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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] today scripture reading is from matthew chapter 8 verse 18 18-34 when jesus saw the crowd around him he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake then a teacher of the law came to him and said teacher i will follow you wherever you go jesus replied foxes have danced and birds have nests but the son of man has no place to lay his head another disciple said to him lord first let me go and bury my father but jesus told him follow me and let the date bury their own date then he got into the boat and his
00:00:58 disciples followed him suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake so that the waves swept over the boat but jesus was sleeping the disciples went and woke him saying lord save us we are going to drown he replied you of little faith why are you so afraid then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves and it was completely calm the men were amazed and asked what kind of man is this even the winds and the waves obey him when he arrived at the other side in the region of the gatherings two demon possessed men
00:01:51 coming from the tombs met him they were so violent that no one could pass that way what do you want with us son of god they shouted have you come here to torture us before the appointed time some distant from them a large herd of pigs was feeding the demons back jesus if you drive us out send us into the herd of pigs he said to them go so they came out and went into the pigs and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water those standing the pigs ran off went into the town and reported all
00:02:42 these including what had happened to the demon possessed men then the whole town went out to meet jesus and when they saw him they pleaded with him to leave their region this is the word of god good morning first baptist church welcome back to worship the title of our sermon this morning is which jesus are you worshiping the challenge of your authentic jesus and the passage is taken from matthew chapter 8 verses 17 to 34. you know as we we're worshiping here we are faced with great challenges and
00:03:21 one of the challenges is taking in fake news all over the world we have difficulty we don't seem to be able to differentiate what is right what is true and what is fake and inauthentic but today i'm going to focus in on the true jesus what he is now live in a fake world that affects us so much not so that even if they covet pandemic you've got a whole bunch of people who do not want to take vaccines even my relatives were involved they did not want to take vaccines because of the influence of fake news
00:03:56 they'd rather trust god and not vaccines but trusting god is not incompatible with trusting vaccines at the same time because vaccines are actually provided by god actually we live in a fake news if world where the rail seems fake and the fake seem real we live in a world where some people are judged for being real while others are actually loved for being fake i remember a couple of weeks ago one of my colleagues endocrinologist was giving a lecture and she left the lecture on youtube as everybody does
00:04:30 and somehow somebody cut up a portion of her lecture and inserted it into their advertisement on fake news as if she was supporting the sale of supplements so we live in a world that's difficult to discern truth and this this fake news has actually penetrated even into the premise of the church if you look at this picture there's a picture of pastor alf lucow allegedly raising from the dead brighton moyo because the church is fueled by signs and wonders turned out later on the brighton mayo was not
00:05:06 actually raised from the dead he is very much alive even before this particular miracle look at the pictures of jesus over the years you can see his western figure and face actually is fake because over time we know from research looking at palestinian people who live the bone structure at that time the scientists can now reconstruct the picture of jesus and it looks like this it doesn't look like the ones we've been looking at for all these years they were actually fake now fake worlds have consequences
00:05:42 if you look at this graph and the united states has the most corona virus recorded deaths in the world but if you look at the most recent associated press uh publication uh by carla johnson and mike strobe it looked at 107 000 hospitalizations in the month of may in america 98.9 of them were unvaccinated people call the deaths at that month of may was 18 000 of which 99.2 were unvaccinated so therefore fake news has consequences so now in this passage we're going to look at the authentic jesus because the fake
00:06:23 jesus which they sell to you popular literature and certain churches will result not in death but eternal death now the first point i'm going to make for this passage is the authentic jesus makes demands that are personal and costly he's worthy of our undivided attention matthew chapter 8 verse 18 now when jesus saw a crowd around him he gave orders to go over the other side and the scribe came up and said to him teacher i will follow you wherever you go and jesus said to the foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests
