Where's Your Evidence?

So, this is part of our service where we pray. You know, we don’t want to be known as a church that prays. As great as that can sound, we want to be known and we want to become a praying church. You know, a praying church doesn’t rely on our strength. A praying church doesn’t rely on our wisdom. A praying church doesn’t rely on our resources. A praying church relies on what God can provide. And that’s what we are going to rely on here at Sauldam Baptist Church.

So, this month, we are praying for our deacons and our staff. If you are unaware, we are nominating new deacons next month. So, we have had four gentlemen come forward and put their name in the proverbial hat, so to speak, to be considered as deacons for our church, and we’re really grateful for that. So, we’re going to go through the process of interviewing them and testing these men that have come forward. So, we just want to pray that God would bless and cover that process.

But, in addition to that, we are also looking to grow our staff here at Sauldam, looking to hire a part-time youth minister who handled our youth ministry, take the baton from my wife, and also take over a couple other responsibilities to free up some mental space for yours truly. So I want to ask you to grab a neighbor. If you’re comfortable praying out loud, then grab a neighbor and pray for these things that God would oversee both these processes. If you’re not comfortable praying out loud, then what I like to say is you just bow your head. And if you do this with your hands and you bow your head, people can be like, wow, that’s spiritual. I’m not going to touch that. So you’ll be laughing by yourself, is what I’m trying to say. All right, y’all, take it away.

Thank you. Holy Spirit, thank you so much. Thank you for gathering us. Thank you for establishing this church 185 years ago. Man, that is a, to God be the glory thing. Yeah, sure. People, I mean, like, we can do things in our own strength and we can apply for the licenses and everything to be able to establish an entity that’s called a church, for sure. We could go through those legal documentation processes, but even more than that, the God of the universe saw fit to establish this church, which He has also used and He has kept and He has protected. I just want to say thank you. I thank you in advance for our future, whatever you have planned for us.

God, I see other churches coming out of ours. I see families being restored. I see homes coming into wholeness. I see our community dramatically blessed. I see future pastors and missionaries, but I also see future business people and doctors and stay-at-home moms. I see all of these coming out of Sauldam Baptist Church. And I’m begging that you continue to do your work to bring us into the future and the plan that you have for us.

Lord, part of that is you are giving us a few new deacons, and I trust that you’re going to give us a new staff person as well. I want to thank you in advance for who you have selected. You’re going to make that choice evident through the interview process and the voice of our church. But ultimately, we trust it’s your decision. It’s not ours. We just want to be willing and submissive instruments and mouthpieces for you. Help us to do that.

I want to do that too right now. As I open your word, help me just to be a good mouthpiece for you. Help me to say what you have for me to say. To say all of it, not add to it. I pray that we would all walk away from here loving you a little bit more. Help us to tune in a little more deeply into the love that you have for us and let that change us. Please, God.

For anybody in the room that doesn’t yet know you as Lord and Savior, who is yet to give their life to you, who is yet to embrace Jesus Christ, to rescue them from their sin and submit to Him as the master of their life, Holy Spirit, please make today the day of salvation. Please, God. And for those who do know you as Lord, use this to help them take the next step of their discipleship. Help them to grow a little bit more into the image and the likeness of God today. God, we love you.

Thank you for loving us. It’s in Your great name we pray. Amen.

You go ahead and turn to John chapter 5. John chapter 5, verses 31 through 46. Scripture will be on the screens, but I always say it is better in your lap and in your hands. If you do not have a copy of the Bible, you are welcome to use the Redback Bible that’s in the pew right in front of you, and I will go on a limb and say that if you do not own a Bible, you just take that one right on home with you, okay? We have more than adequate resources to resupply those things. So you take that if you don’t have a Bible yet. John chapter 5, verses 31 through 46.

I want to ask a question as you’re turning there. Have you ever been so convinced that you were right in an argument? A friend, a spouse, a co-worker, a neighbor? Ever so convinced you were right in an argument? This isn’t personal, that you were willing to ignore the evidence proving you were wrong. Sometimes the problem isn’t that we don’t have enough evidence. Sometimes the problem is that we are willfully blind to it. We’ve already decided what we believe before we’re ever presented with anything that could change what we believe. Amen.

