Introduction:
Jesus' Mission Strategy: Holy Spirit-Filled People Convicting the World By God's Authoritative Word. (John 16:4-15):
- Holy Spirit-filled People ... (John 16:7)
- ...convicting the World ... (John 16:8-11)
John 7:7 - The world… hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
- Sin (John 16:9)
- Righteousness (John 16:10)
- Judgment (John 16:11)
Peter's Pentecost sermon (Acts 2) had all 3 elements:
[Sin] Acts 2:23 - this Jesus... you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
[Righteousness] Acts 2:33 - Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit...
[Judgment] Acts 2:34-35 - For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, "'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool."'
- ... by God's authoritative Word . (John 16:12-15)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:01-00:04
Open your Bibles to John chapter 16.
00:06-00:08
John chapter 16, are you there?
00:08-00:10
You're going to need to be.
00:11-00:15
You know, a few years ago, this church went through the book of Acts, verse by verse.
00:16-00:17
And I think that took, what, three years?
00:18-00:19
We went through the book of Acts.
00:19-00:22
And do you know what happened in the book of Acts?
00:22-00:31
In the book of Acts, a few churches turned the world upside down.
00:34-00:39
And I think if we're going to be honest with ourselves, we have to ask, what in the world happened to the church?
00:41-00:48
Because in Acts you have a few churches that turned the world upside down, and now there are more churches than ever.
00:49-01:03
And I just have to ask us, church, let's be honest, it might sting us a little bit, but where's the impact? Where's the impact? Why are churches so weak?
01:05-02:16
You know, you would think if the church today is like the church in Acts, and there's just so many more of them, I mean we got four churches on every corner, you would think that we'd see more impact but we see less why is that I'm gonna tell you why that is it's because the church has changed the strategy the church has changed the strategy that's why because the early church powered by the Holy Spirit giving the Word of God saw God's results and since then we think we've gotten a little too smart for that that's so archaic nobody's gonna be interested in that so we're going to give God a leg up and we're going to employ some different strategies and we look like idiots when we do that here's some dumb church strategies that have actually been unemployed to bring people into the church to get attention.
02:18-02:21
Okay, not, "Hey, we are sincerely seeking the Lord.
02:21-02:25
We are preaching the word of God." No, no, no, no, no. That's not going to get people.
02:26-02:28
We need a hook. We need a gimmick.
02:28-02:34
These are actual real things that churches have done to bring people in. Are you ready for this?
02:34-02:39
There was a Church of Christ in Houston that had the world's largest hotdog.
02:40-02:50
And they said, "Come to church and take a bite out of the world's largest hot dog." Obviously, that had to have been pre-COVID, right?
02:51-02:57
I can't imagine in our day and age, it would ever sell for everybody to be taking a bite off of the same hot dog.
02:59-03:04
Or maybe it's so big you can socially distance your bites. I don't know.
03:06-03:11
But I think it was around the same time a group of Catholic churches found a way to get people coming in.
03:11-03:13
They had theology on tap.
03:14-03:15
Free beer and Bible study.
03:19-03:24
Which I'm sure, the longer Bible study went, the more interesting it got.
03:28-03:30
This is a true story.
03:33-03:34
Erin and I remember this.
03:34-03:35
This was a local one.
03:35-03:41
We read about in the paper some years ago, but there was a local church that was offering you $10 to come to church.
03:44-03:45
That's what they said.
03:45-04:03
The headline said, "We will pay you $10 to come to church." And then you read the article, and it was like, "Such and such church "is giving everyone that comes to church $10." And you're like, "Well, you know what, pastors, "if it doesn't sound like a bad deal here." What's $10 gonna buy you in Cranberry?
04:03-04:06
Like half a burrito at Chipotle's or something, right?
04:09-04:19
And you're like, "Well, in the same spirit, you could offer people a four-wheeler to come to church." And I would say that's a callback that not everybody's going to get.
04:23-04:24
Oh, it goes on.