00:06:58 but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head and another disciple said to him lord let me go first go and bury my father and jesus said to follow me and leave the dead to bury the dead now when we first hear of such a demanding response you know the would-be disciple would like like the would-be disciple would probably instantly recoil it's a bit harsh isn't it in chinese culture everyone would be horrified of this command not only costly and personal but unreasonable cruel and heartless quite a
00:07:28 lot of character for jesus in it we're shocked and it is precisely the intended impact value of this particular statement that we actually hear we look back at the gospels and we see jesus interact with various people and when we see that we can actually discern a pattern emerge with the learner theologian nicodemus in john chapter 3 if you think letting dead bury the dead is shocking jesus is asking him worse is afghan to be born again now how do they expect nicodemus to react he reeled back in
00:08:01 shock he was expecting a theological debate instead he got a lesson in biology when the samaritan woman wrote well in john chapter 4 jesus zooms straight in to her personal life he tells her to go and get her husband and the one chat chat he has is not even a husband she's got five partners before with the paralytic in the pool john chapter five the pool of bethsaida jesus tells him not to sin against go straight in after the healing matthew 19 jesus confronted with a rich young man who asks what must i do to have eternal
00:08:35 life he goes straight for the jugular sell all you have and follow me you see jesus never tells nicodemus to sell all he has to follow him in the same way he never tells the rich young man to be born again even though he certainly needs to be nor did he instruct the rich young man not to sin anymore like the paralytic in the pool of bethsaida we can conclude that the authentic jesus is not someone who will just play along with what you want he will make demands that strike right in the heart of our being he is able to
00:09:07 see where your heart is and reach into your heart and say to you i belong right there not outside but right inside the faith jesus would have had a long theological debate with professor nicodemus about predestination and free will the fake jesus would just ignore the samaritan's woman's personal life not relevant don't judge her the fake jesus would probably have told the paralytic you know to get a job run the tokyo olympics with his new legs the fake jesus would have told the young man the rich young ruler it's okay
00:09:42 just give me 10 you can keep the rest see the problem with each of them if they were confronted by a fake jesus they would have been left exactly the same as when jesus elected unchanged untransformed they would have persisted happily in a fake bubble of comfort and happiness and no one's going to come in to burst their bubble you know authentic jesus how do you know he's an authentic jesus the authentic jesus always comes and he bursts your bubbles the authentic jesus will make you feel uncomfortable because you will
00:10:17 strip away all that veneer of pretense and hypocrisy and sin that forms the soft cocoon we are real for around our lives do you want the fake jesus today to keep you comfortable and unchanged or do you want a dose of reality authentic jesus is dangerous demanding and at times in our minds unreasonable he knows what your core issues are the authentic jesus will go right in he will not let you go he knows what's holding you back from complete submission to him see these issues are important because if
00:10:52 jesus is going to be master of life then only can he make a difference in your life we can only be transformed when jesus is our treasure when jesus is our master and jesus words are the words upon which we build our life every single day so when jesus said to the man follow me leave the dead to bury the dead well obviously this man is unable to leave family ties he has discerned that jesus cannot be a priority in his life his family is his priority if you look in matthew chapter 10 jesus says in verse 37 whoever loves his
00:11:31 father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and whoever loves son of daughter more than me is not worthy i mean whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me whoever finds his life will lose it whoever loses his life for my sake will find it we're so tempted to do otherwise isn't it we don't want jesus in that top priority we prefer a fake jesus and i think jesus has no cost in fact d.a carson writes um that i i would like to buy over three dollars worth of gospel please not too much
00:12:05 just enough to make me happy but not so much that i get addicted i don't want so much gospel that i really hate covetousness and lust i certainly don't want so much that i start to love my enemies and cherish self-denial and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture i want ecstasy not repentance i want transcendence not transformation i would like to be cherished by some nice forgiving broad-minded people but i myself i don't want to love those from different races especially if they smell
00:12:40 i'd like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behave but not so much that i find my ambitions redirected or by giving too greatly enlarged i'd like about three dollars worth of gospel please that's what we want he said we want a comfortable fake jesus that doesn't burst our wobble we want only three dollars worth of gossip because the default mode is that we use god rather than to serve god the default mode is to draw limits upon the extent of which he can have our lives and why does jesus always have to come