That’s exactly what’s happening in John chapter 5. You see, Jesus, in His infinite compassion and power, has healed a man who’s been disabled for 38 years, who’s been begging, who’s been needy, who’s been despairing, who has lost all hope. Jesus has healed the man. The only issue is He did it on the Sabbath, which technically was a way of breaking the Sabbath, but then He commands this guy to pick up the mat he was laying on and to leave, which definitely broke the Sabbath laws. Jesus gets in trouble with the Jewish leaders, not because they didn’t have evidence that He was something otherworldly, but because they had already decided what to believe before they were presented with the evidence of who He is. Jesus is put on trial, and He has to give a defense for what He has done. The question is: will the Jewish leaders, will the Pharisees, will they embrace this new evidence or will they persist in what they already believe and think? We will see that today.

My sermon in a sentence: if you are going to talk about this, you’re going to have fajitas for lunch. If you’re going to talk about this over lunch, you need something to discuss while the fajita aroma, I mean, if you can’t tell, that’s my food, man. This is it. Embrace the evidence, give the evidence. I believe what Jesus wants to communicate to you this morning is this: embrace the evidence and then give the evidence, okay? Embrace and give evidence.

Jesus is put on trial with these Pharisees. He is having to defend Himself, and He begins His defense with four witnesses, four pieces of evidence. Look at them with me. I’m starting in John chapter 5, verse 31. If I testify about Myself, My testimony isn’t true. There’s another who testifies about Me, and I know that the testimony He gives about Me is true. You sent messengers to John. That is John the Baptist. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. I don’t receive human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. John was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But I have a greater testimony than John’s because of the works that the Father has given Me to accomplish. These very works I am doing testify about Me that the Father has sent Me. The Father who sent Me has Himself testified about Me. You haven’t heard His voice at any time. You haven’t seen His form. You don’t have His word residing in you because you don’t believe the One He sent. You pour over the scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about Me. And let’s jump down to verse 46. For if you believed Moses, who for the Jews is the pinnacle of the scriptures, if you believed Moses, you would believe Me because he wrote about Me. But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe My words?

Embrace the evidence. I use that word evidence intentionally. You see, way back in verse 17 of this chapter, Jesus responds to the accusations of the Pharisees. That word respond, at least as it’s captured in the Christian Standard Bible, the one I’m preaching from, that word respond Is this legal? Word. He gives a legal defense, a legal testimony. And clearly, verses 31 and following, He uses this word testify, testimony, so often. Like, this is what’s happening. Jesus is being put through an impromptu trial in the temple, mind you. You see, Jesus heals this guy at the pools of Bethesda that’s outside of the temple. We talked about this a few weeks ago. The guy, Jesus goes into the temple. Jesus finds him in the temple. Alex, that’s an awesome shirt. I’m so sorry. I just saw that. That thing is stinking incredible. That’s your son, right? Okay. You need to see Alex before you leave. I’m sorry, that’s a striking shirt. Okay. I’m going to have to weave that into the sermon later, okay? All right. What was I saying? Jesus, He heals this man, finds him in the temple, and then the man goes and points Jesus out. It’s like he’s looking across the way and he’s talking to the Pharisees. Hey, that’s the guy. That’s him. That’s the one that healed me over there. Then all the Pharisees go across the temple complex to Jesus. Jesus then responds to their accusations with His legal testimony.

