Episode Transcript
Welcome to Living Hope Church. Glad that you're here today. The series that we've been in that you may believe, a study in the Gospel of John, we are on, I don't know what week it is now, but we'll look at the last portion of chapter two today. And in this series, in this focus, believe is a key word. This is a key theme that John has for his readers, for his listeners, and for us today. And so today, what we're gonna do is really lean into the word believe and take it apart, unpack it in as many ways as we can in the time that we have to understand not just what this word means in cognitive understanding, but as we live out this idea of believing in Jesus, that you may believe that Jesus is God's son, that he is the giver of life. I've entitled the sermon today, as you see in your outline, and on the screen, understanding transformative belief. What I'm gonna do now is just read verses 23, 24, and 25, the verses that we'll be leaning into today. And some context, if you see in your Bibles, chapter two, a couple weeks ago, we looked at the wedding in Cana last week, Pastor Carl. You have a great message, Jesus, as he was spending time in the temple, cleansing the temple, and declaring that this is my father's house, and then the tail end of this chapter is what we're gonna lean into today. So let's read that together. I'll read it, and then I'll pray, and we'll get into this. It says this in John, chapter two, verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, which, if you're looking at context, that's just what's happened. He went to Jerusalem for the Passover, he's just cleansed the temple. Many believed, could someone say believed? Believed in his name, when they saw the signs that he was doing. John doesn't get into the details of these signs at the moment, actually he doesn't get into the details of these signs that they saw, but when they believed, and they saw the signs that he was doing. Verse 24, "But Jesus, on his part, "did not entrust himself to them, "because he knew all people." Verse 25, "And needed no one to bear witness about him, "for he himself knew what was in man." Let's pray. Oh Lord, we come before you as a God who is worthy of our praise, worthy of our attention, worthy of our adoration, worthy of our life, of our desires, of our passions. There are those here today who believe this. There are those here today who may not believe this. In every part of our life, Lord, is our desire for us to truly believe that you are deserving, you are Lord over every part. Not just an idea from a distance, but you, Lord, we want to invite in to be Lord of every part of our life, to trust you with the things that are dear to us. As we spend time in this passage, in other passages, in your word this morning, we look to you as the one who works and transforms us to be mature followers of you, to be people that have invited you into every part of our life, to be transformed, to look like you wherever we may be. As we spend time here, Lord, we entrust that desire into your hands. In Jesus' name, amen. Big idea here, as I hinted at before, is this, we're gonna see this as we unpack our passage today, is true belief in Jesus is transformational, not just at the moment of conversion, but also throughout the rest of your life and my life. This kind of belief says that you believe Jesus is who he says he is, and will provide what he says he will provide. So you're like, okay, I think I understand what this means, but today we're gonna just unpack this in greater detail. Let's ask some questions in our opening here, understanding why someone believes something is a fascinating subject. At first, we might think it's simple, but when you ponder your own beliefs and belief systems, you might find that they have a lot, they might be a lot less informed than what you first thought at first glance. For example, we believe, or we might believe, what a science book tells us, not because we believe everything that all science books tell us, but because we see that the author has some credibility. He has had maybe good schooling, or he is a Christian perhaps, but just because we know these things, does that mean that everything that that author writes is always true? No, but we might easily believe what is in that book, even though we haven't done deeper research. And when we do deeper research, how do we go about finding what sources we should actually believe? How do we begin to dig into the subject of, what do I believe, why do I believe it, what sources can I actually trust, base my life on, or base particular belief systems on? And we consider your faith, for example, why do you, why do I believe what I believe, why do you believe what you believe, is because your parents taught you something, and you trust your parents, right? Is that a good reason to believe? Yeah, we would say yes, okay, that's a good reason. I trust my parents, they tell me something, I believe them, but our parents, adults, are we fallible? So then, should we believe everything that they tell us, or should we weigh this out a little bit? And then how do you go about doing this? Is it because perhaps we've heard from the experts about something, and so we believe them? And side note here, some of you maybe believe less of what the experts have to say after COVID. And you're like, well, I know that the experts are supposed to know all things, but now I maybe have a little bit of discomfort because I realize even the experts might not have all of the information that they say they do. We believe something because, do we believe something because most people believe that it's true? But is that the right thing? Should we believe something because the majority believes it? Surely that isn't a good