Audio Sermon： Lift Up Your Eyes — David Valderrama

The Identity and Glory of Jesus

Who is Jesus? Savior of the world. Who is Jesus? Son of God. The truth and the life. Father and Father.

The person who knows me and who loves me. He's the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, that's what his name shall be called. The Word of God, the Son of God. The Alpha, the Omega, beginning and the end, the first and the last.

A friend that sticks closer than a brother. The light of the world. The man that gave his life to save mine. The man who gave his life to save mine. The Lamb, the one who created the world. The one who has given me breath, there to be.

The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Jesus' love. The resurrection and the life. Amen. There's a lot of things we can think about when we think about who Jesus is. He's the one that created what we look at every day when we're living out here.

All the trees, the dirt, the sand, mosquitoes, bugs, the stars, the sun that's shining down on us. In the book of 1 John, by biblically we have a lot of these biblical terms of who Jesus is. We just named a few of them.

But he says, that which was in the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon in our hands of the handle of the Word of Life. It says, that life was manifested.

And we have seen and bear witness and declare unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. Jesus is the eternal life. The eternal life. It says, and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding of Him that is true and we are in Him that is true.

In His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. One of the things I share when I go out witnessing with people, I have this sign that says, Jesus, myth, legend, or eternal God. One of the things that I'll ask them, I said, you know, if they believe He's a myth, or even if they believe He's the eternal God, I'll ask them this question.

I say, was there ever a point in time when absolutely nothing at all existed? Absolutely nothing. Was there ever a point in time when absolutely nothing at all existed? Has everybody in here heard me ask this?

All the children? Okay. So, a lot of the times people will say, well, yeah, of course. Or they'll say, no. So, I'll ask them, what's zero plus zero? They'll say, zero. So, if there was ever a point in time when absolutely nothing at all existed, then nothing would exist today.

Because nothing will never amount to anything, just like zero will never amount to one, two, three, four, or anything else other than zero. So, there was this eternal life, this eternal life that existed for all things, independent of all things.

It gives breath, it gives life, saves us. This eternal life has a name, and it's Jesus Christ. Jesus the Christ. That is the eternal life. It's a paradox that we live in every day. The mystery of life should stir our hearts to seek the cause of it all.

I remember as a little boy, I was seven years old, I was hanging out with my friend. He was my best friend. His parents were Roman Catholic, and I didn't grow up praying before meals or anything, but they did.

They would talk about God sometimes, and we were swinging on the swing set. And I said, Nicholas, where did God come from? He said, I don't know, I don't care. He didn't want to talk about it. I remember my seven-year-old mind was trying to wrap itself around this person, or this thing called God, that created the earth and everything in it, and everything I see above it.

And I was trying to unpack the origin of God in my mind. I was just thinking, so, who created God? Then I thought, well, if somebody created God, then who created that person? If somebody created the person that created the person that created God, it just all goes back to something that has no beginning or no ending.

Something that just always existed, who was and who is and who is to come, always will be. That's Jesus Christ. All these, that's who Jesus is. He's the eternal life, who is and who was and who is to come.

The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. He's the savior of the world. He's the resurrection and the life.

He's returning again someday. Flaming fire, taking vengeance on all those that don't know him, that don't obey his gospel. A lot of people, you know, just when you think about what they're doing with their life, what they're doing, how they're living, the choices they're making, their plans, their dreams, their hopes, things they're seeking to achieve or hoping to accomplish someday.

A good question to ask yourself and to ask people around you, your family, your friends, your employees, wherever you're at, people at the grocery store, whoever you're talking with. Does your life make sense in the light of the gospel?

Does your life make sense in the light of what you profess about Christianity, about your faith in Jesus? About who Jesus is, does your life make sense? Is Jesus really who he is? Is Jesus really who the Bible says he is?

Is Jesus really who I am saying he is? Does my life agree with what I'm saying about him or does it not make any sense? Like it says in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, it says, what profit does he have who labors for the wind?