Can you think of another time when Jesus would be in the temple and have to be put on trial and defend Himself? Anybody? Can you think of another pivotal moment in the life of Jesus Christ where Pharisees would be asking Him questions about His identity and Jesus would have to defend Himself in the house of God? This whole moment is a precursor to the night that Jesus is being betrayed before He’s crucified. It’s all of this is just a preamble to the main thing of Jesus ultimately, giving His life on the cross for us. So, Jesus testifies. He defends Himself. And before I even get into this defense, I just want to give you another little Bible nugget. See, the background for this moment is way back in the books of Deuteronomy and Numbers. When God is speaking through Moses and giving the people of Israel their law, the code by which they were organized, how they would live, how they’d conduct themselves, God wanted to make sure that people would not be falsely accused of crime, but to make sure that justice would happen. So He said, Hey, if you have an accusation against somebody, you by yourself can’t make that accusation and that be legally worthwhile. Nor, if you have a legitimate accusation, they can’t by themselves defend themselves. So, if me and Pablo were beefing and I’ve got an accusation, I’ve got to have two or three witnesses come with me to be able to leverage that against him. But if I leverage that against him, he can’t defend himself to me and my witnesses before the court of the Jewish leaders. He himself would need two or three witnesses as well. Jesus is calling back to that, this teaching from God through Moses, and He’s going to call on not two or three witnesses, He’s going to call on four. Jesus has four witnesses that give the evidence of who He is.

This is the first one: John the Baptist. John the Baptist is this witness from verses 31 and 35. He is a verbal witness about who Jesus is. In the very beginning of the Gospel of John, John, the author, talking about John the Baptist, the person, and calls him a lamp. He calls him a shining, bright light. He is this herald. He is this voice. He is this prophet that God would send to prepare the way of the Lord. John the Baptist is on the scene, always pointing backwards. Hey, He’s coming. He’s coming. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, He’s coming. The Savior of all, He’s coming. The Messiah, He’s coming. The anointed promised one. He’s coming. And the Jews listened to him. They were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. You see, John the Baptist does what you and me were all supposed to do. Spends his life pointing to Jesus, calling people to prepare. And the Jews listened. Overall, they’re fans of John the Baptist. A little funny. He lived by himself in the woods, ate bugs, only wore camel hair. Little odd. But they believed his message. Jesus says, you believe John the Baptist. You embraced that evidence.

The second piece of evidence Jesus cites is His own works, His miraculous witness. Verse 36 says this, I have a greater testimony than John the Baptist because of the works that the Father has given me to accomplish. You see, remember what started this whole moment. There’s this man who is Laying beside this pool of Bethesda who had been there for 38 years, disabled. Not able to work, not able to contribute to society, not able to earn a wage for himself, simply just living off of the benevolence and the kindness, the donations of people walking by. This pool of Bethesda, it’s outside the temple. So, if you are a priest, if you are a Levite, if you are one of these guys and your work concerns the worship of God at the temple, you’re walking by this guy every day. 38 years of that. That’s an entire career of seeing this guy disabled and you can’t do anything for him. All of a sudden, one day, he’s up and walking. Irrefutable evidence. Bless you.

Jesus is like, hey, you believed John the Baptist, and you see what I just did with him. What more do you need? Jesus would do a lot more. When he mentions these miraculous works, if you’re reading the Gospel of John, you can’t help but remember all the signs Jesus gives. Remember, he turns the water into wine at the wedding in Cana. You remember, he healed that royal son a couple chapters ago. He heals this man right here. Next week, we’ll learn about how Jesus takes this couple pieces of bread and fish and he blesses it and feeds thousands with it. You remember the time when Jesus would call into the tomb and say, “Lazarus, come out.” He brings Lazarus back from the dead? Man, those are just the special recorded signs that Jesus has for us. We don’t even, man, know all the things he did in his three-year ministry of casting demons out of people, of healing lepers, of taking people who are broken in their bodies and their minds and healing them. Jesus is like, hey man, it is undeniable. Where I go, bodies are healed, minds are made whole. Undeniable.

This is all promised in Isaiah chapter 35. Isaiah 35, verses 5 and 6 says this: “The eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped. The lame will leap like a deer, the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for water will gush in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” Jesus is like a stream in the desert, causing life and wholeness and healing wherever he flows. Jesus is like, come on, man. You may not like the thing I have to say, you may not like the things that I do, but look at the evidence. Bodies are healed where I go. Lame people are walking where I go. Mute people are speaking where I go.

