Sermon Transcript
Well, that was sure encouraging, wasn’t it? And thank you guys, really appreciate it. I could say guys this morning, like, you know, it was all guys up here. I was thinking sometime we gotta have, you know, girls, just all girls. Yeah, that’d be good too.
Anyway, and a couple of you are gonna volunteer, right? I heard that. Well, my guess is many of you are familiar with Yelp. You probably benefit by Yelp, you use Yelp. It’s probably one of the most common popular review sites online, if you’re familiar with it.
You check out reviews there on just about anything when you’re thinking about where to take your business or whatever it might be. So what dentist to go to, stylist, mechanic, where should you eat, that’s a real common way to use Yelp. Before going to a show or an event, you might want to check out Yelp, see what they say about that show or event, where to work out at, a gym, that sort of place, where to send your kids to school. So people use Yelp for all different kinds of things. In fact, Yelp has has a review for about anything.
There are 200 million reviews on Yelp, so they’re all there for your reading pleasure, you know, go for it. But of course, when you read a review on Yelp, you got to decide whether or not this review is accurate, it’s true, that it’s not, you know, somebody’s just opinion in the sense that they are trying to foster an opinion on somebody or whatever it might be. Is it reliable? That’s the point. Is this review believable?
I don’t know if you’ve heard of astroturfing. We’re not talking about something that’s done on a field, but it’s actually something that’s connected to reviews, oftentimes fake reviews. So you have fake negative reviews that you can find on Yelp, often comes from a competing business maybe, or you have fake positive reviews submitted by family or friends, maybe of the business owner, who’s looking for some kind of positive reviews, or maybe even by people who’ve been paid by the owner to give a review. False reviews sometimes can come in a way that helps, or other times in ways that hurt. So it’s buyer beware when you’re reading reviews on Yelp or any other online review place.
You can believe them, not believe them. You got to have discernment. That’s the point. So we’re into reviews, aren’t we? We love to hear what other people have to say about things.
So, before you read a book, typically, you go to Amazon or whatever it is, you check out a review there. Before you go to a movie, you could check out a review, or a restaurant, or a hotel. You know, what are people saying about this place or this city? I’m thinking about moving to this city. Well, should I?
What are people saying about this city? Or even a church, people look online to see what other people say about a church. You name it, there are all kinds of reviews. There are evaluations, references, testimonies. And so, we have all that available to us.
A couple weeks ago, Bernice and I were thinking about going to a movie. We looked at what was available playing at the local theater at that time, and we didn’t really like what we saw, so we just stayed home, watched a movie on television, Netflix, you know, that whole thing. There’s a lot going on there. There just wasn’t anything we thought in the theater at the time worth seeing. Well, a week later Bernice came across one of our family members and they told her, you know, if you’re looking for a show to go see, you really ought to go see this one.
And they named the show and recommended that Bernice and I go see the show. Well, this show was one of the ones that we looked at and we said, no, we’re not interested in going to see this show. But after we heard the testimony of a family member, you know what we did? We went to see the show. Yeah, why did we go see the show?
Because they said it was a good show and it really was. It was a lot of fun and we had a good time. Point is, is that we’re impacted by testimonies, we’re impacted by reviews. We want to know what other people think, what are their opinions about such and such or whatever it might be. Well, today in our second-to-last study in 1 John, we come to a review, if you will, or a testimony.
And this passage just focuses on a matter that can be helpful to a believer. So, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, I think that what you see here can strengthen your belief in Christ. If you have doubts in your life, it can overcome those doubts. If you’re an unbeliever, it could actually help you come to believe in Jesus Christ. So, see the passage as a testimony that could potentially help you in your spiritual journey.
Wherever you might be. So, with that in mind, I want to read the passage again. I want you just to pay attention to the word testimony or testifies or testify that you’ll see in the passage, all right? Let me read it. Here it is.