Everybody reach out their hand like this and just try to grab the wind, the air. You get a big bag, you know, and you can try to stuff it full of all this wind all day long. You spend your whole life doing that and it may seem silly, but that's what a lot of people are doing.

They're laboring for the wind. They're just living seven days a week to have fun, to enjoy their life in this world. Time just slips by. Time slips by. Always chasing you. They're working so hard and looking forward to the weekend so they can relax and just have a good time somewhere.

Maybe bowling, playing laser tag, riding roller coasters, surfing or doing something that's fun. But one day we're going to die and then what? What's going to happen after that? You know, just, let me see.

Braden, how old are you? Twenty-four. Ryan here? Twenty-five. You have to be out there at twenty-eight. Let's just say that the average life was seventy-five to eighty years old. A third of your life is gone right now.

One-third of your life is gone. Children, let's say this. If you're going to live to be seventy-five to eighty years old, by the time you're twenty-five to thirty years old, one-third of your life is gone.

How many of you sleep like six to eight hours a day or try to? You do that every day for the rest of your life. A third of your life is gone, just sleeping. So by the time you're twenty-five to thirty years old, how much of your life do you have left to live for Jesus, to make a difference in eternity?

About one-third. That's not much, is it? If we have one-third of our life left to live to give to Jesus, by the time we're twenty-five to thirty years old, and our vision, our dreams, our hopes, our desires are not to really live for Him, to do His work.

Living for the Will and Work of God

He said, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me to finish His work. That's why I came. He said, Father, I've glorified Thee on the earth, I've finished the work You've given me to do. The work of Jesus is to continue through us.

It's going back to who Jesus is. Who is Jesus? Creator of all things. God manifested in the flesh. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. The very Spirit that was in Jesus, that gave life to His body.

It says, The body without the Spirit is dead. The Spirit that was in Jesus, that gave life to His members, was the very Spirit of God. According to the flesh, He had human flesh, but according to the Spirit, the Spirit was divine.

That's who Jesus is. For our lives to really make sense. Everybody believes that He's God, or the Son of God in here, right? Everybody should be able to tell me something that He said, right? Should be able to.

This is one of the things, whenever I'm out there witnessing to people, I try to get them to see this contradiction. If they do believe in Jesus, they do believe that He's God. Try to get them to see a contradiction between what they're saying, between that confession of faith.

Do they really believe it? Does their life make sense? Can you tell me something that Jesus said? Can you tell me something that God said? And a lot of the times, they can't think of anything Jesus said.

And so there's this contradiction between what they're saying and what they're doing. If we really believe Jesus is who He says He is, we're going to study His words. We need to know His words. Jesus says, the words that I speak, they are spirit and they are life.

The words that I have spoken will judge you on the last day. If any man keeps my words, he shall never taste of death. He that hears my words and keeps them, he it is that loves me. And I will love him, my Father will love him, and I will manifest myself in him.

If he loved me, keep my words. He that hears my words and does not do them is a fool. He that hears my words and does do them is wise. And when I share this with people, they may start feeling like, oh, that's legalism.

Obedience, talking about heaven or hell, you know, I have to study the words. I have to study the Bible and all this stuff. A lot of the times, people will emphasize it's all about relationship, right?

In a relationship, you care about what the other person has to say. And so whenever I'm out there talking to people, I try to help them to see this immense contradiction between what they believe Christianity is all about.

It's all about a relationship with Jesus. Okay, well, tell me something that Jesus said. I usually can't think of anything that He said. Immediately, you can see the lights coming on and this sorrow or this godly sorrow, this shame or this remorse or this dysfunction in their heart.

But if we believe Jesus is who He says He is, we need to know what He had to say. And Jesus says, why do you call me Lord and not do what I say? And if we don't know what He said, how can we know that we're doing what He wants us to be doing?

If we're not seeking Jesus Christ, if we're not studying to show ourselves approved, if we're not looking through the pages of this book for the print of His stuff that we might follow therein, we're just kind of playing around and goofing off and having a good time.

We're just seeking to be entertained. Our life doesn't make sense. Our life does not make sense. We just want to have fun. We just want to play games. We just want to laugh and just be lighthearted and just play around.

