Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton,
the official podcast of Cross -Christian Fellowship,
Route 66, in the heart of Albuquerque, New Mexico,
where Burton is the lead pastor. We're glad you're
here. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this
time together with each other and with you. We
ask that you open our ears, our hearts, and our
minds to all that you have to speak to us and
help us to apply it to our lives. Amen. Again,
good morning everybody. Welcome to Cross Christian
Fellowship Route 66 and welcome to everybody
who's joining us online. You know, last week
we were looking... Give me a second here. I'm
going to take these off again. Still trying to
get used to the glasses. I'm still learning where
to look with the... I'm getting there. Let me
just save the heartache and just take them off
now. Last week we were looking at how we are
like Adam and Eve. and have fallen short of the
glory of God. And how God, you know, we started
looking at how God provided Jesus to reconcile
us to him. And as much as I would love to spend
more time here, and believe me, we could, we're
going to have to wait and come back to it another
time to spend a little bit more time there because
we are steadily going down the Easter Trail.
And we need to stay on the trail because there's
just so much here for us to go through. And you're
going to see that there's a lot of spots here
that we can spend a lot of time and we're just
not going to right now. These are all parts that
we're going to come back to at other times because,
I mean, the word has so much to speak to us.
We have a lot to learn from. All right. So last
week we were up at the beginning of the Bible.
This week we're going to jump much, much, much
further back. All right. Really, I should say
ahead. because we're going to be in the book
of John. So all of our eager beavers who like
to go ahead and turn, we're going to go ahead
and open up to the book of John, chapter 4. And
we're going to look at some of the important
lessons that Jesus has for us as he's walking
down that trail towards Golgotha. Specifically,
we're going to see how... Jesus interacted with
some certain people to teach us these lessons.
Looks like my battery's dying. Let's get some
more batteries up here. There we go. Just John.
Book of John, chapter 4. Sorry about that. I
had to swap out my batteries there. Anyhow, as
I was saying, we're going to be looking specifically
at how Jesus interacted with some very specific
people to teach us some very special and important
lessons. And for time's sake, especially for
this first part, I'm going to be doing a bit
of summarizing today. you know, the cliff notes,
if you will. But I really want to encourage everybody,
when you have the time, go back, read the full
passage for yourself. It's really beautiful.
There's a lot there. All right, so like I said,
first up, we're going to be starting in the book
of John, chapter 4. Specifically, when you're
looking at this, we're going to be looking at
the woman at the well as our first stop along
the way, okay? So, you know, here's a woman of
not so great reputation. This is Jacob's well
to be specific. Jesus and the disciples were
traveling through. They stopped here. Jesus has
sent the disciples forward into town to go and
get some food, right? And here's a woman, not
such great reputation. Matter of fact, you know,
for this point here with this specific well,
this well is located on the outskirts of the
town. And she's going out in the midday, the
hottest part of the time, to actually go and
collect from this well. Not the most popular
time, and most likely it's because she's trying
to avoid being around people. Because let's face
it, when there's people that we kind of look
down on, we don't treat them the best, right?
And there's no different then. So she was trying
to avoid other people, and Jesus stayed behind
specifically to talk to her. And here, Jesus,
he asked this woman for some water. And it was
shocking for her. And it would be shocking for
anyone hearing this, especially from that time
and that area. Because Jesus was a Jew and she
was a Gentile. And the Jews and the Gentiles,
they didn't really interact with each other.
There was a lot of animosity between the two.
You know, they try not to look at each other,
let alone, you know, to condescend to actually
speaking to one another. It was, you know, very
much, you know, I'm better than you type mentality.
You know, I'm not going to talk down and you're
not worth wasting my time and that kind of thing.
It was not a good relationship between the two
cultures. And it was very jarring. Even the woman
commented on this, showing just how taken back
she was. And Jesus spoke to her about the living
water. Now, if you recall, a couple weeks ago,
I talked about the living water. Just briefly,
I kind of hit on it, right? Saying, you know,
how... How tragic would it be to be offered the
living water of Christ and to refuse it? How
horrible. Why would you do that? But people do
it all the time. And this is a good spot to kind
of stop just a little bit. We're going to break
it down a little bit more. Just a little bit,
though. Because here again, in verse 10, John
4, verse 10, Jesus mentions the living water.
