Introduction:
Two Things That Must Be Verified (John 19:31-42):
- Jesus' Death . (John 19:31-37)
See - Deuteronomy 21:22-23 | Psalm 69:20 | Psalm 34:20 | Zechariah 12:10
- Your Faith . (John 19:38-42)
See - Isaiah 53:9 | John 12:42-43
How to Verify Your Faith:
- Go Public with your faith. (John 19:38)
- Look for Growth over time. (John 19:39)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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01:06-01:08
Open up your Bibles to John 19.
01:11-01:20
And in this section of God's Word, in which we will be studying today, there's really one Word that you have to have down.
01:20-01:30
One Word that we are going to be discussing, because it is this one Word that is behind this entire passage that we're looking at.
01:30-01:34
And the Word is "verify." That's the Word of the day.
01:37-02:10
Verify is just simply proving that something is true. You know, you are presented with something that is said to be true and verifying is making sure that it actually is true. Right? And this whole verification thing, it's so much a a part of our lives that I think we don't realize how much of our lives is just spent verifying things.
02:13-02:14
I mean, think about it.
02:15-02:19
When you go to the bank, what do they always ask you for?
02:19-02:20
Can I see your driver's license?
02:20-02:25
I'm like, you know me, but you gotta send the driver's license up to shoot, right?
02:26-02:31
Or you go to the pharmacy And what's your date of birth?
02:32-02:33
Sometimes they ask me multiple times.
02:34-02:38
And I'm like, you know, you're like a good friend of a family member.
02:38-02:39
We know each other.
02:40-02:40
What's your date of birth?
02:40-02:42
You have to verify, right?
02:44-02:49
But one of the biggest and most often ways we have to verify is trying to get onto a website, right?
02:49-02:50
You know what I'm talking about?
02:51-02:52
Like, what's your password?
02:54-02:58
Oh, oh, I have like so many.
02:59-03:06
and then you're constantly changing and you're constantly changing the rules with numbers and symbols and uppercase and lowercase and I don't remember.
03:10-03:12
Or you try to get on a website, did you ever get this one?
03:12-03:15
It's like, we're texting you a verification code.
03:15-03:16
Did you ever get that one?
03:16-03:18
Like, yeah, now I'm gonna find my phone.
03:18-03:19
Like, come on.
03:22-03:28
Or my absolute favorite, verify that you are not a robot.
03:28-03:29
You know what I'm talking about?
03:31-03:34
And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll get you caught up here.
03:35-04:01
To get on some websites, they wanna verify that you're not a robot, which for some of us, that's still in question, but they show you an image, an extremely grainy, low-resolution image that was taken from space of a street, And it'll be like, "Click all the boxes "that have a crosswalk in them." You know what I'm talking about?
04:01-04:07
And you're sitting there like, "Oh, it looks like maybe the corner of the crosswalk "is in this box.
04:08-04:13
"Does this count?" And it's verification, right?
04:14-04:16
So much of our lives are verification.
04:16-04:19
Or take, for example, a vaccine passport.
04:21-04:23
Just moving on from that one.
04:25-04:29
One of my wife's jobs is, she's a notary.
04:30-04:33
And really that's what being a notary is all about.
04:33-04:38
Her job is to verify this signature belongs to this person.
04:38-04:40
It's a whole job of verification.
04:43-04:50
And the point to all of this is just simply this, important things need to be verified, right?
04:50-04:57
If something has a claim of being important, then we need to make sure that it's true.
04:57-05:00
Important things have to be verified.
05:01-05:04
And in this passage, we have two critical things that need verified.
05:06-05:10
One regarding Jesus, and the other regarding you.
05:11-05:22
Now on your outline, the heading says, if you're taking notes, it says, "Two things that must be verified." That's what we're looking at in the passage today.
05:22-05:24
Two things that must be verified.
05:24-05:27
absolutely has to be verified.
05:29-05:31
And the first one we'll see in the passage is Jesus' death.
05:35-05:40
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.
05:42-05:43
And the Word was God.
05:44-05:49
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
05:53-05:54
The Word died.
05:55-05:56
We killed the Word.
05:58-06:00
Because we didn't like what the Word was.
06:01-06:04
And we didn't agree with what the Word said.
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So we executed the Word.
06:11-06:20
And that's where we left off last week with Jesus crying out, "It is finished." Tetelestai, paid in full.
06:21-06:25
His work, the mission, payment for sin, it is finished.