When we believe Jesus is God, and while we're still ignorant of what He taught, while we still lack an immense understanding of what He taught, when we really don't even really know what He wants from our life, when we don't really know what His plans are or even what He wants this day, if we're not seeking that out, there's a contradiction between what we say we believe about Jesus and what we're doing.

What if Bill Gates or the guy that owns Facebook, who's that again? Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg, or the guy that owns Amazon, or what if your former employer, what if children, what if you were older, you were all 20 years old or something like that.

What if some billionaire came into your house or something and he said, Because when you think about a billionaire, when you think about a billion dollars, one billion dollars is how many millions? A thousand millions.

But this billionaire had a hundred billion. But this billionaire had a hundred billion dollars. He was worth that much and he had that much. And so that's like thousands of millions of dollars to pay people.

What if he knocked on your door saying, Hey, Jeremiah, I've got a plan. I've got some work for you to do. And you're like, Who are you? Well, I'm the owner of Amazon. And you're like, Oh, really? He says, Hey, here's a million dollars.

It's yours right there. Lays it out before you. A million dollars cash. I've got work for you to do. There's something that I want you to do for me. And I'm willing to pay a million dollars every year.

If you'll just drop everything and make your life about my business. Would you do it? Would you do it? What if somebody showed up on your doorstep offering that to you? And you knew it was real. But what if it's somebody that you did know?

Like this? Yeah, this is the guy on TV. This is Bill Gates or this is Mark Zuckerberg. Wow, this is amazing. He's offering me a million dollars right now every year. Guaranteed. What would you do? I know what a lot of people, they claim they believe Jesus is God.

That he's the son of God. That he's the resurrection and the life. I know what a lot of people would do. When do I start? Where do I got to go? Do I need to move my family there? Do I got to just drop it?

When do I got to leave tomorrow? I'm willing to leave tomorrow. Because their life is about money. Their life is about their life. They're chasing the wind. They believe Jesus is God. But Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were created by Jesus.

And Jesus is their judge. And they're all going to appear before the judgment seat of God to give an account to Jesus. And what they have to offer is going to perish with them. Do we believe Jesus really is the son of God?

Do we really believe it? Is Christianity just some social gathering? Is it just a place to hang out, have fun, and just kind of pat each other on the back saying good job? Is it just a place where counseling takes place, a ministry takes place because we're discouraged, fearful, or we got some trial in our life that we just need support?

Is Christianity just a support group? Is it just a social club? Is it just a place to have a good time? Or do we really believe Jesus is who he says he is? That he really died on the cross, was buried and raised from the dead, and he's returning again to judge the quick and the dead?

Do we really believe this? Do we believe time is short? Do we, you know, statistics say that every two seconds somebody dies without knowing Jesus? And the Jesus that they probably heard about probably wasn't the real Jesus.

And if you're in your 20s, you have one-third of your life to live. Maybe. You're not guaranteed that. Then what? What are we doing with our life? Is it something that wakes us up in the morning, Lord?

When I'm at the grocery store, when, Lord, when I'm dumpster diving, Lord, when I'm visiting people across the state, when people are reaching out to me through social media, when I'm at the gas station, wherever I'm at, Lord, just I want to be doing what you're doing there.

Is that the desire of our heart? Is that what we're looking for? Because there's a God in heaven that's pleading. The blood is pleading from the cross. Wounds in his hands and feet are pleading with us.

Plead with men. Plead with men. Men are dying. They're on their way to hell. There's a broad way, and many are going to destruction. Are we pleading as there's this pleading on the inside of us? Be reconciled to God.

Turn from your sins. There's a God who loves you. He wants heaven full. But listen, the way you're living is not right. You need to change. You can't live your life looking upon women with lust. When you look at this woman over here, is there lust in your heart?

You can't be going over here to these clubs, and you can't be watching pornography, and you can't live in greed. You can't lie. But more than just the sin, do we really believe Jesus is who he says he is?