foundation either. Do we only believe something when we have absolute 100% physical proof? Well, that's also pretty unsustainable in life, isn't it? If you always need absolute truth, physical proof that you can hold on to to believe anything, why do you believe what you believe about Christianity, your faith, or your future? If you say that you believe something, do your actions show it? And this is where we begin to shift from just cognitive understanding to action. Do your actions or do my actions, do they need to show it to show that I actually believe something? These are hard questions and some of which I hope that we will spend some time to unpack. I know we will and I hope that you'll stay engaged with me through the time that we have to look at not only what is belief, why do I believe something, but also how important it is that belief brings about transformation or brings about change or brings about action in our life. Now, I would like to display this in an actual physical way that you and I can see that I'll reference back to. And I've invited, I would like to invite Rick and RL to come up and join me for this example. So come up here and so as they're here, we're gonna display this. So some of you, you can stand here in front of me because that's a much better place for everyone to see you. You can, you can just both stand and say, hey, hi everybody. Hi everybody, there's Rick and RL Greider. Thank you for being willing to come up here. I didn't give you much of an option. I guess you could have just sat there and I would have had to call somebody else. So if you have been in youth group before or in team building activities before, you might have seen what's called a trust fall or a faith fall or there's different terms around that. And so RL is here, his dad is here. And I don't know this because I didn't ask, but do you trust your dad? - Yeah. - Okay. (audience laughing) His answer was different. We were gonna have issues. Do you believe that if you were to fall backwards, not right now that your dad would catch you? Okay, also really good. So can you stand over here? So Rick, I have a question for you. Do you believe that if you were to fall backwards, that RL would catch you? - He would try. (audience laughing) - Do you, he would try. So do you think that you might end up on the ground? - I might. - You might, okay. So would you probably have a little less faith that he would catch you than you have that he would catch you, right? Okay, so I would like to just see if you really are telling the truth here. Can you turn around? - Oh great. - Just, okay. So do you step forward just a little bit here? Not too far 'cause you know, that could be messy. So you believe that your dad will catch you? Will you catch him? Okay, do you believe him? - Yeah. - Okay. (audience laughing) Are you willing to demonstrate that you believe him? - Sure. - What could go wrong? Right? Right, all right. So you said you'll catch him. All right, you believe that he'll catch you. Demonstrate your faith in your father. (audience laughing) So how much, oh no, no, so how much, how much, that was great actually that you did that 'cause I'm gonna reference that later. I like planned. So do you fully believe that he'll catch you? - Most likely, yes. (audience laughing) - So are you willing to demonstrate that you most likely believe that he'll catch you by not catching yourself? (audience laughing) Try it and see what happens. Good job, there you go. Thank you, thank you all. You can sit down. Great job, great job folks. Thank you. So you can see that it's really easy to say I believe something and a little bit more challenging to actually demonstrate that belief. When you're willing to put yourself in, not that you would have been significantly harmed, but when you're willing to put yourself in harm's way or willing to put yourself in a situation that you might be uncomfortable and then still saying I'm going to trust you, we can see that demonstrating belief is significant. It's not just I'm going to say it with my mouth, but I'm going to show it with my actions. So we're going to answer three questions today. The first question we'll spend a little bit more time on, you'll see why in just a moment. And then the next two questions we'll go back to our text and unpack this in a little bit, that text in a little bit greater detail. So the first question we're going to ask, you see on the screen is this, why does someone believe something? And what I want to do here is not reference immediately to John, but we're going to go backwards in the Word of God to Genesis three. You can flip there if you'd like. And here's what we're going to do. My working definition here of believe is this. And so listen in, pay attention, this is really important and it's this. To believe something is to accept that something is true first and to make choices that follow that assumption of truth. So it's not just I say that I believe it is true, but my working definition here as we walk through this is that to follow that assumption that it would change your actions because we believe, you believe, I believe that it is actually true. So let's look at some of these. So why does someone believe something? Is it because they have all the facts? We ask some of these questions. Is it because they have faith? Is it because the community believes it? Is it because they don't want to experience pain? Is it because it's reasonable to them? Whatever that may be. Let's look at some of these passages here. Genesis chapter three, verse one through seven, what we're going to do is just look at a brief account of Eve interacting with the deceiver, with the devil and with the serpent. And what we're going to see here is that the deceiver brought about belief in her and actions that follow suit. So let's read this together and we'll walk through it briefly, look what it says, chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord had made. Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat any tree in the garden? And the woman said, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it. That's not accurate. Lest you die, but the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good from evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was delight to the eyes and the tree was to be desired and to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She gave some to her husband who was with her and ate. Then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. So the first here is this, is believing a lie. Why does someone believe something? Believing a lie is what you could write down. That's what we see. If she believed something, that was a lie. And we see that, again, working definition is that it wasn't just cognitive understanding or belief, but it was action that followed. The devil understood, chapter three, verse one, that the devil understood the word of God, the instructions for Adam and Eve. He knew that God said, don't eat of the fruit. So Satan told Eve to disbelieve what God had said and Eve believed the devil instead of God. Is this not the root of many of our own problems today? We disbelieve what God has said. The power of what we believe will change our actions and bring life or death, connection or disconnection, joy or sadness being peace or restlessness. Adam, by the way, we see, didn't help her stay on track, even though he heard directly from God, didn't he? God gave Adam that instruction. Here, this is the truth, believe it. Adam, we don't know what his response was. Yes, sure thing, sounds good. Then we see here that Eve hears a lie, the devil's trying to convince her to believe something different is true, and Adam doesn't engage and say, wait a minute, that's not true. Don't believe that, that's a lie, which brings us to another truth that you all know as well as I do. Just because you have heard the truth does not mean that you'll always believe the truth. And the devil seems to know this. We know, and we could say, when we're in a community of believers that I am loved by God, that I'm cherished, that I'm known, but in moments by ourselves, maybe when we're apart from community, we may say, I don't know if God really loves me. I don't know if God truly values me, whatever those things might be. He could come in and begin to help us, cause us to believe something that is not true. Even Adam, we see, believed the word of the serpent over the word of God. But why? Why? Did he forget the truth? Did he forget what God had told him? Did he no longer care? Did he believe God, but not as much as he believed the devil? Did you ask yourself these questions? Why would he believe something? He knew, he heard directly the truth, and he believed we saw it first. They seemed to both believe, this is bad, don't eat of this. But then later, they did something that demonstrated a different kind of belief. And here's what the devil said to Eve. If you truly want to belong, you can't believe God. If you truly want to be known, if you truly want to have connection, if you truly want to have joy, you can't believe God. This belief, this lie, I should say, is communicated all over the world, isn't it? Do things your own way, that's how you're gonna be happy. Ignore what God has said, that's how you're going to be happy. And we see Eve in this encounter, the great deceiver did a quick, decisive, and powerful work. He called God a liar, he says, you won't die. And then he told Eve the reason that God lied. He says, because he doesn't want you, in some cases, to have joy, to be like him. And so Eve says, well, I want to have that desire met in myself, so I'm gonna believe something different. This same fear of missing out is true in Jesus' time as well. If we were to look ahead some thousands of years, people didn't want to be kicked out of the synagogue, so they said, I'm not gonna declare truth in Jesus. I'm not gonna declare that he is good, and that he is righteous, and he is the Messiah, because if I declare that, people might, I will get kicked out of the synagogue. And you see, even then, fear drove them to not believe, to not demonstrate the faith, or the things they said they believed. Imagine here again, right? I can fall backwards, but I'm afraid of what might happen. So because of my fear, I don't demonstrate my belief, the belief that I say that I so quickly have. So we can see that even sometimes, people will believe a lie, or demonstrate that they believe a lie, even though they have the information of the truth. The second thing we see, if you move forwards, just a few chapters in Genesis, we see something else. Someone who believed one thing, but God brought about them believing the truth. Believing the truth. In Genesis chapter 15, listen to what it says. Verse one, if you have your Bibles, flip over to that portion. Believing the truth is what you can write down. This is talking about Abram, he has no kids, he's very old, if you know the story, you know the story. After those things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, and here's what it says. Fear not, Abram, for I am your shield, and I am your reward, and your reward will be very great, and so here's what's happening. God is about to make, and is making him a promise. He's telling him something that he wants him to believe. Now listen, and this is key, but Abram said to the Lord, "What will you give me, for I continue childless, "and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus." And Abram