Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
worship call 1126 Who is this Jesus - 2024/08/07 (3)
is who he says he is. So we don't know how many of these disciples he had. It could be a pretty large following at this point. Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of his disciples which were not written in this book. But these have been written in this book. Again that what we have here the Word of God the completed canon of scripture. And it's already it's already been authenticated. It's already been the Word of God that what we have has been proven to be. And what we have in our hands if you only become a student of the Word of God. You can you can even come to the point without without the miracles without the signs come to understand with full faith that this is the the Word of God. Verse 31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ. The Son of God and that believing you may have life through his name. First of all you may this is your written written that you may believe that Jesus. And this is Yaisus the corresponding name in the Hebrew is Yeshua or Joshua. And it means Jehovah saves or Jehovah is salvation. And this name was given by the angels by God through the angel to to to Joseph in a dream that you shall call him name you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people. And so Jehovah means salvation and that Jesus. So so first of all Jesus is the savior. It is it is corresponding with his his position as savior and in Christ is Mashiach in the Hebrew Christos which means the anointed one the one appointed by God the one anointed by God to rule the Messiah. And so this is his ruling status Christ is his ruling status Jesus is his salvation status. Okay, but you this has been written and we have the written Word of God here that we study this has been written so that you you may believe and this belief is Pestuo and Pestuo it comes more than just academic belief it comes with the Pestuo and the word means to believe to the extent of complete trust and alliance of faith and remember we've gone through Hebrews chapter 11 of faith that directs one's life. I can believe a lot of things but it will not impact my life. It will not change my life and academic belief. Oh yeah, I can believe that. I've I've witnessed to some that that they'll just give me a nod or a kind of a slow. Oh yeah, I believe that. Oh yeah, I believe that. But do that. But but over time I don't see any change in their lives. I don't see they're they're the same old same old they and I don't know if they are or not. I don't know what goes on in their souls. But there are those that have trusted, have believed their Pestuo the the belief the faith mechanism is the accrediting. Remember that faith outside the when it comes to faith, which is Pestuo, it depends upon not your ability to believe. But all America goes on what you believe in. You see, so what is it that you believe? Is it just a bunch of facts? I believe a bunch of facts about the Bible. Oh yeah, I believe that God sent Jesus to do this and do that. Oh yeah, I can even believe that he died on the cross that he was resurrected on the third day. But is that really Pestuo? Or are you just believing some fun facts? Pestuo is the fact that for Pestuo with Pestuo, it's not only believe, but it's trust. It is it is the reliance upon the information and and Hebrews. We mentioned this last night and Hebrews chapter 11. It goes through and these people did all that they did, not as a means by which they are safe, but the faith in which they had drove them to do the things that were necessary before God. And these and these were also authenticating signs. They weren't wonders, but well, some of them did take their their actions way beyond. How can someone die for their faith? How can the apostles because up because of that because their belief structure? How can one's life, how can one's life change from being from point A, whatever you are point A? How can I look at my own life and look back my own life and say I was this then and there are those that people that knew me then to where I am now and not that I like I'm with Paul, not that I've received it yet, but there has been growth from A to B and that's with my friends as well. I've seen others that you were this before and now you're this now you're because of growth and that's not just because of growth, but that growth comes from our faith structure that that believing mechanism that that what we have accredited within our hearts, it's what we stand upon. And so this is once again, the stool is to believe to the extent of a complete trust or alliance to believe in, to have confidence in, to have faith in, to trust faith and trust. And I'm back to our passage. So this belief right here is a it's a verb it's an arisactive subjunctive it's a potential it's a possibility. It doesn't necessarily Jesus did the work. It was accomplished and it opens up the door whether or not you're going to walk through that door is a different question is is another question. So but these I've been written so that you may believe the aris means that there is that there is a action that was taken in the past and it carries on having results on into the future and into eternity. But once again, it's a jump subjunctive. It means that it has a possibility. It is a potential for you to do that so that you may believe because it is this faith mechanism right here. You're a reliance upon the work of this one here that's going to determine whether or not you're going to go through that door. So what is it that we believe? What what is it that we do believe? And and John 21 25 says that and there were so many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that were written. And again, I say that these things carried would carry over. So John 20 31, let me see back to John 20, but these I've written so that you may believe that Jesus is a Christ, the Son of God. Okay. So first of all, what is it that we are believing? Number one is that we are believing that he is the Christ that he is the Messiah. He is the anointed one from God. And you see this belief structure. It's the change of allegiance. The it's the change of who we are going to trust. This takes us all the way back to the guard once again, where the woman is confronted with the serpent. And the serpent says, you know, has God said, bring question to the word, and he said to the woman, or the has God said, and the woman said, well, God said that we could take from any tree, but from this tree, we shall not eat, or in the day that we eat their up, we surely die. And say, he goes, you know, you won't die. What is the woman faced with? She's faced with two, two truths. And if all she had to do was rely upon and faith upon the one who gave them that revelation that in the day you will eat, you will die. But she had a countering information. And the only way that and so when she when a man decided which what the woman did was she gave authority to that which did not have authority. And she subordinated herself underneath the serpent. The man did the same thing. He he acted as an independent agent, subordinating himself. He gave the woman authority that she did not have, subordinating himself under her and took from her hand. So the authority structure from that point on passing even on to their children and onward through generations all the way up to day. The authority structure has been screwed up. But now those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ have changed their allegiance. They have the opportunity to turn back and to you ever have that you ever have