You Asked For It: Hard Questions, Clear Answers

Well, hey, good morning, everybody,

and welcome to Refuge Church.

Who's excited for today?

I'm excited for our You Asked For It series.

I'm excited to get into these questions

that you guys have for us, get into the Word,

see how God's Word would have us to answer these.

But before I get going,

just a couple of things to get us started.

The theme for this series, the Bible is our map,

the Holy Spirit is our guide.

The past seven, eight weeks,

you guys have been submitting questions.

We've got roughly a third of them right there,

and we're gonna be looking at these.

And so here, before we get going too far,

I gotta make sure you know that, okay,

the Bible is our map, the Holy Spirit is our guide.

The other thing is I am not the authority.

I'm just a guy with a mic who's opening the Bible, okay?

Just because you have a microphone

does not mean you have any authority

or any special inspiration about God's Word.

This is the authority.

Just wanna make sure we start there.

The second thing I wanna make sure that you guys know

is I got about a half hour to answer some questions

that theologians and people way smarter than me

have been arguing about for thousands of years.

So can I get a little grace here

if I don't get full depth in there?

Or hey, if you wanna go a little deeper,

you wanna double click and dive in,

my contact information is right there on the screen.

I'm not trying to skirt any of these.

I'm happy to go there,

but I got some time constraints right now.

So if you wanna go deeper in any of these questions,

hit me up, it's right there, all right?

But right now, let's get our hearts ready

for what God has for us this morning in the word.

Would you put your arms out with your palms up,

close your eyes, just a posture of surrender.

Take a deep breath.

And remember, God is just as near

as the air you're breathing.

Let's pray.

God, today, would you guide us closer to you?

Help us to put away the frustrations of the past week,

to put away the distractions of the coming week.

We come empty with nothing to offer but surrender.

Fill us up as only you can.

Holy Spirit, move in here today with power.

We believe that in advance.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name

and all God's people said, amen.

All right, hey, I'm answering your questions.

So the transitions are just gonna be this.

We're gonna talk about everything, all right?

I've hit this one a few times.

We're gonna turn up the heat as we go.

So we're starting off with some easy ones.

Give me a little grace here, all right?

Why didn't Pete Carroll run the ball on the goal line?

Yeah, my wife said, I have no idea what you're talking about

when I read that one a few weeks ago.

Context, Super Bowl, all right?

The Seahawks won the Super Bowl.

They're second in goal.

They're down six.

If they get the touchdown and the extra point,

they're gonna win it, all right?

They're gonna win this thing.

They got beast mode, Marshawn Lynch in the backfield.

And it's second in goal.

He's one of the best running backs in the league.

Why not just hand him the ball

and let him go win you the game

instead of trying to throw it for a touchdown, right?

Well, here's the deal.

Sometimes we outsmart ourselves, all right?

Romans 1.22 says this.

It doesn't say that, all right?

Maybe it's not there, all right?

I'll read it to you.

Maybe we got technical difficulties.

Romans 1.22 says this.

I think this is what Pete Carroll did here

in this situation.

Romans 1.22.

Here it says,

Okay?

That's what happened there.

Have you ever been there?

You try to outsmart yourself sometimes.

That gets you into trouble.

You got the best running back in the league.

Just hand him the ball.

Let him go do that.

Here's the truth, though.

There was 20 seconds on the clock.

You hand the ball.

He's worried about the clock running.

He wants to get more than one play.

He didn't have a timeout or anything like that.

That's why he didn't run the ball.

But here's the deal.

Yeah, sometimes we outsmart ourselves,

claiming to be wise,

then became utter fools.

Question number two.

Is fighting for sport a sin?

Do those who fight not to get hurt,

or not to hurt, rather,

but for the right of competition

get condemned by the Lord?

We have a guy here who plays hockey,

and I just really wonder if this is his question.

Because, like, is that the context?

You can be quiet, Kylie.

I don't want you to answer right now.

All right, but here's the deal.

