Suffered, Crucified, Died, and Buried

Okay, we're in a series called Planted, and the idea of this series, as I was praying this year, for how to start off the year, you know, a lot of people, they start off with your new life now, brand new, thinking about changing your life for the better, because we're all kind of in that mode. But the Lord, I felt, spoke to me and says, we need to get back to the essentials of what we believe. I think that's a good foundational piece to start now. And I've been, I've wanted to teach on the Apostles' Creed. If you're familiar with the Apostles' Creed, some of you grew up in a tradition where you recited the Apostles' Creed before every service.

We don't do that traditionally, but we believe in that. We believe in the Apostles' Creed, the Holy Catholic Universal Church, and not Catholic as in the denomination. Some of you have asked me, what's Catholic in the Creed? No, it's not. It's not the Catholic Church.

It's in that day when it was written, it was the Holy Catholic Church, meaning it was the whole church, everybody, every denomination under God, indivisible, right? And that's the whole scope of the Apostles' Creed. And I'm going to, let me pull over my notes here because I'm still on my commissioning ceremony here. Okay, so I'm going to commission everybody today in the work of the Lord. But we're going to deal with John chapter 19, if you want to turn there, and Isaiah 53.

We'll start off with John 19, and if you have your Bible app, you can open that up to the events section. And we have all of our notes there electronically that you can save and all that. I think we have a slide to how to connect with that. If you need to get there, we'll leave that up for just a second so that you can get connected. But John chapter 19, and it says this, So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.

And the soldiers twisted the crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe. Then they said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck Him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, And behold, I am bringing Him out to you that you may know and that I find no fault in Him. So we're dealing with the part of the creed that says He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

He was crucified, died, and buried. And He ascended to the dead. So we're walking through the creed. We're looking at the essentials of the faith, what we believe about the faith. And today we're dealing with the death, the suffering, the crucifixion, the death, and the burial of Jesus Christ.

X marks the spot. Think about it for a minute. X. X. It's funny how everybody kind of got up in arms back when everybody was using Xmas instead of Christmas.

Were you one of those? Yes. Some of you, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think all of us were kind of there, oh man, they're taking Christ out of Christmas, right? And we just got all worked up about that. Oh man, I can't believe they're doing that.

And that kind of happened before the holidays, happy holidays things happened, you know, like, oh, happy holidays. How dare they take Christ out of Christmas. And we would get all tense and worked up about that. And I get it, you know, there is kind of a cultural battle going on with Christ and culture. And it's okay to challenge what's happening.

But just for a minute, can we just relax? Can we relax as Christians a bit and just have this confident assurance that God is in control? That God is absolutely in control of everything? Because I've written, I've seen the Bible. I've read through the Bible and at the end it says that Jesus wins.

It says that God wins and God has everything under control. And although we can get concerned about our nation and concerned about culture, we have to keep the perspective that we have this confident assurance that God is in control. He's in control. But X marks the spot. And when we're talking about X, historically, X is a shorthand for Christ.

Did you know that? That when people wrote Xmas, they wrote X for Christ, which is the Greek letter Chi, which is X. It's a symbol X, which it means Christ, Christ-mas, Chris-mas. Historically, that was it. Also, X, in general, is a cross, okay?

We can see it from that standpoint. So, we have X. You turn it that way, it's a cross. It's two lines crossing each other. So, technically, if we want to argue about, you know, with people about the X or whatever, well, it actually is a cross.

If you're trying to X out Christ because of that, well, you're putting the cross in it, okay? So, it's still a cross because the cross is there. And X also is a symbol for the unknown. Like, what is this? Like an algebra problem.

How do I get to that answer? And that's what we need to know about the cross. There's a lot unknown about the cross. It's important. It's essential that we know what the cross means, what the cross is about.

It's the most recognizable symbol in the world. You see it. We wear it on our chest. We wear it on our coats. We tattoo it on us, right?

We're walking around with the cross. It's the most recognizable symbol but the most misunderstood symbol. It's so misunderstood. And it is crucial what we know about the cross. It is crucial.

