of his resurrection, that Sunday 62 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:08,000 In verse 24 of John chapter 20 it says this, but Thomas, one of the twelve called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came 63 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:15,000 So he missed out on the first appearance of Jesus to the group there behind closed doors, the upper room 64 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:27,000 The other disciples therefore were saying to him, we have seen the Lord, so the disciples, those who were called by Jesus to follow Jesus, to learn from Jesus, to see Jesus, to witness his miracles and to tell the entire world 65 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:36,000 The disciples of Jesus were telling Thomas, we have seen him a lot, but Thomas was struggling to believe that that was so 66 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:56,000 Verse 25 again, the other disciples therefore were saying to him, we have seen the Lord, but he said to them, unless I shall see his hands, the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe 67 00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:08,000 So this is a fairly radical, bold statement by Thomas, now it's interesting, we don't see a lot of Thomas talking throughout the Gospel, but there's one other very significant place in time where we do see Thomas speaking up 68 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:13,000 There's a couple of places where we see him talk, but there's one very significant one where he does something similar to this 69 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:25,000 It is upon the disciples hearing about the death of Lazarus, who was their friend and Jesus' friend, and Jesus said, okay, now that we have heard the report that he is indeed dead, we're going to go there where he is 70 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:38,000 And you know, anybody remember what Thomas said? He said, no, no, they all were questioning that, the disciples were questioning, he may have said that, but what he actually said in response was this, he said 71 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:45,000 Sure, let's go there where he is so we can all die with him 72 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:56,000 That's pretty bold statement, isn't it? See, already at that time, Jesus was being hunted a little bit, and to bring Lazarus back to life, that really set it on fire 73 00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:07,000 When Lazarus came back to life, thousands and thousands of people believed that's an amazing miracle there is for sure, life after death, and Lazarus is alive, and Jesus is the miracle worker, and he has the power of God in him 74 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:18,000 No one can deny that, and it was from that moment on, as Thomas predicted, they began to truly in earnest to kill Jesus, and would have killed the disciples most likely given the opportunity 75 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:29,000 Thomas foresaw that, and when Jesus said, let's go there where Lazarus is, Thomas said back to Jesus, sure, let's go there where he is so we can die with him 76 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:42,000 That's pretty bold, right? Well now here is Thomas being bold again, if a little snarky, and saying, unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails, put my hand into his side, I will not believe 77 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:48,000 Now remember that everyone in the room, including Thomas, had the predictions about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus 78 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:57,000 They had been told, even in the book of John, we have multiple cases where John tells us they had been told it was coming, and yet in the face of that, Thomas is having a hard time 79 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:10,000 accepting that the disciples, the other disciples, have seen Jesus alive, that's significant, and then makes this very bold statement, ending with, I will not believe unless those pre-qualifiers 80 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:26,000 26 says, and after eight days, again his disciples were inside, now this could be confusing in modern teaching or whatever, we might not understand it, remember that in the Jewish day, they count the first day you're counting and the last day you're counting 81 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:40,000 So if I said in four days, I'm going to count today, then there's Monday and Tuesday, and I mean Wednesday, so when it's four days, it includes today, because there's plenty of today left, and you'd be discounting all the rest of today if you didn't count it that way 82 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:53,000 So when they say after eight days, they mean the eighth day, which is the next Sunday, right? So we had a Sunday instance and another Sunday instance, and this is very interesting, because I studied up on this to figure out and make sure I understood what was going on 83 00:20:53,000 --> 00:21:09,000 And I found out that in the first century during the time of Jesus' resurrection and following, that Jesus' people, the people in the church, and especially one prominent writer, but there were quite a few of them, that began to believe a doctrine called the eighth day doctrine 84 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:16,000 Now we've not picked that up and carried it 2,000 years forward, but I'm going to tell you what it is, and you'll like the idea of it, I guarantee you 85 00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:26,000 This is what it was. It was that after the seven days of creation, on the seventh day, the Sabbath, God rested, right? That after that, there comes another day 86 00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:39,000 And it is essentially the day of the Kingdom of God. It is when God's Messiah will come, and if you will, save everyone, everyone that's willing to be saved, and begin the Kingdom of God 87 00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:55,000 And so the eighth day doctrine said that on Sunday, the first day of the week, the day that he was resurrected, that that was essentially the eighth day from creation, extended forward to the eighth day, and from that point on we are living now in the Kingdom of God 88 00:21:55,000 --> 00:22:08,000 That's pretty cool, isn't it? Think about it that way. So the Sabbath was Saturday, that was the day that God rested originally, and they're celebrating his rest, and they rest because he told him to recognize it, honor the Sabbath, keep it holy 89 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:23,000 And then on the eighth day, the rest, if you will, of the Kingdom of God ended. Now that doctrine doesn't really play out in all of scripture, but in fact it was the eighth day from Jewish point of view, the Sunday, and what happened then because of that? 90 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:35,000 What did we do because of that? Well, we changed the day of worship, right? And there are those who will resist that and say, well no, the Sabbath should still be, and I submit to you that the Sabbath was about resting and focusing on God 91 00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:51,000 And you should have a Sabbath, that's a lesson for another day, but the Lord's Day, the eighth day, which was Sunday, it's also the first day of the week, which was Sunday, should be recognized as the day of worship because it was the day that Jesus was resurrected, it was the day that he met with them 92 00:22:51,000 --> 00:23:06,000 And he institutes his church, and then from that point on, they always worship on the day that they first saw Jesus. Even James, the brother of Jesus, who was a devout Jew, and had always worshiped on Saturday, even while he was calling Jesus a nut for thinking he was the Messiah, had always done their worship on Saturday 93 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:14,000 But after Jesus came back to life, he began to worship on Sundays. Pretty neat. Neat doctrine, neat stuff, but not the majority of the text 94 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:30,000 And after eight days, after the disciples were inside, and Thomas with them, Jesus came, the doors having been shut, so boom, he's there. In fact, the word there can kind of like begin to be in their midst, or begin to exist amongst them, right? 