Easter Sunday - The Real Jesus

In John Chapter 11 you're going to be looking for verse 17 in my

John 11 · chapter mention

Bible is page 1543. If you have the exact same

Bible, lucky you John Chapter 11 verse 17.

John 11:17

Now when Jesus came, he found Lazarus had already been in the

tomb for days. Bethany was near Jerusalem.

Bethany's a place, not a person. Bethany was near Jerusalem,

about two miles off. And many of the Jews had come to

Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met

him, but Mary remained seated in the house.

Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother

would not have died. But even now I know that

whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the

resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the

resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though

he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who believes in me

shall never die. Do you believe this?

She said to him, Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Christ,

the Son of God who is coming into the world.

Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes to see everything we

need to see about Jesus, the full Jesus, the whole Jesus, the

true Jesus, the only Jesus, not a distortion, not a caricature,

not not a God made in our image, but the God who made us in his.

I pray that we would behold him with more clarity and more joy

that would lead us to a deeper worship, to a deeper gratitude,

to a deeper obedience all flowing from your power and your

accomplishment. In Jesus name we thank you,

Amen. What we see here is Martha and

Mary, their brothers died and of course Jesus shows up and

they're going. It's so sad.

He goes, he's going to he's going to live again.

She goes, I know someday I know we're all going to be

resurrected in the end ultimately and he's going.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I am the resurrection

and Lazarus is about to be raised right here, right now.

We notice right away Jesus makes a bold and distinct claim about

himself. Now I'm going to turn to the

left in my Bible. I'm going to go to Matthew

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Chapter 7. In Matthew Chapter 7, we're

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

looking at verse 21. Jesus again talking.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the

Kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father

who is in heaven on that day, He's talking about the judgment

day, the the day when everyone is separated, the sheep from the

goats. All the clarity is made God's

people versus not God's people on that day.

Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name

and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your

name? And then I will declare to them,

I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of

lawlessness. Heavy words here from the real

Jesus, the only Jesus. Yeah.

If you ask 100 different people who Jesus was, you're probably

going to get a lot of different answers.

You might not get 100 different answers, but I guarantee you're

going to get like 70 different answers.

You're going to get a lot of different perspectives.

Well, to me Jesus is this, to me Jesus is that.

And when Jesus was walking on the earth, there were many

questions about who Jesus was. Well, some say he's this, and

some say he's the prophet Elijah, and some say he's John

the Baptist come back to life. But Jesus was bringing it back

to people. Who do you say that I am?

Do you believe that I say I am who I am?

And that's the question that has to be answered by everybody.

It is my privilege today to introduce to you the real Jesus.

I'm going to introduce to you the real Jesus of the

Scriptures. And while we talk about the real

Jesus from the scriptures, we're also going to simultaneously and

systematically tear down false idols in the in America, we

don't think we have any idols because I'm like, I'm not

worshipping some stone statue. We're like, we're not

worshipping images made of gold, right?

Like we're, we're above all of that stupidity.

And yet an idol was anything where we made a God in our

image. So any idea that we have about

Jesus, that's not actually Jesus, It is idolatry.

It is, Oh, I worship this Jesus. Hey, dear friend, that Jesus you

just described is not the Jesus. Therefore it's an idolatrous

false Jesus. You might, he might go by the,

the name Jesus, but it's not the same person.

You might say, man, I'm, I'm, I'm good friends with John

Michael. Tell me about John Michael.

Oh, well, you know, he's a really reserved guy and he never

shares his opinion about anything like you don't that's

not John Michael. You're describing a different

person. That's a different person

entirely. Well, I don't like the real John

Michael. That's fine.

You don't have to. But you have to deal with the

real John. I hate the real John Michael.

You're allowed to hate the real John Michael, but you need to

know who he is and who he isn't. You, you, you got to make a

decision with Jesus. But I want you to have the real

Jesus. And it's my belief that when you

see the real Jesus, you're going to fall down and worship to him

and you're going to go, wow, wow.

He's better than the idol that I built.

He's better than the caricature that I had in mind.

I thought I had it good. I thought I was selecting

portions of the real Jesus going, I like these.

Those I could do without. I have good news for you.

The thing that you've built in your mind or in your heart or in

your own life, it's worse than the real Jesus.

You will trade and upgrade to the real Jesus because he's

worthy, because he loves you, because he's perfect in every

way. The real Jesus is the only

Jesus. So as we consider these opening

passages this morning, we got to remember what Jesus says about

himself, not just what others have told us about him.

And we have to focus on the fact that Jesus really is the one

who's going to judge everybody at the end.

And it should bring an alert to all of your hearts that he says

many in the last day will say, Lord, Lord.

They won't just say Lord, Lord, they'll say we did stuff, we

prophesied in your name. There will be people at the end

of the end who said Jesus, we prophesied in your name.

There will be people at the end of the end who drove out demons

in Jesus name and he's going to say I didn't know you.

What on earth? I mean, I'm just a bit perplexed

by that, aren't you? All I can say is I guess the

mercy of God was still working through the powerful name of

Jesus, even though it wasn't the people of Jesus doing the work

of Jesus. Preacher, I'm a little bit

nervous right now. It's OK, We're going to meet the

real Jesus and we're going to come fully into his gospel and

we're going to reject all idolatry.