But if that’s not enough, let me give you another piece of evidence, another testimony. I point not just to my works, I point to God the Father. Verse 37, “the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You haven’t heard his voice at any time. You haven’t seen his form. You don’t have his word residing in you because you don’t believe the one he sent.” Man, if you are trying to win an argument with a bunch of Jewish leaders, man, like busting out God the Father is like the ultimate trump card. It’s God, right? Man, it’s God. It’s the one who created all things. It’s the one who has breathed life into our bodies. It is the one who made the people of Israel out of nothing, the one who freed them from slavery in Egypt, the one who parted the Red Sea, the one who planted the people of Israel in this place. I mean, God the Father.

And not only did God the Father verbally approve of Jesus at the baptism, like you remember that, right? When Jesus begins his public testimony and he goes to get baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus is coming out of the water, and there’s this voice: “Behold, my Son, with whom I am well pleased.” And you see the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove come and rest on Jesus Christ. This incredible sign and statement of approval that God the Father has sent Jesus Christ, God the Son. Not only has that happened, but all of these works that Jesus does, sent by God the Father, prepared for by God the Father, planned by God the Father. Jesus is like, come on, guys. You can’t deny that what I do is divine.

And he uses some interesting language in 37 and 38. He said, “You have not heard, have not seen,” and mentions his word. Put yourself in the sandals of a Jewish person under the leadership of Moses, and you would have heard, you would have seen, and you would have Had like the word residing there. Man, if you are a Jewish person under the leadership of Moses, you have heard the voice of God from the top of Mount Sinai calling down, sounding like trumpets, and you are quaking in your sandals at the foot of the mountain. You have seen God the Father take that Red Sea and part it, and then, after you have passed through, slaps it down on the Egyptians, completely overwhelming and slamming their forces. Man, you have had the word of God being delivered to you through Moses on two tablets of stone. If you are an Israelite person under the leadership of Moses, you have had these realities.

But Jesus is looking at people who have, they’re thousands of years after Moses. And He’s like, man, who are you to question what I’m doing? Have you ever heard the voice of God from above? Didn’t think so. Have you, up until this time, witnessed God breaking into the natural scheme of things and healing people? Didn’t think so. Have you had God’s word hand delivered to you? Not in 400 years. Here I am. You hear what I am doing. You’ve heard God. You have seen My works. You have seen God. And I am the word.

Man, John chapter 1 calls Jesus the word of God, the logos, the very imminence, the essence, the verbal articulation of who God is, is Jesus. He says, I am it. I am God. You’ve heard Me. You’ve heard the Father. You’ve seen Me. You’ve seen the Father. You’ve beheld and witnessed and embraced My word. You’ve embraced the word of the Father.

Jesus will say as much in a few weeks. At the end of His ministry, when He’s about to go away, His disciples are like, we don’t know the way to go. Jesus is like, have you been with Me so long and you still don’t know the way? You’ve seen Me. That means you’ve seen the Father. You’ve heard Me. You’ve heard the Father. And then He has that incredible line. I am the way and the truth and the life.

Jesus appeals to God the Father as this divine witness of His identity. But if, as if that’s not enough, Jesus also appeals to a fourth witness, the scriptures, especially Moses. Man, you pour over the scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about Me. If you believed Moses, who for them is like the baddest of the bad when it comes to the Bible, in a good way. Thanks. If you believe Moses, you’d believe Me because he wrote about Me. But you don’t believe what he wrote. And if you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe My words?

You see, you have to remember that the Jewish people, across their thousands of years of history up until this point, largely still operated as if Moses had just given them Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They have actually maintained a traditional way of doing things for a very long time. Obviously, God the Father, He’s like, He’s their ultimate authority. But if anybody could ever come up to like second place compared to God the Father, it’d be Moses who wrote what they would say is the most important books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. So when Jesus says, hey, if you don’t at least believe God the Father, let’s point back to Moses. Let’s point to the scriptures. You pour over them because you think that in them you’ll have life. Yet they testify about Me.

