Jesus Is Better

I think a lot of you know us. My name’s John. My wife Chelsea’s back there. And if you don’t know us well, we’ve actually been kind of around for a long time. We first started coming to Salt church back in 2015, at the end of 2015, when we was meeting in the brewery on Norfolk Avenue.

That was a long time ago, but you haven’t seen us because for the last seven years, since 2017, we’ve been, as he just mentioned, serving afghan, primarily afghan refugees in the Middle east. And then we’d come back most summers, not every summer, but most summers. And I would speak one week during the summer of Salt series, and we would travel around a little bit and then raise funding and go back to the Middle east. But as pastor Leon alluded to, that all came to a very abrupt end in February when I was called into a police station. And in the afternoon, and I was.

In short, I was told that our gospel work, our work of doing good to Afghans in the name of Jesus, was no longer welcomed in that country. Yeah, they made some specific but very serious charges that were. Yeah, that were really, really problematic. What ended up. Not what ended up happening, praise God.

But what I was looking at was, on average, a three to four weeks stay in this Middle Eastern country’s deportation camp, which looks like overcrowded facilities with inadequate food, no showers, changes of clothing being brought by family members once a week on Mondays, if you’re lucky, sleeping on the concrete floor along with the other prisoners, because it’s overcrowded. Or I guess, detainees, not prisoners. And along with the rats and the bed bugs and a lot of people have scapes when they leave. And then I would be forcibly deported and banned for, they told me, two years in the police station, who knows what that would have actually been? And, well, all of that would have just been summer camp from hell.

You know, it just really would have sucked. But at the same time, it also would have been okay, except for the fact that I’m an insulin dependent diabetic. And, yeah, the whole thing about, like, inadequate food or only receiving supplies that you need once a week meant that I. I wasn’t guaranteed to have reliable access to insulin. Or on the other extreme, I wasn’t guaranteed to have access to carbohydrates.

If I had a low blood sugar event, for me, it would have been or could have been potentially much serious than just a really terrible three to four weeks. I mean, it could have been forever life altering, you know, praise God, for a series of God’s providential occurrences. My busy team leader was able to get free to join me in the police station for moral support on that Friday afternoon. And he, because of a business that he has in the country, had connections to lawyers, lawyers who were able to show up at five in the evening on a Friday. And the lawyers even said, these muslim lawyers told me at the end, you need to pray and thank God because it was a miracle that you left and didn’t go through the deportation camp.

So, yeah, praise God. And so I was called around noon or 1230. I arrived at the police station at 130. I left the police station at six, and the police station was in where we were serving afghan refugees. And so it was a little bit of a commute by train back home.

And I got back home at 645 to pick up a passport and a carry on bag that my wife had packed. And by seven, so 15 minutes later, I was in a taxi on my way to the airport with no tickets yet. My wife got me tickets while I was in a taxi and then arrived at the airport at eight and was boarding a plane out of the country where I had lived and served for seven years by 830. And for weeks, you know, that three to four weeks where, on average, people were held in these detention camps or these deportation camps, I was here. And I just kept thinking for that three to four weeks, as I was staying with family and shadow lawn, I would walk around and think, man, I could have been or should have been in a deportation camp, but here I am going on a walk or I’m eating at Big Sam’s.

I could have been or should have been in a deportation camp. Instead, I’m here at big Sam’s. And that is an unreal and surreal experience. Pay loans, pay loans and pay loans. Yeah.

I didn’t have it in that first month, though, but still. And I’m not going to pretend to put a brave face on it. It’s been really hard. Seven years of my life, where my daughters were born, my home, all of my possessions, basically, we left with, for the adults, one suitcase a piece. Basically, the kids got like three suitcases, but one suitcase a piece.

Yeah. My community, my church, my work, my ministry, everything that we’ve been pouring our lives to, wrapped up in one afternoon. And I’m 33. I’ll be 34 in a few months. I’m married with two kids and my family here in Virginia.

Really great. My in laws are so hospitable and generous, and at the same time, it’s not really a dream to move into your wife’s high school bedroom. When you are married with kids, you know, it’s like not really moving forward in life. So I’m not at the top of the world. They’re super generous, and they are here.

I’m really glad they’re here to hear me speak. Thank you, guys, and thank you for your hospitality over these many months now. And yet, in the midst of this difficulty, in the midst of, you know, normally I come and I say, support our work in the Middle east, and I’ll tell you after the service, our new work, if you’d like to hear about it. But I’m not saying that work anymore, because it’s over. And yet I have no regrets, and I do it again.

