Speaker 1: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the West Side Church's Special Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:13

Well, good evening, good to see everybody. Tonight in my Bible I have opening to the eighth division of John's Great gospel. John chapter eight is where we'll spend a good bit of our time tonight. And while you're opening your Bible and getting settled, I certainly joined in the welcome you've received already. Thank you so much for being here tonight for the tremendous encouragement that you give us by being here tonight . It's so wonderful to be with you. I've been with this congregation, as Mark mentioned so many times for so many events over so many years now. I've enjoyed each and every one. What a pleasure to get to be with you again tonight. And I love this church and I love the preacher of this church. Mark and I have been friends for almost four decades now, and that's been a blessing in my life for which I am very grateful and appreciate the good work that he does with you. And what a great lesson, truth. Thank you so much for that wonderful lesson tonight that was just outstanding. I , uh, I feel a particular affinity for, for Truth and Bridget, because they've been worshiping with us. Truth worshiped with us for four years at Temple Terrace. And then , uh, once he and Bridget , uh, found each other , uh, she came and worshiped with us as well, and they made a place in our church family , uh, a very good place. Uh, they related wonderfully well with young and old alike and made a difference for good. And we missed them a great deal. And truth was valuable. I I remember when Truth played Place membership with us. I remember talking to all the college students and saying, look, if you don't know truth, you need to get to know truth because it's very valuable to know , Kim . I mean, if you get in trouble, call truth, if you, unfortunately, if you should ever be arrested, you need to call truth because if you know, truth, truth will set you free. And so, so what a, what a great service he provided for us. What a wonderful lesson. So glad that we could be a part of that. About a month ago or so, my, my wife had a total knee replacement surgery and uh , so I've been working from home so that I could help her with her daily therapy exercises. And as you would imagine, those are very painful. And so when we do them, she likes to have something on the television. She really likes movies and she really likes musicals. Vicki loves musicals. Any musical I dislike musicals, every musical <laugh> . And the reason for that is that musicals are not real life. I mean, I have never yet in my life ever seen a group of people just spontaneously begin to sing in perfect harmony. And , and I've never seen people spontaneously begin to, to dance in perfectly choreograph steps. That's just not real. That's not real life. I like movies about things that could really happen about real life, about something that could truly occur like Star Wars. That's my kind of movie. <laugh> . If you want something that is real, if you want a circumstance that is real, it does not get any more real than John chapter eight in John chapter eight, Jesus, Jesus is not the Mr. Rogers Jesus that almost everybody seems to expect and want him to be today. In fact, it's a brutal day. It begins with a woman taking an adultery who's used as a pond to try to attract Jesus, and then it goes downhill from there. I wanna read with you just some sampling of verses tonight. We don't have time to read much of the much of the text , but , but let me read you some verses that will at least give you a feel for how tense this day is. For example, in verse 12, Jesus said, I'm the light of the world and you follows me, will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. The Pharisee therefore said to him, you bear witness of yourself. Your witness is not true. Verse 14, Jesus said, my witness is true. I know where I came from and where I'm going, but you do not know where I come from and where I am going. Well, all the way down in verse 33, they said, well , we are Abraham's descendants . Verse 44 , Jesus said, you are of your Father, the devil and the desires of your Father. You want to do verse 47. He said, therefore, you do not listen to me because you are not of God. In verse 48, the Jews answered and said to him, do we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and demon possessed? Jesus said, I , I do not have a demon, but I honor my father and you dishonor me. In verse 53, they said, well, who do you make yourself out to be? And in verse 54, he said, it is my father who honors me of whom you say that he is your God. Yet you have not known him. I know him. And if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. And then in verse 58, Jesus said to them , most assuredly I say to you that before Abraham was, I am. Well, they understood what he meant by that because they then take up stones to stone him. It's an interesting dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish leaders that day that that is, that is ugly in so many ways. And when I read that, I wonder, you know, why didn't Jesus just leave it alone? I mean, at some point in time, why didn't Jesus just stop and say, you know what guys? Let's just leave this alone. I mean, clearly people sometimes disagree about things and we're gonna disagree about this. And you know what really matters is that, that we just all love God and that we just all love each other. And if we just do that, and if we could just rely on the grace and the mercy and the kindness of God, then really all of these differences that we have, they just really would not matter. So why can't we just leave this all alone and we'll just agree to disagree? And the answer of course is that because truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth mattered to God. This was in fact