Here’s the deal. This is for you. All scripture is about Jesus. Every passage whispers the name of Jesus Christ. Every passage of the Bible will explain how you need Him, or it will directly promise His arrival. Every passage of the Bible will explain what He has done for us or call you to imitate Him. Every word of the word is about the word, Jesus Christ. Every single bit of it.

So tomorrow, Scott, when you’re reading and you just open up to your little Bible in a year plan and you’re like, man, 2 Kings 17. How is this about Jesus? Ms. Aletha, when you open your Bible tomorrow and you’ve come to Hebrews 13, the question is, how is this about Jesus? Donna, when you open up the Bible, probably this afternoon, because you’re so spiritual, you’ll get to Jeremiah 32 and you’ll say, I already know how this is about Jesus. I’m just messing around.

For the believer in the room, if you are a follower of Christ, you’ve given your life to Him, and you want to take your walking with Jesus To the next level, whatever that means. When you read the Bible, just ask yourself, “How is this pointing to or explaining Jesus?” And you’ll begin to see Jesus all over the Old and New Testaments. Man, you’ll begin to see how the moments of the Old Testament are ultimately pointing forward to Jesus. You’ll begin to understand that the Gospels, man, they are these biographies of Jesus. You’ll recognize that the book of Acts is this history of what Jesus is doing with this multicultural early church. Man, the entire Bible is about Jesus.

And Jesus is looking at these Pharisees, and He’s saying, “You think that if you merely read the Bible, God will give you life. It doesn’t work like that.” Man, there are people all over the world today who are getting PhDs in the Bible who have no plan to ever follow Jesus. There are people getting degrees and writing 200-page dissertations about what the Bible means, and they are correct because they pour over it, yet they do not have eternal life. You may never apply that same studiousness, but I think if you are honest, you and me might fall in the same trap, and we think that merely opening up this book and reading some words will kind of magically incant some life into us.

Man, Jesus is looking at the PhDs of His day. They had entire books of the Old Testament memorized so well that when I would start quoting it, they could finish the rest of the book. Man, they poured over the Scriptures, they lived for the Old Testament. Yet Jesus said, “Do you think doing that gives you eternal life? I am life. You don’t get eternal life through doing religious things. No, you get eternal life from Jesus, which gives you more desire to do the things.”

Man, I don’t read the Bible because I think it makes me a better person. I don’t read the Bible because I need to be able to have something to say to y’all every Sunday morning. I read the Bible because this is the word of a living God to me, the God who has rescued me from me and given me a new life and wants to use me for His mission. Thus, when I read the Bible, it fills my soul and it directs my steps. I mean, it changes me. And that’s good news for you guys in my family. I need the Bible to change me. But merely reading the Bible as a checklist, as a topic to master, will never change you. It will not give you life.

Jesus goes above and beyond the standard two or three witnesses. And He says, “Listen to this evidence. Embrace this evidence.” But the problem for the Jews was not a lack of evidence, it was a hard-heartedness against it. Man, the Jews had sealed themselves off, they had calloused their souls, they had plugged up their ears so that no matter what Jesus was going to say, they weren’t going to listen.

Jesus, though, two years from this moment was going to give the ultimate evidence. The ultimate evidence that He was not just a prophet like Moses that Moses predicted, but He was the very word of God. In two years, Jesus was going to give the ultimate evidence, not just that He was like John the Baptist, but that He was the Lamb of God sent to save the world. Two years later, He was going to give the ultimate evidence, not just that He and God the Father were close, but that God the Father directly sent Jesus Christ to be a propitiation for our sins.