We're going to reject every false Jesus, and I'm going to

list a few that I can think of. There's going to be plenty that

I leave out today, but you're going to continue to see the

real Jesus. The problem is that most people

don't know the whole Jesus, and therefore they don't know the

real Jesus. They think they know him, but

they may have an incomplete version of him at best or a

totally false version of him at worst.

Who? Who remembers if you were a kid

in church singing Father Abraham, right?

So that was like a kids church example I was talking about

earlier. It's called kids church.

But like we had no idea what we were talking about.

Father Abraham had many sons and many sons had Father Abraham and

I am one of them and so are you. So let's all praise the Lord

right arm Father Abraham. What is happening?

Is this theology? What are we doing left hand

Father Abram and the little girls are singing I'm a son of

Father Abram. Like they don't have a clue

what's happening. What is this?

Is there something to it? There is something to it.

There's a lot of good there. But like the song is lacking in

its theological depth. We'll put it that way.

And so again, that's why we want clarity for the little ones.

We want them to be able to answer who made you?

God did. Why did Jesus have to come?

Because we sinned. Why does it matter?

Because God loves us. Why doesn't God just say it's

OK, we'll forget about those problems because God is just, he

always does the right thing. We want clarity.

We need certainty. So just like little children, we

had no idea this whole father Abraham and we're, I mean, we

got to wiggle. But the church part I think

maybe was lacking a little bit. I think there's a nation full of

Americans who have their own version of Father Abraham as

adults because no one has given them the clarity of the real

Jesus. So they've got a piece here and

they got a piece there and they're crazy.

Aunt. She seems like she's a

Christian, and maybe she really is, but she says some weird

stuff. And they remember that pastor

who said that thing that time, and they and they read that book

that time, and they watched The Da Vinci Code with Tom Hanks and

they've seen and they've got this whole thing cut.

Like, I guess I have a picture of something with, with I guess

Jesus is in there somewhere. Yeah, this is Jesus.

And Jesus revealed himself to his disciples through the

Scriptures. The whole Bible is about Jesus,

even at the parts where it didn't say his name yet it was

still pointing to his redemptive plan.

So we don't want you to have this father Abraham kind of

understanding of Jesus. We want you to know the real

Jesus. We want you to have a real kind

of certainty and understanding. And we don't want to have a

build-a-bear Jesus. You know, build-a-bear is you go

in, you build your stuffed animal, you get to customize

everybody. I like this.

I don't like that. I like this.

I don't like that. Thomas Jefferson, he was a

genius and a Great American and he was also kind of an idiot.

He literally razor cut out of his Bible.

The things he didn't like. He made his own Bible.

Like people joke about that. Oh, you can't just cut the

things out of the Bible that you don't like.

Thomas Jefferson actually did that.

That was his thing and he was like, well, this is good, but

not that. Cut out the words of the altar

of life. The one who gave him breath and

fingers. Thomas Jefferson used those to

mock him and to say if I was God, I would have done it like

this. So we're not let we're not we're

not going to live with a build-a-bear faith that works

for a stuffed animal, but it does not work for the living

God. People throughout Scripture made

gods and worship them and that's called idolatry.

Like we said, that's a serious sin.

We're very guilty of it today. Not with golden cows, but with

the name of Jesus, but not the actual Jesus.

There's only one Jesus, and there's only one Jesus who can

save. So the first false Jesus we're

going to look at is the Jesus who was called a good moral

teacher. He was a good teacher.

He was a good moral teacher. You're going to find with all of

these, there's a kernel of truth in it.

It's not all poison, right? But there's some poison in it.

How much poison would you like in your glass of water, by the

way? None.

OK, I'm the same way. Like even just one drop, Would

that be too much poison for you? I agree.

I feel the same way about my water.

You should feel the same way about Jesus.

Not my Jesus, not your Jesus, the Jesus, the real King, the

one who was forever with the Father, forever with the Holy

Spirit, before they created any creation, before they joined

their creation, before they determined to save their

creation. But some say Jesus was a good

moral teacher. 1 great man among many great men.

There's lots of been There's lots of teachers in the world.

There's this guy who taught this, that seems like a good

thing. There's this guy who taught

this. That seems like a good thing.

And it's partially true that Jesus was a good moral teacher.

Jesus did teach perfect morality.

We should clarify that he did. Why?

Because Jesus is perfect morality.

Also, we should say all morality flows from God and anyone who

doesn't have God as the ultimate source of truth is their own

God. For anyone to say well this is

right and this is wrong, it always could.

You could always ask the question, by what standard?

Well, I just think it's wrong. By what standard is it wrong

though? Is it wrong to murder someone?

Oh, absolutely. Why?

I know why I didn't and I'm not making it up.

It didn't come from Joe Michael. I know why it's wrong to murder.

Why do you say it's wrong to murder?

Which is just wrong. It's called being a decent human

being. I'm waiting on a foundation.

You're standing out over the abyss.

By the way. You're correct in your

conclusion, but do you know why? I know why.