It is crucial. Some of you get that. It is crucial. Crucial comes from cross. Crucial.

Crucial comes from the cross. It's the crux of the matter. Crux comes from the cross. It is crucial and the crux of the matter that we know the cross. So cross is so important.

It's important for us to know the cross. And if we don't get the cross, we don't get Christianity. If we don't get the cross, we don't get Jesus. If we don't get the cross, then it's like a wall that supports a building. And if that load-bearing wall is taken away, the whole institution falls down, right?

The whole structure falls down. The cross is essential. It's essential that we know that Christ suffered and He died on the cross and He was buried and He went to the dead. It's important to know that. In fact, Paul even said that.

He was preaching to the Corinthians who were very smart people who wanted to debate everything because they were culturally relevant, right? They had this culture in them. Oh, well, we want to argue this philosophy and that. And here's what Paul said. And Paul had the equivalent of two PhDs in his knowledge and his education.

He was a very, very smart man. He could hang with the best of them. But he said this, I give up my right to be smart to debate with you because all I really care about is that you know about the cross of Jesus Christ, that He was crucified. That's how important it was. So let me give you a few things about the cross.

First of all, the cross is anchored in history. It's anchored to history, in fact, to a specific time in history. It says, He suffered under Pontius Pilate. By writing this down, they were tagging a specific time, a specific period to a specific person in history that people could go to then and there and figure out whether this really happened. There's a specific time in history.

In fact, nobody argues that Pontius Pilate was in history. Some people may argue how ruthless he was and why would he even wash his hands of Jesus Christ. That's what an atheist would say. But they don't argue that there wasn't a Pontius Pilate. And what they did in the creed is they put this in here so that we could identify exactly who, we could go back in history and see that there was a Pontius Pilate who was the fifth prefect, a governor of Judea under Emperor Tiberius around 2637 AD.

He was, in fact, a real person. And people could go back and check this. People could go back and see this. And Paul even used these arguments when he was arguing with, well, not arguing, but trying to communicate, actually shared a gospel with a king, King Agrippa. He was sharing this and this and this and this has happened, this has happened.

And he says this, this has not been done in a corner, according to Acts 26. This has not been done in a corner. It's out there. It's not here. Everything's there.

We did not try to hide this. And our faith invites people to investigate. We're invited to investigate this. It's not something that's just out there that we can't tie to. It invites us.

We want you. In fact, you know, if you seek Him, you will find Him. How are you going to seek Him? You're going to investigate. You're going to look.

Go out and search and find Him. There's evidence there. 5,800 manuscripts, the earliest manuscript dating 70 years from Jesus Christ. Compare that to Homer's Iliad. Compare that to the Odyssey.

Compare that to the Gaelic Wars and tell me if it doesn't add up or if it's not miraculous, okay? The closest we come, the Gaelic Wars, 1,000 years from the original transcript, and we barely have a handful of those manuscripts, but we call that historical. But the Bible, New Testament, 5,800 manuscripts, 70 years from Jesus. And it's 99.5% accurate, the manuscripts we have.

The only thing, maybe spelling, punctuation, slips of the pen, 99.5% accurate. We have this evidence. It's anchored. It's not just a fairy tale.

I had somebody actually come up to me, you know, one time he knew I was a pastor. He says, ah, you're a pastor, aren't you? He said, yeah, nice fairy tale. Oh, man. Well, that's nice and everything.

I'm glad you think it's a fairy tale. You haven't done your investigation, have you? I didn't say that, but I was like, you know, my faith is anchored on something that's real. Well, that's why I believe it's not just a fairy tale. And the cross is also, was also shameful and painful.

It was a shameful and painful death. The cross was a shameful and painful death. I was at a church one time. A friend invited me over to kind of, he was from a traditional church, and he was like, you know, I want to kind of create an atmosphere where I can attract younger people. So I started sharing with him, hey, hey, man, you can move this around.

You can add these seats in here. You can do this and do that. And just kind of some very practical stuff of how to kind of formulate his church or organize his church in order to reach more younger families. And there was behind the pulpit this huge stained glass cross. It was beautiful.