00:13:15 and make demands that are costly and personal it's because of who we are we are made in the image of god we're adopted sons of god the best version of who you and i are actually beyond our imagination the old version is disfigured defaced selfish prideful the new version is poor in spirit meek mourns sin hungers and thirsts for righteousness and is a peacemaker that transformation is personal and it's painful and if you are worshiping your authentic jesus the transformation will be made remember this
00:13:56 show many years ago chariots of fire it's about a christian man eric little was an olympic runner was supposed to run on the paris olympics in 1924 100 meters which was his favorite race and he was supposed to win because the world he was a world champion however that fateful race was scheduled on that sunday morning and he worshipped god on sunday morning was the sabbath he refused to give that up and so therefore he couldn't compete in that race instead he competed on the and by some miracle he actually won gold
00:14:33 on another day but he stood on his principle and who he competed with was a man called harold abrams which was a jew and harold abrams took his place won that race of a hundred meters years later on harold abrams became the champion but for eric little the gold that he won and the 400 didn't really matter he turned his back on that and he went into missionary service for the next 20 years of his life they actually uh interviewed harold abrams towards the end of his life and you found that harold abrams was
00:15:19 actually stuck in time when they interviewed him you're always wondering if that singular event that hundred meter gold that was the sum total of his total reason for being even existing was real would he actually have deserved or won the gold if his rival eric had not stuck to his principles to keep his habitat and competed instead he's always asking the question on the other hand jesus laid his hand on eric little's life his demands were personal and costly he gave up competitive athletics moved to
00:15:51 china as a missionary for 10 years and when world war ii came after 20 years of it being a limelight he was faced with a stuck choice leave china with his wife and kids and his yet unborn child have to the safety of canada or stay back with a thousand 800 inmates in the prisoner in the japanese concentration camp and minister to them there see when god calls us it's always personal it's always difficult but he made his choice years later on duncan hamilton would write about the life of eric little
00:16:28 and wonder why eric would make all those costly and personal choices and he is and he as he writes in his autobiography the gold the glory of the gold was nothing compared to the glory of god here you can see a picture of harold abrams side by side with eric little and here you can see no starker difference harold abrams life the whole line was summed up by one gold medal for which he was conflicted over whether he was truly deserved or flew because eric did not compete eric little on the other hand his whole
00:17:07 life was focused only on seeing the glory of god i don't think was particularly easy or fun for him to stay back in china all those years and certainly under the horrendous conditions of the japanese concentration camp but when you have only eyes for the glory of god you have no regrets it's the best life you could ever live look at paul after all these years of service when he speaks to the ephesian elders in acts chapter 20. now behold i'm going to jerusalem constrained by the spirit not knowing what will happen to me there
00:17:40 except that the holy spirit tells testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction await me but i do not count i count my life of any value or as precious to myself if only i may finish my course in the ministry that i received from the lord jesus and testify to the gospel of the grace of god you see his whole life paul like eric little consists not of seeing physical gold but seeing the glory of the gold in christ holy now we come to the next parable or big story that looks that shows us the authentic jesus
00:18:20 and that brings us to the second point your authentic jesus is far more wonderful than anyone can expect he always exceeds our expectations verse 23 when he got into the boat his disciples followed him and behold there was a there arose a great storm on the scene so that the boat was being swamped by the waves but he was asleep and he went and walked him saying save us lord we are perishing and he said to them why are you afraid oh you have little faith and he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea and it was
00:18:53 great calm and a man marveled saying what sort of man is this that even the winds and sea obey him now here you actually have opposing forces on one hand is what we expect and on the other hand is what god does and there's a gap in the middle and that gap in the middle of what we expect and what he does is always filled with either doubt or faith two opposing forces we look in mark chapter 4 what actually happened in that book when he was in the stern asleep on the cushion they woke him and said to him
