The Myth Of Spiritual Neutrality - [John 15:22-25]

Of course, everybody knows, being, you probably stayed up last night studying your

Latin, tell the truth. It's used in courts, of course, two basic ways.

One, when somebody is taken vordir, is the phrase that they'll use, I'm going to take this person vordir, it means that they're going to examine this person, male or female, for their expertise in a given area.

Remember, several years ago, my brother, who's a Bakersfield PD officer, was taken vordir on his expertise in gangs.

And the defense attorney started asking him questions, and after a while, the defense attorney just goes, your honor, you know, like, enough.

I'm sorry I asked, you know, we're done. So that's one way it's used.

But another way it's used in court is when you go to jury selection.

How many of you have been on jury duty? I've been twice in the last five years. I'm not complaining.

I'm just saying, you know, it's just a fact. When you go for jury duty, you are also admonished to tell the truth, and that's when they ask you a question something like this.

Can you impartially listen to the evidence and evaluate the evidence without any prior prejudice?

Tell the truth. Can you do that? And if you say, no, your honor, in fact,

I'm pretty much certain that every defendant ever in the history of mankind has been guilty, you're not getting on the jury, right?

Vordir is the idea is to make sure that you have a fair and impartial jury to hear a case.

That's part of our system. And this morning, it's important that we keep this in mind because what we're going to be doing is we're going to be seeing really

Jesus kind of giving us, well, I put it together, but he gives us basically a synopsis of his life in ministry and says, you know what?

This was not a fair and impartial jury. They didn't listen to the evidence and give a fair rendering.

They didn't give a fair verdict. They were prejudiced. They had decided beforehand.

So we come to John chapter 15, and I'm going to start reading in verse 16 because I like the sovereignty of Jesus.

Verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the

Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.

But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me.

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.

Whoever hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my father.

But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled. They hated me without a cause.

And we're focusing this morning on verses 22 through 25. Two weeks ago, we talked about the love

Jesus has for his people, how his love actually sets the standard because of its perfection, how his love for us led to his death, how it changes us, and how the love of Jesus is sovereign.

Even as we read in verse 16, he chooses whom he will. And last week, we looked at verses 18 and 21, and the hatred the world has, the unbelieving world has for those whom

Jesus loves. In short, the unbelieving world hates believers.

Why? Because they hate the son, they hate the father, and they can't reach either one, so they'll settle for you.

Now, this morning, we're going to follow Jesus' argument, as I said, and it's really kind of like a trial attorney, building his case, presenting his evidence until he reaches his conclusion.

And in short, the unbelieving Jews heard Jesus, they saw his works, and rejected him, thus increasing their guiltiness before God, and they did so based on their predisposition.

In other words, they were biased. The first element of his case is verbal testimony.

Verbal testimony. You go into a court, what happens? Witnesses testify. They get up on the stand, promise to tell the truth, and they testify.

And notice, when I'm talking about testimony, I'm really talking about Jesus' testimony, and he really removes any sort of alibi or excuse the jury, the

Jews, the nation of Israel, might have had. Look at verse 22. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.

It's kind of... we're going to have to unpack this a little bit, but if we think about it generally, all men are sinners, right?

We know this. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All are without excuse. We stand condemned before God.

But the visitation of Jesus to Israel has taken this guiltiness to a whole new level.

They saw the God -man in person. They watched him in action, and they rejected him.

That's a higher standard. By coming to Israel, Jesus stripped away any fig leaf of presumed ignorance.

They couldn't say, well, we didn't know better. In John 1, verses 10 to 11, and don't turn there,

I'm going to go to a lot of verses, especially in John this morning. Jesus, or John the

Apostle writes, he, being Jesus, he was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

And listen, verse 11, he came to his own, his own people, Israel, and his own people did not receive him.

He came to the nation of Israel, and they rejected him. Now, had Jesus not humbled himself, set aside his rightful exercise of his divine attributes, and entered into the world, mingling with his creatures, teaching and preaching to the

Jews for better than three years, they would not have been guilty of so remarkable a sin.

I say this often, I think, you know, when you're talking to an unbeliever, and they just say, you know, typically an atheist or an agnostic, and they say, you know what, if I could just see

God, I would believe him. And you know what I say? No, you wouldn't.

No, you wouldn't. They saw him. He was walking among them. He ate. He talked. He joked.

He did everything with them. He was with them all the time. He taught them as one having authority, and what did they do?