And this is an Old Testament reference. As a
matter of fact, we can see reference to it in
Psalm 42, Isaiah 55, Jeremiah 2, Zechariah 13,
and all of these are talking about thirsting
after God as if you were thirsting for water.
Psalm 36 refers to God as the fountain of life,
and Jeremiah 17 refers to him as the spring of
living water. And by Jesus saying that he would
bring living water, It was a well -known reference
to all these points. And basically he was saying,
I'm the Messiah. Because only the Messiah could
do such a thing. Only the Messiah could bring
something to quench the true desires of your
heart and to satisfy the soul's true desire,
right? Because we all have that hole that we're
always looking to fill, and the only way we could
fill it is with Jesus. And that's going to take
us into our first reading for today, which is
John 4, specifically verses 16 through 18. So
John 4, verses 16 through 18, the word says,
Jesus said to her, go, call your husband and
come here. The woman answered and said, I have
no husband. Jesus said to her, you have well
said, I have no husband. For you have had five
husbands, and the one whom you now have is not
your husband, and that you spoke truly. So in
telling her to get her husband, Jesus was starting
to paint the picture, right? He's bringing a
fuller picture to her. And to start, he was laying
that base, and that base is a life of failure.
Five failed marriages and now living with somebody
that she's not even married to. Not even a wedlock.
And really it's the same for us. Same for you,
the same for me. Which we go out, we live our
lives, and we try to do things on our own. Or
worse, we try to do it the way the world tells
us to do it. Instead of the way the word. has
told us to do it. Instead of clinging to Jesus
and leaning into him for that help. Like I said,
that's only the base. That's only part of the
picture. We move a little bit further in to verses
25 through 26. Still John 4, but verses 25 through
26. The word goes on to say, the woman said to
him, I know that Messiah is coming. who is called
Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things.
And Jesus said to her, I, who speak to you, am
he. The woman said, hey, the Messiah is coming.
And Jesus is like, yeah, I know. I'm right here,
dude. I'm standing in front of you. Come on.
Hi, nice to meet you. Hi, Jesus. Right? He's
just right there. And it is profound. Because
let me tell you how profound this is. This is
kind of mind -blowing when we look at this part
because when you read through the Bible, especially
when we're looking at where Jesus is alive and
everywhere he goes, he doesn't actually typically
say, hey, I'm the Messiah. Matter of fact, even
the religious people that he would come across
would ask, hey, are you the Messiah? And you'd
just be like, wouldn't answer him, just kind
of leave it there. He's like, you told me, right?
Put the pieces together. And eventually they
would. They'd put the pieces together. Oh, I
know who this is. Oh, look who's with it. Look
at the entourage. That's him. That's Jesus. You
know, there'd be enough there. They'd start to
figure it out if their hearts weren't so hard.
You know, but here, here he is. He's with this
woman. This woman who's looked down on even by
her own people. She's like, Jesus is coming.
He's like, ta -da. Hi, I'm Jesus. How you doing?
You know, that's not, if you think about it,
why wouldn't he go around introducing himself
as the Messiah? People would think he's nuts.
He wouldn't get very far. Even today, somebody
comes along and they try to say, yeah, hey, I'm
God, I'm Jesus, or whatever. We either laugh
at, well, we pretty much always laugh at them,
or... We get them checked in for a psyche eval,
right? Like, there's something wrong with this
guy. He thinks he's God. He ain't God. He's over
there sipping on his juice box, thinking it's
wine. Right? We don't look too kindly. It wasn't
that different back then. You know, let's break
it down a little bit more as we bring it into
today. We look at a woman like this. We look
at a woman, she's been around a little bit, right?
How do we look at her? How do we refer to her?
