Come and See the Savior | What Does It Mean to Believe in Jesus?

Marcel: We are continuing a sermon series, Daniel mentioned it in

the welcome, called Come and See.

And so it's mentioned a couple times in the Gospel of John, and

specifically in John chapter 1, where they ask Jesus, "Where are you going?"

John 1 · chapter mention

And he says, "Hey, why don't you come and see?"

He invites them, "Hey, why don't you come check this out?"

And then, uh, uh, Nathaniel goes and, uh, and Philip in this conversation,

and he's inquiring about Jesus.

He's trying to share about Jesus and he says, "You know, why

don't you just come and see."

And so this is an invitation for all of us for the next couple of months here

to come and see Jesus for ourselves.

To be able to see him, maybe for the first time.

Maybe for some of us to get reacquainted with Jesus, or for us to see some

things about Jesus that we need to be reminded of and maybe we forgot or

maybe we get a chance to be in awe of.

And I don't know about you, but I need to be reminded of things in my relationships.

Uh, just a couple…

Actually, I think it was maybe last week or two weeks ago, uh, we had a,

uh, some type of meeting, and I always like to have some deep conversation.

And so I wanted everybody to share what was their favorite ice cream.

Getting real deep up in here.

And Karina shares, my wife Karina shares, and she says her favorite

ice cream is mint chocolate chip.

That's my favorite ice cream.

But I'm confessing right now, and I didn't tell this to Karina, I don't

know why I do this to myself, but I had forgot that Karina's favorite

ice cream was mint chocolate chip.

Okay.

And I was like, "Really?"

But I didn't say anything, gotta keep it cool.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I was like, "Wow, is that right?

No wonder we're married."

You know what I'm saying?

But it was good to be reminded of this truth, that we have this thing together.

And so when we come and see Jesus, whether you're coming for the first

time or you're coming to Jesus for the 45th year of your life in Christ,

we need to come and see him, and we're gonna see new things about him.

We're gonna see old things that we know.

We're gonna be refreshed, but we're gonna be able to get a clearer

view- Yeah … of who Jesus is.

A clearer view of what he does and wants to do in our lives, and then a clearer

view of how to respond to this Jesus.

And so, so far in our series, we've looked at coming and seeing the greatest, how

Jesus is the Word of God, the Logos.

And go online and you can hear the sermon about that, because there's so much

to this idea of Jesus being the Logos.

That's a Greek word there.

I won't get into it again.

Go to online and you can watch the sermon there.

And then last week, Kyle talked about coming and seeing the divine,

how the miracles or the signs, the miracles are really signs, that point

to Jesus's definity, and divinity.

And so today, we're gonna be talking about coming and seeing the Savior.

Right.

Come and see the Savior.

Let's go ahead, let's go to God in prayer.

Father, thank you so much for already the chance to connect with you, to

sing songs and be reminded of your truth, and how you are the King,

and your name is above all names.

And God, we're grateful that we can rejoice in Jesus because he is the Savior.

And Father, I pray right now that your Word will commun- be communicated in

a fashion where every soul will hear exactly what they need to hear about who

you are and how you want them to respond.

We pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Come and see the Savior.

You know, we're all looking for, sometimes, some saviors.

I know the Angel fans were hoping that Stan Krokeng, the new owner,

will be the savior for the Angels.

And so he's raising his hand, yes, because if you didn't

know, the Angels are being sold.

And so all the Angel fans are fired up right now because we're like,

"We're gonna have a owner who's actually gonna care about the team."

You know what I'm saying?

Who actually wants the team to win.

If you're a Rams fan, you thought that Miles Garrett would be the

savior, and then you saw the game on Thursday Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, they didn't look too good, Kyle, did they?

No.

They sure didn't.

And in fact, they played those mighty, mighty 49ers.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And the 49ers showed them you ain't got no savior in Miles Garrett.

Uh, as you can know, I'm a 49ers fan, right, Drew?

That's how we get down.

Here we go.

