Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 9:30.
[00:00:06] Good morning. If I have not had the opportunity to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling, I'm the lead pastor here at the village church and I would love to invite you to open up your Bibles. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 20, and this is week seven in our series called the questions of Jesus. And we have seen that Jesus was the master at getting to the deepest part of the human heart through perfectly designed questions. So last week, Eric Bolling from Matthew 20, he addressed the question from Jesus, what do you want?
[00:00:42] And in the same text, Jesus has a follow up question. In Matthew chapter 20, verse 22, Jesus asks two young and ambitious brothers, he says to them, are you able to drink the cup I am about to drink? All right, so one of my favorite games is the game. Would you rather.
[00:01:04] I love it because that kind of like kind of forces me to spontaneously come up with kind of crazy scenarios. So if you don't know the game, it's pretty simple. Would you rather have every other tooth missing or all of your teeth wobbly? Right. That's kind of vibe, forces you to think about impossible scenarios.
[00:01:22] Especially like junior high students, man, they really get into this. But so not too long ago I came up with a Would you rather kind of just stream of consciousness talking and I really wish I would not have asked the question. So I'm going to ask you the would you rather so you can suffer like I have? All right.
[00:01:38] Would you rather know when you were going to die or know how you were going to die?
[00:01:49] No matter which answer you get, it's like a crushing weight. So on the one hand, if I knew when I was going to die, and it was at a ripe old age, with all of my great great grandchildren surrounding me, all telling me how much they loved me, I'd be like, oh, I could endure that. But if you were to tell me, oh, by the way, it's going to be tomorrow or next week or next year, I would think to myself, I've still got like kids in my home, right? Like, I still got stuff to do. Like, I don't. That's not what I, what I want. On the other hand, if I knew how I was going to die, but not when, I would like you to consider just for a moment, the torture of this knowledge.
[00:02:25] Michael, you're going to die in a car accident.
[00:02:29] No, thank you. Because now every single time I get into the car, I'm going to be thinking to myself, is this it? And because I have a conscience, I am not going to let anyone drive with me ever, for the rest of my life.
[00:02:42] Michael, you're going to get hit by a car, okay? That could happen anywhere, right? So now I'm looking over my shoulder 24 7, and we could be sitting here, and a car could come through those doors, right? Like, you could be anywhere, and a car could take you out. No, thank you. Is it going to be like walking and it'll be driving, biking.
[00:03:00] Michael, you're going to die of cancer. No, thank you. Because every time now I have a pain. I'm going to go get a full body scan and an mri and I'm not going to be able to think about it because I'm going to be OCD until we figure out what this pain is. Michael, you're gonna die in jail. Hmm.
[00:03:21] I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna do anything that's gonna put me in jail on purpose. So that means I must have been set up. One of you will betray me. Who is it? That's like. That's the cycle. Then there's what I call the horror movie final destination options.
[00:03:35] No, thank you to every single one of them. All right, there is a point to this. So Matthew chapter 20. I want you to look at verse 17. It's where we're go start. Last week, Eric gave some of the context. Not all of you were there, so I kind of bring you up to speed as we go, and you'll see why we played this game.
[00:03:53] Verse 17 sets the emotional context of the question that Jesus asks.
[00:03:58] It says, as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem because it's up a mountain, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way, he said to them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man, who's he referring to?
[00:04:15] Jesus himself, will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day. Did he mince words?
[00:04:33] No. Pretty clear.
[00:04:35] We're going up to Jerusalem. And then here are the series of events that in the next week are going to unfold. Okay, would you rather know when you were going to die or know how you were going to die? Well, Jesus knows both. He knows when he is going to die. At the end of this week, he is going to face death. He also knows how he is going to die. He will be betrayed, condemned, mocked, flogged, and crucified. And even with this full knowledge, he continues to intentionally take step after step uphill toward Jerusalem, to the place of his imminent death.
[00:05:09] So apparently, as he's sharing the inevitable future, the way the week is going to unfold, two of his disciples, brothers James and John, they get, I think, a genius idea.
[00:05:19] They're like, why don't we get mom to go ask Jesus a question? And so here's the question, verse 20.
[00:05:26] Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, came up to him, Jesus with her sons.
[00:05:33] And kneeling before him, she asked for something.