It's because you were made in the image of God, and His law is

written on your heart. And you know the law of God,

even if you deny his existence. You know the law of God.

Jesus is morality. Anyone who does anything moral

is doing something to some degree in alignment with the

Kingdom of God, whether or not they even acknowledge Him.

So that that's the person who would say that they don't

believe that there's a God. That would be the person who

says that they hate God. Anyone who does anything good

and right, anyone who has any wholesome morality in their

life, of course they're going to be blessed by that.

They're being obedient to the word of God, even though that

might not be their motive. When you do things God's way,

advantages and blessings come from it.

That's a blessing. Thank you, Lord, for setting up

your universe that way. He made sowing and reaping.

So we know that everything good and true and beautiful in the

Western world was built on the foundation of Jesus's teaching.

But the massive problem with a Jesus who was only a good moral

teacher is, again, he did not leave room for anyone to reduce

him to that category. That's the problem.

Other teachers, other religious leaders didn't claim to be the

resurrection and the life. They just said hey, I got some

stuff to teach and some of the stuff they said was good and

true. Why?

Because it was in alignment with the living God.

Whether they did it on purpose or on accident, Anything that

they got right, I can say 2 thumbs way up and then I can

dismiss all the other nonsense. I can keep the baby and I can

throw out all the bathwater because all truth is God's

truth. But Jesus said I am the way I

am, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father

except through me. So he didn't come claiming to

teach about life. He came claiming to be the life

and the author of life. So that's why we have to

reconcile like nobody's allowed to say Jesus was a good teacher.

He didn't leave that to you. Like we've said before, if I

told you I'm a scrambled egg, you have some choices to make.

Joe Michael's an idiot. He's crazy, bless his heart.

He thinks he's a scrambled egg, but he's not.

Joe Michael's a liar. He knows he's not a scrambled

egg, but he's telling us that he is.

Or wow, Joe Michael truly is a scrambled egg.

It's a it's a reality. In the same way, if somebody

says I'm the Son of God, I am the resurrection and the life,

no one can come to the Father but through me.

You don't get to them. Walk away and go.

I think he's a nice guy. I think he's a good moral

teacher. It makes no sense.

And you haven't handled the facts.

You have not dealt with the real Jesus.

So we want to deal with the real Jesus.

Come to him face to face. Be in awe of him.

The honest person has to make a decision with this moral

teacher, Jesus. If they continue to categorize

him that way, they're calling him a liar.

Or they're calling him a crazy person, in which case,

interestingly enough, also means he's not a good mortal teacher.

Is he? There's another popular false

God who is given the name Jesus, but is not the real Jesus.

We'll call this one Prosperity Jesus.

This version of Jesus exists solely to bless you, to provide

for you, and to make your life easier.

That is what he exists for. That's his purpose.

Is there a kernel of truth in here?

Of course there is the kernel of truth.

Is there a resemblance to the real Jesus?

Yes. The truth is that God does

provide. The truth is that Scripture

teaches God meets our needs, and He even gives us the ability to

produce wealth. The real Jesus commanded us not

to worry because our Father loves us and we'll provide

everything we need. God is a provider.

God will meet the needs of His people.

God is a healer. All those things are true, but

He does not exist to be our spiritual Santa Claus or our

spiritual vending machine where we put in the right behaviors

and then He owes us anything. Everything He gives us is

generous, and there are many promises for His generosity.

But there's an important shift there.

One says, I am so thankful you are so good.

And the other says, yeah, I kind of deserve it.

And like, you know, God's got me, God's with me, God's for me.

Hang on a second, Are you for God?

Because if you're for him and you're living in his house, then

yeah, of course. You said you should expect all

the blessings that a son and a father's house should expect to

receive because of what Jesus has accomplished.

But if you have some American Western entitlement that just

says I'm just so good and like I'm just worth it and I deserve

it and I'm worthy, slow down with all that.

Come back to honoring the one who is worthy, the one who

deserves it. Make sure the glory is pointed

in the right direction. And then of course, can you be a

beneficiary. He loves you and He loves to

provide generously. There's never been a better

father than than God. There's never been a better

ruler than Jesus. He loves to give generously.

He wants his people to thrive with abundance, but he does not

exist to serve in our whim and our demands.

Jesus instead says in Luke 923 if anyone would come after him,

he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow him.

Well, I still think Jesus wants me super super rich.

Well, Jesus once told a super, super rich guy one time, hey, go

sell everything you have and give all, give all the money to

the poor and come and follow me. He was trying to make that young

man even richer. But the young man went away sad.

Why? Because he had much wealth.

I have so much money, but I'm not willing to give it up to

follow Jesus. So the difference is, will Jesus

provide? Yes, he will.

But prosperity Jesus, that's all he's focused on.

And the real Jesus plainly and clearly told people to do things

that not everybody would be willing to do, and that

unfortunately, that young man was not willing to do either.

The real Jesus is not a spiritual vending machine who

serves your desires. The real Jesus is the King who

calls you to serve his desires. It's another false Jesus that

we've heard of, a partial Jesus. This one is not appealing to

anyone in any way. By the way, this false Jesus is

the one we'll call wimpy Jesus. This lying picture of Jesus

shows him as weak, passive and soft.