Unclean is a very nice way of putting it. But
yes, you're right. We have some very choice words
that aren't so nice, and we put them down. Like,
yeah, no. You want to go down Easy Street, you
go right on over there. But that's not marriage
material. Right? But then we look at a guy doing
the exact same thing or worse. And how do we
look at him? This guy's a stud. He's knocking
down all the ladies. Look at it. Yeah. It's not
right. It's not the way we should be doing it.
It's definitely not the loving way. It's not
the Christian way. Even when we turn on the TV,
matter of fact, we have a couple of TV shows
that are just blatant about it. You know, it's
like we always, for decades now, we've had dating
shows and all that kind of stuff, right? Contestant
number three, how would you do blah, blah, blah,
right? But now we have a show, we have The Bachelor,
and we have The Bachelorette, front and center,
right? We have the Fifty Shades of Whatever movie
series, book series. All these books, I mean,
they're all smut. Let's be honest. They're smut.
But we have all this stuff and put it out there.
It's like, here's a guy. He's going to date these
50 women or whatever and maybe find a wife. And
then we got this girl and she's over here and
she's going to date these 50 guys and maybe find
a husband. And we put them front and center doing
these worldly things. A lot of unsavory things.
And we have them on this pedestal like they're
these great people that they're empowering other
people instead of actually calling them out on
the worldly horrible things and the poor examples
that they're setting, not only for their peers,
but for the younger generations because they're
watching. And unfortunately, most of the time,
they're sitting there with their parents and
they're watching. It's like, yeah, look at how
that girl's throwing herself at that guy and
what she's doing with him. Yeah, that's what
I want my daughter doing. Oh, and look at this
guy and what he's doing and what he's saying
about these. Yeah, no. It's a sinful world. It's
a poor precedent. It's poor examples. But the
plus side is, and it brings us to our first lesson,
we don't have to be tied to these things because
Jesus frees us from our past. We have people
in here, and I can tell you when I was in the
Marine Corps, I did a lot of the things that
we all know Marines do. From the fighting to
everything else in between, nothing that I'm
that proud of. And I know I'm not the only person
in here who has a past where they've done things
that they're not that proud of. We all have things
in our past that we're not that proud of. things
that we know we shouldn't have done, things that
were very worldly, very sinful, hurt others and
hurt ourselves, whether we acknowledged it or
not. But Jesus frees us from our past. You look
at the woman at the well. Let's go back to that
passage. Jesus sat down with her. He spoke with
her. He had a conversation with her and showed
her, hey, yeah, this is your past, but you're
not defined by your past. You don't have to be
chained in this bondage to sin any longer. You
can change, and I will help you. I will walk
with you. And just like the woman at the well,
we have a past that we don't have to be chained
to. Jesus broke those chains with his blood.
We get to release that baggage. We don't have
to drag it around anymore. It's not that ball
and chain, right? It's gone. And the beautiful
thing is because of this change, because we are
all a new creation in Christ, people can look
at you and they can see the change. They should
look at you and see the change, that you are
not the same person as who you used to be. This
should be one of those times where you get that
call from someone you haven't talked to for a
long time and they're talking to you about those
old things that are no longer a part of your
life and you get to tell them, hey, stop visiting
me in the past. I don't live there anymore. I've
moved on. When you're ready to catch up, I'm
at this address now. Right? Now we're going to
turn back a little further in John to chapter
8. So John 8, verses 1 -5. And in John 8, 1 -5,
the word says, But Jesus went to the Mount of
Olives. Now early in the morning he came again
into the temple, and all the people came to him,
and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes
and the Pharisees brought to him a woman caught
in adultery. And when they... Remember earlier,
I already started talking about this. Men sleeping
around versus women sleeping around. And right
here, you know, this is just a show. It's been
happening for centuries. And right here, they
just drag out this woman. I will remind you,
it takes more than one person to commit such
an act. More than one. And the religious zealots
were up very early that day. And they were. They
were zealots. Very legalistic. And they dragged
this woman out. In front of Jesus, in front of
all these other people, these other witnesses.
She's an adulteress. Just think of the picture,
think of this woman and the shame she must have
felt. Whether it was founded or unfounded, true
or not, the shame that she had to have felt.