This is 1 John 5:6-12. This is the one who came by water, speaking about Jesus. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
For there are 3 that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and the 3 are in agreement. We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater, because it is a testimony of God which He has given about His Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe, God has made him out to be a liar, because he’s not believed the testimony God has given about His Son, and this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Did you notice the word testimony? You know, testify, testimony, it’s there, yeah, like 7, 8 times, count them, in 7 verses. What’s John trying to say? Pay attention to the testimony. There’s a greater testimony.
In fact, there are testimonies. And this testimony, being that it’s greater, is greater than Yelp. It’s better than Yelp. It’s the best testimony you can look at when it comes to considering Jesus Christ. So, I want to just look at this with us this morning.
I think it could be helpful. What we’ve got here are 3 highly reliable testimonies, 2 polar opposite responses, and 1 never-ending benefit. Now, he starts with these 3 highly reliable testimonies in verses 6 to 9. When it comes to believing in Jesus as God’s Son, the promised Messiah, a person would do well to consider these 3 testimonies. Now, let me just stop there just for a second and say this.
As I was looking at this passage, I realized that I rarely, if ever, come back to these testimonies in strengthening my belief, and let alone in helping other people come to believe. And I think this is kind of like one of those passages that when you first read it, it’s a little bit obscure. So, that’s part of the reason why we might not come back to the passage and use the passage in the way it could be very helpful in helping people come to greater belief or helping them actually begin a life of faith in Jesus Christ. So, I want to just suggest to you as you, you know, work through this passage with us this morning, to consider the application of this passage in your life, but also consider the application potentially in the lives of others, because this could be one of the best passages you could come to to help a person actually come to believe, or at least the concepts that are found here. So that said, John focuses on 3 testimonies: the water, the blood, and the Spirit.
Now, I know that some of you have some translations of the Bible this morning that leave out different parts that I’m going to be reading from here, okay? If you actually have a Bible that has footnotes in it and that sort of thing, you’ll see there’s a discrepancy in the Greek manuscripts. And of course, what we’re looking for are the ancient manuscripts, and we’re trying to work from those ancient manuscripts and knowing this is in fact what was originally written. But there are some manuscripts that were written after the 16th century that added some certain words here that would refer to the water and the blood and the Spirit as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In fact, they actually translate it that way, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Well, that’s not actually the best manuscript, so I’m going to just take you what I know to be the best manuscript, which just simply says what we’ve already said. This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And this is the Spirit who testifies Because the Spirit is the truth, for there are 3 that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the 3 are in agreement. Now, however you look at that in terms of whatever manuscript you’re looking at right now, the point, I think, is that there are 3 testimonies, okay?
The one thing these manuscripts do say is there are 3 testimonies. Where they get into trouble, the later manuscripts, not the earlier, but the later, is we begin to bring interpretations into the manuscripts, our personal interpretations. And there, as you can imagine, there are a lot of interpretations about this passage. So, for instance, some people when they read the water and the blood, they think to that crucifixion, the crucifixion of Jesus. And when the Roman executioner came along, you remember he took a spear and he shoved it up under Jesus’ ribs and out came water and blood, which was an indication that he had died.
He was already dead, which is a testimony because other people have come along since then and said, well, He never really died. He just swooned. He wasn’t really dead, and so He never really needed to resurrect because He just came back in better health. That’s all. Well, yeah, I don’t know.
It could be that the water and the blood is referring to that. Yeah, that’s one of the interpretations of this passage. Others have looked at this passage and the water and the blood, and they said, well, it refers to the 2 sacraments that Jesus commanded His people to keep, the sacrament of baptism, so the water being baptism, and then you have the sacrament of communion or blood, okay? And so, these 2 testify to the work of Jesus Christ, and that’s a possibility. There are others that would perhaps suggest that the water refers to Jesus’ birth.