He's just holding like a barnyard animal and petting it.

And he just poses like in wispy feminine postures for for

paintings. That was how he spent all of his

time. Many are rightfully disgusted by

this false Christ. He's a masculine, He's

emasculated. He's not strong.

He's a victim who got beat up by some Jews and by some Romans

because, you know, he was so busy telling people to be nice

and to get along with each other and he was kind of a punk.

And they just got the best of him.

And we feel sad for him and we're happy for him that he got

raised from the dead. Like, good for him.

I'm sorry. I'm I'm glad that he really was

the Son of God, but it's not the real Jesus.

That's all a lie. Jesus was never weak.

Jesus never allowed anyone to manipulate him.

Jesus never allowed anybody to play him.

He was never passive. He was never soft.

He's very, very gentle. He's very gentle with the broken

hearted. He's very gentle with the humble

when they're crushed by their sin.

He's very compassionate to those who are overwhelmed by life's

tragedies and life's hardships. But that is not the whole story.

He's also furious about self-righteous hypocrisy.

The same real Jesus flipped over tables in the money changers, in

the Money Changers temple. He infuriated everybody enough

that they wanted to kill him. If Jesus just went around

telling everybody to please get along, do you think they would

have had reason to murder him? Go around with the message, hey

everybody, get along. If Jesus just had the Coexist

bumper sticker as his, as his ministry mantra, do you think

they would have wanted to kill him?

Coexist. That's not what he was saying.

That's not the message of Jesus. The message of Jesus was come

and die, eat my flesh and drink my blood.

There's no other way to the Father except through me.

Repent and believe the gospel. That was the message of Jesus.

And he had power, He had authority, He had strength.

So that made the other men jealous of him.

And then again, he didn't walk into their trap.

This was his preparation. This was His plan all along,

that He would save us, that He would rescue us.

This is the Jesus who cracks a whip to intimidate spiritual

wolves. Literally.

He fashioned a whip and then cracked it to intimidate and

frighten people. The real Jesus was not a victim.

He was the ultimate man on a mission who came to save the

whole world. Nobody took his life from Him.

He made that clear. He laid down His life to save

you. Nails did not keep Jesus on a

cross. Physically did they hold his

body up there? Yes physically they did.

The point I'm making is he could have removed himself.

He made that clear in the garden.

Peter cut off the the high priest ear when they came to

arrest him. Jesus said Peter put your sword

away. Lord we got to stop this.

I could stop anything I wanted to.

I could call down legions of angels right now and nuke this

mountain. Put your sword away.

OK boy, y'all are allowed to come arrest me now, and I know

you're supposed to. That was how it went there that

night in the garden. Nobody manipulated Jesus, nobody

controlled Jesus. Jesus submitted himself fully to

his Father's will. So no matter what you've been

told by wimpy people, wimpy Jesus is not a real Jesus.

There's a strong Jesus, there's a compassionate Jesus, there's a

loving Jesus. And he is gentle with the

humble. But if you're not humble, he

will not see a gentle Jesus. Here's another version of Jesus.

We'll call this therapy Jesus. He only exists to comfort and to

affirm. That's all he's here to do.

He's here to tell you everything you really want to hear.

Is there a kernel of truth in this?

Of course there is. We'll get to that in a moment.

But therapy Jesus says, I see you, I feel you, you are enough.

And he never calls you to change and he never holds you

accountable. That's therapy, Jesus, You're

OK. You're OK.

It's your childhood. It was your parents.

It's your trauma. Pastor, careful.

Those are real things. Those are real things.

But the real Jesus heals those things and leads you through

those things. So does he see your problem?

Does he see your difficulty? Yes, he does.

Is he compassionate? Yes, he is.

But does he just go, Yep. It's all them, It's always them,

It's only them. It's never you.

That's the false Jesus. That's an idolatrous Jesus.

That's a lying Jesus who cannot save.

It's a lying Jesus who will not. He won't give you a new life.

He just gives you a pity party. It's the best pity party

anyone's ever had. There's streamers, there's

balloons, and it's all for you and it just keeps you there

forever. That's demonic.

That's not Jesus. That's devastating to your soul.

You don't need to stay in the hole that the enemy wanted to

put you in. Jesus came to pull you out of

the pit. He came to to crown you.

He came to put a new robe on you, put new sandals on your

feet. He came to restore your life and

bring resurrection to A to a destroyed life.

Oh, there's so much death and corruption and brokenness in my

life. You don't know my past.

You don't know the real Jesus. He really loves you and he

really brings resurrection to busted up lives for some of you.

You're like, I don't, I don't have an image of a Jesus who

just passed me on the back all the time and tells me I'm the

greatest. I have an image of a Jesus who

crushes me and overwhelms me and tells me I'm never enough good

news and bad news. Bad news first.

You're not enough good news. Jesus will be enough for you.

That's the point. It's a substitution.

He's the winner, He's the hero. He gets the glory.