[00:05:37] Verse 21, Jesus said to her, this is the question Eric explored last week. What do you want? And she said to Jesus, say that these two sons of mine are to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom. Now, I want you to just kind of hold in your brain this phrase, one at your left and one of your right. We're going to come back to that later. But essentially, here's what she's saying. Jesus, you're going to die. You're going to rise from the dead, et cetera. You're going to rule a kingdom that's going to reign over the earth. And when you reign over the earth, could my boys, James and John, one be at your left, one be at your right? Maybe they have the highest positions of leadership in the world.
[00:06:19] Now, in the same story in the Gospel of Mark, Mark highlights that it is the brothers, not the mother, who are motivating this question.
[00:06:28] So in verse 22, Jesus answers, But he does not answer their mother. Jesus looks over to the boys, and he actually shifts the subject matter of the conversation from one of the perks of leadership, which is authority, to the burden of leadership, which is suffering.
[00:06:45] Verse 22, Jesus answered, you do not know what you are asking.
[00:06:52] And here's our question for the morning.
[00:06:54] Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? And this is the point where we need to slow down, because jam packed into this question are centuries and millennia of theological weight.
[00:07:13] One of the most powerful images in Scripture is that of a simple cup.
[00:07:20] The cup can refer often to something positive. So it can refer to the cup of our salvation, or the cup can symbolize blessing, or the cup and communion can symbolize unity and fellowship.
[00:07:34] But the vast majority of the time that we find a cup in Scripture, it's not positive. The cups aren't overflowing with the provision and blessings of God.
[00:07:43] Most frequently, the cup in Scripture is ominous and it's scary.
[00:07:49] And so we have, for example, in Revelation 17:4, the cup of idolatry. And this is where evil Babylon is holding a golden cup filled with, quote, abominations and impurities. And they're guzzling this cup down without shame.
[00:08:06] And then there's the cup that we're going to focus on this morning. And it actually goes by a whole bunch of different names in the Bible. And here's some of them. It's called the cup of judgment.
[00:08:15] It's called the cup of staggering. It's called the cup of horror and destruction.
[00:08:21] It's called the cup of the wine of the fierce wrath of God. And lastly, and simply, it's just called the cup of wrath.
[00:08:31] And so Jesus asks in Matthew 20:22, are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? And to be clear, is Jesus talking about a happy cup or. Or a hard cop? Or a hard cop? So fast forward about a week. It's the night before Jesus crucifixion. And around him are Peter. And then who are the other two that are with him?
[00:08:52] James and John, the sons of Zebedee. This is good. So Matthew, chapter 26. Here's what Jesus says.
[00:08:57] He says, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
[00:09:02] And going a little further, he fell on his face and he prayed. And what's interesting is that Peter, James, and John are able to hear what he's praying.
[00:09:09] Here's his prayer. My Father, if it be possible, let this what cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. A few verses later, verse 42, again, for the second time, he went away and prayed. My Father, if this cup cannot pass until I drink it, your will be done. And what cup could make Jesus, body and soul and emotions, so overwhelmed with grief that he ends up swept, sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane? It was the cup of judgment, the cup of horror, the cup of destruction, the cup of the fierce wrath of God.
[00:09:50] It's a cup that brings nothing but vengeance and gloom and sadness. And Jesus is willingly and intentionally going to drink that cup so that you never have to. If you would believe in Jesus, back to our text. In Matthew 20, I want you to notice how Jesus asked this question. Jesus says, are you able to drink the cup I am to drink? He does not ask them, are you willing to drink the cup? He's asking them, are you able to drink this cup? This is not a question about desire. This is a question about ability. One of the ways I like to think about trusting in Christ is that it is similar. Not perfect analogy, but it's Similar to, to that of getting married. When somebody is about to get married, you count the cost. You look at all the good, you're in love, they're wonderful. What do you love about them? The list is forever. What do you not like about them? I can't think of anything. Rose colored glasses, of course, that's none of you. That's just got it. And so what you do is you count the cost and you look at this person for all the good and you look at all the weaknesses because nobody is perfect.
[00:10:58] And you kind of just step back and you're like, all right, I'm going to decide to marry them, even though you have no idea who they're going to become, and even though you have a little idea, but you actually don't know who you're going to become. And so you step back and you're like, I know there's gonna be great good and great joy.
[00:11:19] And you step back and you say, I know there's gonna be really, really impossibly difficult situations. And here's a little secret of marriage. The vast majority of marriage is not great delight and it's not great difficulty. The vast majority of marriage is the boring in the middle.