04:25-05:06
Because I read this week of a pastor who spent three days in a Plexiglas tube on his church, top of the church if the church would meet a certain attendance record and you're like wow suffering for the gospel right hold that thought his plexiglass tube had electricity air conditioning books laptop TV iPhone and a chair and plenty of food that's what he had in that tube suffering for Jesus and the gas something I could kind of get behind I could use a few days in that as well Oh, and probably the most absurd thing that I read, some of you might remember this.
05:06-05:11
I completely forgot about this, and when I read this I'm like, oh my gosh, I completely forgot that happened.
05:11-05:12
Some of you are gonna remember this.
05:13-05:25
Remember many years ago, a pastor and his wife, a pastor and his wife spent 24 hours in bed together on the roof of their church webcasting the whole time.
05:25-05:26
How many people remember that?
05:27-05:28
Nobody remembers that?
05:29-05:31
Oh, that was like a big thing.
05:31-05:35
like, why did they do that?
05:35-05:39
Well, obviously, they wanted to garner attention, but they just wrote a book about sex.
05:39-05:46
So they thought, what better way to promote the book on sex than to put a bed on the roof of the church and webcast the whole thing?
05:47-05:49
And I think they had to cut it short because they got sunburned.
05:50-05:50
True story.
05:51-05:53
I could go on, but I'm not going to.
05:54-06:28
But do you see, like, I just have to wonder, like have these people read the Bible because Jesus had quite a different strategy for reaching people didn't he and today what I want you to see in this passage that we're looking at Jesus is going to lay out his strategy Jesus says here is how here's how I'm going to reach the world and you have to see this because you're part of this right we've been going through John chapters you 13, 14, 15, now we're in 16.
06:29-06:31
And there's a theme here in these chapters.
06:32-06:33
Jesus says, "Hey, I'm leaving.
06:35-06:57
And when I go, you're going to have all of the resources of heaven because after I leave, the Holy Spirit is going to come and indwell God's people." And Jesus said, "By the way, you need to make sure that you love one another the way I loved you." And that's super important because He says, "The world's going to hate you." was the sermon last week, and this flows straight from that.
06:58-07:01
Jesus said, "The world's gonna hate you "because the world hated me." Right?
07:02-07:06
And at this point, the disciples were like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's all the hate talk, Jesus?
07:06-07:08
"Let's just, can we just talk about love again?
07:08-07:13
"What's with all the hate talk?" Jesus wasn't sugarcoating anything.
07:14-07:16
Jesus said, "Listen, they hated me, they're gonna hate you.
07:16-07:27
"And when I go back to heaven, "they're not gonna be able to get me." Right, because let's be honest, if the world could, The world would nail Jesus to the cross again, but they can't touch him.
07:30-07:35
So Satan and the world are going to go after you.
07:39-07:44
But last week through this Jesus promised spirit powered witness, right?
07:45-07:54
And the disciples had to have been thinking, wait, wait, you want us to take the mission to a bunch of people that hate us, how are we gonna pull that off?
07:54-07:57
And here's where we get to the strategy, all right?
07:58-08:01
Look at verse four, where we left off, actually like the middle of verse four.
08:02-08:06
Jesus said, "I did not say these things to you "from the beginning because I was with you.
08:06-08:10
"But now I am going to him who sent me.
08:10-08:15
"And none of you asks me, where are you going?" Stop there.
08:16-08:18
You know, when I read this, I'm like, whoa, hang on a second.
08:19-08:25
Jesus said, "None of you ask me where you're going." Actually, Peter asked him that exact question in chapter 13, verse 36.
08:26-08:27
So what's going on here?
08:27-08:30
Well, yeah, Peter asked the question.
08:30-08:32
Those were the words that came out of his mouth.
08:33-08:36
But understand that Peter wasn't really asking about Jesus.
08:37-08:42
Peter's question was 100% motivated by concern for Peter.
08:42-08:45
He was concerned about himself, right?
08:46-08:51
He wasn't like, none of the disciples were like, Jesus, you know, tell us, you know, where are you going to win?
08:51-08:53
And how's it going to, what's it going to look like?
08:53-08:54
And can you explain that to me?
08:54-08:57
None of them even really cared about that.
08:58-09:00
They were thinking, what's going to happen to us?
09:00-09:01
Well, hang on, what about us?