It's why he's different from every other moral teacher who

taught, who taught us. You must do these things to

inherit eternal life or to achieve Nirvana or to insert

demonic teaching here. Instead Jesus said I achieved

it, you can receive it, come and follow me.

But he Jesus doesn't tell you someone else is the problem.

The real Jesus doesn't but therapy Jesus with therapy Jesus

your sin is never named. The past wrongs done to you with

therapy Jesus always excuse and explain your present actions.

You don't need to forgive anyone, you don't need to love,

you don't need to grow. Therapy Jesus says you're good

just like you are. That's not a Jesus who saves

you, That's a Jesus who keeps you on a path to hell.

Is there a resemblance to the real Jesus?

Yes, it's true. The real Jesus sympathizes with

us in our weaknesses, Hebrews 415 and 16 says.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with

our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted

as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence

draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy

and find grace to help in a time of need.

You'll see those commercials that came out.

They say he gets us. Did you see them?

I looked at their website. I was like, where's the gospel?

Come on, tell the truth. Tell the truth.

Give me the real Jesus. It was just therapy, Jesus.

It was social justice, Jesus, but it but Joe Michael didn't

that yes, of course there's a kernel of truth.

There's still water in the glass with the poison.

But how much poison do you want in your water?

Right, Because a glass of water with poison in it still kills

you. So Jesus, he gets us.

He does get us. He does.

I agree and let's continue to the whole truth about the real

Jesus. He does get us.

He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

The Bible keeps making a big deal of this thing called sin.

It's a really big deal to God. Therapy.

Jesus never says anything about that S word.

That S word is a four letter word in the therapy world.

There's no such thing as sin. It's just my trauma in my

baggage, in my background, and the things done to me and all

you other people who are mean to me and hurt my feelings.

But the real Jesus, does he get us.

He does get us and He empowers us, but to what end?

To obey him. The real Jesus is the friend who

sits closer than a brother. And the full truth is that he

also, because he is a friend, he calls you to repent, to turn

from sin, and to follow him. He comforts you, He heals you,

and he also commands you. He's like the total package.

The real Jesus is the whole thing, the whole truth, and

nothing but the truth. Which leads us to an X Jesus.

We're talking about the Jesus who commands the next Jesus is

rule book Jesus, the law giving Jesus.

This is the Jesus who requires your religious performance to

save. You better be in church on

Easter. Good thing you all checked that

box this morning. Better be in church on

Christmas. You better tip your hat to the

man upstairs. You better do just, you know,

general nice Christian, God loving kind of stuff.

But more than that, this is where you have to actually earn

your standing with God by what you do.

This one's interesting because a lot of the other false Jesuses,

they're all lacking one massive thing.

They all have this one big thing in common, all the false

Jesuses, they all lack authority.

A lot of false Jesuses, not all of them, this one doesn't, but a

lot of false Jesuses, they're like, oh, they focus on this.

They focus on this. They focus they're

interestingly, they're all missing one thing, his authority

over you. He's a friend and a counselor.

Well, he is and well, he's a this he is and but they leave

out the and he doesn't have actual authority.

I have a problem with authority. You're really not going to like

the real Jesus, but I would encourage you open your heart to

Him because He does love you. He does love you, He does hate

wickedness, and He does still love you.

That's why He suffered for you. Rule book Jesus, though he

crushes you, He overwhelms you with what He requires you to

accomplish. Followers of rule book Jesus

have confidence in their own actions.

They have confidence in their church attendance.

They have confidence in their prayers.

They have confidence in their giving.

They have confidence in their belief.

They have confidence in their works.

If you were to ask them, hey, how do you know you're going to

heaven when you die? They can start rambling off the

list of accomplishments of the things that they do.

There's one answer to how you know you're going to heaven.

How do you how sure are you you're saved on a scale of 1 to

10? Friends, everybody, your answer.

I want you to be able to say 10 today.

I'm certain it's a 10. How are you certain it's a 10?

Because Jesus died for my sins and I have fully trusted in Him

and submitted to the lordship of Him.

I'm his disciple now. Don't you still have sin in your

life? I do sin.

I hate when I sin because it's against my nature and my Master.

So I repent of my sins and I seek to still follow Him because

He saved me and He made me new. Well, don't you have to do a

bunch of stuff? I want to do a bunch of stuff.

And yes, there are many commands in my Bible that I attempt to

obey and much Jesus requires of me.

But Jesus saved me. Jesus earned it.

Jesus paid it. I can't earn it.

I can't deserve it. Nobody's going to get to heaven

and be able to say I belong here.

I did it, I did it. Everybody's just going to get

there and go. Jesus did it.

He really actually did it. Is it true?

Is there some kernel of truth here?

It's true that Jesus gives many commands, and obedience to him

does matter. But there's a fuller truth about

the real Jesus. Ephesians 2 tells us what it is.

He says, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which

he once walked, following the course of this world, following

the Prince in the power of the air.

You know, the Bible really hurts my feelings sometimes.

The Bible says I used to follow Satan.

The Bible says you follow Satan outside of Christ, and before

Christ you followed Satan. That's who the Prince and the

power of the air is. I'm not some Satan follower,

except that the Bible says that I was.

So I'm going to humble myself and agree with him.