You remember in Nicodemus, the passage there in John chapter 3, you must be born of water and the Spirit. And so, you might go back to a passage like that and take it from there. What’s interesting is that this passage obviously had enough information in it that the churches that he was writing to knew exactly what he meant. We don’t. And so, we’re left a little bit to do some interpretive work on this and try to understand But ultimately, I think we can understand in a way that can be powerful in taking the testimony that is here and passing it along to others.
So I’m going to let you work on this with me, but here’s my thought, okay? Since I’m teaching today, I’m going to go ahead and give you my thought on what the water and the blood and the Spirit— now, the Spirit, I think, is pretty obvious, the Holy Spirit, okay? So the big question is, what about the water and the blood? Well, I think the water refers to Jesus’ baptism. That’s what I think.
I think it refers to the initiation of Jesus’ ministry, and I think the blood refers to the culmination of Jesus’ ministry. And so, what you’ve got is the beginning to the end of Jesus’ ministry, all right, outside of His post-resurrection appearances. But if you just go back to the initiation, the first time that Jesus was identified as the Messiah, as God’s Son, It was at his baptism when he was baptized in water. And so you got Matthew 3:16-17 that says, as soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water, and at that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting— lightning on him. And a voice from heaven said, this is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased.
Now, what’s going on? This is Jesus’ baptism. It’s the initiation of his ministry, and you’ve got a testimony— in fact, a couple of things happening here that testify that this is God’s Son. There’s the verbal testimony of God, this is my Son, but there’s also the Holy Spirit who descends upon him in the form of a dove. And so essentially what you have, a corroborating or a confirming testimony that authenticates Jesus as the Messiah, all right?
That would be the first testimony. And by the way, this is a big one. It’s found in all 4 of the gospel accounts, that one testimony. For many would say, that’s enough. You know, we don’t need any more testimonies than that.
But John in verse 6 says, but that’s not only what we have. Not only did this— do we look at the testimony of the water only, but we also look at the blood. Water and the blood, which is to say, yes, this baptism of Jesus, if in fact that’s the correct interpretation, points to Jesus as the Messiah, but also you’ve got the blood. What are we talking about when we talk about the blood? Well, we’re talking about the death of Jesus, that He died on a cross because He’s the Lamb of God, and as the Lamb of God, He takes away the sin of the world.
And so, it’s coming to believe the testimony that God gave concerning Jesus as the Messiah, the promised Messiah, the one who was— who gave up his life so that we might have life. Now, there’s so much testimony surrounding that. Let me just mention this. If you look back in the Old Testament, there are so many prophecies and promises that concern the coming Messiah that would refer us to Jesus, that would point to Jesus. So, you got like he would be beaten, Jesus was beaten.
Psalm 35 predicted that. He would be crucified. You have that in Psalm 22. Obviously, He was crucified. He would die between 2 criminals.
Isaiah 53, 700 years before Jesus died, predicted that the Messiah would be crucified between criminals. His slayers would cast lots for His clothes, Psalm 22. Not one of His bones would be broken, Psalm 34. Not one of His bones were broken. He would be pierced, Psalm 22.
Darkness would fall on the whole earth when he died, Amos 8:9. That happened. He would be buried with the rich. That happened, Isaiah 53. All of that that happened isn’t just, like, coincidental.
It was providential. It was God-ordained. And it was a way of God testifying that Jesus, in fact, is the Messiah. So, you got the initiation of Jesus’ ministry with baptism. You got the culmination of Jesus’ ministry with his death.
And then you got the Holy Spirit. And, of course, we can go right back to the beginning of his ministry when the Holy Spirit came on him. But that wasn’t something that just happened and that was the end of it. Immediately he was led out by the Holy Spirit. It’s interesting.
To be tempted. Luke 4:1-2, it says, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. So here’s the Holy Spirit now beginning to work and continues to work throughout Jesus’ ministry, which is another testimony to the fact that Jesus in fact is God’s Son. In fact, Peter later on after Jesus had ascended back to heaven, he was speaking to a group of Gentiles and who had gathered and they wanted to know whether or not Jesus was the Lord.