You see, two years after this moment, Jesus was going to allow Himself to be tortured and crucified and hung on the cross so that God the Father would not judge me from my sin, but He would judge Jesus for my sin. And He won’t judge you for your sin, but He would judge Jesus for your sin. And not just my sin and your sin, but the entire sin of the entire world for all of time. God would take the bucket of that judgment, this vast ocean of punishment, and He would pour it through the funnel so that it would all directly be poured into and on and over Jesus Christ, so that Jesus would take what I deserve, which is God’s wrath and His punishment and His condemnation for every white lie I’ve ever told, every moment I’ve looked at a woman I’m not married to and I’ve wanted her. Man, every time I have been tempted to and have used you guys to make me feel better about myself, God knew It all from before time began. And He made this incredible plan, Al. This incredible plan to send Himself so that God would be punished by God for me. It’s good news, right, Oliver? It gets better. Because it’s one thing for you to go to detention in my place. That means I get out of detention today. But Jesus doesn’t just want us to get out of detention today. He doesn’t just want us to get out of hell today. Jesus wants to make a way for us to be eternally secure and safe from God’s wrath. So what Jesus does is He doesn’t just die on the cross. And mark it, Jesus really died. Man, some of us just kind of take this for granted. You need to know, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, really died. Okay? He laid in the tomb for an amount of time that was undeniably too long for someone to be there if they had not actually died. Jesus Christ really died. Did He stay there, though? Did He stay dead? What’d He do, Nola? Amen, man. He rose from the dead. Jesus Christ came out of the tomb. Man, don’t you know this? Don’t you know it, Ryan? Don’t you know it, Linda? Jesus Christ, He did not just die for my sins, He rose from the grave, completely destroying sin, and death, and darkness, and the devil, so that I would be eternally secure in Him. The ultimate evidence that Jesus Christ is not just a good man or an interesting teacher, or even some sort of supernatural miracle worker. The ultimate evidence that Jesus Christ is God is that He died and then came back to life. Amen? Thank you. One clap. Yes. Isn’t this good news?

And you know what the Jewish people would do when Jesus came back to life? La la la la la la la la la. We’ll pay off the guards, suppress this information, and just live like it never happened. Ultimate evidence. Most of them. Some of them came to faith. Why? Why would they ignore the evidence? I mean, do you see it all over verses 40 and 40 to 45? I’ll read it for you. You’re not willing to come to Me so that you may have life. You see, I don’t accept glory from people, but I know you. You have no love for God within you. I’ve come in My Father’s name, and yet you don’t accept Me. If someone else comes in his own name, you accept him. How can you believe? How? How can you believe? Since you don’t, you accept glory, sorry, you accept glory from one another, but you don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God. Do not think that I’ll accuse you to the Father. No, your accuser is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.

Man, you see pride in them? They accept glory from people and not from God. They’re just proud. You see lovelessness in them? You don’t love God. The love of God doesn’t live in you. You see faithlessness in them. God has sent Me, and yet you, through your eyes of human flesh, can’t recognize the divine in Me. You see foolishness in them. See, you accept the testimony that comes from another, but you won’t accept My testimony. And you ultimately see traditionalism in them. You love Moses, and yet Moses pointed to Me, but I’m so different than what you expected that you can’t push past this. There’s a lot of reasons why the Jews wouldn’t accept this new evidence. I’m just really curious. Man, are you susceptible to any of these things? Does your pride blind you from God’s work? Does your faithlessness keep you from seeing what God is doing around you? Does your love for the things of this world suppress and crowd and drown the love that God wants to put inside of you? Are you too foolish to see God at work? Are you too bound to your expectations and even traditions to embrace the new thing that God wants to do? Jesus is calling us to embrace the evidence and give the evidence.

So I just want to offer a final few words as I close the sermon. You see, your life bears and gives evidence about what you believe. From the clothes that we wear to what we do with our hair, to the jobs we pursue, to the people we marry, to the words we say, the actions we commit, everything you do is a piece of evidence about what you believe, what you trust in, what’s most important, and what’s most valuable to you. Everything. What does the evidence say about you? I Mean, the classic pastor question: If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Like, truly, think about that. Is your life actually markedly different from someone else who doesn’t believe Jesus Christ is God in the flesh? Do you speak differently than people who don’t follow Jesus? Do you treat people differently from people who don’t follow Jesus? Do you spend your money differently? Do you approach romance and sexual relationships differently? Do you view your career differently, your health differently? Man, your life should be bearing the evidence that you have embraced the evidence.