They rejected him. Every unbeliever ultimately rejects

Jesus. However, few in all of history had the privilege of listening to him in person.

The Jews did at that time. What did he say?

What was his presentation to them? Well, the first thing he said was, basically, repent, right?

I mean, John the Baptist comes in and says, repent. He comes in and says, repent. Well, what do they need to repent of?

What do they need to change their mind about? And it's interesting, because as you think about the ministry of Jesus, here's the message of Jesus.

You people have the wrong idea about God. You need to repent. You need to change your mind. And listen, when we say these things to, or when we're presenting the gospel to people, what do we want them to do?

To change their minds. So this morning is really kind of an elongated gospel presentation in a sense.

What was wrong with the way the Jews thought back then? Well, first of all, they had a wrong view of God. That's a little bit of a problem, right?

We look at John 8, verses 41 and 42. Jesus says to the

Jewish leaders, he says, you are doing the works your father did. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality.

We have one father, even God. In other words, we are loyal to God. We love the father.

Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I am here.

I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. What was the picture the

Jews had of God, especially the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders? They thought he was a

God who was appeased by their obedience. They had all these rules and regulations. They called him their father because they believed sonship was a matter of birthright that they maintained by their strict adherence to their man -made system.

It was based on the Old Testament, yes, but it was all about outer obedience, not inward surrender to God, not a heart that really wants to obey, that knows he or she falls short but wants to obey.

They also had a wrong view of God's law. For example, the Sabbath day being more important than a person.

Again, staying within John. John 9, verses 13 to 18. In fact, why don't we turn there?

John 9, verses 13 to 18. They had a wrong view of God's law. We remember the man born blind.

Ultimately, his neighbors is who we're talking about when you see the word they in verse 13. They, the neighbors, brought to the

Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now, it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

This has never been done before. So the Pharisees, in verse 15, again asked him, this man born blind, who can now see how he had received his sight, and he said to them, he put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.

Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God, speaking of Jesus, for he does not keep the

Sabbath. Why? Because he worked on the Sabbath. But others said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs?

And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man, what do you say about him since he has opened your eyes?

He said, he is a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight.

Listen, they were just going to try to find anything wrong with Jesus. And now they're going to say, well, it's a fake miracle.

He didn't even do that. They were more concerned with the regulations that they had created themselves.

If you go to Israel, we've used this example before, but when you go to Israel, and you go to an elevator on the

Sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday, but on Saturday, you go to the elevator, and all the buttons for all the floors are all lit up.

You have to go up. I mean, imagine going to a 100 -story skyscraper, and you've got to go to the 95th floor.

It's going to stop on every single floor all the way up there so that nobody has to work because it's work to push that button.

That's the kind of rules and regulations they have. This man born blind, his whole life had been one of poverty and isolation and marginalization.

He was ceremonially unclean. He was unwelcome. He was hopeless and valueless to the

Pharisees. But to Jesus, he was a soul, and a soul, any soul, was precious.

Look at verses 34 through 39 in chapter 9. They answered him.

These are the Pharisees again. They answered him, You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?

And they cast him out. They put him out of the synagogue. They just completely unsocialized him.

They cast him out of their society. And this is the compassion of Jesus.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And having found him, he said, he went and found the man.

He said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?

Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said,

Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. Jesus said, For judgment

I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.

Again and again, Jesus said, You have this wrong view of things, and I'm going to give you the right view.

You have a wrong view of God's law. I'm going to give you the right view. That you ought to have more compassion for people than you have concern for the rules and regulations that, by the way, you made up.

They also had a wrong view of sin. They thought that outward obedience was enough to please

God. If you listen for a moment, I'm going to go to Matthew chapter 5.

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

That's verse 20. 21. You have heard that it was said to those of old,

You shall not murder. Okay, one of the Ten Commandments. You shall not murder. And whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.

In other words, getting angry is the equivalent of murder. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says, you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar, if you're making a big show out of going to the altar to make your offering, which is what they would do because everybody had to see your righteousness.

If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you.

If you're not reconciled to your brother or sister in Christ, in other words, brother and sister in Judaism back then, leave your gift there before the altar and go.

First be reconciled to your brother and then come offer your gift. There's a principle there.

It's not about outward obedience. It's not about the show. It's not even about the gift.

It's about being reconciled to brothers and sisters. Anger makes you just as guilty as if you had committed murder.

We don't think like that. We don't think about insults being the equivalent of murder.

Making a gift to God does not make you right with him. It's not like the Roman Catholic Church where the bigger the sin, the bigger the check.

