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Andy Stanley - Bystander Part 2 Living As If · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Some of the most remarkable people that I've ever met, and actually some of
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the most remarkable people that you have ever met, that we've all met,
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or people that we can describe this way. They're the believe in spite of
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people. Have you ever met a believe in spite of person that they're going
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through difficult circumstances financially or with their health, or with their family, or
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they're going through a divorce, or they're just going through difficult stuff, and
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yet their confidence in God is just like unshakable. They still have joy,
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they still have peace. It defies logic. They have that peace that surpasses,
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as Paul said, all human comprehension. That means it doesn't even make
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sense. Sometimes you wonder if they're in denial, but they're not. They
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just trust God and their story is inspiring and sometimes it's disturbing. In fact,
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for some of you, the reason that you're Christians, or the reason
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that you're even curious and becoming a Christian, or the reason that you showed
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up at church today is because you know one of these kinds of people and
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you think to yourself, and you wouldn't say this out loud, but I'll
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just say it for you. You think to yourself, you know what,
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I don't have that, and I would like to have that. And even
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if there's nothing to it, I would like to have that because it's a
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lot better than the life I'm living. Because I don't have any peace,
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I don't have much confidence. You know, the future scares me to death.
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Death scares me to death. And these people just I mean, in
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spite of these incredible difficult circumstances, they're just fine. And I want to
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know that. I would be fine if I were facing circumstances like they're facing.
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Because when you meet people going through difficult times, we all internalize it.
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We all say, I wonder how I would respond if I was going
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through that. And when you meet one of these folks, it's like,
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Wow, there's a gentleman. You may have heard his name. His names
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doctor Francis Collins. Doctor Collins met one of those people when he was in
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med school doing rounds at a hospital in North Carolina. You may have heard
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his name because he served as the director of the Human Genome Project. Now
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I know you all know this, but I'm going to catch you up real
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quick on what a genome is. Okay, just for you know, just
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you know, I know, you know. But the genome is an organism's
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complete set of DNA. Any organism, every organism has a genome, and
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the genome is the complete set of an organism's DNA, including all of their
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genes. And so doctor Collins was given the assignment to put together a team
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to map the entire human genome three point one billion letters inside of every single
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one of your cells. Check that out. And so this was a remarkable
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accomplishment because it helps us in terms of predicting what diseases would do, predicting
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how diseases impact families, family systems. I mean, it's remarkable. Obviously
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a very very bright guy. But when he was twenty seven years old,
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he's working at a hospital in North Carolina doing rounds as a student, you
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know, where they walk in and ask you the same question day after day
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after day after day, and then they write stuff down at scribble and they
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leave. Okay, So he's he this is you know, he's this is
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his internship kind of thing. He's doing rounds. And because partly because he
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was in North Carolina, he kept bumping into Christians people who were dying had
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terminal diseases that could be somewhat treated, but they couldn't be cured. And
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he keeps talking to these people and they so many of them are talking about
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their faith, and they're going to heaven and they're going to be reunited with
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loved ones. And he grew up in a home where both of his parents
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were pretty much agnostic, and this was so unnerving to him. In fact,
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in his book, he wrote a book called The Language of God,
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which I highly recommend. I read it about four years ago. Three years
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ago, The Language of God, he says this in the book, He
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said, you know, this is his response to all these people. If
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faith was a psychological crutch, it must be a very powerful one. If
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it was nothing more than a veneer of cultural tradition. Let me translate this
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for you. In other words, is this is just something people in the
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South do. If this is just what uneducated people do, If this is
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what mountain folk do to just get through life, if this was just something
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they had to do with cultural tradition, then and this is what bothered him.
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This is a good question. Then why, he said, why were
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these people now shaking their fist at God and demanding their friends and families,
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stop all this talk, this nonsense about a loving and benevolent supernatural power.
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I mean, they're dying and God's not answering their prayer, and yet they
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still have faith. This was just so unnerving to him. Then one afternoon,
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walks into a room where there was a woman dying of I think it
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was genital heart disease, and she was, you know, there was just
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no hope, no cure. And she had talked to him before and mentioned
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her faith and heaven and all that kind of stuff. But on this particular
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day, as they're chatting back and forth and he's asking her the question,
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she says to him, she says, doctor, I've told you what I
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believe, Doctor, what do you believe? And this question ended up changing
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his life. He says in the book, he said, you know,
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I turned red. I kind of stammered, well, I'm not really sure.