The Bible is our map.

The Holy Spirit is our guide, right?

Does the Bible explicitly say a direct answer

that you should not fight for competition?

No, right?

So it doesn't say that.

I will say this.

A fruit of the Spirit is self-control, right?

So when I think about fighting,

fighting in the right context,

I think that could be okay.

I think that would not be condemned by the Lord

with people there to keep you safe,

to make sure you're not gonna hurt somebody,

you're not gonna get hurt.

There's an authority there,

making sure there's some ground rules.

I would say no, probably not a sin.

First Corinthians 10, 23.

This one is on the screen.

I think this might be what I would say to fighting.

Help me out with that word in yellow.

You say I'm allowed to do anything,

but not everything is good for you.

You say I'm allowed to do anything,

but not everything is, all right?

So just because you have the green light to do something,

it's not, quote, a sin.

Maybe it's not wise.

I don't know how getting punched in the face a bunch of times

sounds like a good time,

but if that's what you wanna do, go crazy.

Next question.

All right, I think this was a Club 57 question, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

What exactly does it mean,

what does the Bible mean exactly

when it says to honor your father and mother?

I feel like that was from the group that left.

And this got a second part.

How do we handle that in situations

where there are earthly parents?

So Ephesians 6, verses two through three says this.

Honor your father and mother.

This is the first commandment with a promise,

with a promise.

If you honor your father and mother,

things will go well for you

and you will have a long life on earth.

So there's a promise there,

and I think it's more of a principle

than it is like a law,

that if you honor your father and mother,

things are gonna go well

and you're gonna live a long life.

Here's the deal.

How do I say this?

If you, when you were growing up,

did your parents know more than you?

If you find yourself saying no,

we're gonna have a conversation, all right?

And I'm not saying they know everything more than you,

but they know more than you.

Why?

They've lived longer, they've lived life.

Now, is it possible for you to know more

about some specific thing?

Absolutely.

But in a general sense,

your parents know better than you, right?

Especially when you're being raised in their house.

Not because they're just smarter

or they're just naturally more wise.

They've lived life, right?

And so when it says things are gonna go well,

you're gonna live longer,

it's just a general principle.

Your parents have been there,

they got some miles on those tires, right?

They've experienced life.

So honor your father and mother,

things are gonna go better.

They just, they know better, okay?

Second part of that question,

how do we handle that in situations with earthly parents?

So a good question.

So let's look at Luke 14, it's 26 through 27.

This is Jesus talking.

If you wanna be my disciple,

you must, by comparison, hate everyone else,

your father and mother, wife and children,

brothers and sisters, yes, even your own life.

Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.

And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me,

you cannot be my disciple.

So how do we handle that in a situation of earthly parents?

We want to honor mom and dad,

but here's the deal, honor God first.

First and foremost.

Honoring your parents, absolutely.

You do everything you can to honor mom and dad

without dishonoring God.

It's pretty simple there, okay?

Number four, in the book of Nehemiah,

why does God say not to marry foreigners?

So here's what it says in Nehemiah 13, 27,

and we just finished the Brick by Brick series.

So somebody was doing their,

this is not a verse we covered in service,

but they were doing their scripture reading,

and asked this question.

Here's what it says.

How could you even think of committing this sinful deed

and acting unfaithfully,

sinful deed and acting unfaithfully toward God

by marrying foreign women, okay?

So he's saying, how could you do this?

I want to be clear, this is a values-based thing

that Nehemiah is saying, it is not a race-based thing.

So if you actually go just to the verse right before that

in verse 26, here's what it says.

And he's talking about King Solomon.

Wasn't this exactly what led King Solomon of Israel

into sin, I demanded?

There was no king from any nation

who could compare to him, right?

He was the top of the top, he's the best.

God loved him and made him king over all Israel,

but even he was led into sin by his foreign wives.

So what do you think about this?

Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman,

and it is a covenant before God.

They are making a commitment to one another

and they're making this commitment to God.