95 00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:40,000 So he was suddenly there, you could say. Peace be with you, he said. And we know that he says a lot more about his peace being with us in other texts, so that's not our primary focus 96 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:58,000 We never dismiss the fact that he said, peace be with you, as a greeting, but that's not our primary focus here. 27. Then he said to Thomas, so he turns from the disciples who have all seen him alive before, to Thomas, the one who had not, the one who made the bold statement, the one who was saying, I will never believe unless I, what did he say? 97 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:20,000 See in his hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side. So unless that happens, I will never believe, he said. But then Thomas is confronted by the living risen Jesus, and Jesus says, reach here your finger and see my hands, and reach here your hand and put it in my side. 98 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:40,000 And he says, and be not unbelieving, but believing. Now I'm a huge fan of this translation, there are a variety of ways that's translated, and I'll try to explain to you when we break it down later why it's like that, but it doesn't carry its full meaning into the English, and that's why we get a variety of translations into the English. 99 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:57,000 But this is what Jesus told him, go ahead, do what you said you needed to do in order to believe, put your hand in my side, and be not unbelieving, but be believing. In other words, be transformed, be changed from your current position into the position that I want you in. 100 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:14,000 Verse 28, almost done with the text. Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. Now no record in the text here or elsewhere where it's also written that Thomas actually touched Jesus' nail scarred hands, or put his hand in his side. 101 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:33,000 He didn't actually have to do that, he needed to see the risen Jesus, and in seeing it, the evidence of his presence, the necessary interpretation of Jesus being there, brought him to the conclusion that Jesus was Lord, had right to be in control of his life and really the entire universe, and God. 102 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:49,000 Not just the Messiah or the Anointed One, although there were texts that supported that the Messiah or the Anointed One would be God in the flesh, but this is clear. He leaps to the head of the class, if you will, leaps to the right conclusion and said, this is God in the flesh. 103 00:25:49,000 --> 00:26:07,000 My Lord and my God, he said, Jesus said to him, because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believe. Now that last part there might be in a format that you're mildly familiar with if you've read your Bible at all or been under some sermons or whatever. 104 00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:21,000 You know what that's called when Jesus says a, blessed are they who, whatever, what's that called? Does anybody know? It's called a beatitude, that's right. So this is another beatitude similar to what Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount. 105 00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:33,000 When he stood up on the count of Rises and preached to the thousands of people who were gathered there and the bowl and his voice was projected, and maybe by a miracle, maybe by the acoustics of the place, but he preached to all of them and they all heard him and he gave the beatitudes one after another after another. 106 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:45,000 You want to read them, you can go to Matthew 5 and read them one right after another. Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacekeepers and so on, the beatitudes. 107 00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:58,000 And here is another, if you will, beatitude, and I submit to you maybe the prime directive beatitude for the Star Trek fans in the house. Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. 108 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:11,000 Alright, because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. Now there's three things I really want to point out to you here that really kind of, and I will say to you there were like eight, okay? 109 00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:19,000 And I kept praying through them and studying on them and the Lord helped me kind of whittle that down so we could get down to a more manageable number. 110 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:27,000 So you could spend a lot of time studying this text more, I think, than just reading the story and learning from what's written there if you want to. 111 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:39,000 The first thing I want you to notice in the text that God relayed on my heart was that Jesus can see and or hear the quote unquote needs of those who quote unquote need to believe in him. 112 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:52,000 In other words, Jesus is not closed to your condition. Jesus knows if your parents were not Christians, Jesus knows if they said things that hurt you, Jesus knows if you've been frustrated, Jesus knows if you've been through difficult times, 113 00:27:52,000 --> 00:28:04,000 Jesus knows when you're alone. I think about I was dating a girl when I was 19 years old and she was like 23 and she was supermodel beautiful whatever and the night I went in the bathroom and I said, Lord, don't get me out of the situation. 114 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:14,000 Just please get me through it. Be with me. And I was praying because I had moved the little charm on my necklace and I always thought of that as praying to some mysterious God somewhere. 115 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:24,000 But God miraculously got me through that experience with her and she didn't corrupt me and she drank all the time, but I didn't become addicted to alcohol even though I did drink and I could have become addicted. 116 00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:32,000 She did drugs and I never got involved with drugs. She was supermodel hot, but I never had any form of intimate relationship with her. 117 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:43,000 So God got me through that relationship as I prayed because God could hear what I was there in the bathroom in the mirror moving the little charm on my necklace thinking there might be a God out there somewhere. 118 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:50,000 God can hear and he can see your needs. He can hear and see the evidence that you need. 119 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:59,000 I posted a little reel on Facebook this week of me speaking saying God is not afraid of your challenges of him. 120 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:06,000 We've got this idea that the God of the universe somehow, man, he's going to be cut to the quick. He's going to be caught with his hand in the cookie jar. 121 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:13,000 God is not going to be able to address my one reservation, my one question or my one concern. 122 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:23,000 Whatever that I've got the topper. I know there's been billions of people that have lived, but even though there have been billions, I know how it is that God cannot answer me. 123 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:27,000 What? This is the God of the universe. 124 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:40,000 Notice that in the text, Thomas is in the room with the disciples and saying, I will not believe unless this happens. And then Jesus suddenly appears and he doesn't say, excuse me, Thomas, I didn't quite hear you. 125 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:45,000 None of the disciples go running to Jesus. Oh, Jesus, right before you got here, Thomas said, blah, blah, blah. 126 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:51,000 They don't have to do it. Jesus heard Thomas's words in the room with the disciples before he appeared. 