the truth. That is the belt, the belt that Ephesians six talks about, upon which righteousness and salvation and faith they are built and upon which they hang. And without which you, you cannot have the armor of which Paul talked. But I would say particularly to our young people here tonight, that if, if you really want to sound out of touch and outta data, if you wanna sound antiquated in your culture, just just talk about absolute truth. Just talk about something that you believe is absolutely unequivocally right, or something you believe is absolutely and unequivocally wrong. We've come to believe in America that really nothing is like that . A few years ago I had the opportunity to mc a banquet where former Secretary of education, bill Bennett was the speaker. And in that, he was talking about this kind of, this kind of lack of foundation upon which we stand as Americans. And he said, you know what? In America right now, we have both feet firmly planted in midair . And what he meant by that was that we're not willing to take a stand on hardly anything. You know, it's been said that for generations in America that that really, there are three types, three types of truth. One kind of truth is objective truth. That is, it can be proven, it is quantifiable. There's empirical evidence you can prove this. So you can say this is absolutely true, and I know it is. But a second kind of truth is subjective. This is exactly what it sounds like. This is what is personally true for you and what's personally true for me. For example, it is personally true for me that I don't like snakes. That's really not true. I hate snakes. And so I don't, I don't have anything to do with them at all. Now I know I'm in Texas, and so I know there are probably some people here who love snakes. I know there are people like that, people that love snakes, they collect snakes, they keep snakes as pets. None of those people are my friends because again, I don't like snakes, but that's just my personal, just my personal preference. And then there is normative truth. And you'll see the word normal in that that is, this is what people would normally believe. And so for example, most everybody would agree that Mr. Putin in Russia or Mr. Uh , Mr. Xi in China, if they kill their political adversaries, everybody can agree you should not do that. That is a normative truth. But here we are in American 2024, and now we have a fourth kind of truth that sociologists talk about and that is complex. And what they mean by that is what they mean by that is the truth is so individual in nature that you get to decide in all of those areas what is true. And so that's where we get the idea. Well, your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth. And if I don't learn anything else in John chapter eight, ladies and gentlemen, I learned this, that Jesus will have nothing to do with that. And quite honestly, we don't reason that way in any other realm of life. We don't reason that way. For example, in in finance, we don't reason that way in , in , in medicine or in aeronautics. Well, why not? Well, because in finance you'd end up bankrupt because in in medicine you'd end up sick because in aeronautics you would crash and you would die. If you bring that mindset, for example to to sports, you're going to lose. You bring it to academics and you will fail because it just doesn't work that way. That's not the way life is. And so it's imperative, particularly as Christians and as young Christians, could I just emphasize to you that one of the best things you can learn right now in the days of your youth is to view truth in certain ways. Number one, you need to learn to respect the truth. And God said that a long time ago, a millennium before the birth of Jesus, when he said, I want you to buy the truth and sell it not. And the point that he means by that is that everything is not gray. Everything is not a gray area. Everything's not gray and nebulous and undefined. Again, there's some things that are clearly and unequivocally right? And there's some things that are clearly and unequivocally wrong and wrong is wrong. We need to understand this. Wrong is wrong. No matter who says it wrong is wrong. No matter how many times somebody says it wrong is wrong. No matter how much we like somebody who says it, there is no way that wrong can be right. And we can cry about that and pout about it and complain about it. And we can hold our breath and we can be angry about it, but still wrong is always going to be wrong. And so we need to respect the truth. And secondly, we need to respect the source of truth. When Jesus was a for pilot , he said, for this purpose, I was born and for this purpose, I've come to the world to bear witness of the truth. Everyone, everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. And so we need to understand that the ultimate source of truth for us spiritually is Jesus Christ. So much so that he would say in John 12 and 48 that the word that I've spoken to you, that word, not the word of anybody else, not Don or mark or anybody else, but that word will judge a man in the last day. And then third, we need to respect the challenges to truth. When John wrote his little tiny tome , second John, I want you to notice what he said in verse seven. Many deceivers have gone out into the world. Well, that was on his mind. He cared about that. He was concerned about that the deceivers had gone out into the world. But you know what? He wasn't concerned. He wasn't concerned so much that deceivers would, would, would influence people who had no connection to Christianity at all. You know what he was concerned about? He was concerned and worried about you. He was looking down through the tunnel of time to July of 2024 and Irving, Texas on a Friday night, and he was concerned about you. I know that's true because the next verse says, watch yourselves talking to Christians. Watch