[00:11:33] And so when people come to Christ, like, they're like they have all this vision, all this hope, all this optimism of what Jesus can do in their life. You come to him because you have real needs. You're like, I can't do these things on my own. I want to be forgiven. I want to be in heaven. I want transformation. You can do this. I'm at my wit's end. I've reached the end of myself. And so you know this, and you know in theory, right, like, it's going to be hard. Jesus says, yeah, you'll probably suffer for my name. And you're thinking, realistically, it's going to be like a 2 or 3 on a scale of like 1 to 10. At least that's what you're hoping. But you're ready just in case. And little secret about following Jesus, there are great highs and there are really difficult things. The vast majority of following Jesus is in the middle and it's boring.
[00:12:14] The boring is where you build discipline, where you build the strength and the character and the endurance to be able to bear the weight of the great and to bear the weight of the difficult.
[00:12:23] And so we come to God, and you know what he doesn't do in marriage or when you become a Christian?
[00:12:29] He doesn't tell you the worst things. You're gonna have to go through.
[00:12:34] He doesn't tell you all of the impossibly difficult things. I think if God, the moment you became a Christian, sat down with you and told you all of the cost it will be in your daily life, in your relationships, and the burden it's gonna have on your job and the consequences of you trusting in Christ. I think for most people, if they knew the full consequences of trusting in Jesus, they might run away or they might think twice before they do it.
[00:13:00] Because here's the deal, like in that moment, if you were to endure those things as a brand new Christian, would you have the ability to do it? Probably not. And the reason he doesn't tell you is because he's kind. But number two is because he's going to prepare you for that. So when they do come, you are ready. So Jesus asked them, are you able?
[00:13:19] Here's what he's asking James and John. Do you have what it takes inside of you?
[00:13:26] Do you have the guts?
[00:13:28] Do you have the character to be persecuted and not seek vengeance?
[00:13:35] Do you have the self control to restrain yourself?
[00:13:40] Do you have the ability to suffer physically and keep suffering, knowing that all you need to do to end end it is to deny your faith in Jesus Christ? And if these boys are being honest, they don't have what it takes. But Jesus is going to make sure that they do have what it takes. So at the end of verse 22, with all the confidence these teenagers can muster, they said to him, we are able. I just want to know how they said it. Were they confident? Were they hesitant? But I think if you're Jesus and you, you hear them, I just think he belly laughed out loud. I can't prove that knowing what he was about to go through and knowing the lives they were gonna have to live representing Jesus. Now here's something funny. If you ever look at like a young confident leader and you ask them, do you want more authority and leadership and influence, do you know what they're gonna say? Like 99.9% of the time, yes.
[00:14:36] Do you? Are you ready for more impact? Do you think you can bear the weight that I am able?
[00:14:41] I am.
[00:14:43] And I don't think this is a bad thing. There's kind of a youthful optimism, you know, and then what you find is that hopefully you bring older leaders alongside of you so they can walk you through and prepare you for the inevitable challenges of any kind of leadership.
[00:14:56] Do you have what it takes? And these boys had no idea what they were saying yes to.
[00:15:03] So if you're Jesus, what do you say to these young, ambitious brothers, verse 23, he's blunt and simple, and he looks at them and he says, you will drink my cup.
[00:15:17] Okay? Do you remember a couple verses prior, like nine minutes ago, when I. When we read the. What James and John's mother said about one to the right and one to the left. Remember that? It's interesting because In Matthew, chapter 27, verse 38, Jesus Verbatim quotes this phrase, but the context is different. This is where two criminals are crucified with Jesus, one on the right and one on the left.
[00:15:43] And as James and John watch Jesus die, at the very least, Matthew caught on pretty quickly that following Jesus would mean being willing to die with him, one on his right and one on his left. And the message was not lost on Matthew. It's not lost on us. And when they got it through their thickness that this would be their destiny, they did get it eventually.
[00:16:05] Which prompts, I think, just an even bigger question, which, as you're reading this, I want to know, so how did James and how did John die? Let's start with James. James was executed by King Herod Agrippa. The first acts, chapter 12, verse 2, tells us that he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. This almost certainly means execution by beheading, most likely around AD 44.
