Living In God's Kingdom

As you can clearly see, I'm not Pastor Steve. Pastor Steve is in Connecticut, and he's preaching there this morning.

And so I'm covering for him here with the Adult Sunday School, but as you can also clearly see, we have the high schoolers here.

And in the last six weeks, we have been covering each of the

Gospels. We've done an outline of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and we were supposed to do

John, but we put that on hold for today's class. And so I'm going to just ask them some questions on Matthew, and they're going to give you some great answers.

And you all can learn about Matthew, Mark and Luke. You should just look at the look of their faces.

But no, don't worry. I do. I do. I do hope you will engage with our

Q &A type Sunday school today. In fact, as I was preparing for this,

I was thinking, you know, let me actually ask you a question. How many of you like a lot of content? You know, you come to the

Sunday school. You want to just hear a lot of good content. Just raise your hand if you like content. OK, you're BBC.

OK, how many of you like discussions? You know, just engage in. OK, we have a few.

OK, so today I'm going to try to walk that balance between giving you content as well as engaging that content, the biblical content in our lives.

What does the word of God do to believers? What is the knowledge of God and knowledge of the holy?

What role does it have in people's lives and especially from the synoptic gospels,

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? And so before I do that, I want us to just kind of step back.

I know some of you here are young believers. You just got saved. You're super fired up and excited. And others of you have been believers for decades, centuries.

So I want to ask one pointed question to get us started.

And the pointed question is this. You, as believers, had a before and an after.

You used to live life, me as Pradeep. And then. And after where this is a child of God.

There's a before and after for each of you as believers here. I want you to just think for a take a few moments to just think of what was the most significant change in your existence before and after you came to know the

Lord Jesus Christ. Take a few moments and then you can just yell it out or raise your hand.

Sin and my relationship to it before I kept I would sin didn't bother me as much.

But after this, there is a deep conviction, you said, like a knife going through my heart. We have the spirit of God here who convicts us of sin as we sin.

And and so you used to have different desires and you have different desires.

Now, in what way? You know, there are things that we enjoyed for ourselves in the past.

We we elevated those things because those were the things that held value to us, gave us comfort.

They were what gave us joy. And now we've come to know the Lord. And now the desires of our heart are strangely radically different than what it was before.

There are things here that I love and these things may cost me pain. And yet I would go to the

Lord despite the cost, because I love him. There is a there is an affection for my

Lord that actually transforms how I love other things. So there is a huge redirection of my desires, of my will and the way in which

I look at life and see life. So we looked at sin and our response to it.

We looked at our desires. Any other changes? That's wonderful. Fear and in the way we respond to life.

If I am the captain of my own ship, I'm controlling a lot of things and I know that I have a lot of things out of my control.

But in the new me, if I'm under the Lord's control and he has everything in his hands, then fear and anxiety no longer control me and I can rest in him.

Excellent man. You know, before we can read the words of the scripture. But our eyes are blind until the spirit of God opens our eyes, illumines the text.

And then now it becomes living. It's powerful and it's transformative as the word of God does its work in our life.

And that are there. We have given a new heart with which to appreciate and enjoy and hear

God through his word. As before, it could just be. I mean, you have all these guys on TV who just talk about the gospel, but have no idea what it what it truly means.

So we've looked at a few different things. You know, how do we relate to sin? How do our desires, how are they changed?

How do we look at life in terms of its fears and anxieties? How do we even look at the word of God? And in all of these things,

I want to just go back to Christ and our relationship to him. You know, when you look at sin,

Christ is our savior from sin.

He is our sin bearer. He is the sinless one. And this is our chief, most desperate need of all humanity.

We are we are born in sin. We continue to sin gladly. One of you said, you know, I enjoyed the desires that I had before and I would continue to do it until I came to meet

Jesus. The one man who never sinned and the one man who freely took my sin upon himself and the one man who paid the penalty for my sin.

And he has given me his righteousness on top of all of these things that I can actually be there and be right before Christ.