That's why there's a pastor officiating it.

There's an officiant, somebody saying,

by the power vested in me, all right,

by the state of whatever, but it's really

a member of clergy, typically, and they're saying,

we're doing this before God.

Why would you marry someone, that's what Nehemiah's saying,

why would you marry someone who that covenant

is not gonna draw you closer to God,

the one who you're making this covenant in front of,

but it's actually going to make you fall away from God.

You're not gonna live a life that honors God,

you're not gonna do things God's way.

So the point of what Nehemiah is getting at here

is marry someone who shares the same values,

the same beliefs that you have about God.

Marry someone who you're walking the same way

with, you're both pursuing Jesus.

All right, turn up the heat a little bit here.

Number five, this is one that,

this was the last question submitted,

and he gave this one to me off the air,

so he just asked me, so I put it in there for him.

Why do you always say, he's asking me,

why do you always say Jesus follower, but not Christian?

And I was like, do I really never say Christian?

He goes, I've never heard you say Christian from the stage,

and I was like, I guess I never said it from the stage,

I don't know, I never really thought about it.

And then I started thinking about that,

I was like, man, I guess I never have,

I kind of looked through some messages,

I don't really say Christian, I always say Jesus follower.

And I think the reason for that is word association.

I think sometimes when you say a word,

it can be turned and meant into something else,

and I think the best way to say that is like,

okay, I'm gonna name, I'm gonna list off some people

who claim to be Christians.

I am not commentating on their faith

or the legitimacy of it,

these are people who claim to be Christians,

and I think you're gonna see the swath that is there.

It could mean totally different things, all right?

People who claim to be Christians.

All right, no reactions here,

I'm just gonna only read a list of people who,

they've said it, I'm not saying it, they've said it, okay?

People who claim to be Christians.

Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi.

All right, couldn't get much further.

Fred Rogers, Jaylen Williams of The Thunder, let's go.

James Tallarico, Ted Cruz, I could go on and on,

but I think my point is,

you've got people that would say they're Christians

that could disagree on some of those,

on just about everything, right?

But they claim the same faith.

I'm not, again, I'm not commenting on their faith,

but they all use that word Christian.

They are Christians, and again, I'm not arguing with it,

but they have vastly different views.

I think, I always say Jesus Father

because I think it's a little bit more clear.

Sometimes when people say Christian,

it's just like, there's a term, nominal Christian,

where you say, yeah, I'm a Christian,

but like, I don't go to church,

I don't read my Bible under this.

I just posted an Instagram with my Bible open

with some coffee one time, and I was like, Christian, right?

That's what it would mean to be like a nominal Christian.

You're saying it, but you're not actually living it out.

And so I think when I say Jesus Father,

I'm trying to say, these are people who are following Jesus.

That's what we mean.

We don't wanna be nominal.

We don't just have the label of Christian.

We actually want to be walking that way.

To go maybe a little further,

I'm glad this guy asked this question.

It made me think about this a little bit.

If you were to ask somebody, why are they a Christian,

you would get a wide variety of answers.

You could ask people that and say, well, I'm a good person.

It's actually the opposite of what the gospel says.

The good news is that Jesus came to save sinners.

That's us, right?

We're not good people, we're sinners.

That's why God saved us.

But if you were to ask somebody,

why are you a Jesus follower?

Maybe that hits a little different.

Why are you following Jesus?

So I think that's why it's just word association.

We want to be Jesus followers,

not just quote Christians in name alone.

Yes, we're a Christian church, right?

I'm all for that, but I'm just saying,

we need to be following Jesus.

All right, next question.

How to get rid of doubt that God is real?

How do you get rid of doubt that God is real?

How do you believe more in Jesus?

There's a couple questions

that I just wish we could double click on,

and this is one I wish I could have the conversation

with whoever asked this question.

How do you get rid of doubt?

I want to start by saying,

here's the deal, God can handle your doubts.

He can.