One thing that was actually the biggest problem was that, or one of the things that caused all this was that they said they didn’t like that I would share the gospel with people. And the funny thing is, I’m actually really good. If I’m just going to examine myself, I’m really good about talking about Jesus or other stories from the Bible. Really. Naturally, I’d go into an afghan person’s house, first time, never met them.

They’re super conservative Muslims, and we’d be talking about Old Testament prophets or Jesus or something. First visit, no problem. But bringing people to a point of decision about faith, that’s, like, my weakness. And that was what the problem was. And so not only do I not have any regrets, my only regret is I wish I would have done more of the thing that got me in trouble.

And why? And why? Because Jesus is so worth it. Jesus is better than anything else. And so today, I want to draw your attention to the goodness of God, especially compared to everything else that competes for our affections.

And I’m going to do this with kind of two halves to this sermon. If you’re a. So if you leave halfway through, you’re not gonna get the second part, but I can give it to you later. But the first part is basically going to be talking a little bit about the underlying assumptions and perspectives of the Bible, and then the second part is going to be painting a picture of the goodness of God. So I’m going to start by reading the beatitudes.

And if you’re familiar with church or the Bible, then you’re gonna be a little bit surprised by what I do with the Beatitudes. And if you aren’t very familiar with the church and with the Bible, let me give you an introduction to the Beatitudes. So what Jesus did was for three years, Jesus walked around all of Palestine, and he did preaching and he did teaching, and he did healing, and there wasn’t the Internet and there weren’t tvs. So what a lot of people think was he basically had the same sermon that more or less he preached in different places. He would go here, and he’d preach the sermon, and he would go here and preach more or less the same sermon.

And so that’s why we in the. There’s four biographies of Jesus in the Bible called the Gospels. Two of them have versions of more or less the same sermon. And so I’m going to be reading from the one that’s recorded by Matthew. And the Beatitudes are how he opens his sermon, the hook, if you will.

And they’re pretty scandalous. But you don’t think they’re scandalous if you’ve been in church all your life. Because the thing that happens with really familiar passages is two things. If you’re religious and you’ve been in church all your life, you glaze over into recitation mode and you’re like, I know this. And you don’t even actually engage with them.

Or if you’re not religious and you’ve never been in church before, your eyes glaze over and you think, I’m not religious. I don’t understand what’s going on. And then you also don’t engage with it either. I’m going to take advantage of a little bit of linguistics to help make it a little bit fresh. So let’s look at.

If you can put it on the screen, that’d be super. We’re just going to look at the first line. This is how Jesus starts his sermon. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Well, it starts with this word, blessed.

And already you’ve encountered a religious word, one for one, a religious word. And you know it’s religious because nobody says blessed unless it’s a religious context. You’re not like, have a blessed day? No, you say, you know, like, you know, have a blessed day or something, but we gotta accent it all funny, because it’s a religious word. But the word that was originally in Greek used there can also be translated in a few other ways.

It has a sort of semantic range. It could be blessed or blessed. It could be happy. It can also be translated as fortunate. The translator, Eugene Peterson, preferred the word lucky in place for that.

So I’m going to use happy because I think happy gets to the core of what it means. It’s a faithful translation, and it’s going to make these passages sound just as scandalous to you today, whether you’ve heard them a hundred times or never. Just as scandalous to you as it was to the original audience that Jesus was preaching them to. So I’m going to substitute happy for blessed. Let’s read happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Happy are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Happy are those who hunger and thirst, thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Happy are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Happy are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Happy are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Wow. Happy are what?

You know, I told our story, and in the time since we were kicked out, people have been so kind and so comforting and so encouraging. So many people have said, we’re so glad you’re safe, or we’re so glad that you’re back in the states and back home. And they’re right to do that. The Bible says that for people who are in church with other people who are in church, that we’re supposed to mourn with those who are mourning. We’re supposed to rejoice with those who are rejoicing, be sad at the sad folks and party with the folks having a good time.

While that’s true, you know, this passage is really interesting because it’s not saying happy are those who leave the deportation camp and go to America safely. And it’s actually not even saying, happy are the rich and comfortable, or happy are those who have an ocean front house with a beamer in the driveway. Yeah, I know, I know. Saying basically the opposite. Happy are you when people are insulting you without cause or when the cause is actually good things.