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And then and this is his word, not mine, he said,
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face And this may be your word, you just haven't embraced it yet,
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he said, faced with my wilful blindness. Wilful blindness that is, I
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haven't seen, but I'm not really looking. I don't know, but I
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haven't really asked the question. There may be something more, but I've never
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explored it, he said, Faced with my willful blindness and my arrogance,
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I began a journey, and he decided to see what could be seen and
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to try to discover what could be discovered and in discovered, and in the
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end he discovered that there was something to the claims of Christ. In fact,
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that the claims of Jesus has found in the Gospels were so compelling.
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He became a Christian, and he continued to follow his faith and follow Jesus
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throughout his entire life up until the point where I mean throughout his life even
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now, even through this whole journey of basically mapping the human genome. In
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other words, there was more evidence than he thought there was, but he
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never knew there was evidence until he looked. Now, here's the cool thing.
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Jesus predicted this, and John helped Jesus predicted it. In John helped
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Jesus said, I'm going to give you enough evidence to believe. And John
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said, you know what, I want people to know what I know,
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to hear what I've heard, to see what I've seen, so that they
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could believe like I believe. Because at the end of the day. We
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said this last week that Christianity at the end of the day, Christianity is
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not about just believing. It's not, well, just believe, just believe,
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you know, we just believe and believe, just have faith and faith,
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and it's not about taking it by faith. Whatever it is. John
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and Peter and James and Bartholomew and all the rest, they did not follow
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Jesus because of faith. And he would caution you, and he would caution
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me, and he would caution all of us against just following Jesus because of
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faith. We don't follow because of faith. They followed because of what they
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actually saw, and they followed because of what they actually heard. And he
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encourages the readers of his account of the life of Jesus in the same way.
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He said, I want you to believe, and I want you to
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place your faith in Jesus because of what what I've seen and what I have
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heard. Here's how he says it in his Gospel. He says that which
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was from the beginning, and the beginning isn't Genesis. The beginning is this
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adventure of Jesus showing up on planet Earth and making these outrageous claims and then
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substantiating them by doing these outrageous things. He says that which was from the
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beginning, because he was there in the beginning, John, was which we
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have heard. In other words, I'm not going to tell you something somebody
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told me. I heard this which we have seen. These are things that
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we, Peter and the gang, we saw these with our own eyes,
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which we have looked at, in which our hands have touched. This was
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his way of saying, after the resurrection, Okay, we weren't seeing things.
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This wasn't a mirage, this wasn't a ghost, This wasn't wishful thinking
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that turned into something we thought we saw. This is what we're letting you
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know about. This is what we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The
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life appeared. And I think this was John's way of saying, Look,
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I'm a simple man. My father was a fisherman. I was a fisherman,
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and then Jesus came along and turned everything upside down. So don't ask
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me any difficult questions. All I know is this. As a Jewish boy,
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I had always believed in God. I'd always worship yahweh, And I'm
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just telling you that invisible mysterious. Don't ask me a lot of questions.
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God came to earth in the form of a person, and I met him.
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He was my rabbi, my friend, he's my savior. He's Jesus.
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That life appeared, and we have seen it and testified to it,
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and we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard. I'm just telling
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you what I saw, telling you what I heard. He outlives all of
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his friends. He's the last man standing. Probably he's the last of jesus
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apostles. And he's encouraged, apparently by a group of people to document his
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account, his life, his story, the life of Jesus. I think
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he was too old to see very well. I doubt, very seriously he
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wrote this. He probably didn't know Greek. It comes to us in the
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Greek language, which means he probably, in fact, in all likelihood,
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he dictated his story. Somebody basically interviewed the story out of him, and
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it comes to us as the Gospel of John. But here's the most important
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thing. Perhaps John is not content to just tell us what happened. John
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has an agenda. John wants something to happen to you, and John wants
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something to happen to us, that happened to him based on his interaction with
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the Son of God. He spells it out for us. At the end,
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he gives us his purpose statement. In other words, he says,
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here's why I wrote this or dictated this. It wasn't just so you would
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know what happened. I have an agenda, and here's my agenda. Jesus
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performed many other signs. He did a whole lot of others than a lot
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of things, and the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this
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book. And this doesn't refer to the Bible. This refers to this document,
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this first century document we call the Gospel of John. John would in
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another place say, I'm telling you that Jesus did so many things and said
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so many things. There's no way to cram all that into one document.