He's not afraid of your doubts,

he's not afraid of your questions.

He absolutely can handle your doubts.

The Psalms, all right, you can go open up the book of Psalms.

It is full of David and his doubts and his questions

and why and his heartaches.

He is just giving it all to the Lord.

It's like no filter.

One of my favorite verses, I pray this every day,

like right at the end of it.

I don't really pray this part,

I'm just not there yet like David,

but it talks about how,

God, would you make my enemies your footstool?

Like, I'm not, you know, he's saying crush them.

That's what he's saying.

I'm not there yet, right?

I'm not praying that prayer,

but lead me on the right path, the Lord,

make your way plain for me.

I'm all in on that.

Crush my enemies, I'm not quite there.

My point is this, God can handle your doubts,

God can handle your emotions.

He's not afraid of what's going on in your heart.

He actually already knows, give it to him.

Not afraid.

Another thing about doubts.

Think about this, the disciples had doubts.

People who walked with Jesus,

this is talking about the 11 disciples.

Judas is already kind of out here.

It's Matthew 28, 17, it says this.

When they saw him, this is after the resurrection,

they very publicly saw him die.

When they saw him, this is a resurrected body,

they worshiped him, but some of them doubted.

This group of men, these disciples,

went on to change the world.

They spread the good news of Jesus, right?

They wrote some letters, some parts of God's word.

They had some doubts.

Your doubts don't disqualify your faith, it's okay.

God can handle your doubts.

Jude 22 says this.

You must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering.

Some translations say to those who doubt.

When you encounter someone with doubts,

there's no need to put them down,

to say, how could you believe that?

How could you think that?

How could you feel that?

No, hear that.

Show mercy to them.

Don't pull away the truth.

The truth doesn't change.

But having doubts, having questions, that's okay.

Let's be merciful to those whose faith is wavering,

to those who have doubts.

I just think about doubting and doubts

and having unbelief.

That is a tension to be managed, not a problem to be solved.

A tension to be managed, not a problem to be solved.

This side of heaven, there's always gonna be

some tensions that we have to manage.

We live in a broken, fallen world.

Sometimes that's just hard.

There's some tension because of that.

We would all love doubt to be a problem to be solved.

Just got it.

Two plus two equals four.

That's a problem, I solved it.

Well, it's not like that with our faith.

It's a tension to be managed, not a problem to be solved.

Second part of the question,

how do you believe more in Jesus?

How do you believe more in Jesus?

My encouragement would be take your next step.

Take your next step.

James 2.14 says this.

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters,

if you say you have faith,

but you don't show it by your actions,

can that kind of faith save anyone?

James is saying that your faith works,

that your faith actually manifests itself into your actions.

So how do you believe more in Jesus?

You have to take your next step.

We sing a song a lot of times.

It's one of my favorites, but it's called Evidence.

I've seen the evidence.

I'm not gonna sing it

because I'm gonna get all kinds of comments,

but I'm gonna say the lyrics, all right?

I've seen the evidence of your goodness all over my life.

All right.

And I think there's something to that,

that when we move,

it's easier to see those doubts subside.

It's easier to believe

when you've seen the evidence of God moving in your life.

But it's really hard to see God move

when your life feels stagnant,

when you're not taking any steps,

when you're sitting on the sideline,

you're sitting on the couch,

you're not in the game, so to speak.

It's a lot easier to believe

when you see the evidence of it.

It's hard to see God moving when you're stagnant.

We need to be praying, growing, serving.

We need to be active in our faith, taking our next step.

I'm gonna keep going.

This one's kind of right on the same thing.

Next question is, how do you live for God?

How do you follow God?

I've taken the next steps and believe in Jesus.

Now what?

Lot to unpack there.

I'm gonna start with a diet exam.

I think the now what is good diet example.

Say you wanna lose 20 pounds.

You did it, right?

Diet and exercise, you lost the 20 pounds.

Now what?

What are you gonna do?