09:03-09:04
What are we going to do when you're gone?
09:06-09:07
What are we going to do without Jesus?
09:08-09:17
Well, verse six, Jesus says, "But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts." See there, Jesus is driving at home.
09:17-09:27
and he says, "You're not really thinking about where I'm going, and what I'm doing, and what's happening with me, because you're so self-consumed with your own sorrow that you can't see past that.
09:31-09:50
And you're so self-consumed with your own sorrow, you're missing the big picture of what I want to do." Jesus is like, "This is part of this huge plan that is laid out for the salvation of the world and you're so consumed with, oh no, what am I gonna do without you?
09:50-09:53
You hear Jesus, you're missing the picture, people.
09:56-10:01
Jesus is saying, look, I'm not a victim of circumstance and it's gonna look like that.
10:01-10:10
They're gonna, you know, there's gonna be betrayal, spoiler alert, and arrest and trial and crucifixion and it's gonna look like everything's out of control.
10:10-10:14
And Jesus is like, no, no, no, no, no, This is why I came. This is part of the plan.
10:15-10:16
And then I'm gonna raise from the dead.
10:16-10:17
Oops, spoiler alert again.
10:17-10:18
I'm gonna raise from the dead.
10:21-10:30
And Jesus in this passage we're looking at here today, he's saying, okay, when I'm done with my part of the mission, then you are going to do your part of the mission.
10:30-10:39
We have a strategy in place for the disciples and the church to carry out the next phase of the mission, which is global witness.
10:40-10:45
The next stage of the mission is telling the world about Jesus Christ, who he is, what he's done.
10:48-10:48
All right?
10:50-10:51
So here's the sermon today.
10:54-10:59
Now I have been admonished on Family Sunday to keep the messages shorter.
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And look, I'm concerned with the needs of the people, so I'm going to give you the sermon in one sentence and you can go.
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You ready?
11:09-11:11
Jesus' mission strategy.
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Jesus said, "Here's the strategy here.
11:14-11:15
"Here's what you can't miss.
11:15-11:25
"Here's the strategy." One sentence, "Holy Spirit-filled people "convicting the world by God's authoritative word." Jesus said, "That's my strategy for reaching the world." Here it is.
11:26-11:40
"Holy Spirit-filled people "convicting the world by God's authoritative word." That's it, you are loved, you can go.
11:42-11:50
If you wanna stick around, and it's entirely up to you, but if you wanna stick around, I'm gonna unpack that sentence for you a little bit so we understand.
11:51-11:54
Actually, Jesus is gonna unpack it, I'm just gonna basically share what he said.
11:55-11:58
But this is Jesus' mission strategy, you wanna get that down.
11:59-12:15
The Jesus' mission strategy, Jesus said, "Okay, you're so short-sighted, "you're so sorrowful, let me tell you the big picture." He mentioned briefly last week that the Holy Spirit was going to bear witness and God's people were involved in that somehow.
12:16-12:19
And here in this passage, he's explaining what that looks like.
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So let's talk about Jesus' mission strategy.
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Number one, Holy Spirit filled people.
12:24-12:27
Let's talk about that part of the sentence because that's verse seven.
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Jesus, here's the plan.
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You ready?
12:30-12:30
Here's the big picture.
12:31-12:31
Here's the plan.
12:33-12:35
Jesus said, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
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It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.
12:44-12:56
But if I go, I will send Him to you." And see, Jesus' plan is this. Everything in Jesus' plan starts with transformed people.
12:57-12:57
That's the plan.
12:58-13:37
He said this earlier in John chapter 15, verse 5, "Vine and the branches," Jesus said, "apart from Me, you can do right so get it out of your head that you're gonna go do something for Jesus you're not Jesus is going to do something through you so long as the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in you apart from him you can do nothing it's Jesus power given to us by the Holy Spirit and this isn't exactly a new concept but over and over and over and over Jesus has been saying I'm leaving and I'm sending someone else to take my place right he said in chapter 14 verse 16 chapter 14 verse 26 chapter 15 verse 26 over and over Jesus said I'm leaving with the Holy Spirit's coming.