And in Acts chapter 10, he said this to this group of people. Peter said this. Peter is very close to Jesus, so he had a, you know, a personal view of what was being taught and walking with him. But in Acts 10, this is what he said to this group of Gentiles. He said, you know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil because God was with him.
What’s Peter focusing on? He’s focusing on that work that Jesus did, and he didn’t do it in his own strength. He did it in the power of the Holy Spirit, and that marks Jesus out as the Messiah. So, all of that John then brings together with this thought in verse 9, we accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it’s the testimony of God which he has given about his Son. So, John is saying, okay, so what do we have?
We have 3 testimonies. We have the water, we have the blood, and we have the Spirit. So, we have his baptism, we have his death, and we have the work of the Holy Spirit throughout his life and ministry. And all of those testimonies collectively together really are one testimony, and that one testimony is a greater testimony than any testimony we could ever give or any testimony we could ever hear. And that greater testimony is God’s testimony.
See, all of this collectively is God saying, don’t miss this. This is the Messiah. This is the Son of God. Now, when the Bible talks about a testimony, it talks about somebody who has a personal or immediate knowledge about someone or something. And in this case, guess what?
God has personal knowledge. I mean, like intimate knowledge about Jesus Christ. First of all, they’ve been around together forever. I mean, if you’re with somebody forever, I mean, you got knowledge, right? It’s kind of like a parent.
Qualified to give testimony about their son or daughter. I mean, they know their son or daughter better than anybody else knows them. They know their habits, they know their interests, they know their abilities. Parents know their kids better than anybody. They know the inside scoop, and hopefully even the stuff that their kids don’t think they know, they know.
They know their kids. Well, God knows the Son. That’s what he’s saying here. God orchestrated all of this so that we might come to believe, so that people might come to believe the one that God knows intimately and gives great testimony for. God’s testimony is greater than any other testimony that we could ever come across.
Now just let that sink in just for a minute with this thought. There are a lot of testimonies that we believe in the course of a day, a week, Aren’t there? People say to us, hey, you ought to do such and such. Well, why should I do it? Well, because I did it, or, you know, a friend was telling me about it and I experienced that, or whatever it might be.
When we moved to the area, we started asking people, you know, who should we go to for a doctor or for a dentist or for a mechanic or, you know, an accountant? What gyms should we check out? What places should we eat at? I mean, we asked for testimonies. You know what we found?
Is that many of those testimonies that were given to us back then, we still are frequenting those places. We still are, still hanging out there. You know, those were good testimonies and they’ve made a difference in things that we’ve enjoyed here in the area. We pay attention to those kind of testimonies. And what John is saying here is that we have the greatest testimony of all, is the testimony that God has given to us.
And let’s look at this testimony. Let’s believe this testimony. Let’s embrace this testimony and let’s share this testimony. That’s what I mean when I say, you know, there’s something here that many of us are maybe missing out on in terms of strengthening our own faith and helping other people have faith. We can point to the initiation of Jesus’ ministry, we can point to the culmination of Jesus’ ministry, and we can point to all the work that was done through the Holy Spirit throughout his ministry.
Now, there are 2 polar opposite responses that John mentions here in verse 10. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe, God has made him out to be a liar because he has not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. 2 different responses. The one is, I believe God’s testimony.
That’s the I believe God’s testimony response. I believe what God says, that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus is the Savior, Jesus is the Messiah. In fact, I not only believe that intellectually, but I believe that with my heart. I have received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. I’ve asked him to save me from my sins.
There’s that kind of belief, that kind of response. On the other hand, there’s the I don’t believe. God’s testimony response. I don’t believe that God is telling the truth. I don’t believe that what is taught about Jesus Christ is true.