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But these things, the ones I've included. But these are written that you
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These aren't written just so that you would know. These are written so that
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you would believe I've done my best, He says, to lay this out
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so that your experience with what I write would mirror my experience with this living
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Lord. I've written these things that you would believe that Jesus is the Messiah,
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the one that the Jewish people or many of the Jewish people had waited
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on for so long. That he's the son of God. For those of
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you who would say that, those of you who believe in the gods or
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believe there's one God, that he's the son of God, and that by
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believing you might have life and his name. And throughout the Gospel, he
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refers to this as eternal life, and he's clear, eternal life is not
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something that starts when you die. Eternal life is living this life knowing there's
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something beyond this life. Because John knows, and many of you know,
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and many of us know. When you live this life with the assumption there's
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something beyond this life, you live this life a very different way. So
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John lays out the sequence of events that brought him into fellowship and into followship
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with Jesus, and he's hoping that these conversations and these events, these signs
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would do the very same thing for you. So he organizes his whole gospel
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around these seven signs or these seven events that were signs that pointed to the
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identity of Jesus. And his hope is that what happened to him, what
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happened to his readers as well. So today we're looking at the second Sign.
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And if you have an English Bible, there may be a header in
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your Bible that basically describes this event we're gonna look at today this way,
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the healing of the Nobleman's son. The healing of the nobleman said, okay,
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there any questions? So far? Has everybody kind of caught up with
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me? Okay? So here we go. So we're picking up before we
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left off last week. So here's what happened. Jesus goes to a wedding.
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It's amazing, his mom says, fix it. He's like, I
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didn't come to save weddings. I came to save the world. She chuckles,
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walks off. He saves the wedding. You were here last week,
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or if you missed that, go back and watch. Then after this,
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Jesus and he's way up north in Galilee, because you know the nation of
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Israel is like this way. He's way up here in Galilee. He heads
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down to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. Now you should know this if you read
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the Gospels. Whenever Jesus goes to Jerusalem, he's in danger. Every time
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he goes to Jerusalem. There's trouble. That's why sometimes he stays a little
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while heads back north a little bit safer for him and Galiley. So those
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who follow him every time they go to Jerusalem, they kind of hold their
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breath, like this house that is gonna go, are we gonna make it
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out alive? Because Jesus would just say the strangest things and just stir up
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trouble, And sure enough he gets the Jerusalem for Passover. He goes to
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the Temple and he is so offended by what he sees. And this is
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that famous incident where he goes in and he drives out the money changers because
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they're charging too much interest. He takes all the people who are selling pigeons
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and cattle and lambs, the sheep that are defective, and you know,
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people are bringing these things that just don't meet the standard that the Old Testament
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said that Israelites are to meet when they come to worship God. He drives
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them all out, causes a big scene. All the people with him are
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like, oh, and we knew we shouldn't have stayed in Galilee. And
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then the leaders of the temple ask Jesus a very important question. They don't
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say, what in the world do you think you're doing? Ask a better
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question, they see, who do you think you are? And then he
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answers and John tells us, while we were there in Jerusalem, I'll never
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forget it. While we were there, many people saw the signs he was
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performing. And what did they do? They believed in his name, because
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this is the formula seeing is believing. While he's there, he has that
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famous conversation with Nicodemus where heasys Nicodemus, you must be born again. Nicodemus
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is like, what are you talking about? Jesus like, what am I
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talking about? You're a leader, You're supposed to know these things, and
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his head spinning. And then they head back to Galilee, but they go
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through Samaria and he meets a woman at the well. We know she has
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a name. We'll find out in heaven, I guess. But while we
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know is her name is the woman at the well. And Jesus has a
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conversation with a woman. It's so unusual. He's by himself with a woman,
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talking to a woman. She's like you and you talking to me?
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A Samaritan woman and Jesus says, you know, you come to this well
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every day trying to get water, but I want to give you something that
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will will never run out. And he uses this analogy, and then she
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believed, and she goes to Cicar, her little village there, and Jesus
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goes in. And there's a little foreshadowing that happens that people in Sicar are
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the town, the Samaritan town where the Samariton woman is from. They believe
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in Jesus based on the testimony of the woman, because that's what the future
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looks like. Then he makes his way back to Galilee, and that's where
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our story picks up. Here's what John says happened next. Once more,
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he visited Cana in Galilee. And everybody who has read the documents so far
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as like, oh, yeah, that sounds familiar. John says, this
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should sound familiar where he had turned the water into wine, and there was
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a certain royal official whose son lay sick. Now, the first sign was
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a joyful occasion. The second sign is a heartbreaking occasion. And this is
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so interesting to me, and maybe this isn't a big deal to you.