00:19:31 teacher do you do you not care that we are perishing and so you actually have what they expected was for jesus to act and what he does was he went to sleep and in between there's doubt why because jesus doesn't act in a manner and the timing of which they expect of him right they would have expected perhaps jesus would have waved his hands and they in a huge titanic boat would be there unthinkable or like dictator kim jong-un surround himself with a veil of invulnerability 20 bodyguards running
00:20:10 next to you all the time or maybe if you're the president of the united states you have a huge unsinkable aircraft which even in the latest a fox one they even have an operating theater today in case he is appendicitis that needs surgery you see god jesus doesn't fit into our carefully constructed paradigms right of how we expect that god should care for us and look after us and respond to us he's supposed to prevent the storm not be sleeping on the job prevent the cancer stop the accident turn back time that's what he's supposed
00:20:45 to do isn't it so we've got these two opposing foster what we expect what he does and in between we've got vulnerability we've got fear we've got uncertainty if he can't do the job then we will fill the gap we weave our own cocoon of invulnerability with our own credit bodyguards we expend our efforts if he's late or doesn't respond i better get on with it and the story is told in one samuel chapter 3 of the time when the first israel king saul was facing off with the philistines in battle it's supposed to wait seven
00:21:17 days for the prophet samuel to arrive to offer sacrifices before the battle samuel had not arrived as paul i saw that expected and you know what he expected what god had provided was not match the enemy was gathering and he took matters into his own hands let me read one samuel chapter 13 verse 11 samuel said what have you done and saul said when i saw that the people were scattering from me and you didn't come within the days appointed this and the philistines had mustered and mixed match i sat down the philistines will
00:21:52 come down against me and gilgal i've not sought the favor a lot so if i force myself offered the burn effort so here we have a situation where what he expected what happened was completely incongruent was different he offered his sacrifice burnt offerings which he could not have done that because it is the prerogative of samuel not the king and samuel said to saul you have done foolishly you have not kept the commandment of the lord your god with which he commanded you for then the lord will establish your kingdom over israel
00:22:27 forever you see what he expected and what god produced was completely was a little bit different there was a gap and in the gap he saw the philistines in the gap you saw that the people of the skies the soldiers of israel were leaving him and he was afraid see god wanted to establish saul's kingdom by faith and obedience not by his own strength and his panic and therefore he failed and that's the same situation is with us he is more wonderful than what we expect the same situation with abraham promised a son he waited 20 years right
00:23:05 in the middle of that he couldn't wait anymore he had sex with hagar his egyptian maid produced ishmael and we are now experiencing the problems in the middle east to this day what we expect and what he does there is a gap and that needs to be filled by obedience and faith god he wants to give us more than what we actually expect remember john chapter 6 about the miracle of the feeling of 5 000 5 000 men and probably 20 000 women and children all together were fed by just a few barley loaves and
00:23:38 fish at the end of it people were following him and jesus knew why they were following him he said to them truly i say to you you are seeking me not because you saw the loaves the science but because you ate your fill of the loaves he knew what they were interested was free market for life in fact he therefore he wanted to give him that much more and therefore chapter 6 27 says do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures the eternal life which the son of man will give you for on him the god the father
00:24:12 has set his seal he corrects the expectation because they only wanted so little they only wanted more makan buffet but he decided he desired to give them more the miracle was just a fortress of the real miracle of eternal life see the authentic jesus doesn't let us stay where we are he is not prepared for us to have bakken for the rest of our life he wants us to have eternal life full of the greatest joy the fullest satisfaction not a meal that will leave you wanting more the world on the other
00:24:43 hand gives you pleasure and joy but there are hollow and inadequate the thrills of the world will excite you for a moment but they are gone in the flesh and they will leave you wanting more and more jesus wants us to expect more from him so look beyond the horizon now we come to the story of john the baptist here's a chap who had been baptizing people calling people for repentance and he's stuck in prison because it criticized herod the fact he had an affair and married his brother's wife and then he's waiting