I think it is falsehood. In fact, John pushes it and says to not believe the testimony of God is to say that God is lying. That’s the logical conclusion. Is to say that God is lying, that his claims are lies. He’s not telling the truth.
What he says is false. It’s made up. It’s a bunch of baloney. One of our younger grandkids is in a lying phase right now. If you tell him to please go up to the bathroom and brush your teeth, he will say, okay, and he’ll go up to the bathroom, but he won’t brush his teeth.
If he comes down after whatever he does up there, when he comes down and his mom or dad asks him, so did you brush your teeth? He will say yes. And then if they say, are you sure that you brushed your teeth? He will say yes, I am sure I brushed my teeth. But if you as a parent or grandparent go up to the bathroom and you check out the location of the toothbrush and the location of the toothpaste, it becomes obvious immediately he did not brush his teeth.
Because whenever he brushes his teeth, he leaves the toothbrush and the toothpaste on the counter, okay? It starts in the drawer, but it ends up on the counter, and other things happen in the bathroom there with water and other stuff like that. That would indicate that maybe he brushed his teeth or at least stuck the toothbrush in his mouth and all the rest of that. Connor, stop. But if— so as a parent, if you go up there and you explore all of that and you look at all of those indications and bring those back to him and you call it to his attention, in other words, you call all of that together as a witness to bear testimony against his testimony, he will say, well, I was just kidding.
Which is a lie. So he lied about, yes, I did it, but then if you confront him, he lies again. Listen, there’s no middle ground on this thing. Either he’s telling the truth or he’s not telling the truth, and that’s what John is saying here. God is either telling the truth or he’s not telling the truth.
And we can believe— John is saying we can believe this testimony because this is the greatest testimony of all. This is a truth-telling testimony. And I’ll tell you what, we live in a day where it would be nice to be able to trust other people’s testimony, wouldn’t you say? We know that we can trust God. In fact, Numbers chapter 23:19 says, God’s not a man that he should lie.
He isn’t like people. He doesn’t lie. Hebrews 6:18, it’s impossible for God to lie. So, what this passage is suggesting to us is the greatest testimony of all the testimonies that we could receive. This is certainly the greatest testimony, and we can trust it.
It ought to be on the top of the trust list, like way up there. You can always trust what it is that God is saying. And not to trust what it is God is saying is to say God is a liar. Wow.
You know, God’s the one that gave the 9th commandment. You know that commandment? Thou shalt not lie. I mean, it’s in God’s nature to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God. God’s gonna tell the truth, and we can trust him.
Isn’t that good to know? We live in a world right now where we would love if people would just tell us the truth. And we’re so tired of the scams and some of what’s happening in politics and you name it. Can we just like get the truth from somebody? Well, hey, we know that if we pay attention to what God’s saying, every time it’s going to be the truth.
And the truth that’s given to us is more than enough reason to believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah. And so, John pulls this all together with this thought in verse 10. He says, anyone who believes in the Son, guess what? They have this testimony in their heart. So, God plants this testimony.
Once they come to believe, He plants the testimony of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, which continues to build in them the certainty or conviction that their beliefs are true, that in fact Jesus is the Christ. He is the coming and the Messiah. Well, he pulls all that to a close with one never-ending benefit in verses 11 and 12, a benefit that I think John is saying, now you got to hold on to this, don’t let go of this. 1 John 5:11, he says, and this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life, and He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
What’s he saying? He’s saying if you have Jesus, if you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you have life. You have life. We’ve talked about this since the beginning of the book of 1 John. You have the fullness of life now, but you’re going to have life forever.
You have eternal life. However, he says, you got to understand, If you don’t have the Son, you might think you have life, you don’t. I mean, you might make the best of your life, that’s fine, fine, but the greater life that can be given to you comes through Jesus Christ.
So, come to the one who is the way, who is the truth, who is the life. That’s the testimony. There’s no middle ground. Come to that one. Some years ago, I heard an apologetic Christian speaker.