The Pleading Heart of Jesus for the Lost

Who is Jesus to you? Is he your healer? Is he your deliverer? Is he your savior? Is he your friend that sticks closer than a brother? Is he the eternal life that satisfies your soul, that quenched your thirst, and there's nothing in this world that you're thirsting for anymore?

Who is Jesus to you? Who is Jesus to you? Is he worth sharing with the lost? Is he worth sharing with your friends? Is he worth sharing to your community, to your family? Is he worth sharing? Is he worth just dropping everything and forsaking everything?

Is he worth more than a million dollars? I think that we would find it within us to overcome whatever fear, trial, or obstacle that stood between us and a million dollars if we really wanted it that bad.

One of the things that I live with now, 20 years later, and it's a trial. When I was born again, I was born again with a Jesus who lived on the inside of me that was pleading. Wherever I went, Jesus inside of me, I would feel this pleading, this pleading heart beating within my heart, pleading.

I couldn't go to the grocery store without getting stuck there for an hour or two because everywhere I turned, I saw people that were lost or potentially lost. And they didn't have what I had. They didn't know what I know.

And I saw them and I was moved with compassion looking upon all these people and my heart was gripped. And I had to tell them, Jesus loves you. Jesus can save you. Jesus set me free from my immorality, from my bondage, from my addictions, from my drugs and all these things.

And I had this hope of eternal life and I've experienced his forgiveness and you can know him too. And that's all I had to share. I didn't know the Bible. I wasn't trained. I just had this pleading Jesus inside my heart that wanted people to be reconciled.

That's all I had. And if you don't know what to share with people, if you don't know what to say, you see, the thing is, there's this song that Jason Upton sings. He says, when you were a child, when you were a child, you could not stand alone.

But there's this chorus that goes, it says, I want to know that child again. Maybe time has changed you. But love remembers when you called my name. I like the wind. I carried you away. Seems like only yesterday.

When you were a child.

I think about what it was like when I was born again and I was this precious child in God's eyes that had his pleading heart within me and I didn't know what to say. I just felt what he felt when I looked at these people around me and I pleaded with them.

But today, 20 years later, even it's just, I've learned so much. I've experienced so much. I've just been trained so much. It's like, I remember 10 years ago, I went from, Jesus loves you, Jesus can save you, and all this, to the wrath of God is upon you if you don't repent.

And it was just, I didn't know what to say. I felt like I couldn't tell people Jesus loved them anymore. I felt like that might be encouraging them to live in sin. Well, Jesus loves me. Great. He loves me even when I'm going to go get wasted at this club and yet later, go home with this woman tonight.

He loves me. Woohoo! I felt like I couldn't tell them Jesus loved them. I felt like it was a no-no, like a sin almost, to tell that to people. I felt it in my heart. And so I went through the struggle.

And then I also went through the struggle. I want to have a word and season for him that is weary just like Jesus. It says in Isaiah chapter 50.

That I'm talking to Jesus.

It says that he opened my ear to hear. He awakeneth it morning by morning. And he's given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word and season to him that is weary. And so I learned that.

I was like, oh, I need to have a word and season for him that is weary when I see Jesus talking to the woman at the well. When I see Paul talking to certain people and Peter talking to certain people, they had a word, a specific word.

And I thought, okay, I need to know what to tell people. And it was just so complicated. But whenever I first gave my life to Jesus, I just had this pleading on the inside of me. And I didn't have to have it all figured out.

I just had Jesus on the inside of my heart. And I felt his love for them, his compassion. He was moved with compassion towards the people. For he saw them as having sheep, being sheep with no shepherd.

Just lost. Lost. Just wandering through this life aimlessly. Without any purpose. Looking for this fulfillment. Looking for this to satisfy them. He saw all the brokenness, all the despair, all the confusion, all the turmoil, all these different things.

And he was moved with compassion towards them. Who is Jesus to you? Does Jesus live on the inside of you? Does this Jesus, does the pleading Jesus live on the inside of you? Have you ever experienced the pleading of Jesus?

It says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. It says, Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Have you experienced that? Have old things become new to you?