said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, "and a member of my household will be my heir." And so here's what's happening here. Abram's telling God, "God, it's hard for me to believe you "when you haven't demonstrated your faithfulness right now. "Don't we have that same struggle today? "It's hard for me to believe you, God, "when you haven't fixed it right now. "It's not that God, I don't wanna believe you. "That sounds like a great thing, God, "but it's hard for me to believe it "because I'm not seeing this true in my life right now." Abram wants to believe this, and he wants it at the moment, at that time, and so his faith is struggling there. And look what God does. It's so incredible. God does to bring about a change in Abram's heart. Here's what he says, "And behold, "the word of the Lord came to him and said this, "Listen, this man shall not be your heir, "for your very own son shall be your heir." Abram's like, "Well, I still don't have kids, "and I'm not young anymore." Verse five, "But he brought him outside, "and he said this, 'Look towards heaven, "and number the stars. "If you are able to number them, he said to him, "'So shall your offspring be.'" So here's what's happening. It's really quite interesting. First, he steps up the significance of his problems. He doesn't just say, "You'll have one son, "and that will be it." In other words, he says, "It's gonna be even more unbelievable "than what you thought at the beginning." And then second, God tells him, or makes him, he points him to the truth that he's gonna show by displaying something that's pretty amazing. He says, "Look up into the heavens, "and you see that he has this awe about him." Like, wow, look at God. Look at what he can do. If God can do that, I think I might believe. Sometimes, God's tool for causing belief in his people is simply wonder, is making them say, wow. If you look again, a few thousand years later, Jesus does some pretty miraculous things, and the people wondered, and they believed. They said, wow, that's pretty amazing. I think that's someone worth believing in, even as we share our faith with other people. Sharing testimonies can make people say, wow, look at what God is doing. So just looking back for just a moment, we see. Believing a lie in Genesis, chapter three, brought about punishment, maybe jot that down. Believing a lie brings punishment, but believing the truth in Genesis 15 brings about righteousness, brings about wholeness, brings about relationship with God. We have seen this power of belief in the lie and in truth. You've seen this. If you believe something that's not good, that's not right, you can see how much it can damage your life. So let's jump ahead now back to John chapter four. Flip back in your Bibles, John chapter four. We can see this, that people here who saw these signs, it says they believe. That's his heart, right? John's heart is, these are written that you may, what's the word? Believe. That's literally John's desire. I'm writing this so that you will believe. And then we read, that's actually what happens. That's actually what happens. Look at John chapter three, verse 23. When, chapter two, verse 23, when he saw, when they were in Jerusalem, many saw these signs and they believed in his name. We might say, yay, this is great. This is literally the purpose of what we're doing here, of why John wrote this book. But we see something else. We have to ask this other question, look verse 24. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them. So we have to ask ourselves this next question. What kind of faith did these people have? What kind of faith is this? You could write that down. That's the second point on your outline. It says that they believe which is good, but what did they believe? As we lean into this understanding of believe, we can know that I can declare I believe, but my actions don't demonstrate that, right? Because I'm concerned perhaps of what's going to happen. Is this kind of faith, and this is the big question here, is this faith that they had, is it saving faith or is it superficial faith? What is this? What kind of faith are they demonstrating, or at least that we're seeing here that they're being communicated? Are the many saved or not? Now we have to remember, salvation is by the grace of God through our faith. Faith alone, grace alone. That's what we still see here. So that's how someone is saved. This question, are they saved, are they not saved? Honestly, varies depending on who you're talking to. Of course, right? We look at this like, what is it? What's the answer here? Are they really saved? Do they truly believe in Jesus? Is this saving faith inside of them? Or is this, well yeah, we like what it is. Or here I am standing here. Yeah, I believe, I'm not gonna do anything about it just yet, but I think it's right. Three things, you could write these things down. We'll unpack them just briefly. Asking that question, what kind of belief is this? First, perhaps it's false belief. It's false belief, that's the first thing you could write down here. We ask this question in what kind of faith these people have, but we ask this question in America as well, don't we? We see sometimes celebrities say, I believe in Jesus. And then Christians in all sorts of Christian circles say, really? I mean, do you remember when, maybe if you follow news stuff at all, it was some years ago, if you know who Justin Bieber is, they'll just throw a name out there. There was a time he was doing his own thing or whatever, and then he comes out and says, I'm a Christian. And many Christians are like, really? Is that right? And then he gets in church circles, and he does some Christian songs in concerts and stuff, and then people are like, oh, maybe. I'm