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Jesus wades in to both. He gets involved in a celebration and he gets
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involved in someone's sickness. Now there are two really important details on you to
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point out before we get too far into this story. First of all,
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Capernaum. This royal official lived in Capernaum and his son lay sick in Capernaum,
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and Capernaum is about an eight hour walk from Cana, where Jesus currently
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is, or if he had a horse or a chariot, maybe two to
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three hours. The second important detail is that he's a royal official, which
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meant he was probably a Jewish aristocrat. He's wealthy. He did not walk
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seven or eight hours. This was probably a three hour chariot ride or a
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three hour on horseback, depending on how many people were traveling with him.
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And because he was an aristocrat, that meant he was probably a Sadducee.
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And there were two important groups in Jerusalem Judea at this time, the Pharisees
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that we hear a lot about, and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were very
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religious. The Pharisees kept the law meticulously. The Pharisees believed that God was
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involved in the details of life. The Pharisees, for the most part,
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believed there would be a resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees were more intellectual,
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they were more deterministic. They weren't sure there was an after life.
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We were here for the pleasure of God, and every thing is determined.
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Your health is determined, how many kids you have, if you have kids,
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if you get married, how much money you have, where you fall
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in society, where you rank among your friends. All of it's determined.
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It's already set. You don't really ask God for anything, because if what's
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gonna happen is just going to happen, Fate dictates everything. But today all
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of that gets brushed aside because on this particular occasion he is a desperate father.
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Isn't it interesting that all of our intellect, and all of our pride,
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and all of our certainty oftentimes gets pushed at the periphery when someone we
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love is suffering. And on this day he is a father who's scared to
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death that his son is about to die. When this man heard that Jesus
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had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him to an half hours,
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three hours by horseback by cheriot. Certainly he didn't walk. He went
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to him, and he begged Jesus to come back to his hometown and heal
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his son. Because his son was close to death, he didn't send servants.
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Now I have a theory. I'm just making this part up, so
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don't take this too seriously. I think here's what happened. When he heard
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they'd heard about Jesus. They'd never met Jesus. There's all these stories about
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Jesus. And when his wife heard that Jesus was coming back north through the
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area of Golly, she said to her husband, you go get him and
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you bring him here. And her husband probably said, but our son is
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dying. When I get back, our son may be dead. And she
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says, you go down there and you get that fellow and you bring him
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here. And so this husband, this man, had to make the decision,
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do I leave my dying son no knowing I may never see him again.
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Should I just send a servant? And besides, these are just rumors.
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These are just stories people are telling about this supposed miracle worker who's from
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around here somewhere. Other people say he's from Athlahem. We're not really sure
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where this guy from. And the verb tense here says that he was pleading
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with Jesus over and over and over. Forget dignity, forget his position in
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society, forget his theology, forget the worldview. My son is dying,
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and if you can help me, what will it take to get you to
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my son's bedside? Some of you been there, right, some of you.
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The first prayers you ever prayed were prayers of desperation. And maybe your
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prayer went something like this. And I'm not being facetious. You just know
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you said to whom it may concern. I don't know if anybody's out there,
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but if anybody's out there, I need help, and I need help.
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Now. What Jesus says next seems so insensitive, but it's only because
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of the English translation. Jesus says something where he's actually not just addressing the
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nobleman. He's addressing everyone who's listening, because he has an entourage of people.
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And by this time in jesus ministry, wherever he goes, there's a
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crowd. There's always a crowd with Jesus. And so Jesus says basically what
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he knew to be true and he had. Again, he's addressing the crowd,
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not just the nobleman. He says, unless you people see signs and
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wonders, you will not believe. Unless you actually see something, you won't
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believe. And this sounds like an indictment, but it's not. He's basically
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saying, what's true? I mean, why should they take Jesus seriously?