You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once

walked. He's talking to already

Christians now, following the course of this world, following

the Prince and power of the air, the spirit that is now at work

in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in

the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the

flesh and the mind. We were by nature children of

wrath, like the rest of mankind. God has wrath for us absolutely.

Oh wait, there's good news. But God being rich in mercy,

because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we

were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with

Christ. By grace you have been saved and

raised up with Him. And He and He raised us up with

Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ

Jesus. Why did He do that?

So that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable

riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ

Jesus. For by grace you have been saved

through faith. This is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one

may boast. For we are his workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared

beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Are we supposed to do good stuff?

Yeah, but we can't unless Christ actually makes us new.

So Christ makes us new and then we say, well, I have new desires

now. It's almost like I'm a new

creation. It's almost like I've been born

again. The first time I was born out of

my mother, but the second time I was born out of the Spirit of

God. So the first time I was born

from sinful flesh because all, all humans are sinful after our

fall from Adam. And the second time I'm

conceived by the Holy Spirit in a sense, and I have this new

birth. Jesus has taken the wrath that I

deserved and now I get the righteousness that he achieved.

What a wild and amazing substitution In that we see all

the perfection of God. We see that God is just.

He doesn't just say it's OK, I'll overlook it because if any

judge in any courtroom just said it's OK, I'll overlook it.

Would that judge be just say no, no, that judge would be wicked.

So God would be wicked if he just said we won't say nothing

about that. That's a wicked God.

It's not just so we can't have an unjust God, but we're doomed

because now he has to punish our wickedness.

But God who is rich in mercy, he sent his only Son to save us, to

rescue us. The real Jesus is not rule book

Jesus who crushes you with what you must accomplish.

The real Jesus teaches that your obedience is not the cause of

your salvation. His obedience is the cause of

your salvation and your obedience is the result of your

salvation. That was another Jesus that you

may be familiar with. This false Jesus, I call him

country music Jesus. I like country music, by the

way. I don't like country music

Jesus. He's a false God.

They can take a good song that I'm enjoying and then they put

country music Jesus in and I'm disgusted by it.

Country music Jesus is when it it's it's very clever for

songwriting. I will acknowledge that.

You acknowledge like the moonshine on Saturday night, you

know, like we're living in sin and debauchery.

And then but you know, church on Sunday morning, you know, on the

back row going, you know, and put a put, you know, make sure

you put a $5 in the plate. Wow, Wow, Randy, you have, you

have atoned for all of your sins because you tipped your hat to

the man upstairs. You know, I mean, there, there's

so many songs there. There's a song a couple years,

years back that came a a girl was singing and she says driving

down the road or something on the highway.

She's like, yeah, I guess that's my church.

Stupid, just stupid. It's just bad theology and it's

not the real Jesus. Well, to me, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we're but we're, but we're we're tearing down idols.

That's what we do. When you love the pure and the

real thing, you tear down the false, which is what God told

people, his Israelites to do. He said when you go into the

promised land, there are wicked and demonic people.

They do everything that I hate and I every single thing you

find, every shrine, every temple, every altar, I want you

to burn it all, all of it. Don't keep the gold.

Burn it and destroy it all. Turn it all to rubble because

it's filthy and I hate it. So if it seems as though I am

jealous for the glory of Jesus, I'm not sorry.

I am jealous for the glory of Jesus because I want you to know

the real Jesus because I know him.

And if you know the real Jesus, you'll love the real Jesus and

you will be disgusted by any other thing.

You're like, yeah, get that, Get that filter.

You take a sip of that water and you spit it out as fast as you

can. That's poison.

That's poison. And that will kill me.

I don't want any poison in my water. 0 drops of poison please.

Full glass of Jesus, please. Nothing else.

No additives, no American gospel, no any other variation.

Anything in front of the gospel other than just the gospel is

some variation that I don't want.

And it won't save you. It's not my Jesus, it's the

Jesus of the Bible. I just want you to face the real

1. That way you're happy someday to

face the real 1 and not afraid to face the real 1.

Country music. Jesus is there when life gets

hard. You're on the back porch with a

beer. Things go wrong.

You got to throw up. A quick prayer to the man

upstairs. He's sentimental, he's

emotional, and he is very convenient.

He just requires that you again, do right.

Tip your hat to the man upstairs.

You know, like me and the Lord have an understanding.

Really, where is that? What covenant do you have with

Him? Because this is what His Word

says. And I know what Jesus requires.

I know Jesus calls us to carry our cross.

Is there a partial truth here? Of course there is.

The partial truth is Jesus really is near and a quick shot

up prayer and a moment of overwhelm and desperation is one

that the Lord will hear an answer.

But His kindness and grace in that moment to comfort is not

his full throated approval of your whole life and an

encouragement to continue on a path that doesn't walk with him.

That's what Randy, our country music, Jesus love and body

doesn't understand. He takes the kindness of God as

an encouragement to continue to ignore God instead of an

invitation to say I love you, actually follow me and walk with

me. Don't just turn on K love

whenever you really need a spiritual boost.

Jesus is compassionate. He does meet normal, real rural

people. He called rural people.