06:26-06:46
Verse 31 says, "Since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away." Stop there.
06:47-06:48
Now it says it was a high day.
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What do you mean it was a high day?
06:50-07:01
Now, the day of preparation before Sabbath was always kind of a high day, but this particular week, the day of preparation was also during Passover, so it was a really important day.
07:02-07:04
I mean, Sabbath happened weekly, which was important enough.
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Passover was once a year, so this is a once in a year event.
07:09-07:10
This was an extremely high day.
07:11-07:13
Okay, a holy day.
07:16-07:24
So the Jews, as a result, your Bible says they wanted the bodies off of the crosses so that it wouldn't defile the Sabbath.
07:24-07:32
You're like, "Well, what's that about?" Remember back in Deuteronomy 21, we've talked about this verse at least once or twice in the past few weeks.
07:32-07:44
It says, "If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree," which is essentially what Jesus, the position he was in on the cross, right?
07:45-07:50
"His body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day.
07:51-07:53
For a hanged man is cursed by God.
07:54-07:59
You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance." Did you see that?
07:59-08:07
So under Old Testament law, you don't leave an executed criminal hanging because it brings defilement.
08:07-08:14
So the Jews were like, "This is like one of the holiest times of the year, so we can't You can't leave these bodies on the cross.
08:17-08:19
What's with breaking the legs?
08:19-08:20
Did you see that?
08:20-08:23
So the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken.
08:23-08:24
What's with that?
08:25-08:30
Well, crucifixion deaths usually occurred by asphyxiation.
08:30-08:37
The position that the body was hanging on the cross, the person literally suffocated.
08:37-08:40
They were unable to breathe hanging in that position.
08:41-08:53
And the only little bit of relief they got, as horrifying as it is to think about, was to push up a little bit on legs that were nailed to the cross.
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To push up a little bit, just enough to try to get air.
09:01-09:06
But when they wanted to accelerate death, you see these soldiers had this giant mallet.
09:08-09:11
This is horrific, but this is how it is, church.
09:11-09:18
And they would come along and they'd take that mallet, and they would break the femurs of the person on the cross.
09:20-09:27
So that, if your femurs were broken, you were completely unable physically to push up, and you would suffocate much quicker.
09:30-09:31
That's horrible.
09:34-09:46
And just as horrible as that is when we try to think about the fact that the Jews, in order to not defile the Sabbath and the Passover, requested this.
09:47-09:49
I mean, could you imagine the scene?
09:49-09:53
Like, hey, would you mind smashing their femurs so they die a little quicker?
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Because we don't want to defile the land.
09:57-09:57
What?
10:00-10:02
Gone, man. You're gone.
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Look at verse 32.
10:07-10:19
It says, "So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him.
10:19-10:26
But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
10:27-10:34
But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, And at once there came out blood and water.
10:37-10:39
He who saw it is born witness.
10:39-10:41
His testimony is true.
10:41-10:53
And he knows that he is telling the truth, that you also may believe." What's the point in these verses?
10:53-10:54
What's the point?
10:57-10:58
The point is simply this.
10:58-11:02
John wants you to know that Jesus was really dead.
11:03-11:03
That's the point.
11:05-11:22
You're like, "Why?" Well, understand, and I've been doing some reading of church history through the centuries this past week, and in the early days of the church, the theory was, there were a couple of prevailing theories.
11:24-11:27
One was that Jesus wasn't actually human.
11:28-11:34
He was God and sort of had the appearance of a man, but He wasn't actually a human being.
11:35-11:48
So there were people that were like, "Well, He didn't actually die." Because it was just like, "He's divine. He wasn't human." And this is to refute that.
11:48-11:52
But there was another theory too, more of a secular theory regarding Jesus.
11:54-11:58
regarding his resurrection in particular, maybe you've heard of the swoon theory.
11:59-12:05
But the theory was that when Jesus was crucified, he didn't actually die on the cross.
12:05-12:06
He just fell unconscious.
12:07-12:12
And they took him down off the cross and they put him in the tomb.
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And it sounds so stupid saying it out loud, but this is what it is.
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You can look it up.
12:18-12:22
But the cool air of the tomb revived him.
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Which is amazing.
12:26-12:27
You know what else is amazing?
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Is that Jesus who was just beaten half to death and crucified, revived by the cool air, went to his disciples, a bloody mess, and convinced them that he defeated death.
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I ain't buying that.