That's why that's what begins the journey, doesn't it? I mean, it's like here I was a rebel running away the other way. And now

Christ has shown himself to me as the savior and new life has begun.

You know, I am no longer bound by sin. You look at Romans five, six, seven, eight.

And you say, wow, you know, this is great. I have freedom in Christ. I'm no longer bound.

I'm no longer on the penalty. And I can come right before the throne of grace and receive mercy. And I can approach the holy

God, the thrice holy God with the holiness that Christ himself has given for me. So that's what begins this.

And then we look at how our life is now. How do we live this life that God has placed us in?

And so I recognize that Jesus is Lord. He is master of this universe.

He is not just up in heaven and waiting, you know, to figure out how I'm going to live my life. He is not.

He is governing every single aspect of my life. And I can trust him because what he does, he does well.

And I have no fear. I do not need to fear. I can rest in him.

I can trust in him. And as I walk through this life, so there is a huge change because my savior is also my

Lord. We talked about a few other things. We talked about desire. We talked about the word.

I'm going to focus on one specific area. This is going to be controversial. That's why

I'm hoping we'll generate a little heat. Our thermostats normally take a little time to build up on a cold morning in BBC.

Sometimes it's after your church is over, but we'll try to see if we could generate some heat here this morning.

So in the last six weeks, we've been looking at the outline of the

Gospels and we've been trying to figure out. What did it look like when Jesus came here 2000 years ago, exploded on the scene.

With a little puff of smoke in a little obscure village called Bethlehem, and nobody knew what it was.

And it was like, you know, not even in a house. It was in a manger. And it was to an unmarried couple.

And that's the king of the universe. Sounds like a little bit of an anticlimax, the way

Jesus entered. And then the way he completes his victory was as a criminal, naked, abused, tortured and then dead.

And then the resurrection. And then the ascension. And then you have a bunch of his disciples huddled and scared in an uproar, waiting until the spirit of God comes and illumines them again.

You have this work of Jesus Christ during those, you know, let's just take this public ministry three and a half years, where you don't see the type of stuff that we normally get excited about.

Jesus at the right hand of the father, Jesus in all his glory and effulgent glory, maybe the transfiguration.

You get like little glimpses of those in the Gospels. But most of the times, all you see is he's there talking to this outcast.

He's talking to these prostitutes. He's he's with these tax collectors. And, you know, he's getting a hard time from all of these leaders who should be actually welcoming him.

And he comes into Jerusalem and no welcome ceremony for the son of David. It's it's only, you know,

OK, how do we kill him? And in a week, less than a week, they're going to get that done. So we have what we did in the last six weeks was just to look at the panorama of what was communicated in the

Gospels. And I'm going to bring that and then we're going to apply it for us today. You know, what do we learn from the man,

Jesus Christ? And the king, Jesus Christ, that should make us as citizens of the kingdom that Jesus is

Lord over in the way we live our lives today as his citizens.

And I'm a citizen of America and I used to be a citizen of India and I had certain responsibilities and obligations.

You are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and you have certain obligations.

Some responsibilities, certain privileges, that's what I was looking for. English is not my first language.

Certain privileges that you have that sometimes we can hide in our back pocket and forget that we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

And today, my job is to put them right on the table and say, let's look at these privileges. Have we forgotten these?

How are we exercising these? Maybe there are some of you here who exercise them with all the time and you can kind of help us walk through those privileges.

How do we live these lives? This this life out. But before I do that, let me just give you the synoptics overview.

So you have Jesus in all of the. Actually, let me ask you some questions. You're not under pressure to answer, but you can.

If I said this, we've been using the outline from the Bible project.

And I gave them a disclaimer, a closure disclaimer. And not everything they say is right.

But there are some very helpful things. We use the outline of the books to just get us started thinking about it.

So if I said, you know, you have an introduction, you have five different elements in which

Jesus does things. And then you have a conclusion with the ending of the story.

What book of the Bible do you think I'm referring to? They want a hotspot at a cold morning.