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He's making some outrageous claims and it only gets worse as time goes by,
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So why should they take him seriously? And Jesus is stating, there's no
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way you're gonna believe me. There's no way you're going to accept me unless
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I do something that convinces you, because seeing is believing. I'm not expecting
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anyone to simply have faith and faith or faith and a preacher that knows how
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to razzle dazzle people with their words and their stories. And so Jesus decides
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it seems to give them something to talk about. If we're gonna do a
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wonder let's make it so wonderful that people talk about it. This is amazing
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for two thousand years. Of course, the nobleman, he's like, whatever,
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okay. He leans in. He says, sir, sir, come
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down before my child dies. Sir lord, I know in society I am
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way above you. In this moment, I'm beneath you. I know that
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most people are appalled, even my close friends and the people that travel with
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me. They're embarrassed by how small I've become, that I'm begging, that
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I'm placing myself under your authority, which you please, please, please do
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me a favor. He's so desperate. But the interesting thing when you read
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this on your own, he's so confident. He's so confident. If I
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can just get this rabbi to my son's bedside, my son will be fine.
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Why is he so confident? Why did he make this trip? Why
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did he risk walking away as his son was dying and leaving his wife and
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family to take care of his dying son. And it's simple rumors, rumors
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of the son of Man, stories of a savior, holiness with human hands.
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And in his mind, he has two options. Jesus comes with me,
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or he doesn't. Jesus comes with me, and perhaps my son is
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healed if all these rumors are true, or Jesus refuses to come and my
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son will die. But Jesus smiles because there's a third option, and Jesus
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asked him to do what Jesus has been asking people to do ever since.
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Jesus asks this nobleman to trust him based on the testimony of other people.
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He asked him to entrust his son to him, based on the stories told
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about him, and Jesus turns to the no man and he says, go
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go. In fact, the Greek text, if you tease it out,
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it carries this idea, go on about your business. Just go on and
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don't hurry, and there's no need to worry. Just go. I'm not
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coming, but you have nothing to worry about. Go, he said,
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your son will live. Come on, dads, can you imagine this?
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Wait? Wait, wait, you want me to go home without you.
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If I go home without you, there may be two deaths in our family.
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You want me to just wait? Wait, wait, you're wait.
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I had two categories. You come with me, my son lives, you
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don't come with me. My son dies. You're saying you're not coming with
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me, and my son lives. He glances at his bodyguards. I think
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and thinks, maybe I take him by force? Right? I mean,
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my son's life is at risk, and you just want me to do a
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little shopping, buy some flowers for the missus. Maybe wait until the heat
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of the day passes, and then just kind of meander on back home without
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you. And this is where we all live, right here, This is
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where we live. This is why this is so brilliant. These aren't random
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acts of kindness. This is Jesus painting a picture and laying a path again
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that men and women will be walking at two thousand for two thousand years.
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It's the path that many of you have walked, are walking, or perhaps
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will walk in the future. This story is a lifetime reduced to a day.
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That this is your lifetime and my lifetime reduced to a day. We
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are asked to take Jesus at his word based on the word of other people,
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and trust our lives to Jesus, and our health to Jesus, and
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our futures to Jesus, and our finances to Jesus, and our children,
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our healthy children and our sick children to Jesus, based on the words of
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people who knew him and who had seen him. That we are to go
24:17
about our days with our unanswered prayers confident there's something to this man, that
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he is in fact who he claimed and demonstrated that he was, That he
24:33
is in fact who he claimed to be And as I said earlier, we've
24:38
all seen people do that, haven't we who just carry unanswered prayer, burdens
24:44
that won't go away, sicknesses that won't be healed, financial situations that won't
24:48
turn around, husbands who won't come home, kids who won't come home,
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parents who act like children. We've seen people carry this and there's just joy
24:57
and there's just peace, and there's confidence, and it's intimidating and it's an
25:03
inspiring And that's why Francis Collins came to faith, and it may be why
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you came to faith as well. And do you know what this means for
25:11
some of the rest of you, maybe most of you, for those of
25:14
you who are following Jesus, And there's that nagging, unanswered prayer, there's
25:17
that thing that God won't do. And yet you continue to serve, and
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you continue to give, and you continue to listen, and you continue to
25:22
be faithful. And every single night you feel like your prayers are repeated over
25:26
and over and over, and every once in a while you're tempted to wonder
25:30
where is God? But you remain faithful. And do you know who's watching
25:33
you? No? And do you know what God is doing in the lives
25:40
of people around you because of your faithfulness. No, And do you know
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who is a day or a month, or a year or five years away
25:48
from placing their faith in Jesus because of you? No, this is our
25:57
lives convinced, condensed to a day. So the nobleman just stick. Can
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you imagine he's stunned. It's like, either you're coming with me or you're
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not. And Jesus like, no, you're going home without me. But
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don't worry and don't hurry. And the nobleman just stares. His entourage waits.