The faithful is in the building.

The 49ers fans are called the Faithful.

How could you not appreciate that?

Yeah.

That's a spiritual term, so if you're not a 49er fan, repent and come and see

the 49ers and be a part of the Faithful.

Amen.

Yeah.

Now that I've alienated many of us, let's get into the word of God.

But that's okay, I got the Savior with me.

Amen.

Amen.

We're gonna go to John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

Now, this is a chapter that many of us are very familiar with.

We're gonna read a lot here.

We're also gonna have to summarize some stuff here for the sake of time.

And so I definitely wanna encourage you to write down some things that, that,

that strike you so that you can go over and look over these things for yourself

and be able to study these things out and be able to come and see 'cause there's so

much about Jesus, there's so much about theology here and how we should view God

and how we should view, uh, God's will.

But we won't be able to get into all those particulars today.

So in John chapter 3, we're gonna start off in verse one.

John 3 · chapter mention

It says, "Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a

member of the Jewish ruling council."

So this is a big wig right here, okay?

This is a big-time guy in the Jewish community there.

He's a part of what we would…

uh, what's been called the Sanhedrin.

And so he's one of the top leaders there.

A lot of respect and then probably a wealthy guy from

what we learn later about him.

It says that, "This man came to Jesus at night," in verse two, "and

said, 'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for

no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.'"

Again, this ties back in to what we looked at last week in John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

These signs are pointing to Jesus, and, and Nicodemus is understanding and

observing something, okay, he's doing these miraculous things, so it must

mean that God is at least with him.

So we're not sure if he's fully believing that Jesus is more than just

somebody who did a couple signs or he's skeptical, but he can recognize that

those miraculous signs are pointing to God's presence and activity.

We go, we continue in verse three.

"Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you…'"

Whenever Jesus, you see these words, very truly or truly,

truly, he's like, "Hey, listen up.

Make sure you're paying attention to what I'm about to tell you."

He says, "'Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of

God unless they are born again.'

'How can someone be born when they are old?'

Nicodemus asked."

That's a reasonable question.

"What do you mean you have to be born again?

That doesn't make sense in order for me to see the Kingdom of God.

Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born again.

I, are you telling me that I, I'm supposed to somehow be born again?

I'm supposed to go back into my mo- that, that doesn't make

a lot of sense to me, Jesus."

We continue.

"Jesus answered, 'Very truly I tell you…'"

Listen up.

"'No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born

of water and the Spirit.'"

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

You should not be surprised at me saying you must be born again.

The wind blows wherever it pleases.

You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Let's just stop right there.

Man, I would love to be able to have that be our entire sermon,

but we're, we're not going to.

And so I'm just gonna go ahead and just point out a couple of quick things here,

and I want you to maybe go ahead, take a picture, if you will, or write these

things down here on the screen here.

And this idea of being born again or born of water and

Spirit, Nicodemus doesn't get it.

How can someone be physically born?

Obviously, Jesus didn't mean literally you have to be physically born.

What He was pointing to was a spiritual birth.

And He ties it in, He says this whole water and Spirit thing.

Now, the initial readers and listeners of this letter from John would have

automatically connected the dots and said, "Jesus is referring to baptism."

And even Nicodemus, you can argue, or some scholars would argue,

that he should have received this.

He should have understood this.

And so I just wanna point you to a couple things that will

help you out on your own there.

Because in Ezekiel, there's this connection of what God's gonna do,

not only for the people then, but a future fulfillment of this prophecy

that ties in water cleansing and a new life with the Spirit of God.

Acts chapter 2, after Jesus died and resurrected, and He ascends to

Acts 2 · chapter mention

heaven, and the s- church starts, and we have the, the inauguration

of the church, how did they enter?

They entered through baptism, which Peter says that you will, you will also receive

the Holy Spirit, again, a new life.

Romans chapter 6, the Apostle Paul talks about baptism and how that's

Romans 6 · chapter mention

the point at which we have a new life.