Yes, of course, Matthew. So in the end, this is the outline that we went through.

So in the introduction, you have this Jesus as the son of David. You're you're given the genealogy there.

You know, he's coming here as the God incarnate. And then when he is born in, we had the outline from that was chapters one through three, four through seven.

You have Jesus announcing the kingdom. He comes here. He he announces the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is at hand. And then you have the sermon on the Mount. He explains what the kingdom of God is going to look like. You look at the kingdom of God that Jesus announces.

And let me stop there for a moment. How many of you think that's the kind of kingdom that's kind of appealing and wonderful to live in?

Think in 21st century America. I'm not going for a theocracy.

So those of you who. But think about what Jesus announces in the

Sermon on the Mount. And then ask yourself this question. Is that something that's attractive, scary, dangerous?

What kind of a kingdom would be? How do you relate to it in the 21st century?

Any thoughts? I'm looking at West.

Oh, by the way, the Jamesons are right here. And those of you who don't know the Jamesons, make sure you meet with them afterward.

Jim West, you were a deacon here. If I'm not. Yeah. Just as I came in, the

Jamesons left. I think we were too much for them. You are living in Florida now, right?

Do you live in Florida? No. Yeah. Yeah. So welcome. Yeah. And you can answer.

So you look at the the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking about his kingdom.

He's speaking, you know, here's what the kingdom of God is like. And and then you look at your kingdom that you live in the earthly kingdom.

This is living in the United States of America. What does that look like for you?

When you look at this, this announcing of the kingdom of God and the kingdom that we live in, does living in each of these kingdoms make a difference?

That's excellent. Thank you. And actually, we had our

Scott Clark here. He did a conference on the law gospel distinction, you know, speaking about, you know, where what the role of the law is and how we are people who relate to the

Lord by grace. And that's a great, great response. I think, you know, we need to be careful because if you take certain things a little too far, you can then now become a theorem is and then, you know, you can go down a dangerous path.

But I am actually going to push the boundary a little bit here. You know, if you look at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, can anybody remember what the ending looks like?

You can turn to Matthew five to seven. How does how does the

Sermon on the Mount end? And let me give you a clue. He says something about B.

What as. Excellent. And then he also says something about some houses.

And what does the house on the rock look like? And how do we build the house on the rock? OK, I think that kind of summarizes.

I think the text is a little more explicit there. But I think you've summarized what it looks like. We want to be remembering, you know, all of these things, there's only one person who's ever done them perfectly.

And you and I will never, ever do them perfectly. What a bummer. What kind of a kingdom are we in here?

You're the citizen here. Here's all the things you can do by. Oh, sorry. I can't do it. What's the point of all of these?

All of the Sermon on the Mount. You look at Jesus. He's the king.

This is his kingdom. This is his his agenda. This is what he's going to bring and establish down when he rules on Earth.

He is. This is his heart. You know, many a time I heard people and this is what bugs me the most, because I do this all the time.

I say, I know who Jesus is. I know who God is. That makes no difference, because I just say above many, my sin is taken care of.

And then I just go around and live like nothing matters. I say, I love Jesus Christ and I I have a passion for him.

And then I gloss over the things that Jesus talks about as important to him.

I just say, OK, my sin is taken care of and I'm going to just do my own thing. You know, teaching to you guys over the last six weeks has actually burned certain things in my mind.

It's like, you know, when I was a young believer, I mean, I was listening to Kate speak. I remember that.

I remember when my life, when my citizenship, I tore it up to the kingdom of darkness.

And I said, I get a certificate into the kingdom of heaven because of what Jesus has done.

I love my Jesus. I know what Jesus is like. He hates sin. He loves me. He loves sinners and he cares for certain things that now

I have desires for. I no longer have desires for those things. But then what happens is, you know, I get an

MDiv, I get a Ph .D. And then I'm like, I've got all the theological finessing of how to live my life.