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He's diminished himself in the eyes of the public by begging. He's not
26:19
getting what he came for. He's not getting who he came for. And
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he exhales, and he makes his decision, a decision that people have been
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making for two thousand years. This is not an exaggeration. It's a decision
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that changes the trajectory of a life and perhaps could change the trajectory of your
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life. He decided to believe Jesus and to live as if what Jesus said
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was true, even though there was no evidence yet. The text continues.
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It says this the man believed the word Jesus spoke to him. And then
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here's the most important part. And then he behaved as if what Jesus said
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could be trusted, and he departed for home. Imagine this, He walked
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away from the only person who could save his son. He walked away from
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the only person that could heal his son because he decided to trust him.
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To use a phrase that maybe you heard if you grew up in church,
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or you've heard Christians use if you didn't grow up in church, he walked
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home by faith and not by sight. Can you imagine some of you can?
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You've been walking this way for years, right again, it's a lifetime
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condensed to today. While he was still on his way home wondering what he
28:00
was going to face when he got home, his servants from home met him
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with the news that the boy was still alive. But they didn't come half
28:08
away. They didn't come and walk for hours to just give him an update.
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The son was better. And when he inquired when the nobleman acquired of
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his servants who had walked halfway or ridden halfway to find him, When he
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acquired us to the time when his son got better, they said to him
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yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him, and a
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chill runs down his spine and tears fill his eyes. Right, and he
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looks back at Cana, and the father realized. The text tells us the
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father realized it was the exact time at which Jesus said to him, go
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I'm not coming with you, but don't hurry, and don't worry. Your
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son will live. And he kicks his horse, or he tells his chariot
28:55
driver drive, and he leaves his entourage in the dust, and he heads
28:57
for home as fast as he can because now in a hurry. And there's
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his wife, and she says, something miraculous has happened, but she notices
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he doesn't look surprised, and then she looks around, and she asks,
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where's the rabbi? And he tells his wife the story. And so as
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a result, he and his whole household believed. Of course they did,
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because seeing is believing, even when you have to wait to see right,
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seeing is believing. Because he believed before he saw based on the testimony of
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other people, and it found out those testimonies were true. The rumors were
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true, rumors of a son of man, stories of a savior holiness with
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human hands, and this was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea
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to Galilee. Let's go back to that phrase, walking by faith. We
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know, if you grew up like me in church, you heard this all
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the time. But here's what they didn't tell us. Walking by faith is
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not It's not walking by hope, and walking by faith is not walking by
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wishful thinking. Here's what it means to walk by faith. We just saw
30:07
it demonstrated. Walking by faith is living every single day of your life as
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if Jesus is who Jesus claimed to be. Walking by faith is living every
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single day of your life as if what Jesus said is true. It's walking
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and living every single day of your life as if God really is your heavenly
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father, because Jesus said when you pray, you address him as your father.
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Whenever you're confused about God, think perfect Heavenly Father. Whenever things don't
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seem to go the way you think they should go, just remember perfect Heavenly
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Father. When you can't make sense of the scripture, Just remember perfect Heavenly
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Father. To walk by faith, to live by faith, is to live
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as if your sin really is forgiven. The God is not gonna hold it
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against you, that you don't have to confess it over and over and over
30:53
and over, that you don't have to pay God back because God isn't looking
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to be paid back. Because that's what Jesus taught, and that's what Jesus
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illustrated, and that was the significance of his death. That happens at the
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end of the Gospel of John is to live as if. For some of
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you, this is the hardest part. Is to live as if you really
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are loved unconditionally, not because of anything you did. And it's to live.
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And this is the life. This is the thing that changes everything.
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This is what changed the world, what changed the world. The reason Christianity
31:25
changed the world was not because everybody got their prayers answered. The reason Christianity
31:30
shaped Western culture is not because everybody got what they wanted and what they asked
31:33
for. What shaped Western culture was. At the end of this very gospel,
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Jesus says to his guys, Okay, guys, I'm leaving, but
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here's the deal. Peter's like, can I go sh No, Okay,
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here's the deal, listen, But but you can't go, you know,
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in fact, you're not even gonna want to go. Just listen, guys,
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I'm gonna leave, and I'm gonna come back, and then I'm gonna
31:53
leave again. But here's what I want you to hear from me. By
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this, all people will know that I'm who I claim to be and that
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you're my follower by how you treat one another. And the worst things are
32:07
for you, the brighter your light's going to shine. So I'm sorry,
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but I'm not always gonna say yes, and your good heavenly Father won't always
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say yes. But follow me and love as I have loved. You are
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now ambassadors of the unique brand of love. It's the as I have loved
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you brand, my friends. This is what changed the world. This is
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what changes marriages, this is what changes the city, this is what changes
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a culture. To walk by faith is to live with the confidence that God
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is who he claimed to be, as revealed to us by the sun.