I mean, it, it was just wonderful. But, but I said, you know, maybe you could put a screen up there. Put a screen up there. That way people can see because people can't see in the corners and it's kind of hidden. He said, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

If I try to move, if I try to cover that cross up, I will be ran out of the church. OK, because that's great, great grandmamas, cousins, first removes, whatever. They donated money to the church and we are not going to take that. And that's a probably a sermon for another time. But, but, but, but they were, they, they, they, they prized that cross, that beautiful cross, that perfect, you know.

Wonderful, probably thousands of dollars worth of stained glass material in this cross, but the cross wasn't beautiful. The cross wasn't beautiful. The cross were two pieces of old wood that were hammered together and used over and over and over again. In fact, if someone was being crucified, they probably still had the blood stains of the person before them because they used it over and over. Nobody made new crosses for every person who was crucified.

It was painful, it was shameful, it was rugged. In fact, it was the most barbaric possible way to die. It was the most barbaric of its time, developed by the Persians in 400 BC, and it was estimated around 30,000 people were crucified. 30,000 people were crucified around Judea during that period of Jesus. And there was, in fact, a rebellion that took place around the time where King Herod had died.

Right after King Herod had died, there was what we call a Jewish rebellion, a Jewish-Zealot rebellion that rose up and thousands of Jews got together and decided they were going to challenge Rome. We were going to take back, we're going to usher in the Messiah our own way, we're skilled fighters. And they trained and they put together this rebellion and recruited people. And Rome got wind of it, sent in a legion of soldiers, and they're well-trained soldiers. The Jews were no match, the Jewish soldiers were no match for them.

And thousands were slaughtered. And they took a group of those, about 2,000 of those men, and they put them on crosses. And they hung them up on roads. They put them in public areas, shopping areas. People would travel.

They would see these men hanging on crosses, either dying or dead, rotting. People would see their families on crosses. Children would see their fathers and possibly even their mothers on crosses. It was a horrific thing. And it was a signal from Rome.

You don't mess with Rome. And it's not too far-fetched to say that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were coming back from Egypt around that time. And Jesus, as a young child, saw those crosses hanging on the road, put up beside the roads. And it's fair to say that he lived under the shadow of the cross his entire life. His entire life.

It was against the law to be crucified. To be crucified if you were a Roman citizen. Roman citizens were not allowed to be crucified because it was such a gruesome death. To be crucified. uh Nails in the hands and feet, as we all know, they put you on a cross, and they would take a cat of nine tails, which was a whip, at the end of them were bones and glass that would be whipped across the back, but not only whipped, but they sank into the skin, ripped the skin away where organs were exposed.

Just gruesome, awful, terrible. They would raise them in the air with just nails in their hands and feet, and they would begin a slow death of suffocation, because the weight of their body would weigh down, and they had to push themselves up on this small plank that was underneath them, nailed to this piece of wood, and they were barely getting breath as they came up, as they went down, and they went up. They would go for another gas of air, but they would do everything they could to keep that person from dying as long as possible. The most horrific, gruesome, terrible death possible, set up in public places of humiliation with signs exposing their crimes. It was painful, and it was shameful.

And we wear crosses around their neck, you know, beautiful gold crosses, but that cross represented something horrific and shameful and painful. The cross was vicarious, voluntary, and victorious. The cross, however, was vicarious, meaning that it was done in your place. It's done, when something's done in someone else's place, it's called vicarious. Like when you're living vicariously through your children.

Maybe you're like me, and you can't quite do sports like you used to, and you watch your kids do it, or you watch your kids do something else, and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, you get excited again because you kind of, they're kind of doing it on your behalf, right? And that's what Jesus did. He did it on our behalf. God gave His Son on our behalf so that we could be forgiven, that we could be forgiven of our sins. And not only that, that we could live vicariously through Jesus Christ, who was the Lamb of God, so that we could enter into the presence of God, that we could actually have the same relationship with Jesus Christ, with God as Jesus Christ did.

It was vicarious. In fact, 2 Corinthians says, God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. In fact, it says the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. Jesus carried all the death on His shoulders.