that feeling that, you know, wish you could turn back the hands of time and redo something in your life. Well, for historically, man can do that. So that when they trust in Jesus, they are fixing their authority issue, which started all the way back with their original parents. And so where our first parents turned away from the Creator God, Jesus made it possible that we could put our trust in Jesus and change our royalties over back to Jesus Messiah. And once this is the heiress, this is we make that choice. We we make that declaration upon the gospel here in that Jesus Christ provides eternal life for anyone to trust and import. Paul says in Romans that those who believe they they have believed in their hearts and confessed in their mouth that Jesus Christ is what Lord and Savior, the Messiah, the ones that I am going to bow my knee to. And this one is the one who saves me. Acts 4 12. Acts 4 12. And there is no there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men which we must be saved. There is no other way except through Jesus. So know here what know here what it is that that makes us a believer. First of all, that the Messiah is anointed one from God. There will be those who will bow a knee to Satan. There is coming to time when this there is coming to time just coming and I think it's sooner and I believe it's going to be in our hard time. I believe that we are going to to actually experience if not if not the Antichrist, the the Antichrist regime and this world is the the Christian the environment of the Christian is going more and more narrow and I learned I heard from someone saying one time that you have to know who you trust before you are hungry. You are you know you have to know who you bow a knee to because if you do not then the one who who offers you bread when you're hungry the one who offers you bread first will be the one that you'll put your trust in. Many will many will put their will trust in the Antichrist. He will offer things and he will he will offer and that's what Hitler did. Hitler in his day when Germany was hurting he was their savior. He was the one who came to make things right but those like the 10 a 10 bloom family. They knew who their God was and they knew who they put their faith in. You got to know before times are hard who you put your trust in. Who is the Messiah? Because when you're hungry you will make whoever feeds you your Messiah guarantee it. Time is now that we must learn. So people can believe that there is was a Jesus. They can believe that there is a historical Jesus. The Muslims believe that there is a historical Jesus. Many won't deny that Jesus the partner son he was a great moral teacher and they might even add that the Jews killed him but does that necessarily mean that they are saved and they're going to heaven. What is it that they believe about this Jesus? Some will say that Jesus ranks up there with Gandhi. They do say that. Some say that he was a great moral teacher like Confucius and but C. S. Lewis. Let me read that I've done this before. Let me read what C. S. Lewis has to say about it. C. S. Lewis says this. I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people ought to say about him. That is Christ. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher but I don't accept him his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who says he's a poached date or else he is the devil of hell. You must make your choice either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him or kill him as a demon or you can fall as feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with and patronizing nonsense about his being great human teacher. He has not left that door open to us. He did not intend to. So you may encounter the Jehovah's Witnesses. You may encounter the Mormons. You may encounter people that you may be and some of us have. That when you talk about God, well this guy is on the same level as me. Oh he's this guy and you're on the same sheet of music with the moral saying how important this world is to come to God and you may think that you're on that same sheet of music. That you're in total agreement whether it's with the Mormons, whether Jehovah's Witnesses, and you're looking at this good person that's in front of you and said wow, we've got a lot in common and you may be hand over heels. It's just so nice to have somebody that you can talk to like that. But what do they believe in Jesus that's going to be? Because you want to see somebody's face distort like Becca seen? Just make the statement. Do you know that? Yeah it's so great that Jesus is the Son of God. And watch your face distort all over the place. Then you know, see you can have everything right about God. But if you have Jesus wrong, you're just as lost as the worst center. So even Satan recognizes, even Satan recognizes that Jesus is the Son of God in Matthew 4-1. And Jesus wasn't a tessa, he knew this. He said, then Jesus was led up to the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after he had passed there for 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry and the tempter came to him and said to him, "If you are the Son of God," and in this case, if you are and they knew he was, he wouldn't be out there if they didn't know he was the Son of God. Command this stone, these stones should be bred. And then later on, let's just go down to later on. And this was Satan later on. He said, and the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdom of the world and their glory. And he said to him, "All these things I will give to you if you fall down and worship me." And you see, it's about an authority issue. That's what he did with Adam. Change your authority. Who do you believe? Who do you trust? Satan wants that. Satan wants your royalties to direct it to him and he'll do anything to get it. Who do you bow and need to? And Jesus said, "Go Satan, for it is written that you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only." So you can, so wrapping this up, I do have to get rolling. Wrapping this up, you can have, I'll say it again because it's worth repeating. You can have, you can be a pastor, you can be Sunday school teacher, you can be working in soup lines, you can do all these good things, you ain't. Stop drinking, smoking, cussing. You're a good father, you're a good mother, you are, you are a pillar of the community. But my friends, if you do not have Jesus right, if he's something other than the Son of God and the Savior and the Messiah, the one appointed by God to rule as the Messiah. Do not pass, go and do not collect eternal life because it's Jesus that bridges the gap across the chasm. It's the one that sees us through the barrier. He is the narrow way and the broad way leads to destruction, but Jesus is that narrow way and Scripture says only a few find them compared to the multitudes that ever had the chance to do so. Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity of fellowshiping in your word. Once again, we pray heaven and Father that God who holds the Spirit will open our hearts. We have friends and we have family who are so lost. We pray heaven and Father. I pray that the Spirit will open their eyes to the truth that Jesus Christ provides eternal life for anyone they're trusting in for. He is the Son of God. He is the Messiah and He will one day come back and rule this world. We pray the things in Christ's name, amen. All right, that's another fine day in the Lord. Keep your arm around. Keep fighting a good fight with the Word of Faith. Lord, will the Spirit died after pray. I'll be back here in the A.M. [BLANK_AUDIO]