You know, even if I would have paid the ultimate price, even if I would have been in a deportation camp without access to insulin, even then. Two things. One is it’s nothing compared to the price Jesus paid for me. And the second thing is that Jesus would have said that that’s a situation in which I would deserve to be happy. Jesus says, hear that?

I’m happy for having even tasted a bit of persecution for righteousness and that I’m happy to have had people say evil things about me, because they did. And so then let’s ask the question that’s begging to be asked. Am I really happy? Am I really fortunate? Am I really lucky?

Is that my experience? Do I believe that? Is that perspective? Is that underlying assumption the same perspective and assumption that is driving me, motivating me? Like Jesus says, that that’s the reality of things?

Jesus says, if you’re poor in spirit or you’re meek or you’re being persecuted, the real reality is that this is good, that you’re happy, that you’re fortunate, that you’re lucky to be experiencing that. That’s what Jesus says is reality. And why? Basically because God is worthy. Because our lives are no longer our own and because that this life and the things of this world aren’t all that there is, that there’s more to life.

And. Oh, thank you. That’s the presupposition of the writers of the Bible, the presuppositions of Jesus. And the question is, is it also ours? Is it also mine?

And this presupposition, if we don’t hold it, the beatitudes aren’t going to make any sense. In fact, the whole New Testament’s not going to make any sense because we won’t be reading the Bible on its own terms. So I’m going to show you just a couple other verses. They’re more or less cherry picked, but you can choose any, all verses. And it would be the same thing because this theme runs through the whole Bible.

So I grew up pentecostal, which is awesome. And I picked two verses that pentecostal people love. So I’ve heard these verses lots through my life, which is why I chose them. So the first one is Romans, chapter twelve, verse one. So, Romans is a letter written by an early leader in the church, the apostle Paul, to some christians who were in Rome very, very early on.

And, you know, it was tough to be in Rome very early on. There’s like this guy, Nero, a few years later, some really bad stuff. And this is what he wrote to them. It says, therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.

Wow. I don’t know if you caught it. You can still see it up there. That’s a big ask. He says, I’m asking you to sacrifice your life, but not in the way of like, a soldier.

And the soldiers, you know, they kind of almost got it. Not easy to give up. Your life is a big deal no matter what. But, you know, you do something brave in battle and then it’s over. You know, it’s done.

You did your sacrifice. You made that moment. You’re dead. It’s overdeveloped. Paul’s not asking for that.

He’s asking for a living sacrifice every single moment, day and night, to make that same choice. I’m going to live for something else. I’m going to live for God. I’m going to sacrifice myself for him every moment. That’s a huge ask.

Why does he think that he can make such a big ask? Where does he get the gumption, the audacity, to ask such a big thing? Thank you for helping me with that word. Well, he says, he says he has a therefore at the beginning. But then he says, in view of God’s mercy, basically because of God’s goodness to you, because of who God is, because of what he has done, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.

But he also doesn’t say, you know, if you really want to go far in this church thing, if you really like, want to be a monk or a priest or wear one of those fun collars, do this. No, it’s not for the exceptional. This says that this is your true and proper worship. Some of the translations of the Bible use the word reasonable. This is your reasonable worship.

This is the worship that makes sense in light of God’s goodness, is to give your entire life, every single moment of it, to God himself. Now, we normally think reasonable worship looks like 30 minutes of singing songs like we just did. That’s reasonable. Don’t get beyond the 30 minutes or it’s unreasonable. But Paul, the writer of the Bible, he says your entire life given up in sacrifice is reasonable.

Why? Because God is so good. Jesus is so worth it. He’s better than anything else that you might find anywhere else. He’s better than what the world has to give.

And I don’t just mean the bad things. Like, of course he’s better than, I don’t know, fentanyl or something, but like, he’s better than even the good things. He’s better than even the good things. Okay, so let’s go over to the next pentecostal favorite verse, which is in revelation, I have toddlers, so romans in revelation, alliterative sounds. And so this is revelation, chapter twelve, verse eleven.

And we’re gonna see it on the screen, and you’re gonna cheat a little bit because you’re gonna see the second half. So what happens is people quote this verse all the time in the church world, but they only quote the first half. They stop at the semicolon. So they triumphed over him. The context of the verse indicates that him is Satan, the devil, the bad guy.