Just gonna go back to how you were?

Gain the 20 pounds right back, right?

You gotta keep at it if you wanna keep the weight off, right?

I wanna live for God, I'll follow God.

I've taken the next steps, I believe in Jesus.

Now what?

You keep going on the same path.

So he says, I've taken the next steps.

So I'm just gonna go through some like big next steps.

The first next step will be your salvation.

You put your faith in a resurrected Jesus.

Jesus came, he lived, he died, he rose from the grave,

defeated death and sin, and that is what your faith is in.

First step, salvation, let's go.

Second step, you've been baptized, right?

You've shared your faith publicly with everybody around you.

You're saying, this is a picture of what has saved me.

My faith is in Jesus.

Side note, May 3rd, Baptism Sunday, let's go.

All right, we're gonna have that.

But you're saying, hey, my next steps,

my salvation is in Jesus, I've been baptized.

I think the third step, and this is kind of the one

that we just, we live at.

It's growing and serving, all right?

Like salvation is easy because like it is finished, done.

There's no taking back the cross, it's finished.

Baptism, we don't just sit there, keep dunking you, right?

Come out, you come in, everybody claps, it's a good deal.

But this next step, growing and serving, is never over.

Never stops.

Proverbs 4.18 says this, this is a verse

that just encourages me so much.

As the way of the righteous,

like the first gleam of the dawn,

which shines ever brighter until the full light of day.

It's saying, the righteous, their light shines brighter

and brighter and brighter and brighter.

It continues to grow.

Eugene Peterson wrote a book, it's called

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

And this is what he's talking about, like now what?

You just keep following Jesus.

Just keep taking your next step.

So that looks like growing in the word,

growing in your prayer life,

serving those around you with the gifts

that God has given you, and continue to do that.

That can look different in different seasons in life.

It can, it can change, it can shift.

But we need to be growing in the word, growing in prayer,

and growing in serving those around us

with the gifts that God has given us.

And we do that brick by brick,

day by day, decision by decision.

It's not a finish line that we cross.

It's a journey that we're on.

It's a relationship with Jesus.

So we just keep taking step after step after step,

brick by brick by brick, right?

And that's how we see God move.

Next question.

When you pray about something,

and then something about what you're doing,

and then something,

and then something about what you prayed about happens,

how do you know that it would be from God?

So I wish I could ask this person a question.

Do you mean when what you prayed about

happens in the positive,

or do you mean what I prayed about happens,

it did, it happened in the negative, it did not happen.

He closed that door.

There's no way of knowing, I got nothing.

You can tell me afterwards if this is your question.

But I would just say this.

Faith, it's all faith.

Hebrews 11 one says this.

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for.

It is the evidence of things we cannot see.

So how do we know if a prayer,

if it's answered or not answered,

how do we know if that's from God?

I would just say, you can't know.

That's not what faith is.

It's faith.

But here's what we can know.

Romans 8 28 says this.

And we know that God causes everything

to work together for the good of those who love God

and are called according to his purpose.

Those people who are Jesus' followers.

He will work everything together for good.

We know that.

How do you know if it's from God?

I think sometimes we can have inclinations that it is,

but sometimes God, we think God's not answering.

He moves in this other way,

and if it's even better than what we were thinking about,

we just don't know.

It's all faith.

We can know that God is working it all together for good.

Also belief.

I heard somebody tell me this just a couple weeks ago.

I just, I think it's, I find it to be truth.

If you are praying for miracles,

the likelihood of you seeing miracles goes up.

Right?

Some of y'all, I don't mean to step on anybody's toes,

but I love y'all, I know y'all.

If you're looking for outrage,

you're gonna find outrage, right?

It's just the truth.

You're gonna get what you look for.

Be praying and looking for God to move.

Be praying and looking for God to move.

Yeah, we're turning up the heat a little bit.

How do I find hope for the future

when the past still feels so heavy?

Again, this is a question I wish I could double-click on

to get a little bit more info.