Sin has always been a matter of the heart. Turn for a moment to Mark chapter 7.

Mark chapter 7. Again, the words of Jesus as he is preaching and teaching among the people and the condemnation that it brings upon them because they reject his teaching.

Mark chapter 7 verses 18 through 23. And he said to them, then are you also without understanding?

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him? In other words, it's not what you eat that defiles you.

Since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled. Thus he declared all foods clean.

And he said what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

All these things, all these evil things come from within and they defile a person.

This is kind of an expansion on Jeremiah 17 .9. The heart is deceitful and wicked. This is even what we read this morning.

James, the half -brother of Jesus. When he says, you know what? Why do you sin?

It's because you mull things over in your mind, your heart, right? Your inner man. You think about them.

You contemplate them and then guess what? You do them. It's not what you do on the outside that counts.

I mean, there are many religions that will reform your outside actions. Christianity isn't about that.

You know, I want to clean myself up, make myself right with God. Well, the problem is you don't have a brush big enough to scrub your heart.

You can't do that. Only God can remove the stain that is within you.

So they had a wrong view of God, a wrong view of God's law, a wrong view of sin because they saw it as being outward.

They also had a wrong view of salvation. And like every man -made religion,

Farsaic Judaism had determined that what the standard was of being good enough to appease the wrath of God.

Back in the book of John, in John chapter 3, verses 5 to 11,

Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, this is him talking to Nicodemus, if you'll recall. He says, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel, implying that Nicodemus was marveling, that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Nicodemus. Said to him, how can these things be?

This violates everything I've learned and taught my entire life. I've taught people that they need to be outwardly moral, that they need to be outwardly righteous.

How can these things be? Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

He's stunned, Nicodemus is, at the idea that something has to be done to him.

That is a work of God, the Holy Spirit, that must occur in his life for him to be made right with God.

The Jews also had a wrong view of the Messiah. They wanted a political leader, a military leader, someone who would throw off the

Roman Empire, somebody who would rid the land, somebody who would actually even restore the land that was promised to them by God and get rid of these interlopers, the

Roman Empire. If you recall, after he feeds the 20 ,000, in John 6, verses 14 and 15, it's 5 ,000, but you have to allow for children and women that wouldn't be in the initial count of 5 ,000.

That's just how they did things. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this indeed is the prophet who is to come into the world.

Perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, not worship him as Messiah, but force him to be king so they could rebel against Rome and they knew this guy, this man, if he could do this, if he could feed basically a small city, then certainly he could defeat the

Romans. They were going to make him king. Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

After his teaching, later on in chapter 6, that he was to be the source of their spiritual life,

Jesus said in John chapter 6, verses 64 to 66, but there are some of you who do not believe.

He's got this big group now, right? Including the 12 disciples, but also this big group of people that are following him because they think this is the meal ticket.

But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew who from the beginning, who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.

And he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the

Father. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

He had this opportunity, he had this big group and he chases them away by establishing what the standard was.

They wanted a different standard. They wanted this Messiah who's going to take care of their enemies.

The Jews not only didn't believe in Jesus, they were going to put him to death. And why?

Why? Well, let's go back to John chapter 15 after that long excursus. John 15, verse 23.

Why were they going to put him to death? Not only did they ignore what he said, not only did they refuse to believe what he said, but they were going to put him to death.

And verse 23, it tells us, whoever hates me, and you know, when you think about putting someone to death, that is an indication,

I think of hate. Whoever hates me, hates my father also.

Those hating Jesus, hating the Father, the way he describes it here, whoever, that's how it's translated for us.

Whoever hates. It's a participle. It means those people who hate

Jesus and who hate the Father, it is part of their very character. It's part of their nature.

It's part of their DNA. Present participle. It just describes them. You know, if you were to think of a word that would describe that person, you'd just say,

Jesus hater. And that would exactly describe them. God hater. That's exactly who they were.

They claimed God as their Father, but they also said that Jesus had a demon. They didn't love the

Son, and therefore they didn't love the Father. They actually hated both. If you recall, in John 10, 30,

Jesus said that he and the Father were one. They were one in essence and in purpose.

There's no division between them. In John 14, 6, he said that he was the only way to the

Father. Jesus stressed again and again this close relationship between he and the

Father and how he always did the Father's will. It is impossible to love the Father and hate the

Son, the one he sent. And they did not love the Father.