00:25:21 nothing's happening he's looking and hearing about the ministry of jesus the messiah and in matthew 11 chapter 2 uh chapter 11 verse 2b he says are you he sends his disciples to speak to jesus to ask him are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another now now if you look at this question why is he asking this because this is a chap who actually baptized jesus he saw the dove for come upon jesus the spirit empower him he's the one who said he's going to come and baptize with the spirit he's so great that i can't even
00:25:54 untie the straps of his sandals why is he disillusioned why is he doubting that this is the messiah he's the very herald of the messiah because of what he expected he expected something and god provided something else he expected an invincible messiah he is expected someone who is so endowed with the spirit that he'll be like elijah and call down from heaven fire to consume the romans he expected jesus to confront the pharisees and clean out the temple completely he expected jesus to root out corruption he
00:26:32 expected israel to be foremost among the nations so all the nations streamed to israel in his final vindication and what was jesus doing instead village to village bit of this spirit that healing some poor beggars and sick people never you know made never made a huge impact always preaching and then jesus answered him in matthew 11 verses 4-6 go and tell john what you hear and see the blind receive the sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed and the death here and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached
00:27:12 them and blessed is the one who is not offended by me you see what we expect and what he does in the gap there is offence if you misunderstand just as john the baptist misunderstood jesus christ he thought that jesus wasn't a messiah because jesus didn't fit the bill of what the messiah should be doing maybe some of you this morning at home are also like john baptist you are offended you've asked god for something trusted jesus for a financial matter or failed relationship and there's a gap between what you
00:27:50 expect and what god has delivered you fill the gap with what bitterness and pain you're offended your hurt but if you really love me god why did you not answer my prayer the way i actually wanted it so you're disappointed angry you probably pray with less figure you're reluctant to get into the word it suddenly becomes not relevant you're less intimate with god there's a distance you cannot understand and you won't accept the authentic jesus christ you are quietly asking are you the one or shall we look for another
00:28:31 you know one of the most painful periods of eric little's life was when he had to send his wife and the two girls and the yet unborn girl in his wife's room back to canada and he stayed back in china to minister to a thousand eight hundred inmates in the prison and the story is told if you look at the autobiography written by dutkin hamilton about the last child heather who was born later on who never seen her father before he's heard about it everyone's telling and raving over him she became as she grew up
00:29:09 angry rebellious because her father chose to remain behind and and because of that she never saw her saw him in his life in her life she became angry and furious at god for you know asking the father to stay back and abandon her he didn't she didn't see the ministry two thousand eight hundred people all he saw or she saw was he wasn't there for her but in the end it actually led her to seek for the god who was so wonderful that so captivated her father's heart that he was willing to stay back in china and leave her in
00:29:49 canada she filled that gap with faith you know eric little i'm sure he worried about his young three girls and his wife there was a note at his bedside when he finally died at the age of 42 of a brain tumor and the note read it will be all right he will be well because he knew that his god would exceed all expectations you see when jesus is asleep in the storm he's simply because not because he couldn't care he's asleep in the storm simply because he's greater than the storm when he actually got up
00:30:33 blurry-eyed rubbing the sleep from his eyes and and then commanded the winds to stop they all wondered what sort of man is this that even the winds and sea obey him you see if the winds and sea obey you you can afford to sleep the trouble is when he's asleep and we're in the storm we think he's not greater than the storm we are we are offended blessed is the one who is not offended by me what we expect and what he does is a gap and that gap needs to be filled by faith so the authentic jesus makes demands
00:31:08 that are personal and costly the authentic jesus is far more wonderful than anyone can expect now we come to the last part of the passage which we're going to deal with this morning and the point here is that the authentic jesus always puts people before prosperity matthew 8 28 when he came to the other side to the country the gatherings two demon possessed men met him coming out of the tomb so fierce that no one could pass that way and behold they cried out what have you got to do with us oh son
00:31:47 of god have you come here to torment us before the time first of all the demons recognize supernaturally who jesus was the son of god and they recoiled in horror because there is a time where jesus will come to find send them into the abyss of hell forever and now jesus is coming before that time and they were afraid of being sent to hell forever at that time so this they recoiled have you been have you come here to torment us before the time and now i heard of many pigs were feeding at some distance from them and