yourselves that you don't lose what you have worked for, but you can gain a full reward. In other words, if a deceiver deceives you and and pulls you away from what what you have known in the past to be true and right and faithful and strong and righteous, then what happens? Well, we lose our reward, the truth talked about just a moment ago. And then we need to make sure that we respect the warnings about truth because they're everywhere. Jesus, for example, in Matthew seven and verse 15, Jesus in Matthew seven and 15 said, beware, interesting word tells us to be concerned about this. Beware, he said , of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. Let me ask you something. Where did a wolf get sheep's clothing? Well, he got it because he killed a sheep. He killed a sheep. He had been successful already and he wanted, once he had that taste of blood, he wanted a little bit more. And Jesus said, you gotta be careful about that. Beware of faults , prophet and false teachers. And that warning was echoed, for example, by John and First John four and one. It's why John said, beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits and make sure they are of God. Does that make sense? Test weigh , measure what somebody says. Measure everything I say tonight by the plum line of the word of God. Don't take it because I say it or because Mark says it or truth or anybody else this weekend. Measure it by the word of God. That's the standard, obviously, isn't it? And then of course, we need to respect our responsibility to the truth. We don't have time to talk about these things tonight, but I think we have many responsibilities to truth, to be discerning again, to weigh and measure what you hear by the infallible standard and to be supportive, to be supportive of those who teach and preach truth. And to study for yourself, dig the deep, dig deep into the word of God. Don't just don't. Just walk in shallow waters of God's word. Do what truth suggested a moment ago. Open your Bible and study research. Do some thinking about that. And then be courageous again, as truth was talking tonight, be courageous with what? With what you know. All that makes us ask, is there a truth? Is there a truth that is always true regardless of circumstance, regardless of what situation you find yourself in? Is there a truth that is always true? Well, Jesus seems to think so clearly in John chapter eight. He is not willing to back down. He is not willing to compromise at all, and he will not let go of that. He holds onto that tenaciously. The ccia a head , CIA headquarters for the United States is in Langley, Virginia. And it's a, it's a very impressive structure. You've probably seen it on television and, and when you think about what does the , what does the CIA do? Well, we don't know a lot that they do obviously, but, but what we do know is that they gather information, they analyze information, and then they carry out observations, operations based on that information. When you go and do the CIA headquarters in Langley, when you go in and to the right, there's a little alcove and it's dimly lit, but there's a shaft of light that comes through. And I know you can hardly probably make out these words, I would imagine, but it's kind of the unofficial motto of the CIA . And it is, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. And it's interesting that where they have that is again, in a little niche that is, that is in shadows, and yet it is situated exactly where they want to be, so that a light, a light comes through as if it is of course the light of truth. Well , where did they get that idea? Well, you know where they got that idea? Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, if you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth and truth. Truth will set you free . It's interesting that when Jesus said that, he said, if you abide in me, if you abide in me. So I'm looking over here at an amazing group of young people tonight. And I would imagine that most of you are Christians, probably most of you at this point in your life, at least the teenagers here, I'd imagine most of you have been baptized. It's easy sometimes for us to come to believe that, that really, once we're baptized, that's the pretty big item to check off the list. And once we've done that, it's pretty well the end of the matter. But that's not what Jesus says at all. Jesus says, if you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciple. You gotta abide like a turtle in a shell. You see a turtle that's outside of his shell. It's not just having a bad day, it's fixing to die because that shell is part of its skeletal system. It cannot survive without it. And a Christian who decides that he doesn't have to abide live in dwell in the truth of almighty God's, a Christian that's fixing to die spiritually. I was reading early this year in preparation for this lesson, and I came across a quote that I , that I've come to love. It says, there's nothing like the freedom we can have in Jesus. No money can buy it, no status can obtain it, no works can earn it, nothing can about you . It is truly tragic that not every Christian experiences this freedom, which can never be found except by abiding in God's word and being Jesus disciple. So again, I just want to ask you, particularly to young people here tonight, I want ask you what you're doing with God's truth. And if you're doing what Jesus said you have to do to spiritual life , you have to abide in that, in that truth. Here's the problem with truth. Today, truth has been segmented into three very distinct areas , particularly as Americans. Think about truth. For example, there is a truth, and a truth is something that may be true or may not be true . And so people talk about what they believe about politics or nation or the science or climate change or international relations or a thousand other issues. But the fact of