How do I find hope for the future

when the past still feels so heavy?

The truth is you can feel the pain of the past.

I wish I could ask this person

kind of what they're meaning by that,

because the pain of the past,

when we say that, it's kind of generic.

Was that self-inflicted pain?

We've all been there, right?

Was that pain endured from others?

I think we've all probably been there, too.

It's a lot we just don't know from this question.

I think if it was self-inflicted pain,

you are made new in Christ.

If the devil is bringing up your past,

it's because he's running out of new material.

That's a good thing, right?

If it's pain that you've endured from others,

you are so much more than what has been done for you

by other people.

You are valued so much by God.

Don't think about what others have done to you.

Think about what he has done for you.

He took our sin and he nailed it to the cross.

2 Corinthians 3, 17 says this.

For the Lord is the Spirit,

and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

We literally just sang this song.

Yeah, it's fantastic.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Let's say it another way.

In Christ, there is no bondage.

How do we find hope for the future when the past

still feels so heavy?

Give it to Jesus.

Now, you can't hold on to the past

and step into the good works God has for you.

Give the past to God and walk in freedom.

Ephesians 2, 10 says this.

I think this is potentially what we're missing out

when we're letting the enemy hold us back

from our mistakes or the mistakes that others have done

to us.

We are God's masterpiece.

He has created us anew in Christ Jesus

so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

If we're stuck in the past, we're gonna miss out

on the good things God has for us right now.

Question number nine.

Does God ever change his mind?

I wish somebody wouldn't have submitted this question

because it's kind of a trick question

if I'm being straight with you.

It's kind of a trick question.

Does God ever change his mind?

I'm gonna kind of read some passages that would show

both the yes and the no,

because it ain't about my opinion.

It's about the word of God.

And then I'm gonna give you my opinion.

We're gonna start with the word first.

So if I was to say, does God change his mind, yes.

Genesis 6, 6 would be a verse that I would use to say yes.

So the Lord was sorry that he ever made them

and put them on the earth.

It broke his heart.

Just put a pin in this.

It broke his heart because of the sin of his people.

Exodus 32, 14.

This is probably the one that you'd be hanging your hat on

if you were a yes side of this.

So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster

he had threatened to bring on his people.

That feels like a pretty strong text for that.

And if you were on the no side of it,

Hebrews 13, eight, I think is the one

that you would cling to.

It says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,

today, and forever.

He's not shifting.

He is the same forever.

I'm gonna land on the no side of does God change his mind.

And I know we just said the Lord changed his mind.

He knows what we're going to do.

He knows how we're gonna respond.

He understands it all.

I think about this.

I think this is probably the best example.

In my quiet time, I'm going through the book of Judges.

And there's this passage, a little too far.

There's this passage right at the beginning of Judges

where it's just a handful of verses.

Like, it's just, yeah, right there.

And it goes, hey, there was this judge.

And they were doing good things.

And they got this, like, they have this cycle.

They follow God.

They forget God.

Because they forgot God, they're in bondage.

In their bondage, they go, Lord, save us.

God rescues them.

Rinse and repeat.

Like, literally, like, there's this passage

where it's, like, not even two pages.

And it's like, they did it.

They follow God.

They forget God.

They're in bondage.

They cry out, God saves them.

They follow God.

They forget God.

They're in bondage.

They cry out, He saves them.

It's rinse and repeat.

And here's the deal.

Did God ever change in that?

Who changed it?

The people did.

God is serious about sin.

He's not changing His mind on sin.

He is holy.

He cannot be in the face of sin.

He cannot stand it.

That's why He sent Jesus.

He hasn't changed His mind.

He took care of it in Him.

He doesn't change the people.

He doesn't change.

Jesus paid the price, and our debt was paid in full.

It is finished.

Okay.

Question 10.

This is a really good one, too.

Why does God sometimes feel silent

when we need Him most?

Why does God feel silent when we need Him most?

Hmm.