13:38-13:42
And now Jesus again with the call back to say, "Look, this is how the plan works.
13:43-13:57
The Holy Spirit transforms people." But then He says something that I know had to have completely just blew the disciples away.
13:58-14:05
When He made this statement, He says, "I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away." Like what? What?
14:07-14:09
I mean, think about this from the disciples perspective.
14:10-14:12
They left everything to follow Jesus, right?
14:12-14:19
They left their businesses, they left their families, they left everything that they ever knew behind to follow Jesus.
14:19-14:20
And Jesus is like, "I'm leaving, but you know what?
14:20-14:24
You should be happy. This is good for you." Like, what are you talking about?
14:24-14:28
I left everything to follow you, and now you're leaving?
14:28-14:29
And Jesus said, "No, it's good.
14:31-14:40
It's good." Did you ever wonder, did you ever wonder if God knew what he was doing?
14:43-14:44
Did you ever wonder that?
14:45-14:50
Something's happening in your life that doesn't quite match up with the way you think things should be happening in your life.
14:51-14:53
And have you ever at that moment wondered, does God know what he's doing?
14:54-14:55
Have you ever wondered that?
14:57-14:58
It just got real uncomfortable here.
15:00-15:08
Like, "Yes, I totally have, but I don't want to say that in church." All right, I'm going to help you out here.
15:09-15:10
I've wondered that.
15:13-15:21
In my weakness, in my fleshly moments, I have wondered, "Does God know what he's doing?" Because this isn't how I'd write the script.
15:23-15:24
Maybe you can relate to that.
15:26-15:38
Like for example, the pandemic stuff, like when that hit, I remember in my quiet times thinking what in the world is this going to do for the gospel?
15:40-15:52
If now people are shut in their homes and people are told to stay away from each other, and this is going to squash evangelism.
15:53-15:58
That's what I thought, and I know it sounds stupid now, but that's what I thought.
15:59-16:05
What is this going to do for the mission if everybody's locked in their homes and we can't be near people?
16:06-16:13
And, like, God must not have seen this coming because this just put the brakes on world missions.
16:15-16:16
And then did it really?
16:16-16:17
Did it?
16:18-16:19
Because do you know what happened?
16:22-16:43
of people joining us at home and on streaming and all of that, our church invested some cameras and people way smarter than me that work in the AV ministry were involved with, you know, getting streaming set up, an online church, an online small group, and you know, we're gonna set all this stuff up. And do you know what happened as a result of that?
16:45-17:09
Our reach has grown exponentially. That we are literally being broadcast all over the world Because I get messages from people in Uganda and in Ghana and in Japan and all over the United States. I get messages all the time, "Hey you don't know me Pastor Jeff but I'm so-and-so and I live in Uganda and we listen to you every week." Like what?
17:10-17:29
What? I'm like, I thought that this stuff was gonna like squelch the gospel. It has opened doors for us that we never had before. And church, if If that's happening in this church, think about all the other churches that are doing the same things that we are and the people that they're reaching.
17:30-17:33
So did this pandemic really put a halt on evangelism?
17:34-17:36
We saw that in Thailand as well.
17:36-17:39
We teach in Thailand every month through video call.
17:40-17:50
And because of quarantining and lockdowns and things closing over there, not everybody has been able to come to the meeting, the monthly meeting where we teach.
17:51-17:54
I'm like, oh man, you know, our attendance has been reduced in a monthly meeting.
17:54-17:57
We're not reaching as many people in Thailand as we used to.
17:57-18:00
And do you know what our missionary Barnabas did last week?
18:00-18:02
He set up a group video call.
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So we were in 13 villages in Northern Thailand last week instead of just one.
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You're like, why are you telling us this?
18:12-18:25
I'm telling you that there's times that I've thought, I don't know if God knows what he's doing or what's going on, and God has blown me away with, you're so short-sighted, because this is what I'm going to use to increase the reach.
18:25-18:28
And you're like, okay, but what does this have to do?
18:28-18:30
Oh, oh, oh, some of you are catching it now.
18:32-18:34
What does this have to do with Jesus and the disciples?
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Jesus says, it's to your advantage that I go away.