the matter is if we're, if we're just brutally honest with ourselves, we have such limited knowledge about most of those things, that what we believe about that may be true, but it may also not be true because our , our knowledge is so limited. And so a truth is what may or may not be true. And then of course, there is my truth, and that is what I, what I believe to be true. And so this is in all of those areas that we just talked about, most all of us would be willing to say, well, you know what? Here's what I believe about that. Here's what I believe about that. This is my truth about this matter. And then there is a third truth. And that is, of course, God's truth. That is the truth, what God says about something. And what I want you to see tonight is that what, what God says that third truth, the truth is much different than a truth or my truth. And the third of those always, ladies and gentlemen, must take precedence over the first two. The challenge is , the challenge is that , that so many people will bring those first two approaches, what may or may not be true or what I believe to be true, and they wanna bring that to spiritual matters, to religion. And again, that's where we end up with, well, you believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe. Well, that may be true, but what does God say about that? Because that's ultimately what matters. So here's where we are in our culture, and here's where we are oftentimes in Christian faith that since we've confused personal opinions and personal beliefs with truth, we kind of believe no truth can be trusted. And again, that's how we end up with look, you've got your truth and I've got my truth. And I just wanna say to you, that is just wrong. There is a divinely revealed truth. The truth given us, my God, my , uh, my young friend Jordan sch , I've known Jordan his entire life, and he preaches over at the Campbell Road Church along with Ricka Jenkins. So last Sunday, Jordan used a wonderful illustration in his sermon. He used an illustration with a , uh, a can of Mountain Dew. Now, the , the illustration was not as good as v had used an illustra with a can of Coke because Coke is better than Mountain Dew. It just hands down, that is my truth about that. But he made a wonderful point with that. Now, I gotta tell you honestly, I think everybody, I think everybody from time to time should drink a Coke. And I mean a real Coke, not a diet Coke, not a caffeine free diet Coke, which is just bad tasting brown water, but I mean a real Coke, I mean a , a real Coke, an authentic Coke, a genuine Coke, a coke, just like the apostles used to drink <laugh> . Well, Jordan made the, Jordan made the observation. It was a great observation that if you look at Mountain Dew, you look at Coke, the first ingredient that is listed is water. Well, water is good for us. We need water. We're told all the time we need to drink water. You need to drink more water. But the problem is that there's a bunch of other stuff in the Mountain Dew or in that Coke that's not so good for you. And the point of that is that, that, that our adversary, the devil, Satan, loves to dilute God's word. And so I would say to you, to , to young people that, that it's not enough. It's not enough for you to listen to a podcast or read a post or hear a sermon. You gotta make sure that, that it's the pure 1% absolute truth of God's word because a truth or my truth, again, Jesus will have nothing to do with that. And so he said, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, because you shall know truth and truth will make you free. So if we understand all of that with that foundation, I think we just need to answer three questions real quickly in the lesson. Yours, we just need to answer three very simple questions. Here they are. Question number one, is my truth always under the authority of the truth? Is my truth always what I believe? Is it always under the authority of the truth? And let me say this as clearly as I know how to say it. If God's word is the truth, the only truth that will set you free, then we've got to make sure that it takes precedence over everything else. It takes precedence over a truth. What may or may not be true, and my truth, what I wanna believe is truth. Both of those have to be under the authority of God's truth. And so I've gotta make sure that whatever's going on in my life is under the authority of God's truth. I've been illustrating that this year with a very simple illustration. Anybody NASCAR fans in here, anybody knew who know who drives the number 19 car? Martin Truex Jr . What a good name, right? Martin Truex Jr . I get asked all the time, are you related to Martin Truex Jr ? And I say, you mean my nephew Marty? Well, but he's not really my nephew. It's interesting. This is his last year in racing. He's going to retire after this year. But as you can see, his major sponsor is Bra , is Bass Pro Shops. You know how much Bass Pro Shops pays to sponsor his team and be the major sponsor? They pay $32 million per racing season $972,000 per race. That's a lot of money. That's why they've got the big sticker on the hood. That's why they are the major sponsor. But I want you to notice, if you'll notice on the right side of the car, there's some little bitty stickers there, there's some smaller stickers there. And so you can advertise at a lesser rate. I got thinking about it . Well, that's a good deal. I wonder if we could advertise the Temple Terrace Church of Christ on the side of Marty's car. I mean, surely he'd give me the family discount <laugh> . But you know, that car is going around the track at about 5,000 miles an hour. You're never gonna be able to read what's on there. But you know how much those little bitty stickers are. They're $100,000 per race. Per race. I couldn't sell that to my elders. Hard as I tried. I don't know. They just, they're close-minded about that. Well , lemme tell you something, you're never gonna see. You are never ever going to see somebody take one of those little small side stickers and put it on the hood on top of the Bass Pro shop sticker. Why not? Because Bass Pro shops paid the price for that car. That's why. And I can have my, my belief, what I want to be true, what I may think is true, but I'm gonna tell you that Jesus Christ paid the price to set us free. And so through your word, I get understanding the Psalm was said, and therefore, I hate every false way. And my point, young people simply is this, that a truth what may or not be true and my truth, what I wanna be true can never supplant the truth given by God. And if you don't get anything else than I take a picture of that and just remember that , Just that , and that'll help you in your life, I'll guarantee you. Question number two, am I set free by walking in the truth? That's an important question because isn't that what Jesus said? You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. The truth will make you free. And so that's so very important. Now, the Jews responded to that and they said, well, now we don't know anything about that. I mean, we we're the , we're the descendants favor . We've never, we have never been enslaved to anybody at any time. Well , that's pretty amazing. What about the Egyptians? Maybe those Babylonians, how about the Persians? How about the Romans who are walking the street right now? But it's interesting that Jesus doesn't chase that rabbit. He just ignores that entirely. And instead what he says in verse 34 is this truly, I say to you that everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. You should know truth, truth will set you free. Why does that matter? Because anyone who practices sin becomes a slave to sin. And so if I, again, if I can say anything to the young people here tonight that I think you could take with you, that would be a value. It's just that, that sin in slaves, sin always in slaves. Maybe maybe you came in this building tonight, even as young as you are. Maybe you came in this building tonight and you're enslaved. Maybe you're enslaved to a habit that is destroying you. Maybe you're enslaved to vaping that is destroying your body, or maybe pornography that is destroying your mind and destroying your soul. Or maybe you're enslaved in a relationship. Maybe you've got a friendship that you know is dragging you down spiritually and you've tied yourself , yourself that you're gonna let them up and all of that. But you know, in your heart of hearts, they , they're hurting you spiritually. Or maybe you've got a boyfriend or a girlfriend who really cares nothing for your faith, and you're holding that hope in the back of your mind that somehow they're gonna make a miraculous uturn at some point. But you know, that's not likely. And so you know that this relationship really can't and should not go, go anywhere. Or maybe maybe you're enslaved to some destructive behavior. Maybe you're crossing boundary lines morally and you know, you know you should not do that. Or maybe you become more lazy than industrious and you know that you should be better than that. Or maybe you have attitudes or thoughts or words that degrade you and others. Jesus said, you've gotta know some truth to be set free from that. Now you gotta know two, two things about truth about that. Number one, you gotta know the truth about how God sees that. And he does see that . See that it is very difficult to play hide and seek with omniscience. He sees everything. And secondly, you've gotta know the truth about what he would say to you about how to be free of that, what he wants you to do, to be free of that enslavement. And here's question number three. What truth am I known for? So young people, I want to ask you, even at your race now, all the older people in here, we need to think about this a lot, right? Because we, particularly if you're my age and you're thinking about kind of the legacy that you're gonna leave behind for your children and grandchildren, the way you want to be remembered by your brethren. But let's talk to our young people tonight. What truth are you known for? That is when people speak your name, when people think of you, what comes to mind for them? What would they say is natural to you? When I was thinking about that this week and trying to think about everything I wanted to say tonight, I, I got to thinking about the number of funerals that I've done in my preaching life. I I have no idea how many countless, countless funerals. And it's interesting, I've , I've done funerals for, for people that were a hundred years old, two or three times. But I've also done funerals for little babies. I've done funerals for people that were extremely well known in their community and people who were completely unknown. I've done military funerals, preacher's, funerals, parents' funerals, friends' funerals. And it's interesting that I've, I've seen in caskets interesting things that related to the individual's life. For example, a farmer's funeral who was buried in bib overalls because that was just him. It would've been unnatural to see him in a suit. And I've been to several preacher's, funerals, and almost all of them, he'll have a Bible in his hand because that was natural to him. So when your friends and peers and others think about you, what, what's natural for you? What would they say about you ? Well, you know what, here they are on a Friday night in July in the summer, and they're in a , they're in a church building. They're singing and they're worshiping in the study the Bible . And I would exactly expect that because that's natural for them. It's just who they are. That'd be a great thing. They always smile. They have a good attitude. They speak to everybody. They're trying to do what's right. They encourage other people, they encourage older people and on and on it could go,