You can feel it, eh?

Why does God silent when I was going through all this heartache?

Why was God silent when I was going through

this season of turmoil?

Why was God silent?

Silence does not equal absence.

Okay.

Silence does not equal absence.

The best example that we have of this

would be last Saturday.

Not yesterday, right?

Eight days ago.

It's often called silent Saturday, right?

Where, you know, He died, He was crucified,

He's buried, He's in the tomb.

It's silent Saturday.

He's just in the tomb.

Dead, buried, silent.

And yet, Sunday is coming.

He'll raise from the grave,

offer salvation to anyone who will believe.

Silence does not equal absence.

God's timing is perfect.

It's perfect.

Trust His timing.

It's perfect.

Even in the silence.

Question number 11.

Why did Jesus say,

my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

In Matthew 27, 46.

And then He repeated Himself

before He released His spirit.

So, it's right there in Matthew 27.

We're gonna go to verse 50.

This is the passage that He's actually talking about

because that's what He said there.

And then He says He repeated Himself

before He released His spirit.

And here's what it says in Matthew 27, 50.

Then Jesus shouted out again and He released His spirit.

Okay.

It says He shouted again,

not that He said the same thing.

So, think about this.

The Gospels, that's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

those are disciples who have an eyewitness account of Jesus,

that they're sharing their perspective of Jesus.

And so, Matthew hears this,

but John actually hears something different.

So, it's one of those things

where you have part of the story here,

but if you take this other part and you put them together,

it makes it make a little bit more sense.

So, Matthew didn't hear it, but John does.

So, in John 19, 30, here's what John is saying

that Jesus said.

They gave Him a sponge filled with sour wine.

It says, when Jesus had tasted it,

He said, it is finished.

And He bowed His head and He gave up His spirit.

That's what it's talking about there.

So, it's not saying that He repeated,

my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

He is saying, shouting out, it is finished.

He's saying something different.

Matthew just didn't hear, but John did.

He did hear.

So, He doesn't repeat Himself.

He's saying two different things.

It's gonna put the whole picture together.

This is probably the hardest question of the day.

It's gonna take a little bit of,

you just gonna have to trust in this.

We can follow up with this, right,

if you need to.

There's a lot here.

Where did Jesus go for the three days

before His resurrection?

So, where was He at on silent Saturday?

That's kind of what they're saying there.

After His death, but before His resurrection,

where was Jesus?

Let me read you a few verses.

Luke 23, 43, this is Jesus talking to the thief on the cross.

He said, I assure you, today,

you will be with me in paradise.

So, He went to paradise, but what exactly does that mean?

I'm gonna read a few passages from Psalms

that are commonly just believed to be,

they're talking about the resurrection.

They're talking about the Messiah.

So, Psalm 49, 15 says, but as for me,

God will redeem my life.

He will snatch me from the power of the grave.

Psalm 86, 13, for your love for me is very great.

You have rescued me from the depths of death.

Now, just think about this for a second.

He is saying, I'm gonna be with you in paradise.

You've rescued me from the depths of death.

You have snatched me from the grave,

and the grave, that word there,

it could be used Sheol or Hades.

It's kind of used interchangeably in the original language,

and here's where it gets a little interesting.

If you go to Luke 16, I'm gonna have one passage up there,

but there's a whole, start at 19, it goes to 31.

There's this parable that Jesus tells.

He's talking about a rich man and then a poor man, Lazarus,

and the rich man lives his life.

He's got everything he needs,

and Lazarus is just waiting for crumbs from the rich man

that he's gonna give out to the dogs.

It says that the dogs come and they lick Lazarus's sores.

He's in front of the rich man's house,

and the dogs come and lick his sores.

The rich man's crushing it by worldly standards,

and Lazarus is, he's not.

It's a little tough one.

And then it says that Lazarus dies and the rich man die,

and they're gone, and it says that there is

a great chasm separating us,

and no one can cross over from you to you from here,

and no one can cross over to us from there.