They distorted and perverted his word. They created their own system of salvation by works. And when he sent his

Son, I mean, it reminds me of the parable of the vineyard, right, where the vineyard owner keeps sending people and finally sends his son, surely they'll treat him well.

They didn't. What did they do? They put him to death. With Jesus, they treated him with abuse, scorn, and an ignominious death, the worst possible death they could give him.

That is not how to show the love or show love for a father. So, here's his testimony.

He's saying, these are all the things that I told these people. These are all the things that I tried to teach them and they rejected them.

That's his testimony. Now we have the evidence, his miracles, his works.

Far from being ignorant, we've had his testimony. Now we're going to see his second bit of, we'll see, the second part of his case,

I'll put it that way, is the evidence. Far from being ignorant, they not only heard from Jesus, but they had ample evidence.

He showed them plenty of his identity because of his works. Look at verse 24.

If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.

No one else in the history of the world ever did these things. We already read about the man born blind.

No one had ever healed, given sight to a man born blind. But the works need not be restricted to the miracles.

If we just think about the life of Jesus, let's say you were one of the opponents of Jesus, one of these

Pharisees, one of these high -ranking Jews. And here's a man saying that he is blameless, holy, that he has never sinned.

What's the one thing you can do to discredit him? Produce someone that's seen him sin.

That would be pretty easy in my life. Go back, you know, 30, 40 years, you could probably find somebody who could give you evidence of that.

People have been around Jesus his whole life, not even his brothers had seen him sin.

He was, as John the Baptist described him, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

Well, how could that be? A sacrificial lamb had to be without blemish. Think about it.

One lie, or even as we were just reading in Mark and Matthew, one outburst of anger, one sort of thing that was inside of you that you enabled by your thought processes to come out.

You lingered on it and you ultimately sinned. One outburst of sinful anger, one expression of jealousy, or just even the contemplation of these things to be a sin.

But he had no outward sin and no inward sin. Over and over again, he equates his works with the works of the

Father. That's what he did. He did the very works of God. John 5, 16 and 17.

And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the

Sabbath. Again, Sabbath above man. But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now and I am working.

I'm just doing what the Father does. John 5, 36. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John, John the

Baptist. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the

Father has sent me. The very things you see me doing, they're exactly what the Father wanted me to do. John 10, 25.

John again answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my

Father's name bear witness about me. They testify of me. John 14, 9.

Jesus said to them, or said to him, Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me,

Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you,

I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. His words are here being equated with his works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

How can anyone have doubted after he raised Lazarus from the dead?

And yet they did. I mean, listen to John 11, 47 and 48 and then

I'm going to read verse 53. This is after he raises Lazarus from the dead and there's all this buzz all around it, right?

As you can imagine, so the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said,

What are we to do? For this man performs many signs, in other words, many miracles, many wonders, many extraordinary things that cannot be humanly explained.

If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

And then in verse 53, So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death.

Their response to the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead was, He's a threat to us.

We need to put him to death. There was no amount of miracles that was going to convince the unbelieving scribes,

Pharisees and their followers. They were committed to putting him to death to preserve their own power.

So we've seen the testimony, we've seen the evidence and now what I'm calling the immovable jury.

You know, there's something called jury nullification where the jury hears enough evidence to convict the person of the crime but they decide they don't like the crime or they don't like the prosecution or they don't like the police officers, whatever and they're going to ignore the law and set the person free.

Well, in this case, the jury doesn't really care what the evidence is. They don't care what the testimony is.

All they care about is they don't like that man and they're going to convict him. Verse 24, the second half of it.

But now they have seen and hated both me and my father.

They had seen the works of Jesus but they were like a jury that sees the evidence and doesn't care.

They were unmoved. It's interesting here that he says they have both seen and hated both me and my father, right?

Because they can't see the father. What does he mean? Well, how many times does he have to say if you've seen me, you've seen the father.

What do you mean by that? Not that they were identical twins unlike Mormon theology but they had the same character, the same nature.

You want to know who I am? I'm exactly what the scripture describes God as being.

I'm just like my father. But I'm in human form. He is not. He said that the father has no body.

He's spirit. And those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Jesus tells us that this jury was unmoved.

In fact, the result was quite the opposite of what we might expect. He says that they have seen which is perfect tense.

And again, we've been talking about perfect tense because it's very helpful. Perfect tense means one -time action with ongoing results.

Permanent results. They have seen. They had seen Jesus ongoing.

But notice they have hated. They determined to hate him and that was unimmovable.