127 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:56,000 Now, you might want to kind of minimize that some. I said, well, Jesus was probably there, but they just couldn't see him. 128 00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:01,000 He was like invisible. But it doesn't matter. You minimize it all you want. 129 00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:12,000 The fact is that God can see and hear the needs of those who need to believe in him before they believe in him, before you have decided. 130 00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,000 We have to remember that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, now that Jesus lived, died and rose again. 131 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:20,000 And it was true before he lived and it was true in some sense while he lived. 132 00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:27,000 But the point is they are eternal beings, not eternal like they were never created and will never die. 133 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:31,000 You're thinking of like Rip Van Winkle or something, fell asleep, woke up, was really old. God's not like that. 134 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:39,000 God's been eternal always and always will be. So the moment you walk into heaven, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, 135 00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:44,000 the moment you stand before God or potentially judged for what you decided to do with Jesus who was the Christ, 136 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:51,000 the moment you stand before God having not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and are found to be still in your sin, 137 00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:59,000 whatever that might be, God is in a sense already there. God was there when you had questions. 138 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:04,000 God was there when you were hurting. God was there when the time was so dark you didn't feel like you could see him. 139 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:15,000 God is there. The God of heaven can see and therefore Jesus who is God can see and hear the needs of those who need to believe in him. 140 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:31,000 But, here's the big but in the story, it is absolutely a reasonable expectation of God for you to believe because you were told, 141 00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:40,000 because what you were told was true. I was watching a detective show on the Roku channel, it's one of those free channels where you can, 142 00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:46,000 they have different episodes on there and I watched this show called The Mentalist and I kind of liked it and there was no foul language, 143 00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:52,000 no nudity, no sex scenes. I'm like, yes, is it? You get a police drama with mysteries, no nudity, no foul language, no sex scenes. 144 00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:58,000 I'm like, whew, I was on cloud nine, I loved it. It was great. I think I had maybe occasionally not look at dead bodies, 145 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,000 but they really didn't do a lot of gross stuff with that which a lot of shows do. 146 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:11,000 Anyway, I was watching it and he sits down, they're having this very meaningful conversation, the main character and another character who is pretty much a main character 147 00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:19,000 and he says, this is the truth and the other guy says to him, why should I believe you? Why should I believe you? 148 00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:25,000 You've lied to me, you've deceived me, you've tricked me in the past, it's clear that you could be playing another character, why should I believe you? 149 00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:34,000 And he says, because it's the truth. There's no other reason, not based on my character. 150 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:40,000 Now you can believe God based on his holy, honorable, and perfect character, he always keeps his promises. 151 00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:46,000 But even though you can believe God based on his holy and honorable character, he always keeps his promises, 152 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:52,000 you're not being asked to believe God when one of the disciples or somebody who's a follower of Jesus tells you 153 00:32:52,000 --> 00:33:01,000 and that's where it was, Thomas was being told by the disciples who were humans, who might lie, they might have an agenda, right? 154 00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:10,000 So, but he was being asked to believe and it was completely reasonable, the expectation that he would believe their testimony, because why? 155 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:19,000 Because their testimony was true. Why is it we have so much trouble believing the truth? Because we're so indoctrinated with lies. 156 00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:27,000 Because constantly, throughout our lives all the time, there are things that are, you'll be so happy if you go buy this $25,000 car 157 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:34,000 and you'll jump up and kick your heels together, right? And then you go buy a $25,000 car or maybe not quite so expensive 158 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:40,000 because that's a lot of money or maybe more expensive if you think you really need to go over, whatever, and you're not happy. 159 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:48,000 You'll be healthy if you eat or drink or don't eat or drink this, it'll, it's every, it solved my problem, I lost 100 pounds in a year. 160 00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:56,000 And then you try it, very faithfully, it doesn't have the same effect for you after you spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on it. 161 00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:01,000 It's ongoing. The world is full of lies. In fact, the world is a kingdom of lies. 162 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:11,000 Whose chief liar is Satan himself. And he has taught all of his children how to lie. Read about it in scripture. 163 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:18,000 You lie because that's the works of your father. He is the master deceiver. He is the liar. And the world is full of it. 164 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:28,000 And where do we live? We live in the world. And so it's all around us all the time. And so you've got built into you the ability to detect 165 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:38,000 and to resist a lie. In fact, you're so good at detecting and resisting a lie that your first response to something that seems a little bit 166 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:46,000 not what you expected is to assume it's a lie. That's people. That's the human condition. It's what we are. 167 00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:54,000 It's what Adam and Eve assumed God was covering up the fact that they could be like him if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 168 00:34:54,000 --> 00:35:02,000 They assumed he was covering it up. God. It's the human condition. And so we're real good at accepting that things are lies. 169 00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:12,000 But the bottom line is it is completely a reasonable expectation for anybody that if they tell you the truth, you will believe them. 170 00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:20,000 No matter how bizarre that truth might be. And if you don't, then it's on you. It's not even on them. 171 00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:28,000 And so while Jesus can see and hear the needs of those who need to believe in him, 172 00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:40,000 it is a completely reasonable expectation that those people who need to believe in him will believe when they are told about Jesus because frankly it's true. 173 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:46,000 Which is one of the reasons why we have this guaranteed insurance policy, if you will, that you can go out and tell anybody about Jesus. 