And I've got my head kind of, I think, sadly, even as a born again believer, I can go down and work on my theology when my understanding of the depths of Jesus love have suddenly evaporated.

You know, I was reading with the, sorry, I forgot your names, McLaughlin. We were looking at the elders were reading none greater, looking at the attributes of God.

And as you look at those attributes of God, there are certain things that just get you scared.

You know, my God is a God who is just unbelievably powerful, unbelievably holy, unbelievably existing in ways that I just can't quite grab my mind around.

And the more I get my mind around it, I want to fall on my face. I want to just shiver and tremble and then look at the life that I live.

And you were talking about fear. You know, suddenly that fear just evaporates because now I can look at the life

I'm living in light of the God whom I am serving and the God who is in control. And so now when

I look back through the Gospels and this time I'm looking not purely at the divine attributes of God, but at the human, the perfect man who lived, which reflects the will of the father in the will of the son submitting to the father.

Now I get a glimpse of what the citizenship looks like for me. Well, I need to walk while I walk through this life.

It's and I think the law, grace, gospel, law, grace, distinction is huge. Pastor Mike preached last

Sunday from Hebrews 10, the last few weeks. Remember the hinge verse

Hebrews 10, 1 through 18, all about Jesus Christ and his exalted role and then 19 and beyond.

Therefore, what should you do? Therefore? OK, actually, this is a question you can answer. What should you do?

Therefore, because of who Jesus is. OK, we should see why, what it is there for.

And what is it? Well, we've seen the what it is therefore, which is Christ is our great high priest. He is he is greater than Moses, greater than the angels and all of those wonderful things about Jesus and his work.

Now, what does Hebrews 19 through 24 tell us?

We should be excellent.

So we can. And you're actually quoting the scripture there. What was Pastor Mike's summary of it? What an idea. Quoting the scripture.

Therefore, we can enter boldly with confidence. Assurance. OK.

You know, therefore, keep believing. Remember, it's not like, OK, the first thing the author of Hebrews says is,

OK, all of these things, you know, but Jesus lets us go. And do the things that we need to do as as faithful servants of God.

It's like continue trusting in Jesus. You know, the whole drawn near all of those things were emphasis on Jesus.

Pastor Mike was saying, you know, the Jewish person thinks, you know, just come approach, you know, believe and then keep on believing.

Hold fast to your confession of faith. So here are all the things that happened. Now, you know who Jesus is.

Make sure that you're living your life by faith. And then comes the imperatives, the commands that follow.

And so last week we saw three of those things. OK, those are if you're in my home group, don't answer.

But anybody else? Remember what those three actions were as for believers? Twenty four and twenty five.

Excellent. Agitate, attend and applaud. I am here listening to Pastor Mike and I'm going to agitate you today.

Agitate is the word stir up. That's the verse that is there. Pastor Mike alliterated like a pure Baptist.

So we had agitate, which is stir up one another to what? To love and good words.

So there is a there is a joy and a privilege that we have here as believers in Christ. And in our home group, we were applying that.

How does it look like? You give a call to a brother who hasn't come to church in a while or someone who is struggling and in need.

You encourage them, pray with them. And so there are there are ways in which we want to stir us up while we are here on Earth in order to exalt

Christ. And that we might. It's the therefore, you know, because we believe in him, because we trust in him, we actually do these things.

So let me know. I think I've spent way too much time here, but I'm going to give you at least we'll just take

Matthew and Mark and Luke. We used a similar pattern and we noticed this very similar pattern happening there.

Jesus announces the kingdom. He brings the kingdom into people's life as he heals, he restores.

So this was was chapters eight and eight through ten. And he actually gives some teachings under that.

And he sends the twelve chapters, 11 through 13. We saw three kinds of responses to Jesus that happened. Same thing you see in Matthew happen in Mark and Luke.

So the responses were people who said, yeah, great. This is the this is the Messiah. The others who said,

I don't know what this is about, like John the Baptist disciples or even his own family. And then we saw those who said, you know, this guy is a blasphemer.