Had to have been absolutely incredible. To say
she was embarrassed is to putting it mildly because
she was being paraded, paraded in front of dozens.
And her near future was looking pretty grim and
she knew it, especially when they put it out
there saying the Mosaic Law says we should stone
her to death. It's one of those times where you're
like, man, this is so embarrassing. Just get
it over with. Right? Now, even with that, thinking
about what's probably about to happen to her
with being stoned to death. Has anybody in here
ever had somebody throw a rock at them? Pretty
much everybody in here, right? I know I have.
Anybody who has a sibling, I can pretty much
guarantee has had a rock thrown at them, right?
I can tell you from my own experience, getting
hit with a rock hurts. It hurts. And you figure
that's someone who's just throwing a rock at
you, not even trying to kill you. Now think of
the pain that she's already... Looking forward
to, because odds are she's already witnessed
such a thing in her life, because that was the
law back then, where people would pick up these
heavy stones and be lobbing them at somebody
with the intent to kill them. Flesh being torn.
A throne being heavy enough or thrown hard enough,
maybe broken bones. Getting clobbered by dozens
and dozens and dozens of stones. hoping that
very quickly you'll get hit with that one stone
that just takes the lights right out and you
don't have to feel it anymore. That's a torture
in itself. And that's what she's looking forward
to. I could tell you for myself, I'd much rather
stand in front of a firing squad and hope that
they hit a vital organ very quickly than get
stoned to death. It's much more humane. Our methods
today are a lot more humane than they used to
be. You know, people are like, oh, it's inhumane.
We shouldn't be putting people to death or whatever.
You know what? I don't wish death on anybody,
but if it has to be done, I'd rather it be done
the way we had today than it was back then. Even
hangings weren't surefire ways to kill anybody.
You know, hangings, somebody get lynched and
maybe, they weren't dropped fast enough or something
else happened, maybe the rope was too thick or
whatever, and instead of dropping, having a broken
neck and hanging there, it would slowly tighten
around them and slowly choke them to death and
they would spend minutes there in agonizing pain,
suffering, and getting strangled to death. These
are pretty gruesome things. These are the things
that people have had to worry about throughout
the ages. And this is something, these are all
deaths that all of us at some point in our lives,
whether we realize it or not, we are subject
to these types of laws. If you've ever lost it
after somebody, you've ever looked at somebody
that you know is married going, mmm, man, they're
hot. Yeah. It must work out. Guilty. You're married
and you're looking at somebody, mmm. If I wouldn't
tag down, I'll tell you what. 20 years younger,
guilty. Line up, pick your rocket crew. It's
time to get stoned. And I'm not talking 420.
Guilty. Whether you're single, whether you're
married, if you've ever lusted after somebody
like that, you're guilty. And all of us have
done it. We're going to keep this chain moving
though. John 8, we're going to go back to just
a couple more verses to 10 and 11. So John 8,
10 and 11. The word tells us, when Jesus has
raised himself up and saw no one but the woman,
he said to her, woman, where are those accusers
of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said,
no one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither
do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Jesus took
this woman who's been slammed down by the world,
right? A woman who the legalists are very quick
to attack. And even today, the legalists are
quick to attack. That hasn't changed. It's not
going to change. Not until Jesus comes back.
But you look at this event, and it is an unmistakable
act of true love, of mercy and grace. Because
Jesus accepts the woman. Now, make no mistake,
he's not accepting the sin. Nor should he, nor
should we. But he's accepting her as a person.
Her as a human being. which is how we all should
be. And I'd be like, oh, this person's down and
out. No, get them away from me. You know, or,
you know, this person, you know, did this or
did that, you know, whatever. No, we've all made
mistakes. Some of us worse than others, right?
But we should still accept the person. We should
still bring them to Christ. And in an instant,
though, you look at this woman, and it's no different
for us. In an instant. This woman went from being
judged guilty and sentenced to death to a life
of hope with Jesus Christ. And that's our second
lesson. It's just like that. Jesus gives us all
hope, and he gives us all hope here and now.