00:32:20 the demons begged them if you cast out send us away into the herd of things and he said to them go and they came out and went into the pigs and behold the whole herd rushed down from the steep back into the sea and drowned in the waters the herdsmen fled and went into the city go in the city they told everything especially what happened to the demon possessed man and behold all the city came out to meet jesus and when they saw him they begged him to leave their region now here we have a story of demon
00:32:52 possessed men and if you look at the parallel passage in mark they were pretty violent they could tear apart even their shackles totally uncontrolled and there's an act of grace that jesus goes to this gentile area because gentiles only you know rare pigs the jews weren't allowed to do that because they weren't clean and out of his grace he comes and these two men imprisoned by two thousand demons for over the years the name was called legion he released them now why did jesus send him to the pigs
00:33:23 why did he agree to the demon's request we don't know why all right but somehow the pigs were in were filled with the spirit evil spirits and we went into the sea pigs usually can swim but in this particular case the demons had forced them into the water and caused them to drown great economic loss now i want you to look at the particular point which matthew is trying to make the point that matthew is trying to make is that there is a response the herdsmen fed fled and going to the city they told everything especially
00:34:03 what had happened to the demon possessed man and behold all the city came out to me jesus and when they saw him they began to leave their place you see there's a choice which is more significant the lives of the two men so miraculously transformed when someone else was certainly like god or the fact that 2000 pigs were lost if you look into how the passage is written the herdsmen they were looking after the pigs but when they came into the city not only did they tell everybody the city about the pigs but the more importantly the
00:34:40 matthew writes they told every day especially what happened to the demon possessed man that is totally ignored by the rest of the city when it came out all they were interested in was the fact that they had lost their prosperity they chose prosperity to be fast about that rather than the fact that jesus the son of god had come and given salvation to these two demon possessed men at least the herdsmen were correct you see they were gentiles in a pig-raring country an opportunity of a lifetime when the son of god came into
00:35:15 their midst to perform unmistakable miracle the testimony of the two demon possessed men and their herdsmen they could see they could see that you know um this was someone special but i guess they didn't want to see and that reflects the kind of default mode in which the world views everything you see the authentic jesus always views people as more important than pigs but the world views pigs is more important than people they don't seem to understand in the middle of the pandemic the corvette pandemic and economic disaster
00:35:56 your if the authentic jesus came to kl today and he looks across the shattered landscape of our city what do you think jesus will see he will not see the empty malls or deserted pasar malam so the abandoned warehouses he will see white flags up everywhere he will see people lining up at food banks he will see the sick in the car parks of the hospitals he will see the grim faces of those at home and those suffering in silence and those who've lost their loved ones if the authentic jesus sees the white flags
00:36:32 we his authentic church the body of christ needs to respond to those flags if the authentic jesus challenges us makes causes us to make costly personal demands and these demands are always focused on people you know why because the way you treat people is a reflection of the way you treat god so god went into this gentile region and all they were interested in was pigs they did not see the son of god ministering to these two men you see god takes a dim view of people who devalue of people who devalue people
00:37:13 ezekiel chapter 22 verse 12 he punishes the southern kingdom when the babylonians take jerusalem in you they take bribes to shed blood you take interest and profit and make gain of your neighbors by extortion but me you have forgotten declares the lord god and here bribery is equivalent to shedding of blood my car makes it even worse chapter 3 verse 1 to 3 and i said and i said hear you hints of jacob and rulers of the house of israel it is not for you to know justice you who hate the good and love the evil you
00:37:52 tear the skin off by people and their flesh above their bones you will eat the flesh of my people and flay their skin of them and break their bones and pieces and chop them like meat in your pot like flesh in a cauldron what my car is my car is doing is basically the way god sees injustice corruption is the same thing as if you're chopping people splash and putting them in a culture to cook them and eat them up do we use money to serve god or do we use god to serve money the authentic jesus makes