Get away with him, which was the leaders. And then you have questions about what kind of expectations you have of the

Messiah. And I want to just make sure you anchor this. Let me ask you the question.

What was the expectation of the Messiah from the Jewish leaders? What did the

Jewish people, a political leader, power, authority?

I'm going to just bring the kingdom of God here. That's what I want in you. If you don't have it too bad. You know, you're not my

Messiah. What else? I think everybody had that in mind.

Yes. Do not break the Sabbath. How come on Sabbath? We've made all these rules around that.

That you fit our agenda, not we turn our hearts back to you.

That was the problem with the leaders. Now, what about the disciples? What was their expectation of the

Messiah? Actually, the disciples didn't have much of a different idea either.

You remember when Jesus asked Peter, you know, who do you say I am? What did he say? You're the

Christ, the son of the living God. And what did Jesus say? Blessed father who has, you know, it's

God's revelation to Peter that has actually shown him that this is the Messiah. And then Jesus tells him, you know,

I'm going down to Jerusalem to be crucified. And then what is I know what it means that, you know, you are the

Christ, the son of the living God. And that does not mean going to the cross. You know, that's that's Peter's understanding of it, which is the other disciples.

Peter was the only one bold enough to open his mouth. And, you know, that was the expectation of the Messiah. And then you have that was another.

You have the transfiguration that actually says shows to these three disciples who

Jesus is in terms of his effulgent glory. This is actually God himself. And his way of dealing with power and authority and establishment of the kingdom is radically different than the way in which the people were expecting it to come.

You have the clash of the kingdoms as Jesus enters Jerusalem. You have the people not acknowledge.

No, you don't have the leaders who ought to have welcomed him as a son of David who reject him and want to kill him.

And then in the conclusion, you have the killing happening and that you have the Passover now symbolize the

Lord's table, symbolizing the work of Jesus Christ and his body and his blood.

You have the death of Christ. You have the resurrection of Christ. And then you have the commission that comes out. You now go.

What should you do? OK. That's true.

And actually, that's one of the things I wanted to focus on. But so you go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and his

Holy Spirit. We have a mandate for to get the kingdom of God out into the kingdom of the world, you know, and announcing just as Jesus in the beginning of the gospel comes in and announces the kingdom and then brings that kingdom into people's life.

Our job is obviously to exalt this Jesus to a world that does not know him.

So we need to bring that out. And then we have a responsibility to serve one another. Now, the piece that I wanted to push the envelope for is how well do we know

Jesus in the gospel of Mark? We saw this. We saw three categories, you know, in in Galilee, in the last one is in Jerusalem.

But in the middle of the journey that he had and we had a similar kind of thing in Luke as well. And end of each of the gospel, each of the sections in Mark, we had puzzles.

People were just so confused by who Jesus was today as believers with the whole

Bible in hand. I think I can presume that I know Jesus too well. Everything I need to know about him,

I do. I don't like, you know, let me just take John. We'll cover this next week with the high schoolers.

When you look at. I'm going to ask you, this is a question, and I hope some of you will get this right.

When you see the washing of the disciples feet by Jesus, what are the truths that come out from that text?

And all of, you know, this text, I'm not going to explain what the event is, but what do you understand from it, Mark? And what does that mean?

OK. I'm going to come back to that. Yes. Peter doesn't understand what

Jesus is going to do. And, you know, isn't this so typical of us? I read something I don't understand it.

I might just reinterpret it in the way that I wanted to be. I'm going to wash your feet, Peter.

No, Lord, you will never do that. Well, you have no part in me. Oh, OK. Just wash my head, too.

You know, it's like I need to get it. It's not like, OK, you know, that said it and that settles it.

It's like, Charlie, you should be teaching here. I'm so, you know,

I see if Charlie is in this class when I'm doing Sunday school. And I'm like, OK, I'm fine. I'm safe. Turns everything on its head.

This is an upside down kingdom. When we've been talking about this, this is an upside down kingdom that Jesus brings.