And then in John chapter 3, where if you keep going down,

John 3 · chapter mention

this is so interesting, right?

Jesus is talking about this whole born of water and spirit, and

immediately after this interaction, they start talking about Jesus'

ministry and John's ministry baptizing.

And so all you have to do is connect these clues, and you can get it.

But then also a little, little fun fact here is that all the church fathers of the

first 400 years of Christianity considered this to be a reference to baptism.

Yeah.

And so this is this idea of being born again or born from above, 'cause it

also could be translated as above or born anew, and it's this spiritual

rebirth that takes place at baptism.

That's our little teaching for the moment here.

I gotta keep moving.

All right, Church, are you still with me?

Yeah.

All right.

We're gonna go to John chapter 3, and we're gonna go down to verse

John 3 · chapter mention

13, but let's just catch you up to speed in verses 9 through 12.

Nicodemus, he's still not understanding kind of what's going on, so Jesus

says, "If you don't understand these things that I'm telling you,

and how are you gonna believe when I give you some deeper teaching?"

And so we take it up in verse 13.

"No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came

from heaven, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man

must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him."

Okay, let's stop right there for a quick second here.

Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man.

To help the Jews and those who knew their Bible, that it's a reference

back to Ezekiel and how many times it talks about the Son of Man.

Again, pointing to him being the Chosen One, the Anointed One, the Messiah,

the Christ, the Savior of the world.

But he makes this reference to this whole idea, this story about Moses

lifting up a snake in the wilderness, and what's he referring to is that back

in Numbers 21, when God's people had…

You know, remember the Prince of Egypt movie?

Remember that movie?

Okay, all right.

There you go.

Some of you are with me there.

All right, so this is when Moses takes the people, he leads the people out, right?

And they're on their way to the Promised Land.

And so in Numbers 21, the Israelites, they sinned against God.

They were rebelling.

They were, they were mad.

They were grumbling against God.

And so these poisonous snakes happen, and they start biting

people, and people start dying.

And they realize, "Uh-oh, we're in trouble.

We sinned.

Hey, Moses, we sinned.

Hey, can you pray to God so that we can no longer have this

occurrence in our community?"

And so God tells Moses, "Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go ahead and make this snake, put it…

a bronze snake.

Put it on a pole, and then I want you to lift it up.

And everyone, when you lift it up, everyone who looks at the bronze

snake, they will be healed and live."

And so that's what happened.

And so now Jesus says, "Hey, you know what?

The Son of Man," referring to himself, "he too must be lifted up."

And we know that's a reference to the cross.

And when he is lifted up, and when we look to him as the source of salvation, we

too will be healed and live for eternity.

Let's continue in John 3:16.

John 3:16

Brothers and sisters, are you still with me here?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Here we go.

"For God so loved…"

Uh-oh, here you go.

Everybody know this one.

John 3:16, you can see it on the street sometimes.

John 3:16

You can see it on the, on the football field.

In fact, many football games going on today, I'm sure we'll see at

least one sign with John 3:16.

John 3:16

The famous John 3:16.

John 3:16

Here we go.

It says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,

that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through Him.

Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not

believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in

the name of God's one and only Son.

This is the verdict.

Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of

light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for

fear that their deeds will be exposed."

Isn't that real?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But whoever, uh, here we go.

Uh, let's go, let's go to 20.

All right, here we go.

"But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be

seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God."

Yeah.

Ain't that just rich scripture right there?

Yeah.

This is the gospel wrapped up in a couple of verses.

And it says here, "For God so loved the world."

You ever so loved something-

Some of you like, "Yeah."

Some of you like, "Uh, I don't know if I so loved it."

So loved means, man, this is big.

You mean, you, you value it so much that you'll do something, that you'll

sacrifice, that you'll spend the time and the energy because you so love it.

And for God, He so loved you and I that He said, "I'm gonna send my Son so that

they can have eternal life with me."

He didn't just love the world, He so loved the world

We continue.