12:43-12:45
But that was one of the theories.
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He didn't really die.
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He didn't really die.
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And that's what John is saying here.
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He goes, "Look, I was there and he was absolutely dead.
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I saw it, I was right there." And he's almost like swearing by that, like I'm testifying here.
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Put me on the stand, I was a witness.
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The man was dead, I saw it, there's no doubt.
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And it says that the soldiers stabbed him with a spear.
13:19-13:20
Like, why did they do that?
13:20-13:22
You know, the text doesn't say why they did that.
13:23-13:26
Was it to verify his death?
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I don't know.
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Maybe they were just being cruel.
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I don't know what the motive was, but I do know what the result was.
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The Bible says that blood and water came out.
13:41-13:46
You're like, "Well, how does that happen?" That actually comes from a ruptured heart.
13:48-13:54
Now we know last week, that was the sermon, you can go back and listen, but Jesus willingly gave up His spirit.
13:54-13:58
So if you're like, "How did Jesus die?" He gave up His spirit.
13:58-14:00
He chose to lay down His life, right?
14:00-14:02
He had the authority, John 10, to lay His life down.
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He has the authority to take it up.
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So Jesus died by His own choice of laying His life down.
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But if you're some medical person here, I know we have some medical people here, you're like, "Well, what's the physical cause of death?" He died from a ruptured heart.
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And that actually ties into prophecy.
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Psalm 69 is a very messianic psalm.
14:29-14:37
In Psalm 69, verse 20, look at this, it says, "Reproaches have broken my heart." And I'm not going to get into all the...
14:37-14:52
I've done a lot of studying this past week regarding the physical causes of death and what's causing these things to take place that we see here in the text, and if you'd like to hear more about it, we can talk about it over Starbucks or something.
14:53-15:00
But it seems to me that Jesus' physical cause of death was literally a broken heart.
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Bearing God's wrath for our sin, being rejected by His Father in that moment as He embodied sin.
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Apparently His heart ruptured Because when someone dies in that manner, obviously their circulation stops, yes.
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But what happens is the blood separates the clear serum from the thick red crassamentum.
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And both of those came pouring out.
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Now I know we read this passage, and immediately our minds want to jump the symbolism, right?
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That's gotta be symbolism, water and blood, it's gotta be symbolism.
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And I've read a lot of stuff this past week.
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Some people say, well, the water and blood coming out, obviously that's baptism and communion.
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Is it?
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Some people say, well, it's a picture of cleansing, you know, Old Testament cleansing with blood, cleansing with water, and some people say, well, water and blood are symbols of life, right?
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And look, all that stuff is true.
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And I'm not denying any of that, but I'm just saying this, the text doesn't go there.
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If you just look at the text straightforwardly, it just seems that John is just verifying Jesus' death.
16:29-16:38
Like, look, I was standing there, and not only was he dead, but they stabbed him with a spear and I saw the blood in the water come out.
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Like, listen, people, he was actually dead in that moment.
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I am sure of that.
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And there's another thing that John wants to make absolutely clear.
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Is that every single thing that was happening to Jesus was prophesied of the Messiah in the Old Testament.
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And this passage is just so, I mean, this whole stretch, right?
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We've already seen, just like prophesied in the Old Testament, the sacrifices to be taken outside the city, right?
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He was numbered with the transgressors, Isaiah 53.
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They cast lost for his clothes, Psalm 22.
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He was thirsty, Psalm 69.
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So many prophecies fulfilled, but there's two more here.
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Look at verse 36.
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John says, "For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled.
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Not one of his bones will be broken." Another prophecy fulfilled, Psalm 34, 20.
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That's sort of a general reference.
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He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.
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That's fulfilled.
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I also think it's a layer deeper because we've talked about Jesus being the Passover lamb.
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God was so clear in the Old Testament, Exodus 12, 46, Numbers 9, 12.
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When you take the Passover lamb, not one of its bones should be broken.
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God was adamant about that.
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Do not break any of the bones.
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Do not select a lamb that has a broken bone.
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Not one of its bones can be broken.
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Like, why is that?
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because Jesus Christ needed to fulfill this prophecy, because He is the true Passover lamb.
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So that's fulfilled, look at verse 37.
18:20-18:30
John says in another scripture, again, another scripture says, "They will look on Him whom they have pierced." That comes from Zechariah 12.10.
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But the Lord says, "When they look on Me, "on Him whom they have pierced." It comes up again in Revelation.