174 00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:51,000 Because if they choose not to believe, that's on them. I don't know what you're waiting for. I don't know what the church is waiting for. 175 00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:56,000 I don't know what we're waiting for to tell anybody and everybody about Jesus. It's like we're waiting for, 176 00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:00,000 I've got to get this polished argument that people will believe what I'm saying. 177 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,000 I have to be prepared to answer all of their challenges that they might come up with. 178 00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:09,000 If you tell somebody the truth about Jesus and they don't believe and they come back with 17 challenges, 179 00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:17,000 you know how many of those challenges you're responsible to answer? Where do we start? Zero! None! 180 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:22,000 You're not responsible to answer the challenges to the truth because the truth is the truth. 181 00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:26,000 If you go to somebody and say, don't jump off that cliff, you will fall and die. 182 00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:31,000 And they go and they jump off the cliff and they fall and die. It's not your fault. You told them not to do it. 183 00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:39,000 And you expect that in everything else. But in salvation, in the truth of the gospel, we go, oh, they ask me not to talk about it. 184 00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,000 Oh, I don't have the answers to all of their questions. And we make excuses. 185 00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:46,000 The bottom line is the disciples are called to deliver this truth. 186 00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:52,000 And all they are called to do is to deliver this truth and it's delivered the question, will you believe? 187 00:36:52,000 --> 00:37:00,000 And in believing, people gain, get life. Let me finish this point. And that's essentially the next one. 188 00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:11,000 It is extremely rare, but not unheard of, for people to get saved through miraculous intervention. 189 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:22,000 You know what I mean by that? Most people get saved because somebody told them about Jesus and asked them if they believed. 190 00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:30,000 Maybe asked them to believe. You can believe this based on my character, frankly, in Christ. I'm a pretty good guy. 191 00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:36,000 I don't lie. And if I catch myself saying something is wrong, like a lie of ignorance, I try to fix it. 192 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:41,000 So you can pretty much believe what I say because that's who I've become, but that's in contrast to who I was before. 193 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:48,000 So you also have to believe in Jesus and his changing power in order for him to get me from who I was before to who I am now. 194 00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:52,000 There's a guy I went to high school with back in the day, played games with back in the day. 195 00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:57,000 And he came to New Heights and he said, I had to come to New Heights because I know who you were when you were in high school. 196 00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:04,000 And I had to see that God had changed you. He was a Christian back then when I wasn't. 197 00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:10,000 And he said, I had to see the change that God had done in you with my own eyes. And that's what we're living. 198 00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:16,000 We say seeing is believing. You ever hear that before? Seeing is believing. 199 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:24,000 When I was a young kid, maybe like eight, nine years old, I brought my grade card home from school and it was in my bag or backpack or whatever I had. 200 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:33,000 And I told my mom, I said, Mom, straight A's. And she said, I'll believe it when I see it. 201 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:38,000 And we got the grade card out of my backpack and sure enough, straight A's. 202 00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:44,000 And then she was happy. But she wasn't happy when I told her I got straight A's. She was happy when she saw it. 203 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:54,000 But the very truth of Jesus is this. Not seeing is believing, but wait for it, believing is seeing. 204 00:38:54,000 --> 00:39:02,000 That's the truth of Jesus. Believing is seeing. I sat in the basement of East Lido Baptist Church after vacation Bible school with teenagers. 205 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:08,000 There was a young man there who was a professing Muslim. His parents were professing Muslims. 206 00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:12,000 He came from a Muslim family and they were devout. His family was devout. He was not so much. 207 00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,000 He was at vacation Bible school at the church building, but they didn't know where he was at. 208 00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:19,000 And I didn't know they didn't know where he was at. I don't know that I would have done anything if I did know that. 209 00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:23,000 But he was at vacation Bible school. And afterwards, he says, I have just one thing. 210 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:30,000 I hear what you're saying about Jesus. And he said, and quote, I want to believe, unquote. 211 00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:39,000 However, our family is Muslim. We are Islamic. And my parents are devout. 212 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:44,000 And if I make this decision, I will be walking away from that. I'll have to hide in my own house. 213 00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:48,000 And eventually I'll probably be found out because I'll have to learn about Jesus and so on. 214 00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:53,000 And they'll kick me out of the family and maybe even I'll be killed. 215 00:39:53,000 --> 00:40:02,000 And he said, so can you tell me why, if that's true, I should believe? 216 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:10,000 And you know what I said? You do by now. I said, well, you should believe because it's true. 217 00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:16,000 I know it's true. It happened to me. The girl that invited me to vacation Bible school said, I said, ask her. 218 00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,000 Is it true? Yes, it's true. So what evidence do you need? 219 00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:26,000 He said, well, I need God to move in my heart and God to do something in me, God to change me in some way. 220 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:34,000 I said, well, he will as soon as you believe. That's how it works. 221 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,000 He has a comp- and I didn't say it this way, but I now understand this language. 222 00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:42,000 He has a completely reasonable expectation of you to believe because it's true. 223 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:46,000 God does not have to do a miracle for you so that you can believe. 224 00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:50,000 God does a miracle for you when you believe. 