It says, uh, we're, we're gonna skip on down to verse 31 here.

Let me give you a recap here of John 3:22-30.

John 3:22–30

So it goes on and talks about Jesus' ministry, He's baptizing people, and

then John the Baptist, uh, this is John who's the, the forerunner for Jesus.

He's like the opening act for, for God's people there so that they

can know that, that the true main headline event is here in Jesus.

And so John the Baptist, his disciples come up to him and they're

saying, "Hey, that guy you told us about, yeah, he, he, he…"

There's so many people going to him, and they're coming to him, and, and

they're basically a little nervous that John the Baptist and his crew, that

they won't have the same popularity or that these people will go to Jesus.

And John the Baptist replies, "I am fired up about this.

This is good news."

He says, "I'm a, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'm like a, a, I'm

like a groomsman in a wedding.

Jesus, He's the groom.

Nobody cares about the groomsmen.

We care about the groom."

And so he says, "Look, I, I'm fired up.

This is good.

And in fact, I need to become less, and Jesus needs to become greater."

Man, that's a sermon right there, but we don't have time for that.

Okay.

All right.

In verse 31, it continues.

It says, "The one who comes from above is above all."

Amen.

"The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and

speaks as one from the earth.

The one who comes from heaven is above all.

He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.

Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God

gives the Spirit without limits.

The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects

the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them."

We'll stop right there.

John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

If we take a step back and we look and we say, "Come and see,"

what do we see about Jesus?

We see this: Jesus is the Savior.

Yeah.

Jesus is the Savior.

And what's really cool about this, at least for me as you're

going through the chapters…

Now, remember when it was originally written, they didn't

have chapters and verses, but it helps us to identify scriptures.

So as we read chapter 3, we see this progression of realization

or unveiling of who Jesus is.

We already see it in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

We see some more in John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

But we see it again progress even in the lives and the people in John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

From Nicodemus, what does he start off by telling Jesus?

"Hey, you are a rabbi.

You're a teacher."

Now, this is interesting, because Jesus didn't go to their

formal schools of teaching.

So again, those signs point in Nicodemus to go, "Okay, you weren't,

like, you weren't in school with us, but we can tell that God is with you."

Yeah.

And then we keep seeing, and it moves on from teacher to Messiah to the Son

of God, and we see this progression.

We see it from teacher and rabbi to now Jesus is the one who comes from heaven,

and it needs to be lifted up so that people would then have eternal life.

We see it now, he's also mentioned that he's the one and only Son of God,

that he's the Savior of all the world.

He comes from heaven and he's the Son of God.

Therefore, he has authority to speak on spiritual things, on things that matter

to God or the things of God because why?

He is from heaven, and he has everything in his hands from the Father.

Jesus is the Savior He wasn't just a teacher.

He wasn't just a religious figure.

He wasn't a guy who was just very nice trying to spread love to everybody.

He is the Savior.

Yes.

Amen.

And what does this Savior offer us?

He offers us eternal life.

Jesus, the Son of God, offers every one of us a gift of eternal life.

Oh, sorry, let me go back here.

All right

Now y'all wondering what we gonna say about that.

Actually, I think the slide might be out of order there, Cathy there.

It should be, uh, belief in Jesus.

That should be the next slide there.

All right.

Can we go to that slide there real quickly there?

All right.

And so what does Jesus offer?

He offers us…

No, no, that's not it.

That's not it right there either.

Let's come on back here.

All right, here we go.

All right.

We having technical difficulties.

It should be believing Jesus leads to eternal life.

That should be the slide right there.

Believing Jesus leads to eternal life there.

If you're listening online, there was some technical difficulties.

It's all good.

All right, you guys back with me here.

Yeah.

Amen.

All right.

So Jesus offers us eternal life, and it says that if we believe in

Jesus then we can have eternal life.

It's mentioned three times just in this chapter, this idea of I believe in

Jesus, then I can receive eternal life.

And that eternal life means more than simply living forever.

It means more than that.