not really sure. Or a little while ago, Kanye West says, he's some rapper person or something. It says, I'm a Christian. He has this whole music album that says, Jesus is king and all of that. And then people all stand back and go, wait a minute, is that real? Is he actually a Christian? Is this false belief, as we'll see later on? Is it true? Is it superficial? Like, what is it? And we ask that question as we look at this text as well. What kind of faith is this? So is it false? These people specifically in what we're asking, in what we're thinking about. First, we see this. Why did they believe? Look in your Bibles. What's the reason? It says they believe because of what? The signs. They believe because of the signs. So some people, they say, no, this is false belief. And the reason they say is because they believed in the signs of what Jesus did. And the signs, as most of you experience on a regular basis, you look at signs, the sign is a sign pointing you to a destination. The sign is not the destination. You all know that if you are wandering through a building and you see a look, restroom signs, you go somewhere else to go to the restroom, for example. You know the sign is not the end result. The sign is pointing you to something else. The same thing is true here. This is a sign that's saying, look to the one who did the sign. Now, to the one who says this is false belief, they say no, they can't have saving faith because their faith is based on signs, not in the person in the work of Jesus Christ. Now, what's interesting is, what says they believed. But also, if you were to have, maybe jot this down, if you, in John chapter eight, it also, verses 30 and 31, it says that the people believed and what's interesting about that, and say, oh great, they believed. But then what's interesting is it says this, if you read through the rest of chapter eight, it says Jesus continued to teach them things and he taught them some hard things. And then by the end of that teaching, you know what those people were doing? They weren't bowing down worshiping him, they wanted to stone him. But you're like, wait a minute, at the beginning it said they believed, but at the end they wanted to stone him. So at first, yes, this is great, I believe in this guy, look at what he's doing. But as soon as he says, here's what it actually looks like to be in a relationship with me, I'm about to walk away. We ask the question, we look at celebrities or people around us or even family and friends, we ask that question, this question, what kind of faith do they actually have? Is this a faith that actually is meaningful, is deep, is substantive, or is it a belief that is because of an experience they had? They went to camp, they had a mountaintop experience, not just because the camp was on a mountain, but because it was a mountaintop experience, and they believed, they came away, they raised their hands in that service, but is it real? Maybe this is genuine belief of these people. This is the second question, or the second option if you will, you could write that down, genuine belief. This is often the stance of those people who there's a term in theology called Lordship salvation. Can you say Lordship salvation? Lordship salvation says this, I can believe in Jesus as my savior and be a Christian, but not follow him as my Lord. That's the very simple basic understanding of what that means, and so there's some generally of the who don't believe in Lordship salvation who say yes, these are all true believers because they said yes, I believe in Jesus, but I don't wanna follow him. Now if we look through scripture, we see that that's not the kind of followers that Jesus is looking for, is it? I wanna believe from a distance, but I don't wanna engage with the person of Jesus. Their basis for that is they say, well John says they believed, or it says that they saw the signs they believed, that was the reason Jesus did signs, or perhaps they were just more afraid of other people. But Jesus says that if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my father. Let's look at the third one, superficial belief, and I think perhaps this is where many of them were. Maybe some were genuine believers, maybe some was false belief, I think many of them perhaps were superficial believers. And not to say that this is particularly bad, but rather it should be something that drives them to actually knowing Jesus. Jesus speaks about the soils, remember the parable of the soils? Some seed falls on rocky soil, and at first it's like yeah, this is great, I believe. And then after a while, they realize there's not much depth, and they begin to wither away. You can read Matthew chapter 13 verses five through eight that speaks about that. There isn't anything particularly wrong with this, but it cannot stop there. It must drive us to deeper understanding of who Jesus is. And if we were to look at the context of what's happening here, this is why it's important, it's helpful for you and for me as we read our Bibles to pay attention to chapter and verses, and remember that they're not there because Jesus put them there. What's immediately after verse 25 here? What's the story? What's chapter three? The beginning of chapter three's story. The story of Nicodemus. Most likely he was there, he saw what happened in the temple, he saw the signs that Jesus did, but he didn't sit back and say, oh, I believe from a distance. He said, I'm gonna go and have a conversation with Jesus. This superficial kind of belief should be something that drives us to say, I want to learn more, I want to meet Jesus. And we see that with the person of Nicodemus. We'll get into his story a little bit later, well, next week. Jesus also, we see this as well. Jesus didn't need people to explain this kind of faith to him because he already, notice what it says in the Bible, because he already knew what was inside of people. He already knows. And so here's what it says. It's like, I know what's inside of you. I know. And so I'm gonna wait and see what you're gonna do. And that's the third question. Why didn't Jesus entrust himself to these people? And I just can't answer that question. 