He was talking about this particular passage, 1 John 5:11-12. And he said that he uses this passage when he’s trying to help a person believe in Jesus, and other times he uses the passage to help a person who has believed in Jesus have assurance of their salvation. So he’ll just take them through the passage. Just notice that. He starts, and this is the testimony, help them understand whose testimony.
This is God’s testimony. We have God’s Word, a Word that can be trusted with regard to salvation. We can trust it. We can rely on it. This is the testimony.
It’s the testimony of God. God has given us eternal life, past tense, past tense. If you receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you have already received this life. And this life is not going to be taken away from you. It is your life right now.
You don’t have to wait to heaven to experience this life. You have eternal life right now. And this life is in his Son. Who’s that? That’s Jesus.
That’s God incarnate. That’s the one who was baptized, the one who was crucified, and the one who lived under the power of the Holy Spirit. That Jesus. And he who has the Son has And he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. And at this point the speaker said, what I try to do is help a person understand that, and so I’ll just start asking them a few questions like, so, do you have the Son?
Ask yourself that this morning. Do I have the Son? If I have the Son, I have life. If I don’t have the Son, I have death. I don’t have life.
How do you get the Son? By believing in Jesus Christ, by believing in Jesus Christ as God’s Son, as the Messiah, the Savior of the world, by confessing with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved. You’ll have life. That’s something we can be sure about. And that’s what John’s trying to do.
He’s helping them be sure. You either have the Son or you don’t have the sun. It’s one or the other. It’s kind of like you’re either a parent or you’re not a parent. And if you have the privilege of having children, you’re a parent, then you get the joy of benefiting from parenting.
It’s wonderful to have kids, isn’t it, around where they serve you all day and they do your laundry and they make you breakfast and they bring it to you to enjoy while you’re in bed. Said no parent ever. Having kids is a lot of work, but you know what? Parents would say, but we love it. We love having children.
It’s so worth it. Well, the benefit of Jesus Christ, John is saying, is even greater.
You could take my word on that. I believe that. I really do. I believe that the life that He gives us now is greater. I believe that the life He’s going to give us forever is greater.
You could take my word on that, but the point of this text is this: Take God’s word on it that the life we can have now and forever has tremendous benefit. And if you’ve not yet come to the place where you’ve received the gift, what are you waiting for? You say, well, I don’t know. That’s kind of what we do in our culture, isn’t it? We wait till the last minute to sign up for anything or wait till the last minute to make a decision about something because that’s just what we do.
You know what? This isn’t one of those things you want to wait for. If you think you can make a better life the rest of your life without Jesus Christ, you’re really missing the greater testimony. And the greater testimony is you could come to Jesus Christ today and begin to experience true life. Most of you recognize the name Tom Landry.
Tom Landry used to be a coach of the Dallas Cowboys NFL football team. He came to faith in Jesus Christ at the age of 33. It’s interesting because after having come to faith, he said this, the most disappointing fact in my life, I believe, is that I waited so so long before I discovered the fellowship of Jesus Christ. How much more wonderful my life would have been if I had taken this step many years earlier. Do you believe Tom Landry is telling the truth on that?
I think we could believe that. Even if you’re not a Dallas Cowboy fan, I think you could believe that. I really do.
The greater Belief is just to believe God. It truly is. This week I was working on John chapter 9. I was just doing some study in John 9, reflecting on John 9. If you may be familiar with the account, it’s where Jesus and the apostles come across a guy who’s been blind since birth.
Blind since birth. And the apostles saw this and they said, Lord, who sinned? Was it him or was it his parents? Which was the belief of the day. If you’re like, you know, experiencing that kind of hardship, then it must be connected to your personal sin or the sin of your parents.
And Jesus said neither, neither. This isn’t connected to his sin or to the sin of the parents. This is because God wants to do a great work through him. It’s because of the— he said the the work of God. And what was the work of God?