18:42-18:43
And again, it's astounding.
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We could spend so much time talking about how astounding this is.
18:47-18:59
But how could a crucified Jesus Christ, how could somebody who died of crucifixion fulfill a prophecy about being pierced too?
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How could that happen?
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That seems like a long shot, doesn't it?
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It happened exactly as God promised it would.
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And you're like, "Okay, gotcha.
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We're verifying that Jesus is dead.
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Gotcha, Jeff.
19:16-19:22
So he's dead." I mean, why is John at this point so adamant about making that clear?
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Why is he so adamant about that besides the fulfillment of prophecy, which is a huge thing?
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Jesus actually physically dying makes all the difference.
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Because the Bible says the wages of sin is what?
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It's death.
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Death is what we owe.
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We don't owe God a beating or merely just bloodshed.
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Death is the price that must be paid.
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And church, if Jesus didn't literally die, then your sins aren't literally forgiven.
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And you sit here still literally condemned.
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Because if Jesus didn't literally die, guess what?
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He didn't literally resurrect.
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And if you're buying into that cool air in the tomb garbage swoon theory stupidity, then you put your faith in a liar and a charlatan.
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If Jesus didn't literally die and resurrect.
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He had to die.
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for the work to truly be finished.
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To truly be the spotless Passover lamb.
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He had to literally die.
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And because this is such an important point of doctrine, it's something that had to be verified.
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The first thing is Jesus' death must be verified.
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Second thing must be verified.
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Not only Jesus' death, But here's something else super important to be verified, it's your faith.
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It's your faith.
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So with that, the part that John wrote, we have confirmation, we have verification, Jesus is dead.
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Now what?
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Now what?
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He's dead.
21:26-21:46
Well stepping up, our two, shall we call them secret disciples, Luke 38, it says, "After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus.
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And Pilate gave him permission.
21:50-21:57
So he came and took away his body." Okay, Joseph of Arimathea, he shows up in all the Gospels.
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He's a very wealthy member of the Sanhedrin, and he went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body.
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This also is very significant, because normally, do you know what happened with crucified people?
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When they were taken down from the cross, do you know what they did with the body?
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They threw it on the side of the road.
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To let the birds eat at them.
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Or, they threw the body in Gehenna.
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That was the constantly burning garbage dump.
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Because you see, for Rome, that was their way of saying, "Look, this is what happens when you cross us.
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You saw us kill them, you see the body, don't mess with Rome." And for the Jews, they weren't interested in burying somebody that they considered a blasphemer.
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So, they're not wanting anything to do with this.
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Look at verse 39.
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It says, "Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds in weight." Nicodemus, we already saw him twice in John.
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He was a Pharisee.
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And Jesus himself actually called Nicodemus a teacher of Israel.
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He was also wealthy Because 75 pounds of spices would have been a lot of money.
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Look at verse 40.
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It says, "So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.
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Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid.
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So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
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Stop there.
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But you have to see that this brings another incredible fulfillment to God's Word.
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Isaiah 53.9 says, "And they made His..." This is the huge messianic chapter of Isaiah.
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It says, "And they made His grave with the wicked, and with a rich man and his death." Isn't that an amazing prophecy?
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His grave would be assigned with the wicked.
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Jesus died with two robbers.
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But at the same time, He would be with a rich person in His death.
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How in the world could something like that be fulfilled?
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I mean, none of the apostles were rich.
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Jesus didn't have any rich family members that we knew of.
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Enter Joseph of Arimathea.
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And he, very rich and very generous, provided Jesus a new tomb.
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And that is hugely important, because now everybody knows exactly where Jesus is buried.
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Spoiler alert, that's going to be a huge plot point here next week.
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Alright?
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But it was a new tomb.
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I do a lot of reading.
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Some of the books that I read have some antiquated language.
25:24-25:33
And the one book I read this week, this commentator, he indicated that Jesus being laid in a new tomb meant that the tomb had no other occupant.
25:34-25:39
And I don't know why I thought that the wording of that, it just kind of struck me as funny.
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No other occupant.
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Like there's a vacancy sign above it or something.
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I don't know why the wording struck me funny, but I guess, honestly though, kidding aside, I guess that's an important thing to note.
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Because if, if, if Jesus was buried in a tomb with someone else, and there was a resurrection from the tomb, you know for sure some skeptic would come along and say, "Well, that might not have been Jesus.
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I mean, that might have been Carl for all we know.