That’s the thing about Jesus. When we embrace Him and give our lives to Him, He begins to change us. It reminds me of the story of a guy named Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel was this atheist who is a journalist, and he was so fed up with Christians and our phony arguments about divine work. Top of the list was the resurrection. And he’s like, this is ridiculous. These backwoods people who seem to believe that somebody could die and then come back to life, that is absurd. What I’m going to do, because I’m Lee Strobel and I’m a smart journalist, I’m going to investigate the evidence so that I can disprove all of this stuff and free these blinded people from their lunacy of Christianity.

Lee Strobel studies the evidence. He looks into the resurrection accounts. He starts reading the Bible. He starts talking to Christians. He looks up church history and you know what he finds? It’s true. It’s all true. Maybe not the kooky stuff we say, but everything that the Bible says about who Jesus is, it’s all true. Jesus really did live the perfect life in our place. He really did live and breathe, and He really was a person who really was hung on a cross under Roman rule, guided by Jewish influence. He really was buried in a grave outside the city of Jerusalem, where He really did stay for multiple days. And Jesus really did rise from the dead, as attested by hundreds of people through eyewitness account that has been recorded in Greco-Roman and Jewish history for all posterity to witness. And you know what happened to Lee Strobel when he recognized it’s all true? It changed him. He stopped attacking Christianity and he started writing about how this is mentally, intellectually, historically valid.

Man, I want to make an audacious claim. This Bible is more historically reliable than the Odyssey, which I read in middle school and high school. It’s better history than what we teach some of our kids in school. It presents a truer account of how people continue to fail and mess things up. And the pinnacle of the story, Jesus Christ Himself, 100% true. This isn’t just a pastor trying to work you guys up. I mean, this is true. When you embrace the evidence, it changes your life.

So here’s this: your life should point to Jesus. For Lee Strobel and every born-again Christian that’s ever lived, when they embrace the evidence of who Jesus is, they start pointing back to Jesus as the reason. Kind of like the man in the story who was healed in the very first place. You remember, he was healed from 38 years of begging and waiting for something. Now, he did not do it in the right way. I don’t think he had a great motivation. But when people asked him what happened, he said, Hey, it was that guy. And this man who had been healed of 38 years of disability and being an outcast points and says, It was Him. He did it. When someone says, Why are you different? You ought to go, It was Him. He did it. He’s the one that saved me. He’s the one that’s challenging me. He’s the one that’s asking me to live differently. As Pastor Al loves to say, you may be the only Jesus someone else ever sees. And I pray that my life makes it easier for someone to trust in Jesus, not harder. If you embrace the evidence of who Jesus is, your life should point to Jesus.

Your words should also be about Jesus. Y’all look at me as the weird guy who can bring up Jesus in the most awkward places. Is that not true? The nervous laughter tells me you agree. Let’s be fair. I’ve got a lot of experience of starting conversations, getting them to Jesus quickly, sharing my testimony, and asking people if they want to believe. That’s fair. Do you know the reason why I have experience? It’s because I just started. You too can be seen as the weird person who can Bring up Jesus in the most awkward conversations. The offer is out there if you want to join me. The water is fine. I want to teach you just a little tool. This is called a 30-second testimony. When I am sharing my testimony with somebody, this is most often the tool that I use. It only takes 30 seconds. And if it takes you longer than 30 seconds, that’s because you took longer than 30 seconds. So, it’s only got three parts.

The first part is: who were you before you met Jesus? What was your life like before you met Jesus? I’m Jeremy Simmons. Before I met Jesus, I lived for approval. I was oriented in every way around comfort, and I used religion to get things from people in God.

Part two, how’d you meet Jesus? It all changed for me on a Wednesday night after a youth group when a buddy shared the gospel and he told me the truth of John 3:16: how God so loved Jeremy that He wants to rescue me from my sin and my darkness. And my friend invited me to believe. By God’s grace, I did.