[00:16:33] There's a later account, it was preserved by a pastor that you may not know his name, but I think everybody should. His name is Eusebius. In the 4th century, Eusebius was called the father of church history. And here's the reason he was called that, because he would document a whole bunch of the stories and traditions and writings of not just the apostles in scripture, but of the men, the disciples, disciple, the apostles, disciple, that first generation after the apostles. And then those men, he has their writings as well. And so the spiritual children and grandchildren of the apostles, you may not know this, but they wrote a whole lot. We don't have all of it. We have a lot of it. Eusebius, he had access to the vast majority of things written by the disciples of the apostles and their disciples as well. And so here's what the later account tells, that the man who accused James was so moved by James testimony that on the spot he confessed Christ and was executed alongside of him.
[00:17:35] Second is John.
[00:17:37] John lived a whole lot longer than James. John lived long enough to write the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelation. First John, second John, third John. You guys up for a pop quiz? See how you can do. I'm just gonna warn you. Go with your gut on the answer, but it's gonna be wrong. Okay, do you know which biblical author penned the most amount of words in the New Testament? What do you guys think? The first. Most amount of words in the New Testament. Yeah. That's your instinct. He wrote the most amount of books, but he didn't write the most amount of words in the New Testament. Luke did.
[00:18:12] Luke wrote 27.5% of the words in the New Testament when he wrote the Gospel of Luke. And then part two to that book is called the book of Acts. Paul comes in second with 23.5% of the words in the New Testament. And in third place is John 20.3 of the words in the New Testament. One fifth of your New Testament was written by John. Scripture teaches that John at an old age was exiled to the island of Patmos. That's good. Under the reign of Domitian. And tradition says, I mean this is like anything's possible with Jesus. Whole lot of miracles happen around these guys lives. True, true. Not. Tradition says that Domitian tried to murder him for his testimony in Jesus by putting him in a pot of boiling oil. Nothing could be done to him. So he exiled him roughly between the ages of 80 and 90 years old to the isle of Patmos. When Domitian died, another emperor came in after him. He was released and he died in the city he pastored, the city of Ephesus.
[00:19:13] Were they able to drink the, the cup of suffering for Jesus when they were teenagers in Matthew 20?
[00:19:21] Probably not, but Jesus prepared them and he made them able by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:19:31] You may not know like, like you may, you may not be in a situation where you're like able or ready to handle whatever difficulty is next. But here's. I just want to encourage you. What we see in scripture is that God prepares those before he sends them into intense difficulty. But even if you don't understand the preparation, I want you to remember the power of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus teaches us something really beautiful in Matthew chapter 10, sort of the beginning of the of training the disciples, he says something really blunt, like Jesus told them the truth about everything very early on. And here's what he says in Matthew chapter 10.
[00:20:08] Beware of men and women. But you know, you get the point, okay. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues.
[00:20:19] When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say. For what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.
[00:20:30] For it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your Father speaking, speaking through you.
[00:20:37] I cannot tell you what unbelievable difficulty or for some of you, possible suffering you're going to experience for your faith in Jesus. But I can tell you that even if the thought of it makes you feel overwhelmed and unprepared, I can tell you that when you get into that moment, the power of the Holy Spirit to give you everything you need is beyond your imagination.
[00:21:02] And so we just step back with complete confidence. We say, you already told me that following Jesus is going to be difficult.
[00:21:10] I'm in.
[00:21:11] And if you call me to more extreme difficulty and even suffering, I'm in. And even though I don't feel like I'm ready for it, I do believe that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you will give me what I need in those moments I want to share with you. 2. So what's number one? Following Jesus will require difficulty for all and suffering for some. So here's what I mean. So every single person who comes to faith in Jesus, there are three inescapable difficulties you will have to face. And here's the first. The world.
[00:21:45] This is the people, relationships, systems and governments controlled by sinful people with sinful motivations willing to do sinful things. Anyone ever experienced the world? Right? You read that, you're like, yep, yep.
[00:21:58] Number two is the devil. This is a world system plus individual schemes designed by the demonic forces to trick you, to tempt you, to trap you, and to sideline you.
[00:22:10] And yet the most difficult foe you and I will face by far. It's not the world, it's not the devil. It is my flesh.
[00:22:18] These are my sinful impulses and idols that need to be exposed, tamed and or destroyed.
[00:22:26] For the vast majority of people, it will not be the world that makes you face difficulty and makes you run away with your tail between your knees.
[00:22:37] And for most of you, it will not be the devil that when you face dark attack when will make you run away with your tail between your legs. It won't be that.
[00:22:47] For most people, the reason we face difficulty, crumble and run is because of our own flesh. You know what the problem with the flesh is?
[00:22:56] Everywhere you go, there you are, you just can't escape.