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Because one day they're gonna get so frustrated with Jesus. Philip's gonna say,
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okay, okay, I I look, you will go away over in my
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head. Just you owe us the Father, and Jesus will say, if
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you've seen me you've seen the Father. If you want to know what God
33:07
is like, pay attention to what I'm like. And for those of you
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who've been Christians a long time, do you know what it means to walk
33:15
by faith? You've been doing it? Do you know what it means that
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implications are staggering? In fact, this is what is most inspiring for many
33:23
of us. To walk by faith is to live with the confidence that your
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faith and your sacrifice, and your commitment and your generosity are not in vain
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because they are anchored to something real and someone real. It's living and walking
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by faith that causes someone like a Francis Collins to pay attention, to pause
33:50
and to wonder. It's your walking by faith. Living is if God is
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who God claims to be and who Jesus said he is. It's your life
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and your lifestyle that causes people to pause and to wonder. And it has
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been this way since the very very beginning. At the end of John's account.
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We'll get to this later, but just a little heads up. At
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the end of John's account, Jesus has been crucified. He has risen from
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the dead, and they're gathered with him, and he's saying some kind of
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final things. And Jesus knows that the reason they have come back to faith
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is because, you know, they saw him die, they looked into an
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empty tomb, and now they're having a conversation. Right, you know,
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you would believe, right. And Jesus also knows that these men are going
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to document these experiences and that generation after generation after generation are going to recognize
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what they recognize, not because we saw it, but because of their testimony.
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And Jesus makes a statement, this is so amazing. He makes a
34:50
statement to them, that's really for you and really for me. He says
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this. He says to the guys, he says, because you have seen
34:55
me now that I'm alive from the dead. Because you've seen me, you
35:00
have believed, because come on, seeing is believing. How could you not
35:02
believe? You saw me dead and now I'm alive. You believe because of
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what you've seen. And then he says something to you, to you,
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to you and to your children and my children. He says, but blessed,
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most blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Blessed
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are those who in the future will believe based on to his disciples, your
35:37
testimonies because of what you have seen and what you have heard. And then
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Amazing John would remind us, Okay, I'm not special, I'm just a
35:47
bystander. But I thought it was important for me to document what I heard
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and document what I saw so that you could embrace Jesus the way I did.
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Not because you saw what I saw or heard what I heard, but
35:59
because I'm telling you what I saw and what I heard. But I'm not
36:01
just telling you what I saw and what I heard, so you know what
36:02
I saw and I heard. I don't want is this about you just knowing
36:06
what happened. It's bigger than that. These things are written the reason I
36:08
chose these particular incidents, but the reason I chose these particular conversations. These
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things are written that you may believe. I don't want you to just know
36:15
something. I want you to do something. I want you to respond the
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way I respond when I saw what I saw and I heard what I heard.
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These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the
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Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his
36:29
name. And my hope is that through this journey together, that perhaps you
36:35
by hearing and seeing through the eyes and the ears of John, that you
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too would believe, if you haven't already, and that you too would have
36:43
life and his name. And if you're tempted to think, because we're all
36:50
tempted to think, yeah, but see Andy, if I experience something like
36:54
the nobleman that day, of course I would believe. There's what I would
37:00
say to you. Pick up the Gospel of John and just read it,
37:06
not as the Bible, but the account of an old man who saw and
37:12
who heard, And perhaps in reading for yourself, something will happen that no
37:17
one can explain. Francis Collins, and I'll close with this. Francis Collins
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in his book, it's either his book or the interview. I listen to
37:24
several interviews that he's done. He made this statement somewhere. He said,
37:29
it's not enough to read the notes literally, he said, it's not enough
37:34
to read the notes on the page. At some point, you have to
37:37
hear the music. In my hope, in my prayer, is that as
37:42
you listen, and that perhaps as you read, that you would hear the
37:46
music, and that you would believe and that you would have eternal life.