Jesus loves country boys. Jesus loves country girls.

He called them to be his followers.

There was a whole joke about Nazareth.

We know this culturally. There's a whole joke.

It was out in the sticks. Galileans were like the Guinea

Bubba's and that's where Jesus was from.

And they would often say, can anything good come from

Nazareth? It was a famous phrase.

Jesus loves country, folks. It's true.

Jesus also loves city folks, if you can believe it.

It's true. Just a joke, just a little

preacher joke. Not joking that he doesn't love

city. He does love city folks.

Jesus loves everybody. He's compassionate.

He meets people in their lowest moments.

The Lord is near to the broken hearted and He saves the crushed

in spirit. But the whole truth is, he

doesn't just show up only to comfort you.

He comes to lead you. He calls you to repent, to

follow Him. He never intended to just be a

sentimental icon hanging from your mirror in your car.

A superstitious lucky rabbit's foot that happens to be in the

shape of a crucifix. He calls you to surrender your

life to him. He said in Luke 923.

If any would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his

cross and follow me. He's not just there when you

need him. He is Lord all the time.

Another common version that we hear about a false Jesus similar

to country music Jesus. I call this one national mascot

Jesus. He's the Jesus of we are a

Christian nation. This is the Jesus that people

attach to their tribe, to their politics, and they attach him.

They bolt him on to the side of the thing that they love and

that they already believe in. He becomes a great accessory,

and he becomes a convenient and useful resource for the agenda.

They put him on the team, they wear him like a logo, and they

assume that he is with them. What's the partial truth?

Well, the partial truth is that Jesus really is king over

America. He has authority over all of it,

and it's right to publicly identify with him and not be

ashamed of his name. But the whole truth is that

Jesus does not belong to any nation.

Every nation belongs to Jesus. He's not an appendage that comes

on to the side. He is the head, He is the

authority over all nations. Well, this is a Christian

nation, as it should be. And by the way, quick history

lesson, yes, our nation was founded and built upon the

teachings of Scripture. That's why it's been so good.

That's why it's been the most blessed nation in the history of

the world. Because even though guys who

didn't love and follow King Jesus like Thomas Jefferson,

they still said, yeah, give me most of that Bible, please.

And because of that and many others were God fearing men.

Your colonies were divided by their religious worship, by the

way. So everything was so focused on

God and His will in his way that we ended up having the greatest

nation in the history of the world.

Has it been declining? It has.

And the more people get away from obedience to the

Scriptures, the more things do decline.

So in that sense, are we a Christian nation?

Sure. I can go along with that as long

as we fully clarify every nation belongs to Jesus.

There's not one spot in all creation, not anything that

Artemis is looking at on the moon or anywhere else that Jesus

does not point to and say that's mine.

He said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to

me. Jesus is not on your side or on

my side. We are called to submit to his.

What's Jesus's side? That's the side I'm on.

So I don't say God's on my side. I'm like, I better be on his.

That's my perspective. God's with me.

Well, he is, and there's promises that say that.

And yet the implication is because I'm his, because I'm

his. So my sons could confidently say

my father is for me. My father's with me.

Well, yeah, as long as they're not robbing a bank.

And so, yeah, when they're within my will, absolutely, they

get my full strength, provision, leadership, all of it.

My wife can count on all of that.

But like, there would be limits to this.

All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him, and

we're closing now. The point is, the real Jesus

commands are full allegiance. The issue that we're seeing is

that many people are willing to accept parts of Jesus.

They like certain aspects of him, but they reject others.

If you've created a Jesus in your own image, then you don't

have the real Jesus. And the real Jesus is better

than you think. He's better than anything you

would create. He's better than your

imagination and any, any, any ill will that you might have

towards him is some misunderstanding.

Any negative emotion you have towards the Lord Jesus Christ.

I assure you with comfort. Now that you have some

misunderstanding, that's good news.

Well, I'm upset about and I'm mad at God, for I assure you I

might not have all the answers to the details of that

situation. But the thing I'm sure of is if

if you don't look to God and see Him as loving and good and kind

to you and faithful and wonderful and worthy of your

obedience and love, there's just some misunderstanding even

still, because He is that good. You were built and designed to

love Him, to worship Him and to care about Him.

You said you don't want any poison in your glass of water.

Because a partial truth is still dangerous.

A distorted version of Jesus cannot save you.

A half truth Jesus is still a false Jesus.

Many will stand before him on that day.

Lord, Lord, did we not? Did we not do enough?

Did we not do the right things? They're going to point to their

church attendance, their morality, their efforts.

But the issue is not what they did.

The issue is whether or not they knew him.

Our response to the Lord is not, Lord, look what I can do.

Look what I've done. Our response needs to be Lord.

Lord, I've looked at what you've done.

Salvation is not built upon your performance.

It's built upon his good news. He nailed it.

He did it perfectly. That was the whole issue.

God had to punish sin, but God loved humanity.

So he said, I will make a temporary solution here.

I will let you kill animals in a in a very systematic and in a

structured way that satisfies my justice temporarily.

You can kill bulls and you can kill goats and you can kill

lambs and all these sacrifices for thousands of years, So much

bloodshed, so many animals, but it wasn't enough.