18:36-18:39
Wow, how is it to our advantage?
18:40-18:44
Because Jesus had some self-imposed limitations because of the incarnation.
18:46-18:50
And one of the limitations that Jesus had was he was localized.
18:51-18:55
Jesus wasn't everywhere at the same time while he was on the earth.
18:55-18:57
And do you see where this strategy is going?
18:58-19:04
With Jesus' strategy that he's going to put in place after he leaves God's Holy Spirit and dwelling every person.
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Do you know what that means?
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It means two things.
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It means now Jesus would be everywhere that his people are.
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Isn't that awesome?
19:13-19:14
But it means something else.
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It also means that his people would have Jesus everywhere they are.
19:22-19:23
You see the strategy?
19:25-19:28
It's a brilliant strategy to change the world.
19:28-19:34
Jesus said, "I love all people of all tribes "of all nations everywhere, and I wanna reach them all." And here's how we're gonna do it.
19:34-19:39
Step one, I'm gonna leave, and my spirit is gonna be in all my people, and we're gonna spread out.
19:41-19:44
So that's part one of Jesus' strategy, Holy Spirit filled people. You got that?
19:45-19:46
Okay, here's part two.
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They're gonna convict the world.
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Convict the world, look at verse eight.
19:52-20:01
Jesus said, "And when he comes, the Holy Spirit." And when he comes, he will convict the world regarding sin and righteousness and judgment.
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Stop there.
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The Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
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And many people think that what this means is the Holy Spirit is going to be at work in the hearts of unbelievers.
20:24-20:25
And that's a true statement.
20:25-20:30
The Holy Spirit does work in the hearts of unbelievers, but that is not what Jesus is saying here.
20:33-20:40
We know this because back in chapter 14, verse 17, Jesus said the world can't receive the Holy Spirit.
20:40-20:42
They don't see him, they don't know him.
20:45-20:54
But some people think that the Holy Spirit convicting people, I guess in a lot of people's minds, they haven't built that bridge as to how that happens.
20:54-21:06
It's just like an unbeliever is walking down the street one day and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit zaps them and they're like, "Holy smokes, I am a sinner who violated the standard of a holy God.
21:07-21:09
I better find somebody that can explain that to me.
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And that's not what he's saying.
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Like, what is he saying?
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Well, actually the word convict here, he will convict the world.
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The word convict is a legal term.
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It means to pronounce the verdict, indict by evidence.
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The word convict literally means to prosecute.
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That because of the evidence you stand guilty.
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That's what it means to convict.
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You see the Holy Spirit doesn't just accuse, like you shouldn't do that, that's wrong.
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The Holy Spirit renders the verdict.
21:49-21:54
The Holy Spirit brings guilt so people realize their helplessness.
21:55-21:57
Like, well, how does the Holy Spirit do that?
21:58-22:00
Holy Spirit does it through the preaching of the Word of God.
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Preaching the Bible is prosecuting the world.
22:07-22:09
We talked about this last week.
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Jesus said in John 7, verse 7, that the world hates me because I testify about it, that its works are evil.
22:17-22:26
And with Jesus gone, the world's going to hate us because we're echoing the same message every time we share the Word of God.
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You're like, "Well, share what exactly?" Well, he tells us three things.
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Do you see that in verse eight?
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He'll convict the world concerning three things, sin and righteousness and judgment.
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Those are the three words of the day because this is it.
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Every key element of the gospel, everything that Jesus is, everything that Jesus stands for, everything that Jesus accomplished, everything that Jesus will accomplish, all of it can be boiled down to these three words.
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Sin, righteousness, and judgment.
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That's the gospel.
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You're like, "Man, you've got to explain that." Well, actually, Jesus did.
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Look at verse 9.
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Verse 9, Jesus says, He breaks it down.
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Jesus gives like a mini-sermon here.
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He says, "Concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me." Let's talk about sin for a second.
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Jesus didn't say sins, plural, He said concerning sin, singular.
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What's sin?
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He tells us. What's the sin?
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You tell me, what's the sin?
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Not believing in Him, right? That's the sin. Here's the thing, we've all sinned, right?
23:44-23:48
We've all rebelled against God in some way, and the penalty is death.