He is the most powerful man on all of the pages that we see. But he is the one who actually goes to the most humble estate in order to serve those who actually don't deserve it at all.

And if I say, you know, I look at none greater. I look at the divine attributes of God. And then

I look at Jesus, who reflects the mind of God in the person of the man,

Jesus. You know, we could just use this one example. We can talk about a lot. You know, Isaiah 53, as he goes before the cross and a whole bunch of other places where the power of God is demonstrated, when the glory of God is demonstrated in an upside down way than what we would expect it to be.

Now is the son of man glorified. When was that? When Jesus says in John, you know, now is the son of man glorified.

It was not a resurrection people. I need to remind myself of this because just because Jesus is now resurrected from the dead and I belong to his kingdom,

I seem to somehow think that I belong in in in the heavenly places.

And I have some privileges accorded to me because I'm a child of God. The privilege that I have is that I can get to sweep the floor and get to wipe the dirt off of other people's feet.

What Jesus did and coming back to what Mark said is horrendous. You know, it's same thing like the prodigal son.

We heard that preached a few months ago. You know, in terms of how the father runs after the son that doesn't happen.

Now, this thing is even worse. It's like, you know, I mean, West, you've been to India. You know what dirty feet look like in India, dusty roads and all the cultural levels that Charlie was talking about.

These things don't happen. You don't do it. And how is the power of God and the power of Jesus Christ demonstrated in that one event?

When we think of how we keep thinking like Peter, Peter is like, you know, not the cross, but the victory.

There is greater power in God's withholding of his exercising of power.

Remember when they said, you know, when all the people come to arrest him, do you not know that I can get legions of angels?

I mean, in this humanity or as divine, he could just, you know, wipe them all out. And his power is manifested in a radically different way.

Yes. And the challenge I face is translating this into the 21st century. How am

I how are you going to do this right here in this body?

You know, we're going to have a half hour break before service happens. I want to see some foot washings happening. Don't come to mind.

I have sticky feet. My point is.

There are we we were saved out of the world are.

Our value systems, for the most part, are still carried over from the world. And when we try to merge the value systems of the world with the gospel, we do something very dangerous.

I think it was Gandhi who said this, and I never liked that quote, but I think it comes extremely powerfully over here where, you know,

I don't have a problem with Jesus, but I have a problem with the. Christian who has the cigar on his on his lips and a boot over my head.

I mean, he didn't say that something along to that effect. You know, there is disciples of Jesus Christ ought to reflect

Jesus Christ. We can't go out into the commission of the world living like we are living in the world system with just the gospel.

You know, I'm saved and I'm going to just communicate the gospel in my way. You know, that's a very tragic way for us to look at how the kingdom of God goes forth from here.

If I'm going to exalt Christ, I need to hide under the gospel, under Christ. Christ needs to be seen and not me.

And if for me to do that, I need to be transformed. I think, you know, Kate, if you do just brilliantly list,

I love my Jesus for what he has done. If I can't get to love Jesus through the pages of the gospel. You're going to turn every other command in the

Bible into your own way of exercising your kingdom through the pseudo gospel of Jesus Christ.

I cannot get this more radically out on the front door here than I can.

And I'm not I'm not looking at any individual yet. I'm looking at myself. I know this in my heart.

I know how, you know, these truths come out about. I love Jesus, but I'm just going to go and do the things that's most comfortable for myself.

That ought not to be, I think, when we read the pages of the scriptures, we need to say, hi, I can see how

Jesus. Exemplifies the love of God, John 316. I look at it and I say,

God, so love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not die, but have an everlasting life.

So love the world. What does that mean? What does that mean for the son of God to come?

I translate that immediately into a theological statement. I completely miss out that this is a is an exercise of humiliation.

I mean, theologians call this, you know, the Christ coming down into the earth of humiliation. There is an exaltation that comes, but I quickly pass over it because I get some fruit out of this.

And then I go like Peter into the exaltation of crises in the heavenlies. And I'm not going to act like I am.