The work of God was what Jesus was just about ready to do. He was going to heal this man of his blindness, put some mud in his eyes, and then he told him to go wash the mud out. And he did, and he came back seeing. And that became a testimony to the people that were impacted by what happened to there who heard about it. Some came to believe and others said, nah, I don’t buy it.
Many of the Pharisees didn’t buy it. You have all kinds of signs like that that were done through God’s power that testify to Jesus Christ. There are more than enough signs there to believe. And what John is giving us here is a triple trustworthy testimony that together proclaims Jesus is the Messiah, and of course, therefore, the question for anybody who considers this is, well, do I believe it, and am I benefiting by that? So, friends, that’s what this gives us this morning.
It gives us a wonderful greater-than testimony than anything else that we can hold on to, that can strengthen our faith if we have faith, and that can bring others to faith in Jesus Christ. You know, we talked just in a minute about the Night to Shine. It was really a fabulous event. There were a number of us that were a part of it. Bernice and I got to be a part of the parent room, which meant we were there to serve the parents as they were hanging out while the whole evening was taking place.
We’ll show you something here in a minute. But part of the reason why we went was because of the testimony of many of you who had gone to this event before. We had never even heard of the event before. I guess I should have, but we never heard of it before. And I listened to Steve and Shannon and others talk about how amazing this event is.
And if you volunteer for this event, you’re going to make some other people really happy, and it’s going to make you happy too. And you know what? We paid attention to the testimony and we signed up, and they were right. We had the opportunity to make some people happy, and it made us happy too. Part of the reason why it made us happy is we got to serve ice cream.
Oh man, that was great. They put us at the ice cream table. There were 5 different ice creams at this table. I was given pomegranate ice cream, pomegranate sorbet. I was the guy at the front of the line, and then there was chocolate, then there was vanilla, and then there was like vanilla with orange sherbet in it.
And then there was chocolate and caramel and that kind of stuff, and those were all the ones that followed. And so I had to try my best to sell this ice cream to people for free, and it actually worked out pretty good. I kept talking to them about how this ice cream has antioxidants in it and it’s better than any other ice cream on the table, and if you keep on walking down the table, it’s going to be worse for your health, so stick around right here. And we had a great It was just a ton of fun, but we would not have gone had it not been for some testimonies. That’s all we’re saying here.
God has given us a testimony that we can trust, that we can hang on to, that can strengthen us in our faith. It can assure us in our faith. If you’re not sure in your faith, get that straightened out. You want to know right now that you have eternal life, now and forever. And if you’re not a person that’s ever come to believe in Jesus Christ, there’s plenty of testimony.
You believe testimonies on Yelp and you believe other testimonies. There are— there’s plenty of testimony here to believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, and he wants to save you from your sins. He wants you in his family. Now and forever. And he wants you to experience that life now, and he wants you to experience it forever, and he wants you to not only know it for yourself, but he wants you to share it with others.
Amen. Let’s pray. Lord, thank you for this wonderful passage of scripture that speaks to us this morning, wherever we are in our spiritual journey. My prayer would be that each one of us would embrace this testimony, and it would transform our lives, strengthen faith, or it would bring people to faith. And Lord, we pray for those right now that have never really come to faith in Jesus.
We pray that even now would be the moment of salvation for them. They would confess with their mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that you raised Christ from the dead. They would be saved. And if that’s the desire of your heart. God’s working in you, and he’s saying, please come to me for salvation.
Come to him right now. Tell him, Lord, save me from my sins. I want to be one of your children.
I ask that you’d forgive me. I ask that you’d change me. I ask, Lord, that you make me the person that you always wanted to be. Be the Lord of my life. Transform my thinking.
Help me experience the new life that you promise now and forever. God will hear those prayers. Thank you, God. Thank you for, for this testimony this morning that we can focus on and pray that it has impact in our lives outside of this building as we live for you. We pray this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