Number one, it's in the context of what?

A new birth.

So this eternal life is a new life with God dwelling within

us, with God's Holy Spirit.

It's being saved from condemnation and saved from judgments.

You know, Dwight mentioned, hey, we can sing and not feel judged by anyone.

Well, it- when we believe in Jesus, we don't have to worry about being

judged for our singing, and hallelujah, 'cause a brother can't sing that well.

But we don't have to stand insecure before the judgment of God because why?

We are saved from judgment and condemnation.

Right.

Amen.

But this life with God begins when we have a new birth.

So what does that mean?

Eternal life begins at the point of salvation.

In John, we, it's a sneak peek here, later on in the chap…

in, in, in, I think it's John chapter 7, John tells us this and reveals

John 7 · chapter mention

where he, he, he quotes Jesus saying that, "Eternal life is to know God."

And so this eternal life is living forever, but it starts now.

So if you are saved, you have already begun eternal life.

Amen.

Because you have now have life with you that will continue forever.

That is what Jesus offer us.

And none of us can produce that new birth, we can't remove our own condemnation,

or we cannot earn eternal life.

We need a savior, and God has given us that in Jesus.

Amen.

We need a savior.

Some of us, we're more in tune with that.

We understand that.

Some of us, we don't realize that.

We don't get that that much, and we think we can earn it.

But see, the r- the great thing is that Jesus is the Savior, so that means,

though, that not my church affiliation, not my good deeds, not my Bible knowledge,

not my avoidance of sins, but only Jesus can e- have me enter into eternal life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's good news.

That is good news.

'Cause our salvation and our eternal life in Jesus are only

found in and through Jesus.

If it depended on you, you're gonna fail.

I don't know about you, but you might have failed on the way up here.

You might have failed afterwards.

You might have not listened to Dwight, and you might have judged somebody.

Come on.

And so if we were the ones who had to be our Savior, we're in trouble,

just like the Rams with Miles Garrett.

You in trouble.

You waiting on Aaron Donald.

He's a savior.

See how it goes?

They waiting for Aaron Donald.

Y'all need to start waiting for Jesus, you know what I'm saying?

I know.

I mean, we, we gonna be in trouble if the Rams beat the 49ers next time.

Amen.

Here's the thing here, brothers and sisters, is that look

again here at John 3:16.

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son," sent

His Son, live a perfect life, but then also to die upon the cross so

that our sins could be wiped out.

"That whoever believes shall not perish, but have eternal life.

For God did not send the w- Son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through Him."

This is God initiating.

God wasn't asked.

God wasn't forced.

God was compelled out of His own love to do something about our sin problem,

about our destruction problem, 'cause sin destroys our lives and our relationships.

And so God initiated on His own, and He said, "You know what?

Jesus gonna come down, and He's going to save the world when He comes.

He didn't come to condemn the world."

And who'd He come to save?

The world.

So what does that mean?

All, not some.

Jesus came to save all and not some.

Jesus came to save and not condemn all.

He came to save you and me.

He came to save the Jew and the Gentile.

That's the non-Jew.

He came to save the religious and the atheist or the agnostic.

He came to save those who are lovely and those who are hard to love.

He came to save the goody two-shoe and the criminal.

He came to save the liberal and the conservative.

Right.

He came to save the American and Iranian.

He came to save the heterosexual and the homosexual.

He came to save the rich and the poor.

He came to save the educated and the uneducated, the

celebrity and the average Joe.

He came to save you, me, your mama, your cousin too, and all of them.

Amen.

Jesus came to save, not to condemn.

This is why we call it good news.

This is why we call it good news.

You can't talk about this and not smile, because it's good news.

Man, Jesus came to save all everybody.

Yes.

You can't be like, "Man, Jesus came to save everybody."

"What's up with that?

That ain't cool."

That means we don't understand a savior.

That'll mean we don't, we don't understand the heart of God.

Yeah.

If you think God came to condemn, then you don't understand the heart of God.