And I'm, you know, a political ambassador to another country.

And I'm going to just live out the exalted privileges rather than the privilege to do the things that in my heart,

I would never be able to do. But I get to do it because I got to see my Jesus show the humility in his humanity, in this humiliation.

And that's the kingdom that I belong to. And if I've done nothing else, that's the one thing I want to make sure we are thinking of.

The kingdom I belong to is a radically different kingdom. It has nothing to do. None of these things that we are speaking of make us more acceptable to Christ.

He loves us because he loves us. He loves us to the uttermost. And because he gets he loves me that much.

And the gratitude, the response that we were talking about, that we need to have for what he has done for us ought to go back a little closer into the veil and say, what is the heart of my

Lord Jesus Christ? Is he my Lord or am

I becoming like a charismatic? It's like, oh, you know, I have all of these things that God has given. Except, you know, I'm not looking for money, but I'm looking for a different kind of privilege.

Or am I becoming like a seeker sensitive, easy believism kind of guy? It's like, yeah, God has done all of these things.

I do whatever. If you want to live a life that demonstrates your love for your

Lord, get to know your Lord better through the pages of the gospel. Amen.

Amen. And John 5, 39. If you remember, again, this is the paralytic who's healed and all of these people are like, oh,

Sabbath, Sabbath. And it's like, you know, it's all about me. Excellent.

Any other thoughts we should conclude in a few minutes here? We didn't go too far.

Anybody who's upset, please love me enough to speak to it. You know, someone said first,

John, here when we started, because I was actually thinking of that when I was preparing for this.

I thought we'd go there. You know, sometimes we talk about struggling with assurance. And one of the key things, and again,

Hebrews 10, the flip versus believe, have confidence approach because of what Jesus has done. Nothing you do.

But John was written in order that you may know that Jesus is the Christ. And first, John was written in order that.

You may know that you have faith in Jesus Christ. So it was talking about works as being not your root, but your fruit.

And there are certain things that are transformative in your lives that actually show that you are a child of God that gives you grace.

Great assurance in terms of what God has done in your life. In first John, the apostle talks about love.

The love that God has that now is exemplified in you. The greatest. He talks about the new commandment that he we are to follow.

He talks about obedience. How you walk like Jesus walked. He talks about truth.

How, you know, you exalt Christ and hold them up. Those are three elements of fruit in the life of a believer that gives you great assurance in your in your walk with the

Lord. If you are. Struggling, discouraged. You know, it looks like the world is winning over and your allegiances are getting shaken.

Maybe a good time to just look back again at Jesus as you open up the pages of Scripture, like John five.

Thirty seven. Thirty nine. Look to see the mind of Christ.

They get to see the work of Christ and get to see the kingdom of Christ that we belong to.

And that should get you excited to say, you know what? I have a citizenship which nobody else can understand.

You know, if the people didn't understand Jesus when he was here, when you go and serve people, when you do things that you don't get credit for, but people misunderstand you and people get hurt and upset at you.

You can say, you know what? I know which kingdom I belong to. And it's OK. I'm not looking for kudos here on this side of eternity.

I know that my father in heaven is watching over. And that's that's enough. I can I can face the storm.

And I can do things that don't bring me comfort, but bring me pain, knowing that it is to the

Lord. That I owe my allegiance. Let me just take a moment.

Anybody have any thoughts to share? High schoolers, you've got to have at least one thought.

Tim, I'm going to pick on you. What do you think?

Should anything in your life, in our lives, that should be different? Jesus, man, that's the answer to everything, right?

Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. If anybody has a thought, feel free to share. All right.

Let's pray. A loving father. Lord, I pray that you would just open our eyes to your awesomeness.

How you when you loved us. Open the floodgates in a way that we can't fully comprehend.

And yet, oh, father, I pray that you would just open those slices a little bit more each day. That our hearts would be filled and overflow with your love.

So that we may love you and we may love our brothers and sisters here at BBC. And that we may love the lost unconditionally.