[00:23:02] Is constant.
[00:23:04] The first and most pressing difficulty Christians need to overcome is our and when you become a Christian, here's what you're committing yourself to.
[00:23:14] You're committing to face your sin, you're committing to expose your sin, and you're committing to Stop your sin. Okay, so there's this phrase that Christians use quite a bit, and I want to explain it because I think it's confusing for most people.
[00:23:28] The phrase goes like this. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves every single day.
[00:23:35] And then we're like, I don't need to get saved every single day, so I don't need to preach the gospel to myself every day. Like, this doesn't make sense. Let me kind of just break down what people are trying to say when they say this. Okay? So if you're not a Christian, okay, you need to hear the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. And when you look at somebody who's not a Christian, you share with them with the gospel. Here's what you're telling them. You're telling them that they're a sinner. All right? Now, so for those of you who are Christians, are you still a sinner?
[00:24:00] Please say yes. Okay? Okay.
[00:24:03] And then you're telling them, listen, Jesus died for your sins and was raised from the dead. You need to put your faith and confidence in Jesus alone in order to be saved. Believers, do you ever just doubt, like, confidence and trust in Jesus sometimes? Does that ever happen to you? Do you ever take things into your own hands and be like, I got this for a little while. I think I could do a better job? Oh, interesting. So you need to regularly tell yourself to put your faith and confidence.
[00:24:27] And then you look at a non Christian and you say, listen, you're a sinner. You need to apologize and ask Jesus for forgiveness and trust him. Do you also need to apologize to Jesus on a regular basis when you sin against him? And the answer is yes. And so here's the deal. Now you look at them and you say, if you come to Christ, it's gonna mean you're gonna change some things. Fair enough.
[00:24:48] And then, by the way, Christian, do you still have some things that you need to change? Oh, wait a minute.
[00:24:52] The same message applies to the non Christian that it does to the Christian. Here's the difference. When a non Christian believes for the first time, they get objectively forgiven, saved once and for all and forever. But here's the deal, Christian. I'm not preaching the gospel to myself because I need to get saved again. I'm preaching the gospel to myself because every day I wake up, there I am with my flesh. I wake up remembering what I did the day before where I actually sinned against the holy God more times than I would like to admit on purpose. And I need to go to my God and say, I am a sinner, I have sinned against you. I need you to forgive me. I am believing in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that he paid for my sins on the cross once and for all and forever. When I trusted in you the first time, I am believing that that still stands over me. And guess what? I need to repent. So when we say preach the gospel to ourselves, we're not saying get saved over and over again. Because the same thing that we want a non Christian to do should. It should be the habit and practice of every single believer every day of our lives. Because here's the deal, like you guys are the 9:30 service. So I'm guessing you got up at like 7:30 or 8:00am for some of you. 9:15, you rolled out by the time you got here. My guess is if you thought about it based on your scrolling on social media, your negligence of your family, your lack of thoughtfulness to God, your unpreparedness in here, your fights with your family, the way you talk to your kids, the way you disrespected your mom or your dad or whatever it is, or the person you flicked off in your head as you drove over here, or the bad thoughts that you had. I'm guessing the majority of you are walking into this today and you probably need to take a moment and say, I am really sorry I have sinned against you.
[00:26:29] I believe what you did for me and I need to figure out how to repent over that thing. The reason people don't change is because for some reason in Christianity, modern Christianity, repentance is like not connected to apologies. I think we're really good at feeling guilty and saying sorry to God. But what we often don't do is take the next step and say, I gotta dig out why I did that thing in the first place. Because Jesus died for that grace. Almost gives us sometimes an excuse to just push off repentance. But here's the deal. We preach the gospel to ourselves and here's what we're saying. I'm a sinner who needs to apologize, who needs to declare the cross over me again and needs to repent of, of my sins. Just like I would tell a non Christian when they trust in Jesus Christ.
[00:27:16] Some of you, you are able and you're able, but you're not willing. And then there are some of you, you're not just able, you're willing. You're the minority. I want to be just really clear, okay? Like Jesus walks into a room and he says, who wants to suffer and do great things for me? You'll be like, boom, I'm in. I'm in. Right?