23:48-23:53
The penalty for sinning against God is eternal separation from God.
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And we've all sinned.
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Different ways, but we've all sinned.
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And you know, any sin can be forgiven.
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Any sin, no matter what you've done, and somebody here needs to hear this, no matter what you've done, things that people know about, things that maybe nobody knows about.
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Any sin can be forgiven.
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Whatever you've done.
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If you feel like, "Man, you don't understand Jeff.
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You know, with my age, I'm awfully late to the game.
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I've lived a whole life of rebelling against God, ignoring God." That can be forgiven.
24:31-24:35
"But Jeff, I've had such hatred in my heart for so long." That can be forgiven.
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"You know, Jeff, I've had a terrible problem with lying or gossip." That can be forgiven.
24:40-24:46
"You know, Jeff, I've struggled with lust my whole life." And that can be forgiven.
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There's only one sin that cannot be forgiven.
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That's refusing to believe in the one who takes away your sin.
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That is the sin that can't be forgiven.
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To not receive the gift of eternal life that Jesus purchased.
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And if you refuse Jesus Christ, you're eternally condemned.
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Because there is no plan B. Right?
25:15-25:24
If you went to the doctor and the doctor says, "Yeah, you have this extremely rare terminal disease and you're going to die if untreated, but I got good news.
25:25-25:28
We have this medication that has a special ingredient in it.
25:28-25:39
And if you take one of these pills every day for two weeks, there's a chemical that will kill the disease in you and you'll be completely healed." What would you do?
25:41-25:53
You'd say, "Oh, stop pushing your beliefs on me about pharmaceuticals and I don't know who you think you are." And you'd be stupid to say that.
25:53-25:55
Like, "Give me those, give me that medication.
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I need to, I need to take this." Because you see, if you said to the doctor, "I don't, I don't want your stupid medicine." What do you want the doctor to do?
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What do you want him to do?
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He goes, "I gave you the cure." You're like, "I don't want the cure." He's going to say, "Well, enjoy your last two weeks, because there's nothing else I can do for you.
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I've given you the cure, and you don't want the cure that I've given you, so why in the world do you think that there's some other option?" But you see, that's exactly what people do with God.
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God says, "I've sent my Son to die.
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He took all of your sin on Himself and bore my wrath so that you don't have to, and He as a free gift and you can have eternal life through believing in his name.
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And people are like, I don't want Jesus.
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And those same people think they're still going to heaven.
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Like God's up in heaven going, oh, you don't want my son that I killed for you?
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Oh, let me see if I can find a means of salvation that's more suitable for your needs.
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You're obnoxious if you think that.
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You're obnoxious.
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That's the sin Jesus is talking about here.
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And the Holy Spirit's going to come and say, "Hey, God sent His Son to die for you.
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And you need to believe in Him, because there's no plan B.
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And you've got to start here. You can't preach the good news without preaching the bad news first." Again, church is changing the strategy.
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want people to we want people to feel good at first church of so-and-so we want you to be comfortable in our church listen I don't care if you're comfortable at all because you can have the nicest recliner best air conditioning best lighting and the best coffee and be heading straight to hell at the end of the day I really don't care if you're comfortable what I care as do you know Jesus Christ?
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Because He's all that matters.
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The world is convicted concerning sin.
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Secondly, the world is convicted concerning righteousness.
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Verse 10, Jesus says, "Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer." You see, God's standard is you must be perfectly holy to get to heaven.
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That's God's standard.
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That's what we mean by righteousness, by the way.
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Righteousness means perfectly right and if you're like I hear what you're saying about Jesus, but I'm good enough to go to heaven Okay. Well, here's the criteria. Are you a hundred percent? Perfect? You've never made a mistake ever thought attitude deed action You've never made a mistake if that's you great I'll see you in heaven, but I needed God's plan to get there because I'm so far from perfect You need to be perfectly holy to get to heaven. So why did Jesus say I go to the father you see me no longer?
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Because you see, understand this, Jesus ultimately was vindicated for his righteousness by being at the right hand of God.