Amen.

God came to pull us into an eternal relationship with him.

Why?

Because he loves us.

Yeah.

Not because you're good enough.

That's right.

Not because you earned it.

Praise him.

That's right.

Some of us were more in touch with that.

You know, we all need to be born again.

Yep.

We all need to be born again.

That's right.

Yeah.

Not the person to your right or your left, like, "Oh, yeah,

they need to be born again."

We all need this rebirth.

Amen.

Every single one of us.

You know, for Nicodemus and the Jewish people, and especially the Jewish leaders,

this was radical, it was shocking to them.

Because they were familiar with the idea of a new birth, but it meant for all

the non-Jews who converted to Judaism.

So when the non-Jews, when they would, they would convert to Judaism in the

1st century, they actually got baptized.

Again, this idea of baptism wasn't something new.

And so when they got baptized, they, they…

There's even writings where the Jewish, uh, uh, writings, they would say, "Oh

yeah, this is like a rebirth for them."

But when Jesus and John the Baptist come on the scene, they're like, "No, not just

the Gentiles, but you too need a rebirth."

That's right.

"But I was born into this.

I'm a Jew.

I come from the tribe of Levi," or, "I come from the tribe of…"

He said, "No, that doesn't earn your way into the gates of heaven and eternal life.

You need to have a birth that is spiritual, that comes from

God from above, that is spirit initiated and worked through."

Amen.

So what does that mean?

That means something special too, especially for those of us who grew

up in the church here, those who like to call ourselves kingdom kids.

You too, like Nicodemus, need a new birth.

Amen.

Those of us here may be visiting for the first time, and you're, you're

trying to investigate, "Hey, I don't know about this Christian thing."

I want to encourage you, you too need a new birth.

That's right.

Those of us who grew up or those of us who have been in the faith,

we need to be reminded that our new birth only comes through Jesus.

That's right.

You see, we all need this new life, but only Jesus can provide it.

Again, this is good news.

If you're a guilty soul, this is good news because now there's relief

If you're those who are the perfectionist, now there is peace.

Yes.

If you're those who want to work hard and, and running, there is rest.

Yeah.

For those of us who are lonely, you are seen.

Yeah.

You see, this is good news, that Jesus is the Savior.

Amen.

And this is something that we should rejoice in.

You know, God wants to redeem you from your sin and judgment, and

give you eternal life with Him.

Again, many of us, I know we know this, but we need to be reminded of this.

We need to stay in awe of Jesus, because we can lose the awe

of Jesus, and therefore reduce Him to something He's not.

Again, He could become a teacher, He could just become a good figure,

or He becomes a part of my life as opposed to being my life.

That's right.

And when He gets reduced, what happens?

We get some stinking thinking.

We get the wrong views, and we can go sideways.

We can start to make some poor choices in our lives, and we start

to be, uh, resemble less and less of Jesus, and more and more of our

old selves, or more and more of the world that Jesus is trying to redeem.

That's right.

And so it's important that we remember, we stay in awe of Jesus.

Because when we lose that awe, we can start even thinking that

our, the salvation depends on us.

Yeah.

I need to do X, Y, and Z.

No, you can't do X, Y, and Z.

It is solely dependent upon the salvation that Jesus offers.

Yeah.

Amen.

And we need to remain thankful for Jesus, and who He is, and what God has

done through Jesus, not only for us, but what He's doing for the entire world.

Amen.

And so what should we do in response to Jesus being the Savior?

Well, first off, if you have not made Jesus Lord, you need to believe in Jesus.

Make Him Lord and become a disciple.

Find out how to be born again by the work of the Spirit through baptism.

And it wasn't mean to believe in Jesus, though.

We gotta hit on this real quickly, because th- this can easily be misconstrued.

And now we're gonna go to that picture, and, and, and what I believe that

biblical faith includes, it includes BTS.

Some of you are like, "Who is that?"

BTS, that's the Korean pop group.

Yeah.