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But it's a point made.
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He was in a tomb, a new tomb, no other occupant.
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I like how another commentator put it.
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He said, "Jesus' life went from virgin womb "to virgin tomb." And that's certainly one way to put it, isn't it?
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But for a few minutes I just want to look closer at these two men.
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Because you're going to see something very significant, if you're willing to slow down for a second.
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Because on the surface they seem like side characters, right?
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They sort of come on and, "Okay, okay, so these two guys showed up and they buried Jesus, what's the big deal?" This is a really big deal.
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Because here were two men who were afraid to confess Jesus during his life.
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But interestingly, they acknowledged that they belonged to him when he died.
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I mean think about that.
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John was there, we know that.
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dead at this point, committed suicide. But Jesus had ten other men who followed him his entire ministry. And where were they? They ran, they were hiding. And when Jesus actually died, who showed up to take care of his body?
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It was the secret disciples.
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It was the people that had what we would say was weak faith.
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Stepping up were two men, it says, because of fear of the Jews.
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Kept their faith pretty private.
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And I've got to tell you, church, we can be awfully hard on those people in our churches.
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Shame on us for that.
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We can be awfully hard and critical and judgmental of people that have weak faith.
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Because it's easy to write off people like this.
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Do you remember, I'm sure you do, back in John chapter 12.
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I came across these verses here.
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Gonna do a quick callback.
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It says, "Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, believed in Jesus, but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God." And if you remember back at the time, we did a poll.
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We voted on this and we all decided we're gonna go with whatever Rich Brunk says, right?
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You remember that?
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The question was this, were these people true believers?
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Because you can make a point either way.
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But just the fact that we had to stop as a church and evaluate whether or not we think they're believers.
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But then at the end of the day, we're like, well, it looks from the Greek wording like they were believers.
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But shame on them, shame on them, because they wouldn't confess it and they cared more about what man thinks and what God thinks, and that's not a good thing, but man, we are ready to write them off.
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How could they be such wimps?
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Me, I'd stand for Jesus, I don't care what it costs me.
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I wouldn't be pathetic like those people.
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And I'm not excusing cowardice at all.
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We've talked about that, right?
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We spent a whole year talking about not fearing.
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Not excusing that at all, but I'm just simply saying this.
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When you get to John 19 and Jesus is dead and there's his body, who showed up?
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Who showed up?
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So church, I think we need to be a little more patient.
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And I think we need to be a little more gracious and I think we need to be a little more encouraging.
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Not content with leaving people in that state.
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Obviously, you don't want somebody living their Christian life in fear and afraid to go public, but instead of casting them out, we should be helping them out.
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But as I close here, I want to address those of you who are sitting here, or those of you that might be watching the stream, I want to address those of you that maybe you feel like a secret disciple right now.
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By your own admission, you would say, "Yeah, you know what? I believe, but I'm going to be honest with you.
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I don't have the strongest faith, Jeff. I really don't.
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I believe, but gosh, sometimes I wonder, you know?
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Because I look at strong Christians in the church, and I'm not like them, and oh gosh, I don't know a lot, and if I..." And you know, sometimes people come to me, because of my position, and they're like, "Pastor Jeff, sometimes I wonder where I am with God.
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Pastor Jeff, sometimes I wonder if I'm really a Christian." And they come to me with that, as if I have magic preacher glasses that I can put on and stare straight into your heart.
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Like, "Oh, I've got good news for you. It's washed.
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And I don't have such glasses.
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And I don't know where your heart is." tricky thing biblically is sometimes you don't even know where your own heart is, right? But as I close here I just want to take a couple of lessons that we learn from these two men about how faith gets verified. Because back in chapter 12 I think we would have, is it fair to say, we would have had a lot more doubt about their faith than we do in chapter 19, right? And nobody knows anybody else's faith, right? But wouldn't you say we have a lot less reason to doubt now seeing this? I just want to take a couple principles from their lives. How to verify your faith. Letter A. How to verify your faith. If you're, and again I'm talking to the secret disciple, that I'm not going public with it. That's letter A, go public with your faith.
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That's taking the page out of Joseph of Arimathea's book. Because admittedly, according to God's word, he was a coward when he was alive. He was afraid of the Jews. What are people going to say? What's going to happen? Am I going to lose my job in the synagogue? Am I going to be booted? Are people gonna not respect me anymore?" He was afraid of what people thought. He was a coward when Jesus was alive. But something changed in that man's life because what he does in this passage is extremely gutsy. To go to the governor who just executed an innocent Jew and say, "Hey, I want his "Would you give us the body of Jesus?" Like, that is a gutsy thing that he did.