That day when He was hanging on the cross, and you remember as He was hanging there, He looked up and He yelled out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? He wore and bore the sin of all the world on His shoulders. He vicariously carried the sin of every human being. A human being, past, present, and future on his shoulders, it was vicarious that he held on that. And by the way, the only time we see in the Bible where he prays to God and doesn't use Godfather or Father is at this statement, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Because he felt so separated from God at that point. Because he bore and he wore the sin. God could not even look upon Jesus because he was wearing you and I's sin on him vicariously. It was also voluntarily. He didn't have to give his life.

In fact, John 10, 18 says, No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily, for I have the authority to take down, to lay it down, and when I want to, and also to take it up again. It was voluntary. He could have called down a legion of angels at any time during his crucifixion because he was God. But he chose not to.

Humans didn't nail Jesus to a cross. Love nailed Jesus to a cross. And it was victorious. It was victorious as well. That there was a transaction that took place, a debt that was paid.

The enemy meant it for evil. The power of sin meant it for evil. Death meant it for evil. But what did God? God took death and made it good.

He used the power of death to demonstrate life in Jesus Christ. He used that. In fact, Abraham and Isaac, when you see the foreshadowing of what was to come in Jesus Christ, as Abraham goes up to the mountain to sacrifice his son, and as he's coming down to plummet his son, to pierce his son with a dagger, one of the most awful things a person could do is in the obedience of God to sacrifice his son to do that. Therefore, God stops him and says, I myself will provide a sacrifice foreshadowing what was to happen in the future. And on that very geographical area where Jesus was crucified is near the spot where God made that command to Abraham, symbolic of Jesus as the sacrifice for mankind.

Abraham didn't have to give his son because God was willing to give his son. David and Goliath. A lot of you are familiar with the story of David and Goliath. David throws a rock with a slingshot, hits Goliath on the head, he falls to the ground, he dies, and there's great victory. But we kind of missed the other side of the story where it says David took the sword of Goliath and sliced off his head, probably held it up before the people.

Ah, you know, kind of this warrior, almost barbaric way. We missed that part because that's kind of a little bit gruesome. But history tells us, or at least legend or tradition tells us, That David actually buried the head of Goliath in Jerusalem when they were setting Jerusalem up as Israel's capital. And in that very area where Jesus was crucified was the area, the geographical region in which David buried Goliath's head, which is symbolic of Goliath being killed with his own sword, God did the same thing with the enemy. He took the enemy's own weapon, sliced off the enemy's head, and look at it, look at scripture, it tells us that through death he destroyed the one who had the power of death, that is Satan.

He used Satan's own weapon to defeat Satan. The devil thought he had defeated God, but he hadn't defeated God because God used that very thing, what was meant for evil. They were rejoicing in hell when they thought they had defeated Christ. But Christ won the victory and Jesus was essentially cutting off the head of the devil and he articulated it very distinctly by saying it is finished. It is finished.

That's the words of victory. It is finished. And all of hell shivered and shivered because of those three words. It is finished. And he descended to the dead.

He descended, some versions say he descended to hell. Let me describe that just for real quick because some of you are like, he went to hell, he burned in hell. You know, there's a lot of people that might believe that. But what they were talking about here is that he descended to a place called Hades in Greek, which is Sheol in the Old Testament where there was, it was simply the place of the afterlife. In fact, we get a picture of it when Jesus is talking about the rich man and Lazarus where the unrighteous and the righteous were separated and there's a chasm between them.

So this is a place where the righteous and the unrighteous go and they were somehow separated by a chasm. So what we see here is not only this, that Jesus died. He actually was dead. He didn't partly die. He didn't just fake a death.

He died. He went to the dead. We believe that he died on the cross. He was dead. He went to the afterlife.

But not only did he go to the afterlife, he went to take the keys of hell and Hades and take those who were captive and take them into paradise. Remember on the cross, he said, today you will be with me in paradise. He told the thief on the cross that. Well, that's what he did. So the cross is the center of every, it takes faith in Jesus Christ to be saved, right?