00:38:26 demands that are personal and costly authentic jesus is far more wonderful than anyone can expect the authenticity is always puts people before prosperity so therefore this morning the authentic jesus will always challenge our expectations i remember that favorite book of mine called the lion the witch and wardrobe written by cs lewis made into a wonderful movie i'm sure you've all watched it and it was a scene where the children are gathering around mr beaver and talking about aslan that that that
00:39:02 that huge lion which was basically a symbol of jesus christ and the children are asking is he quite safe i shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion and then mr beaver answered safe said mr beaver who said anything about being safe of course he isn't safe but he's good he's the king i tell you you see in jeremiah 10 10 describes the lord is the true god he is the living god the everlasting king at his right the earthquakes and the nations cannot endure his indignation you see god is not just portrayed as a
00:39:46 majestic vibrant creator god a living god yet the authentic god is also described in ominous terms there's rad there's indignation he's not a puppet you can manipulate an old man you can bribe or or fool around with he's dangerous as mr beaver said the fastlane but the difference is he's good if he's good he will not tolerate evil especially people in the evil on the other hand many of us prefer to worship idols or our personal version of who jesus is jeremiah 5 10 5 their idols are like scarecrows in a
00:40:28 cucumber field they cannot speak they have to be carried for they cannot walk do not be afraid of them for they cannot do evil neither is it in them to do any good you see people love idols simply because or another version of jesus they can manipulate or have an idea of who jesus jesus is and the reasoning passages in the bible and other passages they don't not want to read because it will challenge them it will make them sacrifice it will put pressure on them it will burst their bubble of comfort
00:40:57 it's easier to have an idol jeremiah 10 15 god says they are worthless a work of delusion and the time of their punishment they shall perish this morning we're challenged by the authentic jesus who doesn't fit into our nice categories of who god should be let me end with a reading from the book of revelation because revelations gives us a true picture of the authentic jesus of what he is doing right now revelation 1 one like the son of man clothed with a long robe and a golden sash around his chest
00:41:42 the hairs of his head were white like white wool like snow his eyes were like a flame of fire his feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace his voice is like the roar of many waters in his right hand he held seven stars and his mouth came sharp to each sword and his face was like the sun shining in full strength when i saw him i fell down at his feet as though dead and he laid his right hand on me saying fear not i'm the first and the last and the living one i died behold i live i am alive forevermore i
00:42:21 have the keys of death and hades this is the picture of who jesus is seated at the right hand of god walking around the seven stars with seven uh lamb stats which is basically this just walking in our midst and when he's walking in our midst this glorious jesus christ was resurrected and glorified he's saying to us this morning revelation chapter 3 behold i stand at the door and not the real jesus the authentic jesus if anyone hears my voice and opens the door i will come in and eat with him and he with me the one
00:42:55 who conquers i will grant him to sit with me on my throne and i also conquered and sat on with my father on his throne he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches the challenge for us this morning is to hear the voice of jesus and feel the knock in our hearts it's going to come right in the authentic jesus to come right in and seize that part of the heart that is closest and all the treasures dearest to you and it's going to ask you for them it's going to ask to take the
00:43:24 number one spot in our lives your authentic jesus if that is what you would want in your life if that is what you would want to say to jesus come into my life suck with me eat with me help me transform so that i may truly reflect the image of god if that's the case let us make that commitment to our lord jesus christ even this morning there are some of you who want to have someone pray with you at home right there there's so many of us who are with elders and pastors and leaders who are willing to come and do this with you
00:44:01 just send pray on the zoom chat to us and we will come and to be with you for the rest of you there's a qr code if you decide to follow jesus you like to attend alpha like to attend a live group and have or you want a prayer request scan this qr code and we will respond to you i always thank you for your word this morning we ask a lot that you just bring the authentic jesus to us to the pages of the bible as we read it to cover the cover and really understand in totality who you really are help us not
00:44:41 worship idols by sticking snippets here and snippets there as if they're our favorite jesus and ignore other parts of who you really are you now seated at the right hand of the father we thank you you're more greater than what we expect we ask a lot that you come and transform our lives we ask for jesus sake amen