There's a picture there where it says

that the rich man is, he's in anguish.

It says he is in flames.

He is asking, Abraham, Abraham,

would you let Lazarus just dip his finger in some water

and just drop it onto my tongue?

And he's saying, I can't do it.

There's a great chasm separating us.

There's no one that can cross from over here

and go over there.

There's no, you can come from here and there.

There's too big of a gap.

We can't do it.

So that is commonly referred to as Abraham's wisdom,

to paradise, so that there is the grave

where everybody went before Jesus.

There are some people who don't believe in Jesus

who are in pain and anguish.

That's what it says there in the language.

There's comfort over here.

So the belief is that Jesus went to heal

the place of death, and those who are in Abraham's wisdom,

the place of paradise, he took them to heaven,

to the permanent home and the presence of God.

Do I get that 100%?

No, I don't understand that fully.

I think that's okay.

If we could understand everything about God,

that'd make us pretty awesome.

My faith isn't in me.

My faith is in Jesus.

It says that Jesus went and he snatched them from death,

snatched them from the grave, healed.

Last question.

Can you lose your salvation?

Can you lose your salvation?

The theological word there would be,

do you believe in eternal security?

Once saved, always saved, some language you use.

There's some different schools of thought on this.

And I'm just gonna, I would say, no, you can't.

You cannot lose what God has given you.

I don't think you can.

Nobody can take you from God to him.

I'm gonna share some verses.

Having said that, let's not put that to the test.

The apostle Paul talks about, if your faith is in Christ,

should you continue to sin so that his grace would abound?

And he's like a resounding no.

You should not continue to sin,

even if your faith is in Jesus,

because it doesn't really matter

if his grace is abounding.

You are to live with him.

He paid for your life with a price.

We should honor him with the life that we live.

But John 10, 28 through 30 says this.

Jesus is talking, I give them eternal life

and they will never perish.

No one can snatch them away from me.

For my father has given them to me

and he is more powerful than anyone else.

No one can snatch them from the father's hand.

The father and I are one.

No one can take them away from me.

So to kind of give you both sides of the argument there,

there are those who would say,

yeah, no one can take your salvation,

but you can walk out of the hand of God.

That would be one side of it.

The rebuttal to that from the other side would be,

if you're gonna walk out of the hand of God,

if you've actually seen God for who he is

and you've rejected him,

then your faith wasn't actually in God.

That's what they would say.

You're not gonna walk out of the hand of God

if you actually were in there.

You would experience love, joy, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

You'd experience all these amazing things.

You wouldn't leave it.

And again, I would say you can't lose your salvation.

Let's not put God to the test on that.

But here's the deal.

When you're answering a question like this,

so much of that is based on the theoretical

and it's by looking at other people.

Well, there's no way they could be saved.

There's no way their faith is in Jesus.

There's no way.

How do you see the way they live?

And the focus is all wrong.

We're not called to see if they are saved or they're not.

We're supposed to share the good news.

And here's what I wanna make sure that everybody knows.

The most important question about salvation

is personal.

Where is your faith?

Is your faith in Jesus?

Are you believing in Him for your salvation?

We're not worried about other people.

We're not worried about are they or are they can be,

can be not.

Is your faith in Jesus?

Are you growing in prayer?

Are you growing in the word?

Are you growing in serving those around you

with the gifts that God has given you?

Are we just getting stagnant, being still?

Is your faith in Jesus?

He doesn't turn anyone away.

He's always there for us, ready to love us,

to accept us with open arms.

He never rejects us.

The blessing.

Pray for us.

God, I thank you for the salvation that you give us.

God, that in your son, Jesus,

we have everything that we need.

We lack nothing.

You've given us everything.

God, help us to be certain

our faith is in you and you alone.

Help us to share that with those around us.

Our faith is in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Not be ashamed of our faith,

but to be bold because of what you've done for us.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Hey church, let's stand and let's worship.

Amen.