So those who live before the cross, those in the Old Testament, those who way back, they live with the anticipation of the cross and the shadow of the cross, which was to happen. They believed in faith that that would happen. And we live in the reality of the cross, that it has actually happened and we can put our faith and trust. So those of the Old Testament and those of the New Testament and it centers own X. Marks the spot that we all are saved by the grace of God through the cross, through the cross.

And from Sheol, Jesus ushered everyone to this place called paradise. To be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord, we have that available to us today. That we no longer have to fear death. We no longer have to fear what Jesus describes as Gehenna, which will be the eternal judgment. Hells, Hades.

Just to distinguish those two, because a lot of people think he went to hell like Gehenna. Gehenna is the final judgment, the weeping and gnashing of teeth that Jesus talks about. But this particular situation, he goes to the abode of the dead and he claims victory. Victory. But this unknown thing about the cross, there's something beautiful.

There's a treasure in it because if we go to Christ, if we go to the cross, although it's very unknown, it's very mysterious, there is something about the cross that brings everything together. It's what we find, the unknown that we're seeking for, that empty place that we can't find, that place that we can't connect, that thing. Maybe you're here today and you're like, oh man, I don't know what I'm missing in my life. I don't know what I'm not connecting with. There's something about my life that just doesn't seem right.

It's found in the cross. That unknown X place in your heart, that's the cross. X marks the spot. X is the cross. It gives us forgiveness.

Forgiveness of sin. Not only does it give us forgiveness of sin and reconciliation on the cross, it not only gives us the ability to stand before God like Jesus can stand before God, not only does it do that, but it brings a wholeness that we bear the image of God, that God not only saves us from our sins, but we are part of a master plan that He is bringing everything back to what it was originally intended to be. That the cross is the starting point to the salvation and resurrection, not only of our bodies, not only of our spirits now and the bodies in the future, but the entire world that the universe is in His hands, and He is restoring the universe back to what it was originally intended to be. He is the master. He is the ruler of the universe.

He is everything. Everything centers on the cross of Jesus Christ by virtue of the cross. We have been invited to be a part of that. We are this magnum monopus of creation. We have been made and created to be that in His image, an image bearer of God, a steward over creation.

And it ends back on this planet. We don't just go to heaven somewhere and pluck hearts for the rest of our lives. It's actually, this is what's so exciting about heaven. Heaven will be on earth. We'll be physically and spiritually restored and renewed.

And that's what the cross is all about through the salvation of sins of mankind. We'll be like, open one of our, God, aren't you? We can be restored and be made like Him, fully and wholly. That's why Colossians 1.20 says, "...

and through Him God reconciled everything to Himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross." 2 Corinthians says it like this, "...but He put the world square with Himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sin." God has given us the task, get this, of telling everyone.

He wants us to tell everyone about this magnificent good news that He has for everyone. It's available, and we need to help others know, guys. We need to help others know. It's not just for us to hold on to. We've got to tell other people about Jesus Christ.

We've got to tell others. We've got to go out and we've got to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ and share the love of Jesus Christ. And then it was predicted specifically. And trust me, I'm closing, okay? Okay, okay.

I'm getting to my last point, okay? Yeah. It's intellectually satisfying to think about this for a second. One of the greatest Old Testament predictions of Jesus' death is in Isaiah. It's the greatest prediction of Jesus' death.

It's amazing. It's amazing. Isaiah 53. If y'all would just turn there, and we're just going to read through this, and you're going to see this magnificent passage, beginning with verse 3 of Isaiah 53. Many of you are familiar with this, but if you're not, this is the prophetic statements made about Jesus, about Jesus' crucifixion, about His death, about His burial, about His suffering.

And it says, He is despised and rejected by man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Checkmark. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. And He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. Checkmark. All that happened.

We are all like sheep going astray. I feel that way, sheep going astray. Without Christ, I couldn't be made right with Him. I felt like a sheep. I've dishonored Him.

We are like sheep going astray. We have turned everyone to His own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of all of us, of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. Checkmark. That happened.

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a... The sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgressions of my people. He was stricken.

And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence. None, nor was any deceived by his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed.