'Cause he said, I did the work, and I'm gonna wait and see what you're gonna do. You saw the power that I had, you saw the zeal that I had from my father's house, you see what I can do, you can see what I say. Now, what are you going to do with it? You know what's interesting about Jesus? We see this all through the Gospels, is Jesus doesn't chase people down begging them to follow him. He's willing to let people walk away. He demonstrates and communicates the truth. He says, here it is, I'm gonna lay it out for you, and you can choose to follow me or not. Sometimes, even as Christians today, we can have a desire to chase people down and convince them, no, you should believe in Jesus, really, you should, really, you shouldn't. Jesus says, here's the facts, here's the truth. What are you gonna do with it? Are you gonna stand here and say, yes, I believe, but I'm not gonna demonstrate that, or yes, I believe, and I'll inch back, right? I'll inch back a little ways and see what's gonna happen when I try to trust Jesus with my life, with my whole life. And we're not just, as I said at the beginning, we're not just talking about salvation, the moment of salvation, we're talking about how I handle obeying him in every part of my life when I'm interacting with my spouse. Am I gonna do what God told me to do, or am I gonna do what I want to do? That truly is where belief hits, the rubber meets the road. We can say, yes, I believe in Jesus, and he is my savior, but will I submit to him as Lord? That is a question we answer every day, every moment of the day. Jesus doesn't entrust himself to these folks. There's a guy named G. Campbell Morgan, he's evangelist, he's a Bible teacher. He died in 1945. I put something that he said on the screen. I think it's really interesting, it captures this picture well before we close. You can put that on the screen. It says this, "If belief is nothing more "than admiration for the spectacular, "it will create in multitudes a plause, "but the Son of Man cannot commit himself "to that kind of faith." Here's what he's saying. He's not gonna chase you down. And say, please, please, please. Think, here's the truth. What are you gonna do with it? Here's the power of the gospel. We have to ask this question for us as well. Has your belief in the promise of Jesus brought about change in your life? Is it still bringing change in your life? Jesus is desiring transformative belief every day in us. For us to say, I believe that you're a good father and I'm willing to fall back into your arms daily. Not just once, but every day. And that looks like I'm gonna choose to engage with the lost because you said that's better than me not doing anything. That means I'm gonna choose to change my language because you know what, I need to work on that. That means I'm gonna love my family well. That means I'm gonna choose to obey my parents differently. That means I'm gonna choose to love and to forgive other people in a way that I haven't done that. Why? Because Jesus said that's better. And if we truly believe that, then we're gonna continue to fall back into his arms and say, well, you said it's better, so I'm gonna do it your way. It's a regular transformative kind of belief. And one of the things we can do, I'm gonna read this passage from Psalm 139. As we think about why do I believe? What do I believe? What is that doing inside of me? Listen to this passage. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. We're asking God, even right now, to say, God, what do I really believe about you? Have I invited you into all of those places of my life and am I letting those places be transformed? Because you being there, I truly believe, is better than me keeping the door closed. For me keeping you out. I want to believe that. Yes, I can stand here and say, I believe that he is good. I'm willing to fall into his arms and trust him. I'm willing to believe that contentment and wholeness with Jesus is better than me doing things my own way, looking to the things around me, the people around me for satisfaction. Lord, we thank you that you have come into this world, that you came into this world as the conquering king will come again. You came first as the savior, humble and lowly, willing to go to the cross, willing to die in our stead, a substitute for the price, the payment that we were due. Because it was not do you, but do us, you rose again and will come to bring restoration to this world, we praise you for that. Thank you that you know us, you know our hearts, you know why we believe, you know what we believe. Lord, thank you that you promise to transform our hearts, that your spirit inside of us, abiding in us, will bring us to maturity, will bring us to a place of fully believing in every aspect of our life that you are good, that you are better, that you are deserving of every part of us. Help us as a church, every one of us individually, not just corporally, individually, every person here. Lord asks that question of themselves, that I ask myself every day, am I submitting to your Lordship? Do I believe that your way is better? Does my life demonstrate that? Does our church demonstrate that? Your belief that your way is better. Lord, that we would be a church marked with faith in that truth is our prayer today. In Jesus' name, I pray everyone said.