225 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:56,000 Until then, you're essentially putting your hand up and saying, God, no thank you. No miracles for me today. 226 00:40:56,000 --> 00:41:04,000 But if you insist and do one anyway, I'll believe that you're there and let it affect who I am. 227 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:11,000 What? You see the logic? It's like the logic of the world with the target constantly moving. 228 00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:17,000 My heart is the target, God. Hit it. Go ahead. 229 00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:29,000 That's what we're doing. It is completely reasonable for God to expect us to believe when someone tells us because it's true. 230 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:34,000 And believing is seeing, not the other way around. 231 00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:40,000 If you were alive when Jesus walked the earth, heard him testify, get this. You'll love this. 232 00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:49,000 If you were alive when Jesus walked the earth and you heard him testify about how he would die and be buried and rose again, wait for it. 233 00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:55,000 You wouldn't believe it until you saw it. 234 00:41:55,000 --> 00:42:03,000 Even though Jesus is teaching, believing is seeing. 235 00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:11,000 He's calling us to faith. Your faith literally opens up the channel between you and God. 236 00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:16,000 Your faith in Jesus Christ busts a hole in the barrier that your sin creates between you and God. 237 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:20,000 And the salvation of Jesus by grace of God flows through it. 238 00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:24,000 That's what Ephesians 2 is talking about when it says, by grace through faith. 239 00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:34,000 It's a giant straw that's your faith going to God. You're taking a tiny sip of grace that saves your whole soul, your whole life, and everybody in it. 240 00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:38,000 It's a completely reasonable expectation for you to believe. 241 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:43,000 And Peter says as much then in 1 Peter chapter 1 where he basically says, 242 00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:54,000 You are believing and in your believing earning the salvation that God has for you. 243 00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:59,000 So Jesus can see and hear the needs of those who need to believe in him. 244 00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:10,000 But it is completely a reasonable expectation of God that they would believe simply because it's true when told what is right and true. 245 00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:17,000 This belief then is life. It is life. 246 00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:25,000 It is openness and acceptance and trust directed toward God in Jesus Christ. 247 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:36,000 Oh, but wait. In the modern world, usually when we say belief, we mean, I think it's true. I'm fairly sure. 248 00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:43,000 Yep. I'm going to carry this thought around with me. I'm not going to just let it go just because somebody throws up a roadblock or something. 249 00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:56,000 I kind of believe it's true. I hold on to this like I hold on to my family or like I hold on to my wife or like I'm cautious about some guy trying to sell me something. 250 00:43:56,000 --> 00:44:10,000 So that's what we mean when we say believe and that is not at all what we're called to by Jesus. Rather, we're called to an openness and acceptance and trust directed toward God in Jesus. 251 00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:23,000 The truth is that the events of Jesus Christ's life, death, burial, resurrection, the events of the Kingdom of God, the events of what God has done in his church over the millennia require a decision. 252 00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:30,000 You have to decide what do they mean and what am I going to do about it? 253 00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:36,000 But people don't want to decide what do they mean because then that's going to concern what they're supposed to do about it. 254 00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:43,000 It's going to affect what I'm supposed to do about it. So we're going to blind our own eyes. We're going to look at anything else. 255 00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:51,000 We're going to focus on entertainment or whatever. But if you would do it right, then you will say to God, OK, God, this event means something. 256 00:44:51,000 --> 00:45:00,000 I can see that it's important. Now, let me think about what I'm supposed to do. OK, now I'm going to do what it is that I'm supposed to do. 257 00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:10,000 And if you read a beatitude, blessed are they who did not see and yet believed, you could start at the end of it and work backwards and get what it is that you want. 258 00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:17,000 You want to be blessed, right? OK, I want to be blessed. So what do I do? I believe even though I have not seen. That's what you do. 259 00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:23,000 If you believe and though you have not seen, then you are blessed. And what does blessed mean? It means that God will speak good into your life. 260 00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:32,000 Not just that you'll be happy. That's a horrible translation, by the way. It's Markarios. It means blessed. It means God speaks good into your life, which will make you happy. 261 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:43,000 But to say that they're happy is to fall short. The word of the disciples would go out to many. That is what Jesus was authoring. 262 00:45:43,000 --> 00:46:11,000 The word of the disciples would go out to many and many would believe this way. That is to say that they would see the events, they would see the interpretation of the events, and they would respond to them. 263 00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:27,000 This beatitude undermines the seemingly greatest argument against the truth of the Gospel. People say, I'll believe if I see. 264 00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:41,000 So let's take math and apply it to that same thing. Seeing is believing. Does anybody remember math class? When you see is, what mathematical sign do you substitute for the word is? 265 00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:55,000 Equal sign. So is is gone. Seeing equals believing. Now, if seeing equals believing, what's the funny thing about equations? You can always flip them. 266 00:46:55,000 --> 00:47:07,000 So now if the world argues seeing equals believing, as long as it's an equal sign, both sides are equal, then you can flip it and you can say believing equals seeing. 267 00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:16,000 So all the world is arguing seeing equals believing. And wait a minute, guess what? They're actually right. They're just choosing to do the seeing without the believing. 268 00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:26,000 They're saying seeing equals believing, believing equals seeing. Okay, I get that, but I choose not to see because I choose not to believe. That's exactly what Thomas was doing. 269 00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:40,000 And it's completely a reasonable expectation of God that we would then believe based on the interpretation of the events and the response that is required of us, which is to believe. 270 00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:50,000 The world can say seeing is believing, but in so doing, they're actually saying believing is seeing, which is the same thing that Jesus was saying. And really what they need to do is believe. 271 00:47:50,000 --> 00:48:07,000 Now, I feel like sometimes I got to run the short track. You know what I mean by that? The lane on the inside when you're racing, the lane on the inside is considerably shorter than the lane on the outside. 