He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. And he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death. And he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Now, let me make this point. Listen, Jesus didn't get with Isaiah and decide to write this down, okay? 700 years before Jesus, and to the T, every I dotted, every T crossed, everything was completed in Jesus Christ's crucifixion. Everything. And then there were transcripts that were found just recently through the Dead Sea Scrolls that date Isaiah back to 100.

And they found a manuscript that dates back to 150 years before Jesus. And they compare the manuscripts of Isaiah today to the manuscript way back then. 99.5% accurate. Wow.

That's why I believe. That's why I believe. I don't believe in a fairy tale. I believe that there's a miraculous working of God to preserve His Word throughout time. It is infallible.

It is inerrant. It has everything that we need for living this life today. In closing, there's this video that I come across a few years ago. It's about a child, a kid. His father came home from duty.

He was underway, and he came back from service. His kid was sparring with his instructor, and he kind of surprised him. And it's just a beautiful demonstration of a father that loved the world so much. Because a lot of us think of Jesus up in heaven like begging and pleading with God. Like, oh, oh God, don't bring judgment on them.

Please, please, please. And God's like, oh, I want to, I want to. And Jesus is like, no, no, no. We think of God that way, but it was just as hard for God, the Father, to give his son and to go through all of that as it was for Jesus to give his life. That the Father and the Son together went through that suffering, went through that pain, went through that heartache, along with the agency of the Holy Spirit, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit working together in that moment to show love to mankind.

He gave just as much as Jesus. Could you show that video? I want to show you that video. Come on, Shib. Come on.

So, here we go. Daddy? I can't watch that video without shedding a tear, guys. But that's our Father. That's how our Father saw Jesus.

He loved his son so much, but he was willing to give up his son for us. But not only that, that's how our Father feels about you. He loved you so much that he gave his only son so that you could become a child of his. And for some of you here today, you've had the blindfold on. You've been struggling.

You've been trying to figure out this God thing. You've been trying to figure out, there's some emptiness in my heart. There's some emptiness in my life, but I just don't understand. Why is God doing this? Why is God not showing this?

Why is this situation here? Why is this happening in my life? I don't understand. Is God real? Is God not?

Why am I going through this? And God's saying, come right here in front of you, take the blindfold off, run into my arms, make your home with me. Come home. Come home. And whether you're far from God, or whether you just need to reconnect with God once again, your Father, your Savior, Jesus, make that decision today.

It's available for you. Bow your heads and close your eyes. Just take this moment, take this moment to really look deep inside yourself and just say, You know, God, I've been struggling. I've been, I've been, the blindfolds have been on, but Lord, I now see something, something inside of me is connecting me back to you. I feel you pursuing me.

So today I just surrender, God. I'm tired of battling. I'm tired. I'm tired of the thoughts. I'm tired of the anger.

I'm tired of the frustration. I'm tired of, of the, the, the X in the, in the, in the numerator that I don't know that I can't figure out, but I, underneath that treasure today, Lord, I, underneath that X is, is a beautiful treasure that is everything that I could ever want, is everything that I could ever need. So, Lord, today, whether I'm far from you, Lord, I'm far from you, or whether I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm coming back to you, Lord. Maybe I've walked away from you for a while. Whatever it might be, Lord, but I give my life to you today.

I'm ready to surrender it, surrender it fully. I don't want to turn back anymore. I want to walk fully in your grace and mercy because it's found only in the cross. Nothing completes my life but the cross of Jesus Christ. So today I surrender my life.

Pray that with me. I surrender my life today. I believe that you are the Son of God. You died on the cross for my sin. You were buried and you went to the dead, but ultimately you were resurrected, proving that you were God.

And I receive the resurrection of hope and life and faith today in the name of Jesus. Amen. Can y'all give God a hand clap of praise? If you gave your life to Jesus today, if you gave your life to Jesus today, I ask you to let somebody know. Don't sit on it.

Don't act like it's not there. Don't, don't just, you got to get with people. You got to be discipled. You got to walk out life with people. Do that.

Connect with our next steps area and we would love to get you rolling down that road. God bless y'all. Thank you. Join me next week for part four of our series.