Part three: What has Jesus done since? What’s my life like since? Now I don’t have to live for approval. I don’t have to live for comfort. I’ve got the approval of God Almighty, and I am filled with joy. That is my story in 30 seconds.

Every single one of y’all can do that. From our youngest disciples to our least young disciples. We can all do that. What? Thank you. I appreciate that. You could even do it too, Cody. Oliver, I know you’re doing it. Man, I hear the stories of how you share your life in Christ, man. I hear those things. That’s incredible. Man, 30 seconds is all the time it takes for you to take the infinite power of God to resurrect dead souls and give them an opportunity at life.

This afternoon, man, if you didn’t get a bulletin today, this is in the bulletin. Grab a bulletin on your way out. This is the only time I’ll ever tell you to do this. Take your phone out and take a picture of this. I’m being serious. If you didn’t get a bulletin, I want you to do this right now. Thank you, corporate number one, my wife. Okay. This afternoon, take five minutes and write down your 30-second testimony. Text it to me. Text me your 30-second testimony. And then I just want you to just a couple of times just do it. Just share it. Share it at the wall. If you’re married, look at your spouse and say, hey, I want to practice this tool. If you’ve got siblings, you do it with them. You call me at some point and just practice it with me. Practice this. And then just say, God, who can I share this with? God loves to answer that prayer. He doesn’t answer every prayer that we ever ask. God will answer this one. And He’ll start giving you people that you can share this story with. And watch what God does with it.

So your life should be, it should point to Jesus. Your word should be about Jesus. So man, it’s like, I want to finish with this question. Like, man, what’s the evidence of your life? Have you embraced the evidence of who Jesus is? And is your life giving the evidence of the fact that God sent His Son to radically transform us? I pray it does.

If you’ve never given your life to Jesus Christ, though, man, if you’re sitting here today and you’re like, I don’t actually know that my life is any different, I don’t know that I’ve ever actually trusted in this on like a heart level before. You know, I don’t think that my life is filled with joy. In Jesus’ words, I don’t actually think that I have eternal life in me right now. Man, today’s the day, I’ll be right here. Man, if more than one of y’all come, I’ll grab Al or Becca or Don. Or somebody, we’ll have people here. I would love to pray with you and help you take that step of giving your life to Jesus Christ.

If coming down front right here is a little too awkward, you don’t want to be seen like doing this because it’s just not the culture you came from, then I give you an invitation right now. Let’s all close our eyes and bow our heads. If you’ve never given your life to Jesus Christ, if you’re not sure that Jesus is your Lord, your Savior, if you don’t think that your life is actually any Different than His, then I invite you to pray this prayer in your words, in your heart. Holy Father, thank You for today. I don’t think that I’ve given myself to You. I think I live for me. But I see this evidence of Jesus. I see how He lived the perfect life and how He died a sacrificial death for me, and how He was raised in victory for me. And I want to enjoy that. God, I admit that I am a sinner that needs to be saved. I believe that Jesus is the Son sent to save me. And while I don’t know it all yet, I confess that He is my leader now.

If you just prayed that for the very first time, eyes are still closed, heads are still bowed. If you just prayed that for the very first time, would you raise your hand, please? All right. I trust that for someone in the room, you’re still wrestling with these things. I’m going to be down front, ready to pray with you, to pray for you.

I pray for all of us. Holy Father, thank You. I really do mean it. Thank You for sending Jesus. Thank You for giving Him the life filled with the evidence of who He is and how incredible He is and how He works. Help me, God, to give the evidence that I follow Him. Let my life look different this week than the lives of people who don’t follow Jesus. Like, God, I need to be kinder. God, I need to be more patient with my kids. I need to be more gentle in my thoughts toward people. God, I need to stop living even still as a born-again believer for people to like and approve of me. God, I need You to transform me more. Please transform all of us. Transform the very soul of this church. So that when people interact with us, they would say, Wow, that was different. God, thank You for loving us. We love You too. In your great name we pray. Amen.