You know, there's those whispers of the enemy,
and we all hear them. Let's say you're not good
enough. You're not lovable. You're never going
to amount to anything. You're not smart enough.
You're not good looking enough. You're not important
enough. You're not lovable. You're nobody. You
don't matter. That's the enemy. Every time where
Jesus is saying, I hear you. I see you. You're
important to me. And I love you. And you matter
to me. You have a place at the table with the
Father. And I'm preparing a place for you now.
You're not defined by your past. And you have
a place in the kingdom with the Father through
Christ. You're not defined by your passing. You're
not defined by your current sin. You're a new
creation. Go and sin no more. Go and sin no more.
How important is that? Let's hope. Because how
many people are so broken, they're like, I've
got to get right before I go to church. I can't
go because I'm so messed up. I'm drinking. I'm
gambling. I'm doing drugs. I'm sleeping around.
You know, I left my kids, whatever. Jesus is
saying, yeah, you know what? You messed up. There's
still hope for you. There's still a chance for
you. Come to me. Come to me now. Don't wait.
You can't do it on your own. You can't do it
in the ways of the world. You have to do it with
me. Come here. Take my hand. And I know I'm not
the only person in this room who's invited somebody
to come to service just to be told, you know,
I really can't. You know, I got to get right
first. It's like, no, this is the hospital. We're
talking to you out there. That's the triage.
This is the hospital. This is the emergency room.
Get in here. Get saved. Unfortunately, it's a
stumbling block when a lot of us might run into
that wall. We're not quite sure how to get over
it or how to get around it. I'm going to tell
you now, do it the Marine Corps way. Blow a big
hole in that sucker and walk right through it
and say, nope, you're coming with me. Now, whether
they come or not, you know, there's going to
be resistance, but be like the Terminator. Come
with me if you want to live. And that's going
to take us to... Our next passage and our final
stop. John chapter 11, specifically verses 38
through 40. So let's all turn to John chapter
11, verses 38 through 40. This is a fun one because
this is Lazarus, all right? So John 11, 38 through
40, the word tells us, then Jesus, again groaning
to himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave,
and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, take
away the stone. Martha, the sister of him who
was dead, said to him, Lord, by this time there's
such a stench, for he's been dead four days.
And Jesus said to her, did I not say to you that
if you would believe, you would see the glory
of God? In other words, he's like, did I stutter,
move that stone? I don't care how bad it smells
in there. Get it done. You know, it's like he's
grown. I kind of had this picture of him coming
up, seeing the tomb with the stone rolled in
front of him. Move this thing. Come on. Get it
out of the way. You're slowing me down here.
Come on. It's like I'm the Messiah. Do you believe
in me or not? Get it gone now, right? Now, like
I said, this is the story of Lazarus. Lazarus
had become sick. Word had been sent to Jesus.
Jesus kind of waited a little bit before going
to see the family, right? Go to see Lazarus.
And by the time he showed up, like I said here,
Lazarus had been dead for four days. At this
point, nobody has hope of him being healed, let
alone getting up and walking out again, right?
It's like he's dead, he's gone, stick a fork
in him, bye -bye. Right? They're in mourning
now. It's a sad day. It's a sad few days. And
now they're like, really? Like, he's in there
rotting. He's decomposing. You know? It's pretty
gross. They didn't have the embalming techniques
that we have today. And if you've ever been in
a morgue with the back end of a funeral home,
you know it doesn't smell that great. Because
even with all the techniques and stuff that we
had today, there's still a very distinct smell.
I can tell you when I worked at OMI, because
I was there for years and years, you get little
kids who come in, they don't have anything to
compare the smell to. So they all come in, and
they all say the same thing every single time.
It smells like fish in here. It's like, no, that's
decomposition. But thank you for trying, buddy.
You get teenagers in like these scared straight
type programs. They come in for the tours. Same
thing. They take them. They stand them in the
cooler. They're with all these bodies and the
bags and the crips and all that. Smells like
bad fish in here. Bad something. Yeah. It's going
to be you if you don't change your ways. It's
pretty distinct. And you figure here's an area
that's not exactly known for being cold. Right?