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That was Jesus' vindication. In other words, there's only ever been one person that walked on this earth that was considered good enough by his own merit to go to heaven, and that's Jesus himself.
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He was vindicated.
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But take a poll of all the unsaved people that you know.
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Find some people you know that don't know the Lord and take a poll, and they're all going to tell you something like this.
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They're going to say, "Well, I'm good enough to go to heaven.
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I'm good enough.
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I mean, I'm not perfect, but surely God will overlook my faults.
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None of us are good enough to go." Some people say this, "Well, you know, Jeff, I just hope that the good outweighs the bad." It doesn't.
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And it won't.
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You have to be 100% holy to enter God's presence yourself.
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And none of us can attain that on our own.
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You see the righteousness that saves you belongs to Jesus.
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And when you receive Him, God pronounces you perfectly righteous, because Jesus imputes his righteousness onto you.
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Understand that's why you need Jesus, because you need his righteousness to be in God's presence.
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You don't have it, you can't earn it, but he will give it to you upon belief.
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It's a gift that comes upon belief. He imputes it.
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What do you mean imputes? What does that even mean?
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It would be like if you, let's say you needed $5,000.
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You had to pay some bill and you're like, "I need $5,000," and I don't have $5,000.
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And I say to you, "All right, let's go to the bank together." And I go to your bank with you and I write a check for $5,000 and I put it on your bank account.
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So now your account says that you have $5,000.
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Did you put it there?
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Did you put it there?
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No.
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put it there on your behalf, but it says you have it.
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That's exactly what Jesus Christ has done with his holiness and his righteousness.
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He says, when you believe in me, I'll put my holiness on your account so that when God sees you, he sees you as perfect as Jesus.
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He sees you perfectly holy.
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It has to come from Jesus, and that's why Jesus said the world is convicted concerning righteousness.
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And then verse 11, concerning judgment.
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Concerning judgment, he says, concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.
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Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
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You don't wanna believe in Jesus.
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You don't wanna receive his forgiveness.
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You don't wanna receive his righteousness.
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The only thing you have to look forward to, if that's you, the only thing you have to look forward to is judgment and the lake of fire, according to God's word.
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Refusing Jesus means the only option you have for your future is God's judgment.
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You can't escape that.
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It's a done deal.
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Sentence has been passed.
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Judgment has already been established and fixed.
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And God's not going to change His mind.
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You're like, "Well, how can we be sure about that?" Because Jesus said the ruler of this world, Satan, is already judged.
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In other words, if the most powerful anti-God force of evil in the world already stands condemned, what option do you think you have?
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What hope do you think you have?
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What chance do you have to escape?
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The world is convicted concerning judgment.
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So Jesus said this is the content of the gospel message.
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The Holy Spirit convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.
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By the way, we saw this illustrated in Peter's Sermon at Pentecost.
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Like does this thing really work?
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This kind of preaching, does it really work?
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Remember Pentecost, Peter preached on sin, verse 23, this Jesus you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
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Then Peter preached about righteousness.
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Jesus vindicated at the right hand of God, verse 33, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God.
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Peter preached about judgment, God's enemy judged, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
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Does that kind of preaching really work?
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What, Pentecost, 3000 people got saved.
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Yeah, it works, it works.
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So this is part two of Jesus' strategy.
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Holy Spirit convicting the world.
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And some people respond by confessing their guilt and desperately crying out for the forgiveness and salvation that Jesus wants to give.
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Third part, God's authoritative word.
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By God's authoritative word.
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Okay, the strategy is, Holy Spirit filled people convicting the world like God's authoritative word.
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All of this stuff that we're talking about obviously comes from the word of God.
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And what we're going to see here as we close is Jesus promising the inspiration of the New Testament.
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Yes, the New Testament, look at verse 12.
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Jesus said, "I still have many things to say to you, "but you cannot bear them now." Jesus said, "I got so much more I gotta tell you." He says, "But you can't handle it." "Well, why not?" He says, "You're just so full of sorrow.
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Like you can't get out of your own heads right now.
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And I got all this other stuff I wanna tell you, but you can't hear it now." "Okay, Jesus, well, when are you gonna tell us the rest?" Well, look at verse 13.