Yes. New desires, new things that bring joy and peace and fulfillment, new reason for living, new vision, new hope. Walking in newness of life. Is this an amazing experience that you get to have every day?

Walking with Jesus, the creator of all things, living on the inside of you, feeling what he feels, hearing his voice, him moving you this way and that way. Is this a reality for you? If it was, have you lost it?

If it was, do you feel like, Oh, I hear what you're saying and I want it again. It's been tormenting me. I just feel like I don't have it anymore. That pleading of God through me before I felt, Jesus is pleading a horror when I would see people and I would just go to them and talk to them and I really didn't know what to say, but his pleading just compelled me to go.

The love of Christ compels us because we judge thus, that if one died, then we're all dead and he died. That those who lived should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.

Yes, I felt this love of Jesus on the inside of me, pleading with me to plead with them. And when I went to them, it wasn't man pleading with man. It wasn't David pleading with him. It wasn't Ryan pleading with him.

It wasn't Scott pleading with him. It wasn't Sephora, Bianca or anybody pleading with them. It was God pleading with these men. It was God pleading with them through us. The love of Christ compels us.

It says, now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. We are ambassadors for Christ. Who is Jesus? Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, the Word of God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Who is Jesus? We are ambassadors for him. We are here on express purpose to turn this world upside down, to save souls, to seek and to save that which was lost, to be a light in the dark. That's why we're here.

We're ambassadors. We don't need to be tossed to and fro. Why am I here? What is my life about? I don't really know what I should be doing with my life. We are ambassadors for Jesus Christ. And Paul says, as though God were pleading through us.

We are to be pleading ambassadors, ambassadors that have the pleading of God on the inside of them. Compelling people to come in that his house may be full. There's three accounts that I want to share of some martyrs.

Faithfulness and Witness in the Face of Persecution

I've shared it a few times, but I like sharing it. Ignatius was a first century early Christian. He had been following Jesus for a few decades or several decades. And he was a bishop in the church. And he was captured because Christianity was against the law and the leaders were hunted, captured and tortured and killed.

But when he was captured, he was saying, my dear Jesus, my dear Savior, his name is so deeply written in my heart that I am persuaded that if you were to cut me open, take out my heart and chop it to pieces, that you would find his name written on every piece.

Who is Jesus to you? Can you relate to Ignatius? Does Jesus, is the name of Jesus so deeply written on your heart? Do you feel like you could, is that relatable to you? Or are you like, wow, I wish I could relate to that.

This is a man that believed who Jesus was. The son of God, God manifested the flesh, but he was crucified. He was delivered up for our offenses. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities, for our rebellion, our pride, our stubbornness, our lying tongue, our deceitfulness.

He was crucified for that. He was delivered up for it, but he was raised for our justification. He really believed this. Then he pleaded with men for decades to be reconciled to God. Gee, the name of Jesus was so deeply written on his heart.

He was persuaded that if you cut him open and chop his heart to pieces, you'd find the name of Jesus written on every piece of his heart. In the fourth century, there is this young girl named Eulalia.

She's 12 years old. 12 years old. Eulalia, listen to this, okay? She was 12 years old, and she had a zeal for Jesus. She really believed something on the inside of her. It was just compelling her to go out and to plead at 12 years old.

Anyways, her parents had to move. I think they moved away from where they were at because she kept wanting to go out and plead with men, and they were afraid she was going to get killed. The parents were afraid that she was going to get killed.

So they moved further away. Anyways, she managed to escape one night, and she went to this Roman tribunal where these judges were, where these executioners and all these people that were torturing Christians.

She pleaded with them, and she rebuked them face to face, this 12-year-old little girl. At first, they spoke to her these soft, pampering, flattering words, talking about how it would be so sad for her to die before she experiences marriage and children and all these things.

She said, and you won't be able to endure these torments that will inflict on you, so just take a little pinch of this salt and offer it to these idols that were set up there. Just take a little pinch of this salt and offer it to these idols.