Got pretty decent temperatures year -round. And
even though it's a cave that they're put in,
they rolled a stone over it, there's still ways
for air and stuff to get in there. That stone
and everything had been moved out of the way
for days and everything beforehand. You know,
because it wasn't exactly an easy... It's not
like opening a door or anything like that. They
had to take it, set it, the whole bit. There's
a lot of weight there. That thing isn't going
to get open unless there's people, not person,
people there to move this stone. It's not an
easy task. So the smell's pretty bad. You know?
So people are mourning. They're not happy. It's
a really gross thing that's going on. Hope is
gone. It's out the door. And people are acting
like anybody else would. You know, going up to
it when they set for Jesus. They didn't want
to lose him. Like, come on, really? This guy's
dying. He's sick. Come quick before it's too
late. You know? Because losing someone's hard.
All of us in here have lost somebody. You know
it's hard. Even losing a pet is hard. I have
a good friend this week. He lost his dog. I think
he said like 13 years, something like that, to
old age. He lives alone. That's his one companion.
It's very hard for him. You know, because we're
not ready to let people go. But here's the thing.
Even with the way you think about it, the way
Jesus came, Here's this people that are now in
mourning. God does not always answer prayer the
way we want him to, let alone the way we expect
him to. He does it his way and the way he wants
to. And this is that perfect example. Because
when he answers prayer, it's usually in a way.
Where it's not just you, but other people. For
other people to see his glory. Because it's not
about you, it's about him. It's not about me,
it's about him. Everything and anything here
is about him, not us. We're just supporting characters
in his story. He's not the supporting character
in our story. He is the main. He is the head
honcho, period. So here he comes in his own time
to perform this feat, this miracle, to answer
prayer and to show people his glory and his greatness
and to point the way to his kingdom. So watch
what happens here. We're going to move back just
a little bit. There we go. To verses 43 through
44. Still John 11, but verses 43 through 44,
the word says, now. When he had said these things,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!
And he who had died came out bound, hand and
foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped
in a cloth. Jesus said to them, Loose him and
let him go. Can you imagine that? This guy coming
out, he's wrapped in all these linens and garments.
You know? He just comes walking out like... Right?
I'm sure someone in here, I'm not the only one,
like pictures of mummy. Right? It's not a zombie,
guys. Don't worry. Lazarus, though, he was dead
and gone. He had no future. There was no hope.
As far as anybody and everybody there was concerned.
His story was done. The book had been closed.
That is, until Jesus called him out. And Jesus
called him out by name. Come on, Lazarus. Get
off your lazy keister. Let's go. We've got stuff
to do. He called him out by name. He called him
back to life. And I'm here, I'm telling you now,
Jesus is out there and he's calling each and
every single one of us by name to come out of
our graves and back to life with him, that we
have a future with him that no one can rob us
of. Each and every one of us. And in doing this,
and doing this for Lazarus, it's all... to show
the world his glory and his love. Our third lesson,
Jesus cares about you, and he cares about your
future. He cares about your future. In life,
sometimes we think we don't matter. Nothing that
we can do is going to have an impact. Not in
the future, not even today. It's just that way
we feel, right? It's very lonely. It's a lonely
place. It's a lonely way to go through life.
You know, sometimes, let's face it, we've all
come to that point where we think we're at the
end of the rope and that we'd just be better
off dead. But we're not. You know, it's those
moments where you say, take me, Lord. I'm ready.
I'm done. I can't do this anymore. Y 'all remember
saffron, son? Ah, it's the big one. Right? Take
me, Lord. Ready. Yeah. Exactly. We all hit those
points. We're just kind of done. We're done with
the people we're around. Because we haven't taken
care of ourselves. We haven't leaned into the
Lord like we're supposed to. Our focus needs
to be reset. Other times, we feel defeated and
broken down because we have people who belittle
us, people who talk behind our backs, people
who slam us down. Sometimes those people that
we even think are our friends, and we find out
they're really not. Now, I'm going to tell you,
especially with these people, these are the people
that the Bible tells us are our enemies. And
the Bible also tells us that we need to pray
for them. Don't be the hurt person who's hurting
people. Be the hurt person who's praying for
those who hurt them because God's going to heal
you. Jesus has your back. In fact, praying for
these people may just be the most loving thing
that you can do and the most loving thing that
anybody on this earth can do for them. That's
a powerful act of love right there in itself,
and we don't even realize it. Because we get
caught up in that victim's mentality, right?