272 00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:14,000 That's why if you watch the Olympics, they stagger where the runners start so that they can end at the finish line where everybody's watching. 273 00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:21,000 Because if you run on the inside track, it's shorter. You run on the outside track, it's longer. So that person on the outside track, they get to start. 274 00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:33,000 It seems like they're starting way ahead of the person on the inside track. Right. And I feel like I kind of got the inside track since I became a Christian at least because I was present the day that the electrician came to this building. 275 00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:38,000 And we thought, well, we're not going to use the building because we can't get power. It's a $26,000 estimate. 276 00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:46,000 And we got to buy a miracle. That's what it was. A miracle. It was Ron ran into an electrician, old one that he used to know. 277 00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:50,000 And the guy said, well, if you need anything, give me a call. And he gave him his number. And I said, Ron, do you happen to know this guy's number? 278 00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:56,000 He's like, yeah, I just ran into the grocery store last night. So we called him. He came out and he said, yeah, we can do it. We can do it for a lot less and get the price down. 279 00:48:56,000 --> 00:49:00,000 We can get businessmen to donate. We can get some donated materials. We'll get the price down. 280 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:08,000 And then he said, we're going to need a stretcher machine that pulls the cable out of the ground because you've got conduit run all the way out the street, 126 feet or whatever it was. 281 00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:13,000 And he said, we're going to need this fancy machine. It usually costs thousands of dollars to rent one, but I might be able to get it donated. 282 00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:19,000 They said, well, I wasn't able to get it donated. Was it worth the rent one? He said, come over here the week before. 283 00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:25,000 We're going to pull it out of the ground and replace the electrical wire. And he walked over to the box and he said, well, let's just see if there's any slack or what happens. 284 00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:31,000 And he pulled it out of the box and it came out a few feet. And he said, well, that's neat. And he pulled it out and came out like five feet. 285 00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:38,000 And he turned around and put it under his line and under his arm. And he started walking and he walked that 126 foot cable. 286 00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:49,000 That's this big around. First of all, that's heavy, if nothing else. But it was supposed to be bound together with the other cables, even bound together by wire or melted together because that's what they do when they're in the ground together for so long. 287 00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:59,000 They melt together. And he pulled that cable out by hand himself, walked the whole thing on the ground and he came back and he said to me, he said, well, I'll tell you one thing I know for sure. 288 00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:08,000 And this guy's not a Christian. He said, one thing I can tell you for sure. God is with you because that can't happen. What I just did right there. 289 00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:15,000 And event after event after event like that took place in the birth of this church building to be our place of meeting. 290 00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:27,000 So it's part of how we know. And those of you who were involved at that time or you saw something, you saw God do something miraculous and amazing or God healed your relationship or it could go all the way back to God saved your soul and came and took up residence in you. 291 00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:35,000 His Holy Spirit began to live in you. And you went, man, God has done something. You know what that is? That's the inside track. 292 00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:47,000 Now you said, I believe. Now you see. And now you believe and believing becomes like second nature. But then the world is constantly battering you trying to get you to quit. But life is in the believing. 293 00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:55,000 That's how it comes. We believe we have faith and grace is delivered to us. We don't earn it with our faith. Right. 294 00:50:55,000 --> 00:51:06,000 Abraham kind of did that. Right. He believed and God said, I see your faith. I count it to you as righteousness. But life is in God and life is in Jesus and grace is delivered to us when we believe. 295 00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:14,000 So it goes like this. This is the thing. And then we're in the conclusion. It goes like this. First of all, Jesus can see and hear the needs of those who need to believe in him. 296 00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:27,000 But it is completely reasonable expectation of God that you should believe that they should believe because you were told and because it's right. 297 00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:35,000 If it was right and no one ever told you, you could claim ignorance. But if it's right and you were told you're responsible to believe, it just makes sense. 298 00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:47,000 And in believing is the life. God is life. Jesus is life. Jesus died on the cross to pay for sins. Believing in him is life. It's how you get saved. 299 00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:59,000 And then that brings us essentially to the conclusion. We've got to get on with it. We've got to get on with it. 300 00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:09,000 When it comes to believing, you need to get on with it. Every new thing that comes into your life that challenges your belief, what you should do is believe. 301 00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:19,000 Thomas believed while Jesus was alive. He was at the Last Supper and said, I'll never betray you, Lord. He sided with Peter and said, I'll die if necessary, but I'll never betray you. 302 00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:32,000 And he didn't. He fled, but he didn't betray him. He didn't say he wasn't a follower of Jesus. He just got away. Which is what Jesus essentially told them to do. 303 00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:41,000 Now he needs to get on with it. Jesus is alive and he needs to believe that Jesus is alive. He's told by the disciples, he has a responsibility to believe because he's told the truth. 304 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:52,000 And he refuses to believe, saying, I will not until I see. Jesus shows up and says, you say, you wouldn't until you see. Now you've seen and you believe. But greater blessing for those who believe though they had not seen. 305 00:52:52,000 --> 00:53:01,000 We need to get on with it. There's a phrase that is in this text that I mentioned to you is hard to translate. It doesn't translate super well into the English. 306 00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:10,000 And there's a reason why it doesn't translate super well into the English because our verbs don't do very well what the Greek verbs do in certain cases. 307 00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:21,000 And it is where he says, and be not unbelieving, but be believing. Be not unbelieving, but believing. 308 00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,000 Now if you're looking at a different translation, you're going to see something a little different. 309 00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:35,000 And Jason said his Bible verse this morning, or I'm sorry, Caleb said his Bible verse this morning, he says, no longer disbelieve, but believe. 