Right? They triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb. That’s a euphemism for Jesus dying on the cross, right? So they triumphed over him by Jesus dying on the cross and by the word of their testimony, and then they stopped, period. Because that’s a nice verse, right?

Like, I triumphed because Jesus died for me and my testimony. So I’m gonna tell all the good things that Jesus did. Everyone knows testimony. You have testimony in court, just telling your story. But testimony is defined in the second half of the verse.

Let’s read it together. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. In the New Testament, the word testimony is almost always synonymous, almost always might be overclaiming. It is often synonymous, or euphemism again, for dying a martyr’s death, giving up your life because of your belief and your testimony. Okay, so we got our definitions now.

So they’re saying the writer here, this is a writer, a friend of Jesus named John. He’s saying that these christians here triumphed over the bad things of the world, over Satan, over evil, over all these bad things, by Jesus death and their own death. That doesn’t make any sense unless we have this perspective of, like, how do you triumph by dying? You look dead to me, but you’re trifing. This is from a totally different perspective than what we often have.

You know, this verse is just like the beatitudes where Jesus says, happy are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This only makes sense if you believe there’s more to life than just this, if this is all there is, and after I die, it’s a dial tone. No way is dying triumph. This only makes sense if you believe, first of all, that God is worth dying for, that what you have in him is better than whatever you could have in life.

It only makes sense if you believe that his work of Jesus on the cross has bought you, that you’re not even your own to make decisions for yourself anyways. And it only makes sense if you believe there’s more. So I’ve just shown you from Matthew that’s where the beatitudes are. That’s the very first part of the New Testament. And then I showed you in romans, that’s what that living sacrifice verse is, which is right in the middle of the New Testament.

Then I showed you in revelation, which is the very last book in the New Testament, that this theme is from start to finish in the whole Bible. But specifically, it’s very clear in the New Testament, it’s the assumption that makes the Bible make sense. You know, there’s really actually, there’s two sets of systems of values and priorities. There’s this system which says that God is really good, and if you can find everything that you ultimately really need in him, that your life’s not your own, that there’s more to life. That’s a whole system of values, and that’s a system that the Bible writers assume and have and write on.

And there’s this other system, and you can call it the system of this culture or the system of this world, and it has values of this, right? Like comfort, money, success. House of the beach with a Beemer is a perfect example of that, right? Like, that is a perfect example. And it’s even.

There’s some specific ways in which this plays out in America, too, right? This is 4 July weekend. We like to say life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right? Like that is our cultural desires. That’s our system.

And if we come into the Bible with our whole internal compass, is seeking life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and success and wealth and all that stuff, we can’t make heads or tails of the Bible because it is operating on a totally different framework of understanding than the one I just described as the american one. And America is great. And let me tell you what. When I left the police station, I was very thankful to be in a place with civil liberties. That was one of my.

One of the things I said, wherever we go next, I want a place with rule of law. I’m thankful for rule of law. And my goal now, and this is where we start pivoting to the second half of the talk, is I want to show you something that’s better than America. That’s better than a house at the beach with a beamer. That’s better than guaranteed constitutional liberties.

I want to get you ready, and this first half has just been trying to get you ready to be awed by the goodness of goddesse, the God who really is not that God is in our mind, because so often the God that we imagine or we think or that we believe in has nothing to do with the real God who actually exists. And the God in our minds is usually small and petty and different, ultimately, from the really good, really real God who is portrayed in the Bible. And once we have this picture of who God is, once we can transform our minds and our understandings that he’s so good, his gift is so generous, that we can actually deeply be fortunate even in the midst of persecution or distress. And that when we truly believe that giving up our lives and sacrifices is reasonable worship and that we triumph in dying, then we’ll be able to understand this. And then, honestly, what can touch you?

So the question is, do we believe those things? Are we here working on these american cultural world assumptions? Are we working on these Bible assumptions? You know, if we aren’t working on these Bible assumptions, like I so often find myself not doing well, there’s an easy answer. And it’s a little bit old fashioned.

Are we okay with some old fashioned stuff in a mobile church? It’s called repent and believe. And so repent, another religious word, is actually really simple. It just means confessing the bad stuff. Hey, I did this bad stuff.

I believe this bad stuff. It’s not true. And then turning toward what’s good and what’s right and what’s true, it’s, you know, it’s kind of like cigarettes. You know, a long time ago, like 75 years ago, everybody smoked. Do you remember?