And we shouldn't. We need to pray for them. But
we also need to remember not to place any value
in the horrible things that they've said or done.
Because to Jesus you matter, and to Jesus...
well, Jesus wants what's best for you. Let's
put it that way. He wants what's best for you.
And he's calling you to that life in him. And
it's a life that matters beyond anything that
any of us can even imagine. As he tells us in
Jeremiah 29, verse 11. So Jeremiah 29, verse
11. For I know the thoughts that I think toward
you, says the Lord. thoughts of peace and not
of evil, to give you a future and a hope. He
cares for our future. So we're going to start
running and wrapping up there a little bit now.
So there's a commonality here between all these
people. All these people have something in common.
Is anybody in here? know what all these people
that we just looked at with all these lessons
had in common. Yes, all are sinners. But it's
a little bit deeper than that. You're on the
right path. All these people that Jesus met on
his way to Golgotha, they had something in common.
And it's something that we have in common with
them beyond just the fact that they're sinners.
And it's the fact that he was going down this
path to die for them, to take on their sin and
die for them, to take on our sin and die for
us. People, they look at the Old Testament, they
look at the New Testament, they look at the time
difference and everything, and they wonder, how
does this relate to me? Plain and simple. Everything
in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, all
of it has to do with Jesus and the fact that
he came, he took on our sin, paid the price that
we all should have paid, and died for us, rose
again, ascended, and is coming again for his
people. It's a beautiful thing. He's going to
the cross for each and every one of them, each
and every one of us. He's on his path. This path
that we've been looking at the last couple weeks
and we're going to keep looking at as we go into
Easter. He's on this path for you. Because we
all need to be freed from our past. Because we
all need hope for the here and now. And tomorrow.
And we all need to know that there's someone
who loves us beyond all comparison and is willing
to sacrifice and has sacrificed everything for
each and every one of us who believes in him
and is willing to accept his gift of life. To
accept the living water that is he in eternity.
To accept that spot that he's preparing for each
and every one of us. And it's just that easy
gift of salvation. Where we know that he is our
Lord and Savior. We accept him as our Lord and
Savior. And we proclaim it to the world. Jesus
went to the hill for you. He poured out his blood
for you. Have you accepted his loving gift? Have
you accepted the fact that you need him as Lord
and Savior in your life? And if you haven't,
now is the time. Time is drawing short. It's
very quick. We're already in the throes of it,
those pains, right? Can't delay it any longer.
We have the evidence. He lived. He walked this
earth, not just in the Bible, but historically.
He was a real human being who rose. died, or
came, died, rose again for each and every one
of us. So I'm telling you now, if you haven't
already, you need to accept his gift. You need
to accept him before it's too late and your time
runs out. And it's running out for all of us
very, very quickly. Let us pray. Lord, we thank
you for these precious lessons. Precious lessons
that you have for us in love. The fact that you
recognize us as who we are in you and who you
intend for us to be rather than those who we
were when we lived in the world and the worldly
ways. We ask that you forgive our sins. And we
have many. We ask that you continue to work in
us. Mold us. Change us. From the inside out,
help us to learn to forgive those who have, still
do, and those who will sin against us. To recognize
that it's the world and them, and that each time
it's an opportunity to pray for them. And hopefully
we can find the door to open so that we can introduce
them to you. your glory, your hope, your love.
Help us to take all that we've learned here today
and apply it to our lives. And all of his people
said, amen and amen. Remember, as you leave here
today, you are loved and you are blessed. So
go and be the church. Thank you for joining us
at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton. Until next
time, take care and God bless.