Speaker 3: 30:26

You

Speaker 2: 30:26

Know, part of that is what Paul was talking about in Galatians two when he said, look, I'm crucified. I've been crucified. I'm , I'm not the same person anymore. What was natural to me in the past is not natural to me. Now. I'm crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live , but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by faith and the son of God who loved me and gave himself for for me. So what I mean by that is that, look, we can have a, we can have a hundred different interests. We can have a thousand different, smaller stickers in our life, but they can never take precedence over the one who paid the price. It's why the Psalm said, through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. It's why John said that Everyone who doesn't, who goes on ahead and doesn't abide, do what Jesus said, abide in the truth. Abide in the teaching of Christ. He doesn't have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son, which brings all of that back, of course to John 8 32 , That you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. So I want you to track with me for just a couple of more minutes. Can you do that? Don't put everything away just yet. What I wanna do for you tonight before I stop, is I wanna tell you the truth about you. I want to tell you the truth about you, particularly if you're a teenager here tonight. Because what I know with absolute certainty, I know with absolute certainty that almost everybody outside these four walls is going to tell you that your value, your worth is based on one or more of four criteria. That your value and worth is pretty well determined by one or more of four criteria. Number one, how many points you can score in a game. Number two, your GPA or what you can score on an SAT or a CT. Number three, how much money your mom and dad have. And number four, how beautiful or handsome you are. When you look in the mirror, the world will tell you that your value is determined by one or more of those four things. And I would tell you tonight, the truth is

Speaker 3: 32:54

That

Speaker 2: 32:54

You're valuable because you are made in the image of God Almighty. That is why Jesus came to seek and save you. It is why the Hebrew writer said that Jesus ever lives to make intercession for you. It is why Jesus said, I am going to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also. So I'm gonna ask you tonight, what are you gonna do with that truth? What are you gonna do with that truth? You've got four choices and only four choices. You can reject Jesus' Lord and not do what he says. He will always give you that option. He will not reach down from heaven and make you do right. You can reject him as Lord and not do what he says. He'll give you that option. You can reject him as Lord, but do what he says. You say, well, who would ever do that? Well , you , you probably know people. You probably go to school with people like that. You probably go to school with some really good people, really good young people. They , they have good morals. They have good mom and dad. They have good values. They have a good work ethic. They are good people, but they really have no interest in serving God really whatsoever. You can reject him as Lord, but but do what he says. Or third, you can accept him as Lord, but not do what he says. And those were the kind of people that Jesus was talking about in Luke six when he said, why do you call me Lord? Why do you say, I am your Lord and you don't do what I tell you to do? There are a lot of people who accept him as Lord, but don't do what he says. Or fourth , you can accept him as Lord and do what he says. That's what I pray you want to do. A moment ago we quoted Galatians two. Paul said, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in, the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave his life for me . You'd have to work to miss the emphasis that Jesus Christ came to this world to give you life, spiritual life. That's why tonight if you need to be baptized, you need to understand what Paul meant when he said, look, we are buried with Christ and baptism so that you help me here so that we can rise to walk and newness of what life. Exactly. And if that's your need tonight, this invitation's for you.

Speaker 1: 36:03

Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ podcast. Far more information about Westside. You can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat.io. That's upbeat with two P-U-P-P-B-E-A-T , where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others and we look forward to seeing you again.