[00:27:39] And so some of you, you're born this way. The vast majority of you who are quick to jump in, whatever he wants. Don't get me wrong. All of you are like, if you call me, I'll suffer. Most people aren't raising their hands and being like, I'm gonna run into that few people. There's a couple of you, you were born that way, fearless. Like, if you don't do something big and dangerous, you're not alive for Jesus. I just love you guys, and I say, keep it up. And I think the Lord is going to use you in great ways. But I think for most people who are like this, they weren't born that way. They became that way. And the way they became that way is by choosing to do difficult things over and over and over again.
[00:28:23] If you've been around, you've heard me say this. There's like a fueling family mantra, if we will. It's one of our core values as a family. It's very simple. Fuelings do hard things.
[00:28:35] When everyone else runs, we run into the fire. When there's chaos and people freak out, we go into it.
[00:28:41] And I want to be clear. I don't think any of my children are naturally, like, I want to go do really, really difficult things.
[00:28:47] But here's what we do. We push our children regularly to do things they don't want to do, to do difficult things, to have hard conversations, to face these things while why? Because I'm trying to build in them the muscle so that when Jesus says, who is willing, not just able, I believe you'll give me what I need. If you ask me to do something really difficult, who is willing to walk in and do the difficult thing? I love for my kids to raise their hands and say, I am willing.
[00:29:13] Why will they ever be there? If they're there, it's because they have been trained from a young age to do hard things. And here's the deal, guys.
[00:29:20] This is what we do. Christians do difficult things. We run into hard conversations. And I think the most difficult thing for most people, it's not facing down the devil. That's an easy one. If you resist the devil, he's obligated by the spiritual laws of the universe to flee from you. That's easy. The hardest foe to fight is my own flesh, my own sin, my own selfishness. I don't know about you all, but it is a Battle every single day for me and those of you you're like, I fight my flesh every day. You're fighting for repentance. And I just wanna encourage you. If you're the man or the woman or the student who's like Jesus, I'm willing. I wanna just encourage you. If you're willing at the right time, he will call you into something difficult because the eyes of the Lord, they run to and fro throughout the earth looking for those whose hearts are blameless. Jesus is looking for people to use. And if that's you, praise God. We all thank God for you. And most people in the room are saying, I'm willing, I'm able, but I'm not willing.
[00:30:21] If you ask me to do it, I'll do it. And so we thank God for those of you who have a willingness to do the really difficult things. So what? Number two on the cross. Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath so you would not have to.
[00:30:36] Jesus died on purpose in your place and my place to drink your judgment so that your sin could be paid for once and for all and forever.
[00:30:49] What we find on the cross is that God poured out his wrath against your sin. Full strength undiluted onto the body, soul and emotions of Jesus.
[00:31:00] Another phrase that we say here often. I think this is the perfect time to come back to it. Someone is going to pay the full price for your sin.
[00:31:07] And you have two options.
[00:31:09] The full undiluted wrath of God can be put on Jesus on the cross or it can be put on you in hell. I'm not interested in hell. I have personally believed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. I have come to Jesus and so many of you have and said, I have sinned against you. Forgive me, save me. And God's promise is that anyone who comes to him through faith in Christ, his answer is yes. Yes, forgiven you. Your sins are paid for by Jesus on the cross. You do not have to pay for your own sin in hell. I'll take Jesus any day. I just have wonderful news for all of you. I don't know what brought you here today. I'm not sure what, what, what situations are going on in your life. But if you have never trusted in Jesus, his hand is extended. If you would ask him for forgiveness, if you would believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, his answer will be yes. Amen. Village church Amen. Let's pray together.
[00:32:09] Father, we already know that following Jesus will require making difficult decisions.
[00:32:18] Would you empower us not just to overcome the world the flesh and the devil.
[00:32:23] Lord, would you.
[00:32:25] Would you empower us to face these things and be willing to run into some of the most difficult situations that you call us to? We just want to declare whatever you ask us to do, we have complete confidence that you will equip us for that thing, that you will empower us.
[00:32:42] Father, would you build in each one of us and in our families the muscle of doing difficult things so that when you call, we're ready? Father, would you give us your perspective on our current difficulties? Would you help us see them through your lens?
[00:32:58] Would you grow our faith to trust you that you are up to something bigger than we can see?
[00:33:04] Father, would you deepen our faith so that the next time difficulty arises, we have increased certainty that before it even got to us, it had to go through you?
[00:33:13] And lastly, for all the times that we failed, for all the times we gave in, for all the times we gave control over to our flesh, thank you that your mercies are new every single morning. We thank you that you're the God of forgiveness and that no single failure defines our future. We love you, we thank you and we pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:33:34] Amen.