310 00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:42,000 So there are differences. But it's always about the difference between unbelief or disbelief and believing. 311 00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:54,000 So I dug into the language and here's what I found. These words are in the Greek in what's called the perfect present tense, which means start believing and never stop. 312 00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:58,000 Proceed forward believing. Continue believing. 313 00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:05,000 So if we substitute the word continue to do so in the text, it would say something like this. 314 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:12,000 And be not continuing toward unbelieving, but rather be continuing believing. 315 00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:17,000 See, it doesn't sound very good, does it? That's not how we speak in English. We don't talk like that. 316 00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:25,000 But you could. But when you're translating a book into English, you want to make it so that people don't get bogged down or struggle with it or whatever. 317 00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:34,000 And so it's not poorly translated. Be not unbelieving. So in other words, you're continuing to not believe. Don't be like that. 318 00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:41,000 So it does say the right thing. It does say what's there, but we wouldn't necessarily know that without going into the background a little bit. 319 00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:52,000 But rather be continuing in your belief. Be believing. So that does make sense. It says exactly what it says in the Greek, but we're not thinking of it that way when we read it in the English. 320 00:54:52,000 --> 00:55:02,000 So in other words, what Jesus was asking you to do is stop trending toward disbelief and instead always trend toward belief. 321 00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:08,000 So when you hear the truth, believe it. When the Bible says that you should do X, believe it. 322 00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:18,000 What? Don't lie. Tie. Serve. Love. Huh, how about that one? Right? Love. 323 00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:26,000 In other words, care about other people. When it says have this mind in you, which was in Christ Jesus, right? 324 00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:31,000 Care more about what's happening to other people than about what's happening to you. 325 00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:38,000 If you're truly on the way to heaven and others are on the way to hell, that should bother you pretty much more than anything. 326 00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:45,000 More than whether your bills get paid, more than you get fed, right? Because if they go to hell, they will spend eternity in hell. 327 00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:51,000 You will spend eternity in heaven. So how much ever suffering you may endure during this life, as bad as it might seem, 328 00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:58,000 you're eventually going to get a final reward that blows it all away. And so are they. 329 00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:04,000 But for you, it's a positive final reward. For them, it's a negative one. That matters. That's huge. 330 00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:11,000 So what do we do? We testify and tell the truth and ask them to believe if they choose not to. That's on them. 331 00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:17,000 If we're waiting for some kind of big moment, it already came. It's already done. 332 00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:23,000 Jesus rose from the dead and made salvation available to anyone who would receive him. 333 00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:27,000 Just go ask them to believe. And if they choose not to, that's on them. 334 00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:33,000 And they may a week later, a month later, or six years later, decide to believe what you told them way back then. 335 00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:40,000 But if you never ask them, the question is, how can you care so little about the fact that you are going for the gravy glory 336 00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:47,000 vacation, guaranteed you've already won the lottery of all of creation, and they're going for eternity in hell, 337 00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:53,000 and you're doing literally nothing about it. But we're all afraid of what someone might think. 338 00:56:53,000 --> 00:57:00,000 Or we all say, well, they can't see God, so they're not going to believe. Seeing is believing, which means also believing is seeing. 339 00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:07,000 And they can't believe. How will they believe unless someone goes and tells them, Romans says. So we tell them. 340 00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:17,000 We've got to get on with it. The reason we're not telling them is because, wait for it, we're struggling to continue in belief. 341 00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:25,000 And Jesus would say this to you, knock it off. I've done everything necessary. I saw all your questions, and I answered them, 342 00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:33,000 and I gave you my Holy Spirit to be with you forever. Who longs? He's with you, always longing for nothing more than for other people 343 00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:42,000 to come into the right relationship with me. We've got to tell and to ask. We have to. It doesn't matter what you look like, 344 00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:48,000 what you feel like, what happens to you because of it, because you're going to heaven for eternity. So at that point, you've got to tell. 345 00:57:48,000 --> 00:58:02,000 But the truth is, when you get on with it, eventually the thing that you built your getting on with it on becomes so well known to you, 346 00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:10,000 so common that it's just the answer. In other words, you believed, opened the channel of faith to God, grace delivered, you're saved. 347 00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:15,000 And when you get on with it, when you're believing it, that everything that you encounter, it will be your natural reaction to go, 348 00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:20,000 I believe, I believe, God's got a plan. This is going to work out. Something's going to happen. Maybe a miracle. What are we waiting for? 349 00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:25,000 Let's pray. Let's get right on that. Let's pray about it right now. Not, I'll pray with you if I think about it. 350 00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:30,000 But let's get on it right now and pray because God might do a miracle. God is with us. God is watching over us. 351 00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:36,000 God cares about us. God's our King. God's in charge of everything. And it becomes commonplace. That's the answer every time. 352 00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:49,000 Let's believe. Remember I mentioned zero to you at the beginning? And everybody in this room, everybody here accepted that zero is the answer to 3-3. 353 00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:56,000 Now, but somebody went, oh, he's got something up his sleeve. Something's not right. He's obviously up to something. 354 00:58:56,000 --> 00:59:08,000 So zero, as we know it, did not become commonplace in society until sometime between 300 BC and 30 BC, 355 00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:14,000 which means at this point in time where we are, and you can, this is another discussion we end up debating, 356 00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:19,000 but I'm a firm believer that the earth has been here maybe about 6,000 years. You can believe whatever you want to believe, 357 00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:26,000 but the Bible calculates out to that amount of time and the best studies and everything line up with that. 358 00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:29,000 The astronomical charts that they do can line up with that, all of that. Right? 