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He says, "When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
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When the Holy Spirit comes, that's Acts chapter two, that's Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is going to guide them in truth, he says, and the New Testament, rather, is going to be written through them.
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That's what Jesus is talking about here.
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Like there's more to tell you, you can't hear it.
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Holy Spirit's gonna come and He's going to inspire the New Testament to be written and then you're gonna have everything that I want you to know.
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I just, I can't tell you now.
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Just, you're so full of sorrow.
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Jesus so often quoted the Old Testament affirming the authority here.
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He's affirming the authority of the New Testament.
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Like, well, what's the New Testament about?
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Last two verses.
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Last two verses.
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Like man, this was long and I'm like, man, I gave you a chance to leave.
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Verse 14, "He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you." All that the Father has is mine.
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Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
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He will glorify the Son.
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And that's everything in the New Testament, right?
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You realize the New Testament, like, it's all about Jesus.
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The Gospels are basically the biography of Jesus.
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And Acts, Acts talks about what Jesus does through the Holy Spirit in building the church that he promised.
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And the epistles are the explanation of the implications of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
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And Revelation is about the return of who?
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Jesus, yeah, it's all about Jesus.
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And that's what Jesus is saying here.
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The Holy Spirit's going to glorify me.
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with the stuff that he's going to tell you.
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It's all about Jesus.
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His glory revealed as His Holy Spirit indwells His people and convicts the world through the preaching of His inspired Word.
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That's Jesus' strategy.
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You're like, "Well, it seems a little archaic.
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He doesn't even have a fog machine in his strategy.
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And I would just say this, wherever this strategy has been implemented, it's worked.
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As the worship team comes forward and we close, I just want to ask you, what's your strategy for getting to heaven.
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Because everybody that I talk to is planning on being there. Yeah, once in a while I meet some knucklehead that's like, "Well, I'm going to hell and I don't care because all of my buddies are there." And they think they sound cool when they say it, but they have no idea how horrific the implications are of that statement. But most people deep down really feel like they're going to heaven, that there's some loophole, last minute escape clause, whatever, whatever.
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And for a lot of people, it's banking on being a good person.
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I'm good enough, I'm good enough.
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I try to do the right thing, and the good outweighs the bad.
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Surely, surely God won't let a good person like me into heaven.
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If that's you, I want you to look at God's word here today and see that Jesus said that's not how it works.
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Today, you can forsake your plan for getting to heaven that won't get you there.
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And you can embrace Jesus' plan that He promised would get you there.
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Because He is the plan.
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Today you need to believe that Jesus Christ died for you.
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You need to believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead to give you the promise of eternal life.
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You need to believe that.
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You need to receive His righteousness to say, "I know I'm not good enough, but You've promised to make me good enough by giving me your righteousness.
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And in doing so, you'll escape God's judgment.
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Sin, righteousness, judgment.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I know there are people sitting in this room.
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There are people that are watching this stream or will be watching this recording.
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And they don't know you.
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Maybe they're here because they like the people here, or they like the music here, or they like the kids program here, or maybe we're just entertaining or something.
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But deep down, they're still trusting their goodness to get them to heaven.
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They still think somehow they can live life on their terms and enter heaven by their terms.
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When you've told us it doesn't work that way.
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We were created by you for your glory, and we have been redeemed by you for your glory.
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And you have called us to abandon our lives and receive the life of Jesus Christ.
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So Father, I pray that if there's anyone here who doesn't know you, I pray that you not give them a moment's rest.
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I pray that they're not able to eat their lunch.
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I pray that they're not able to go to sleep.
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I pray that they are distracted by this truth until they get on their faces and cry out to You.
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Father, we just talked about Your strategy.
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Father, we're not employing any gimmicks here.
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I trust Your Word.
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I trust the power of Your Spirit.
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And God, I'm asking for your glory, that you would use your Word and your Spirit to draw the lost to you, so that your name would be praised.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 16:4-15
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
What's the craziest gimmick you've heard a church attempt in order to draw people in?
Explain how the content of the Gospel can be summed up in Jesus' three words: sin, righteousness, judgment (John 16:8-11).
Breakout
Pray for one another.