I remember as a kid going bowling and just reeking for days, you know, like days. Everyone smoked because there wasn’t a problem with it. And then everyone got new information, right? And the new information is smoking is going to kill you a lot earlier than if you don’t smoke, right? Like, don’t smoke.

It’s bad. And so lots of people held on. But mostly as a whole society, we have repented and believed, right? We stopped smoking. We believed the message that smoking is bad, and we turned to health.

Now we’re like health fanatics. Look at us. Total transformation. And so that’s what we’re going to do this morning. So we’re going to confess.

We’re going to say we often, maybe some of us always are listening to the assumptions of the world around us, the materialistic things, and that the beatitudes don’t make any sense in our worldview because our worldview is different. So we’re gonna repent of that. We’re gonna confess it, and now we’re gonna turn. And this is the second part, right? I’m just gonna paint for you a picture of God as the Bible describes him.

And we’re going to believe that. But you know we actually need God’s help to believe. The Bible teaches us that we can’t believe without the holy spirit and so we’re going to pray a prayer that’s from the biography of Jesus in the Bible called Mark where this guy wanted Jesus to heal his son and Jesus kind of confronts him a little bit and he says I do believe, Lord, help my unbelief. So God, we repent. We tell you that so often.

We believe the garbage of the society around us. We don’t believe the truth and we ask you to help us as we hear these things about who you are to deeply believe them in Jesus name. So as I open this next little part I’m going to turn to romans twelve again. So that’s the living sacrifice verse. Well the very next verse is exactly about what we’re going to do.

It’s romans twelve two. It says do not conform to the pattern of this world, right? So all those cultural assumptions don’t conform to those. But it says be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so now we’re going to try to renew our minds according to the truth.

So I’m going to give you a smattering of verses. Mostly I’m going to paraphrase but you’ll notice at the end of each point there’s this little part and that’s the reference for where you can find it in the Bible. So do your homework. If you don’t believe me or you want to learn more go home and do it. You’re not familiar with the Bible, that’s fine.

Did you know the very last things that Jesus told his disciples or his students on the world before he left was he gave them some jobs. One of the jobs he gave them was for everyone who’s a Christian is to help newer christians or not yet christians know how to read the Bible and know how to follow Jesus for themselves. So if you don’t know how to do your homework after this find anyone in this room who knows even a little bit more than you and ask them and they’ll help you. It’s their job. And if you think you don’t know very much and there’s someone who knows even less than you it’s still your job to help them.

Don’t just be like Pastor Leon. He’s gonna do it all. No he’s not. It’s all of our jobs. Okay so here is a picture of the real God, our glorious God’s love for us in Christ is so wide and long and high and deep.

It’s so great that it surpasses what you can even know or understand. Like, you’re never going to be able to understand how big God is. People often like, oh, I’m a parent and the love of my kid just really inspires me. For the love of God. Great point.

Your love as a parent is nothing even compared to his. For you, he is in control of everything, so much so that nothing happens outside of his knowledge and his care. Earlier I brought this up in the volunteer service earlier we sang a song. It was a really good song. It goes something like this.

I had to write it down. You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good. It’s a beautiful song. And it’s actually not even as good as the Bible is. It’s not even true to the extent that the Bible says.

There was this guy, Joseph, he’s in the Old Testament, he had some terrible stuff happen to him. He had the worst life ever. And then it turned around at the end to be really good. And the people who did all the bad stuff to him come to him and he is like the prime minister of Egypt, basically. And they’re afraid that he’s going to get him back because now he has all the power.

But what he says is what you meant for evil, God meant for good and for the saving of many lives. Basically, in the evil, bad things that you did, God didn’t just twist and turn it around. He didn’t redeem it, he didn’t fix it, he didn’t outmaneuver you in those very bad things. God is at work in those same things for good. That’s how big God is.

Even in the bad, sinful, hurtful, oppressive things. Even in that somehow that I can’t understand. He is at work for your good and to care for you. Jesus says that not a single sparrow, those little brown birds, not a single sparrow falls without your heavenly Father’s knowledge. And then he says, and you are worth more than many sparrows if he knows.

Millions of birds die on migration every year just in North America alone. And God knows about each and every single one of those tiny little birds that ran into a building’s window. I know it’s really a problem, but he cares about you so much more. You’re worth more than many sparrows. This God, the real God, loves his enemies enough to live among them and choose to die on their behalf and at their hands.