Why? Well, humans send.

So how can killing a sheep get humanity out of the mess that

humanity has made? It's temporary and it's not

fully satisfactory to the Lord's justice.

His wrath is not fully satisfied, he says, but it'll be

enough for now, He says. But I'm going to send a lamb to

end all lambs. If only one innocent human could

suffer, and if they would volunteer themselves, the Lord

could say this act of love and sacrifice.

I can let all the guilty go free now, because justice can be

satisfied, but there is no innocent human.

Which brings us to the need of the virgin birth, because sin

travels through the Father. So now we have borne A sinless,

spotless human being who now goes and lives a perfect,

sinless life. He's tempted, He's tested, He's

tried in every way, just like you and I.

He's a man on a mission. He's the eternal God.

He's the author of life. He's the resurrection and he

says Father, I will suffer. But he goes into the garden that

night overwhelmed by grief, crushed by sadness, crushed by

the weight of what he is about to experience, the separation of

his Father's presence, which has never happened in eternity of

eternities. The full wrath of the Father

coming down on an innocent one, and the torment of the Roman

nails. Do you mind grabbing your wrist

finding between those two bones? It's just your thumb and your

finger. It's not a spike driving you to

a wooden beam. I was watching a crucifixion

expert talk about it the other day.

He was saying, he said he's I try not to offend people and

bother people too much with this, he said.

But they actually straddled the cross with their feet, and they

drove a spike through each ankle, not through the top of

the feet as is often shown. And media and things.

I didn't know that he said, yeah, we can see.

We studied ankle bones and we've seen it all.

And we put it together so impaled from each ankle from

each side, and a crown of thorns mashed onto his skull and onto

his head. And the beating that he suffered

under the Romans. We didn't have no idea how many

stripes it was because they could have.

They could have continued with all kinds of savagery.

But it's an innocent man. And here's the part that false

Jesuses wouldn't have told us. You deserved all of that.

This is the good news of the Gospel.

A lot of people have heard God loves you and he has a wonderful

plan for your life, but they haven't heard, Hey, my friend,

that matters. First of all, because you

actually deserved what Jesus got.

That's the whole point. Here's us and here's Jesus.

We should have been crushed and destroyed and annihilated and

God should have just said forget them never mind.

And Jesus should have been glorified in worship.

But instead the Father crushed his Son so that we could be

glorified and elevated. The scripture says he became

sin, not he committed sin. He became sin.

Who knew no sin that we could become the righteousness of God

in Christ. Preacher, I just wanted a happy

Easter sermon and I wanted to get to Mama's lunch by, you

know, 10:45. I don't know if you'll make it

by 10:45, but you'll get there. But we wanted to get past this

whole misunderstanding of yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm super happy for

that Jesus guy. I'm glad he was raised from the

dead. But many don't know why it

matters. Why does it matter that Jesus

was raised from the dead? Why couldn't he just die?

Why did he have to be raised from the dead?

The reason we celebrate the resurrection is because Jesus is

resurrection from the dead. First of all, if you love him,

you don't want your king dead. Those who don't care about him,

and they're just like he died for my sins.

Cool, cool. I'm good, I'll go to heaven,

right? But if you would be happy in a

heaven without Jesus, then I assure you, you're not on your

way to heaven. If you'd be happy, I just want

to get to heaven. I don't need it to be a Jesus.

I don't care if it's budo, I don't care if it's all.

I don't care who's there as long as I get to heaven.

My dear friend, I assure you, you're not on your way to heaven

because only loving the Lord Jesus Christ and receiving his

sacrifice and believing in His gospel will get you into heaven.

But I want you to have clarity. I don't want you to be like a

child singing Father Abraham. I want you to understand Jesus

had to be raised because Jesus is reigning now and he's going

to reign forever. And Jesus's resurrection also

proves that the Father receives his sacrifice.

I could say I was going to die for your sins right now and walk

out into traffic. How will you know if I did it?

It was the resurrection that proved Jesus really is Lord and

King and he is everyone. He is everything he said he is.

He's the real Jesus. He's the full package.

He's not a piece of it. And he's so much better.

He's the diamond that you turned.

Yes, there's another facet. There's another way.

The light hits and you go, wow, I see Jesus that way, but it's

still the real Jesus. And there's the whole diamond

that we honor, that we glorify in.

Christ Jesus paid it all. We sing that song.

Why? Because you owed it all.

The resurrection matters because it proves his payment was

accepted. He did not stay in the grave.

He rose. He walked among his disciples.

He ascended into heaven. They saw him.

They watched him go up into heaven after 40 days of hanging

out together, and he reigns today.

The real Jesus, not a version that we create, is the Jesus

that can save you. I'm going to close with John

John 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 if you want to go there with me.

And then we're going to close with one more song together,

John 316 through 21. For God so loved the world that

he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should

not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the

world, but in order that the world might be saved through

him. Whoever believes in him is not

condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already

because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

This is the judgment. The light has come into the

world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light

because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked

things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his

works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true

comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his

works have been carried out in God.

Would you stand to your feet?