It says that this 12-year-old little girl just knocked them over, and she rebuked these people that were trying to compel her to do this. And it says that they were infuriated, and straightway, they took her.

They bound her up on some table or something, and they took these large pincers. In my mind, it's some razor-sharp, curved piece of metal, and they cut her open on the ribs here to where you could see the insides.

This is what she said. She said, What a great occasion this affords me, my Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, your name is being written on my body. They were just cutting her open, you know, just for the name of Jesus.

She was bearing witness to the truth. She said, Oh, what a great pleasure this is that your name is being written on my body as they cut me open. Behold, my purple blood confesses your holy name. Who is Jesus to her?

Who is Jesus to that 12-year-old girl? Her Savior, the Lord, her Master, the Creator of all things. There's nothing she wouldn't have done for Him. It was a great honor to this 12-year-old Mayan that the name of Jesus was being written on her body as they cut her open.

That's how she interpreted it. She gave God the praise for that. And it says that the apostles, after they were beaten, they rejoiced. They were counted worthy to suffer shame in the name of Christ. When I was carrying the cross, I think this was in 2008, I met this old man named Preacher John in Saluda, South Carolina.

And he'd been preaching at that time for 53 years. And he told me the story about this revival that was happening somewhere. And all these big-time preachers, these evangelists were there. They all were just preaching, you know, and doing all this stuff.

There were some good crowds and good people. And then there was this old country farmer of a small church. He went in there. It was his turn to preach, and this was his message. I'm just going to sum it up in the way that I understood it because I don't remember it word for word.

The idea was this. He's at the pulpit, you know, standing before all these people, and this is his message. You know, I don't care about these people of the grocery store over here that may be going to hell when they die.

I don't care about these hoodlums over here, you know, these gangsters getting in fights, killing each other, and sending each other to hell every day. I don't care about my neighbors and community where I live, you know, where they're going to spend eternity.

But I'm deeply disturbed tonight. I don't care. That was his message. That's one thing that people do, you know, is they get involved in ministry, you know. Including myself, or this work, or whatever.

We get to this place where it's like we don't care anymore. You know, we'll go drill water wells, or we'll go out preaching on the weekends, or we'll congregate like this, and we'll preach, or fellowship and preach to each other.

But what are we doing? The grocery store, the gas station, the airport. What are we doing where we live in our community? Do we care? Do we care? Can we agree with that old country farmer, you know, who preached for a long time?

And he just finally realized that he didn't care about those people. He just lived life, you know, ministering, you know, at these appointed, these appointed, these set days and these set times for ministry.

He ministered at those times. You know, I mean, you know, we witness from time to time where we're at, but do we really live each day with that pleading heart of Jesus on the inside of us? If I went to this creek over here and I caught a fish, and I brought it back here, and I just, I take this fish, and I set it right here, and it's just flapping and flapping and flapping, and we're all just sitting there watching it flap, and everybody's wondering, I mean, what is he doing with that fish?

It's just flapping on this chair. What's he doing? I'm just really quiet. Everybody's looking at me, expecting me to do something, and I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting there. And that fish goes from flapping vigorously to just kind of like a little twitch from time to time.

Everybody's really looking at me now. They're like, what is he doing with that fish? What is he going to do with that fish? And I'm just sitting there like this. And the fish, you know, they can tell, you know, it's going to die.

If I don't do something with this fish, it's going to die, and it's just moving less and less and less, and everybody's really, you know, they're like looking at each other like, if he doesn't do something with that fish, I'm going to have to go talk to him.

Jesus said, follow me, and I'll make you to become fishers of men. There's millions of fish. There's hundreds of fish around us every day when we go out into the world. And I like that. A fish out of water will die.

And people without Jesus die. And they say every two seconds, somebody dies without knowing Jesus. Car wreck. Cancer. Heart attack. All these different things are happening to the young and the old. People around us every day are dying.

Do we care? Do we have the pleading heart of Jesus on the inside of us? Be reconciled to God. Have we tasted and seen that the Lord is good? Has he quenched our thirst? Has he satisfied our soul? Has he freed us from our addictions, from our bonds?