359 00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:41,000 So that being said, if that's true, that means that for, wait for it, 4,000 of those years, zero was not the answer to 3-3. 360 00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:48,000 Does anybody know in Roman numerals what the symbol for zero is? There isn't one. 361 00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:54,000 In the Greek number system, previous to the Hellenistic period, which is the time we're talking about, 362 00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:57,000 they calculated all their numbers, negative or positive, didn't matter. 363 00:59:57,000 --> 01:00:01,000 They calculated all of their numbers with a different set of numbers. 364 01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:08,000 So in other words, the ones column had a whole different set of numbers for the ones column than had for the tens column 365 01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:12,000 than had for the hundreds column. Yeah, than had for the hundreds column. Right? 366 01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:16,000 A different set of numbers. So not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 for the ones column, 367 01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:20,000 and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 for the tens column, and so on. They didn't do that. 368 01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:25,000 They had a different set of numbers. Then when you got back into the thousands, that's ones of thousands, 369 01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:30,000 and you would use the number for ones. And you'd repeat. And you could do big numbers out to a billion or whatever, 370 01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:33,000 but you had three different sets of numbers that you had to know. 371 01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:38,000 You see, math has not always been what you think it is. But somewhere along the line, somebody came up with the idea, 372 01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:43,000 and there's a couple of people credited with it. A guy in India supposedly brought it to our society, 373 01:00:43,000 --> 01:00:53,000 and that not until much later, 628. Right? So now we're talking about, we have so accepted 0 as a concept, 374 01:00:53,000 --> 01:01:00,000 except that 3 minus 3 equals 0, and we can all unify on that point, even though it's only been around for 1,400 years 375 01:01:00,000 --> 01:01:07,000 in our society, in English European society, brought over by an Indian man, not American Indian, but from India. 376 01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:14,000 Alright? And he gets the credit for it. But we have so accepted that concept that we would all agree on 0. 377 01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:20,000 The correct answer, by the way, is 3 minus 3 is nothing. Not 0. 0 is a symbol of nothing. 378 01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:24,000 If you have three apples and you lose all your apples, what do you have? You have nothing. 379 01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:29,000 You have your clothes, yourself, whatever. There's no apples. There's no reason to even think you have zero apples, 380 01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:33,000 because all the apples are gone. They were here, they're gone. And if somebody comes and looks at you and says, 381 01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:38,000 how many apples you have? You say, well, none. Why would you even ask me how many apples you have? 382 01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:44,000 He doesn't have any apples. Because a minute ago he had apples. And they took them away from him, and now he has zero apples. 383 01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:49,000 No, he doesn't. He just has no apples. I don't see any apples. Why are we talking about apples? There's no apples here. 384 01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:57,000 Right? But we have accepted the concept of 0. And when you accept the concept of believing like that, 385 01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:03,000 which is what Jesus called Thomas to, and the disciples to, and the church to, then martyrdom is on the table, 386 01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:10,000 and miraculous healings are on the table, and belief in the crazy things that God can and does do on a daily basis, 387 01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:16,000 they're all back on the table. Are you trending toward believing, or are you trending toward disbelieving? 388 01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:23,000 I submit to you that in American society, if you are an American citizen, the tendency is going to be to trend toward disbelieving, 389 01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:29,000 because you're assailed all the time by stuff that wants you to believe, that doesn't make any sense, and you know it's not right. 390 01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:36,000 You're being told all the time. Which is why we have to not be conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing of our mind. 391 01:02:36,000 --> 01:02:40,000 You need to spend time in the Word. You need to pray. You need to be in church. You need to sit under preaching and teaching. 392 01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:44,000 You need to serve. You need to give. You need to act out the Kingdom values. 393 01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:52,000 Because in Kingdom values, you will find in yourself the ability to go on for the rest of your life believing 394 01:02:52,000 --> 01:03:00,000 and desiring nothing more than to believe and wait for it. When you believe, you will see. 395 01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:11,000 Get on with it. And when you get on with it long enough, it will become like habit. It will become like zero. 396 01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:21,000 God's the one who said it. God originates. Listen, we still see stars in the sky, and He started that at the very beginning. 397 01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:30,000 It still reigns, and He started that in Noah's day. Whether or not God made zero, we can debate that. 398 01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:40,000 But this is what's true. God is asking you, and He's asking me, to get on with believing. 399 01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:50,000 To begin, and to never end, and to never lean back, and to never trend away from, and to make believing part of our everyday existence all the time. 400 01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:59,000 So that when the Antichrist, or a demon, or an evil teaching, or something comes in your life, you should readily go, 401 01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:10,000 Ugh, that's not me believing. That's not me leaning into believing. I recognize it right away, and I want nothing to do with it. 402 01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:18,000 Because I am a person getting on with believing. And I for one am committing myself to that. 403 01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:25,000 I was present. I may have the inside track. I have seen people miraculously healed. I have also seen it when I prayed, and people were not miraculously healed. 404 01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:33,000 I've seen demons cast out. I've seen dark spaces in people's eyes. So dark they look in there, and it's like outer space was in their head. 405 01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:41,000 And then demons cast out. Not able to say the name of Jesus, and then they can. And a half dozen, or ten situations. 406 01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:49,000 I've seen people, and some of them are in this room, transformed completely from the inside out by the presence of God. 407 01:04:49,000 --> 01:05:17,000 That's the inside track. You want to see it? Believe.