They're just, like, the biggest group in the world.

You don't know who they are, that's okay.

Ask the person next to you.

We, we…

Biblical belief includes BTS.

Not this BTS, okay?

Not this BTS.

I'm just having a little fun with you here.

But what I mean, this is believe, trust, and surrender.

There you go.

Some of y'all are thinking, "Uh-oh, this is heresy.

Watch out!"

I ain't gonna do that to you.

Biblical belief includes believing, trusting, and surrendering.

It's not just an intellectual exercise.

Yeah.

It's not just something, "Oh, I believe in Jesus, so therefore I got eternal life.

Hallelujah."

No, it means, yes, to believe who Jesus is, believe who He is, believing

that Jesus is the Son of God.

Believing that, no, He's not just a prophet.

No, I need to believe that Jesus really is the Son of God- Amen … God in the flesh.

And then next, I need to trust in His Word and His sacrifice.

Trust what Jesus says about God.

If He really is from above, if He's the Son of God, then He does have

authority to speak on things of God, so we should trust what He says about God.

And when He says that God loves us, we can trust that.

When He talks about how to live, we need to trust it.

That's how I should live.

It shouldn't be, "I believe in Jesus, but I also believe in doing this my way."

No.

No, we trust that His Word is true, and that we should follow it, but

we also trust in His sacrifice.

Trust what He said, but also trust what He did on the cross, that His sacrifice

was the sacrifice for all time, and that what He did upon the cross and

what He did in the sending, in rising from the dead and ascending to heaven,

that is enough, and that's the only thing that can allow me to have this

eternal relationship with the Father.

I need to trust in that.

Again, that brings peace.

That brings security when I truly trust that it's what

Jesus did upon the cross for me.

And lastly, surrender.

Surrender to Him as Lord.

Again, it's not just believing, it's not just trusting, but I surrender.

Jesus is Lord.

He's the Son of God.

He's the one that makes the way for our salvation.

He's the Savior, but He's also Lord.

That means I submit to Him.

I'm not gonna call Him Lord or Savior and then do something

that opposes what He's about.

No, I surrender my own thinking, my own ways to His ways, and when

I do, I taste how good it is.

Yes.

I believe we need to share this good news.

I don't know about you, but my whole life's been changed

because of this good news.

Is there anybody that can testify that their life has

been changed by this good news?

Yes.

How many more of your neighbors and friends need to have their lives

changed because of this good news?

That's right.

Who's gonna share it?

Who's gonna share it?

Come on.

Yes, we can believe in Instagram and TikTok, but who's gonna share

it on a one-on-one basis with them?

Who's gonna help them to see what it means in their day-to-day lives?

I believe God wants us to join him in this good work.

That's right.

Now, I'm convinced because that's what Jesus says- That's right … that

we should be included in this great mission of sharing the good news.

Yeah.

I believe when we have this true belief, when we believe, but again,

we have biblical belief, this will help us stay faithful to God and

keep growing in our nature and our character and likeness of Christ.

This will help us grasp the depth of who Jesus is and the eternal

life that's offered through Jesus.

I like to give action steps for the week.

I'm gonna give it a little differently here this week, and we're gonna have a

reflection question for the week, okay?

And so this week, you start off today in your lunchtime or, or throughout the week,

whatever it is, I want you to just reflect upon this question, and this is it: How

will I trust Jesus as my savior this week?

How will I trust Jesus as my savior this week?

Think of one specific response.

Maybe share it with someone so they can be a healthy accountability part

or an encourager throughout the week so that you can respond to how you can

trust Jesus as your savior this week.

Come and see.

Jesus is the greatest, he's the divine, and he is the savior, and through

Jesus' death and resurrection, he opens the road to salvation, which

is a gift of love available to all.

All who believe in Jesus will have eternal life, but that biblical belief includes

believing, trusting, and surrendering.

Let's close out in John 3:16.

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

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

but to save the world through him."

Brothers and sisters, may we come and see the savior.

Amen.