It was not going to change. They had seen the perfect life of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus.

And their conclusion, instead of worshiping him and saying our Messiah, our Redeemer, our

God, was to hate him. And we want to believe that exactly the opposite would happen, that somebody would listen to him, that they would see the miracles and they would say,

Oh, Jesus, there's nobody like him. We want to believe that logic, reason, evidence can move the human heart, can change it.

But as Jesus told Nicodemus, unbelievers must be born again. There must be a supernatural working of the

Holy Spirit. The unbeliever cannot reason his way to faith. He cannot evidence his way to faith.

Why? Because he doesn't have the power within him to do so. His switch has been set on because of the fall of Adam.

I hate God. I hate the one that God sent. I hate his son, Jesus Christ.

This isn't a matter of intellectual ability. You can have the smartest person in the world, and I'm sure you've had that.

Maybe not the smartest person in the world, but very smart, intelligent person. You talk to them and you're like, How can they reject

Jesus? Because their default is, I hate Jesus. An unbeliever is spiritually dead, incapable of responding to even the great miracles

Jesus performed. Giving the blind sight doesn't have any spiritual meaning for them.

Healing the lame, no spiritual meaning. Feeding 20 ,000 people, doesn't matter.

Raising the dead, doesn't matter. It cannot change the human hearts. We preach

Christ nevertheless. Why? Because it's the only means by which the Holy Spirit transforms a heart.

It is the gospel that changes people. The Holy Spirit acts on that person and causes them to be born again when they hear the word.

Look at verse 25. But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled.

They hated me without a cause. Well, why does it say this? Why does it say that it is written in their law?

Why does it say that they have to hate Jesus without a cause? Well, it's in two places. And I'll just give you the citations.

We're going to close here in a moment. Psalm 35, 19. Let not those rejoice over me who are wrongfully my foes.

And let not those wink the eye who hate me without cause. And Psalm 69, verse 4.

More in number than the hairs on my head are those who hate me without cause.

Notice that this is not typically in what we would consider the law, right? We'd think of the law of Moses. We'd maybe think of the

Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. But in this sense, he's saying it's because the

Psalms aren't in the first five books of the Old Testament in case you were wondering. He's saying the whole

Old Testament is the law. It's their law, the

Old Testament. And in both situations in the Psalms, the psalmist, David, is being treated cruelly.

So Jesus portrays himself as the greater fulfillment of David's words. What was true of David is all the more true concerning Jesus himself.

He wronged no one. He condescended in love, offering to reconcile man and God.

And all who will flee to him, he will save to the very end, raising them to spend all eternity with him in glory.

But the Jews had rejected his testimony. They had rejected the physical evidences. And then they would go on, many of them, most of them, even when he was raised from the dead, they would reject that as well.

And guess what? People still do. You know, Christianity is a delusion. Christianity is somehow a great conspiracy.

Now, they hold these two arguments at the same time. One is they say these fishermen, the people that originated

Christianity, were stupid. Right? They're unsophisticated people. They couldn't speak a lot of languages.

They weren't well -trained or taught or anything. But they're so clever, they could hide a body and keep this whole conspiracy quiet for hundreds of years.

It's very interesting how that works. They could write the New Testament in such a way that it doesn't conflict with itself.

Very clever for unsophisticated people. Now, let me ask you something this morning.

Vordir, tell the truth. If you took an oath before this morning's sermon to listen to all the evidence and then rear a fair verdict, could you?

And the answer is no, you couldn't. How can I say that? Because if you came in here this morning and you were already saved, then you would already agree with the conclusion.

If you came in here this morning and you don't love the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not saved, you haven't been born again, then you're going to reject it.

Unless something has happened in the intervening time. Unless the

Holy Spirit has caused you to be born again. Unless He's changed your heart this very hour, your verdict was the same coming in as it is now.

I pray that it's not that. I pray that you are in fact trusting in the words and the perfections of the

Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect life, His death in your place and His resurrection. Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, Father, we thank you for the marvelous, perfect ministry of the

Lord Jesus Christ. In condescending love, He came and lived among His people, people who would mock

Him, scorn Him, reject Him and ultimately crucify Him for telling them the truth, for telling them what they did not want to hear.

Father, we thank you for His works, that He worked the very works of God, miracles of kindness and of love.

Father, we would pray for any who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, who have not been convicted of their sins, who have not come to a saving knowledge.

From the youngest to the oldest here this morning, by Your grace, by Your power, by Your sovereign love, would