Wow. Before the foundation of the world, way back before he made anything, before there was anything at all, he knew that you would be you, and he chose you. And right now, there are terrible and evil things that we don’t understand. But it won’t always be that way, because he will make everything new and good, and he will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Here’s another one that’s not going to be on there because I thought about it during the song part.

Is that every promise in the Bible for those who are trusting in Jesus, every promise is for them. It is? Yes. And amen. Every good word that you find in here is yours if you’re in Jesus.

And I could go on all day doing this, but we do have to stop at some point. So I’m going to read a one verse that really summarizes my goal for this morning with you. It’s actually, I guess, three verses. But therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

For here’s the kicker. For our light and momentary troubles, whatever they are, are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all. Grasp on to the biblical assumptions. Hold on. For an eternal glory that outweighs the bad and the good of right now.

And the picture that I just painted of our God, like, that’s our God. He is so good. He’s better than I can even paint for you today. But he’s also not just a list of concepts. He’s not just a bunch of truths that you have to memorize, like, I don’t know, for confirmation class, like you gotta pass the test or anything.

Jesus said that knowing him is so good that just to know him is eternal life itself. People want eternal life. Sorry, that’s the diabetic thing that I mentioned earlier beeping at me. Okay. People think that eternal life is like, you know, going to heaven forever and stuff.

It’s actually going to be a new creation. But Jesus says that being wrapped up in knowing God is what eternal life is. That’s how good it is in the Psalms, which is like the songbook of the Bible. We’re invited to taste and to see that God is good. Basically, he says, come and experience God for yourself.

Get to know him and taste that he really is good. Don’t just take my word for it. Don’t just think it’s a bunch of concepts you yourself taste and see. And that happens how in worship is how it happens. And not just the living sacrifice, worship, that’s part of it, but just sitting and beholding God.

That happens in singing songs about who he is, like we were doing earlier. Music is powerful and it changes us. That happens in reading the Bible, not just, you know, some people do reading plans. I want to read the whole thing in a year. That’s great.

Go for that. That happens in sitting and looking for the God of the Bible. I want to get to know him through this. Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day, you search the Bible thinking that they’re leading you to eternal life. But the scriptures point to me.

The scriptures point to Jesus himself. And if you don’t know how to do that again, ask someone here to help you, and they would love to help you. And when we’re doing this, we’re transforming our minds to truth, to live. Don’t you want to live in light of what’s true and real? I don’t want to live a lie.

I don’t want to live in light of believing lies. Believe the truth. But so often we’re doing the opposite, aren’t we? We’re filling our heads with the lies that our culture’s telling us. We’re filling our heads with the lies of the culture wars, with the lies of social media and all the garbage that’s competing for our belief and our attention and our affections.

But the truth is the goodness of goddess. And when you discover that for yourself how good he is, this Bible is going to make sense to you, and it’ll radically change your priorities and your perspectives. And one day you’ll be able to stand up here and say, it was worth it. Jesus was better, and Jesus was worth it, regardless of what happens. So I’m going to close and I’m going to pray.

And if you have never tasted and experienced the goodness of God in Jesus, that offer is for you. Jesus died for you. Say, mom, my life is too messed up. That’s why he died. He went in with open eyes of knowing what kind of people he was dying for.

The only person who actually is going to have a problem receiving Jesus work is the people who don’t think they have any problems, who think they have it together, who can’t repent and believe because they don’t think they have anything to repent from. So I’m going to pray. And wherever you find yourself on this spectrum, I’ve never met Jesus before in my life. I’ve never tasted and seen the goodness of God for myself. Yeah, pray.

And there’s some. I think there’s some connection cards. Pastor Leon, during the closing can tell you about that, about how to get connected more formally with people in the church who can follow up and help you on that. Or if you’ve been a Christian your whole life, I’m sure there’s still ways that your mind is in need of transformation according to the truth there is for me. And so wherever you find yourself in the middle of that spectrum, just take that to God as we pray.

So I’m gonna pray and just take the next minute, do your thing in prayer with God, too. God, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here together to look at your word, to see how the Bible describes the God. That is how the Bible describes you. Please help us to believe this, to truly believe this. Please help us to repent from all of the trappings of this culture and world that are just not in line with truth, and help us to taste and see the goodness of God.

We pray for those in this room who are wanting to step forward into experiencing you more. Be near to them by your spirit. Give them what they want. Satisfy their desires. In Jesus name.

Amen.