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And please hear me.
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This is the part of the sermon that gets misinterpreted.
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I am not saying that everyone who professes Jesus knows Jesus.
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I am not saying that.
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I'm speaking specifically to that secret disciple who has the weak faith.
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I'm speaking specifically to that person.
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So if that shoe fits, you wear this.
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Listen to me.
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The day is going to come when you've got to make a choice.
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The day is going to come in your life that you have to step out of the shadows.
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The day is going to come when you have to draw a line in the sand.
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And the day is going to come when you say, there's no more secret following Jesus.
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That day is going to come for you.
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And you've got to make a choice.
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It came for Joseph, right?
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He's like, I'm done being secret disciple.
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I want his body.
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Like you belong to Jesus, give me his body.
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And I'm telling you secret disciple, that day is going to come for you.
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And you might be like, well, how do I do that, Jeff?
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I mean, obviously I am unable to emulate the kind of thing that Joseph did, so how can I go public with my faith?
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Do you know that God gave us a way to do that?
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And it's called baptism.
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So maybe for the person here with the weak faith that feels like they've been the secret behind the scenes, nobody outside of here really even knows I go to church because I'm sort of the secret.
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Maybe you need to be baptized.
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Maybe to verify your faith, like Joseph of Arimathea, it's time to step up and go public and say, "Look, I have kept us a secret, but guess what?
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"I'm not ashamed of Jesus "because he wasn't ashamed of me.
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"I believe that he died on the cross for my sins.
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"I believe that he rose from the dead "to give me eternal life.
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"I believe that he's coming back to take me to heaven.
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"I belong to him, he belongs to me, "and I want the world to know it.
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I'm stepping up right now.
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And if that's you, contact me ASAP.
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We have periodic baptism services, and we'll get you signed up for the next one.
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But maybe you need to go public and verify your faith, like Joseph.
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And finally, how to verify your faith, and this is really the big one, in my opinion.
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You've got to look for growth over time.
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You've got to look for growth over time, like Nicodemus, right?
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I mentioned this is the third time Nicodemus showed up.
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The first time Nicodemus showed up was in chapter 3.
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Remember, he came to Jesus by night, didn't anybody know?
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Like, "I'm curious about who this guy is, but I can't let my buddies know that I'm here." So he kind of came to Jesus by night, and that's when Jesus said, "You must be born again, and then for God so loved the world." Remember that? John chapter 3?
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That was the first time Nicodemus showed up.
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He shows up again in what is it, chapter seven?
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Is that what I wrote down?
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Yeah, chapter seven.
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If you look at chapter seven, the Pharisees got together talking about Jesus and they're ready to condemn him completely.
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And Nicodemus spoke up and he says, guys, does our law condemn a person without hearing him out?
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Like, wow, he went from secret meeting with Jesus to standing up for Jesus in a general way before his peers.
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And you get to chapter 19 and Nicodemus shows up bringing a very expensive amount of spices to bury Jesus.
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Do you know what that tells me?
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Following Nicodemus' accounts in John, You know what that tells me?
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It tells me his faith was growing.
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Very slowly, over time.
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But he was growing.
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That's the thing, right? Coming to Christ isn't about joining a church or checking a membership box or subscribing to a philosophy. Jesus Christ changes people.
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He changes people.
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That's what he does.
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He transforms people.
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And change is both a moment and a process at the same time.
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And the clearest way to know that you're born again to verify your faith is to just simply ask yourself, am I growing?
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Am I growing?
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A couple of years ago, we wanted to put some trees in our backyard and we ordered these trees online.
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Insert commercial for never ordering trees online.
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We ordered these trees online and we got these, well, I'm thinking a tree, I'm thinking a tree, right?
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You know a tree, have you seen a tree?
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Yeah, there's a tree, yeah.
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We got three sticks in the mail.
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They were about this long and they had a little tag on them.
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And I'm like, look, I'm no, what do you call those people, Dan, those botanists, is that arborist?
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Oh yeah, I'm not a tree guy.
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But I'm like, well, you just stick it in the ground and water it, right?
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Little miracle grow, a little water.
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And I'm like, "Come on, Aaron, we'll have an orchard here in six weeks." You know what we had in six weeks?
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We had three three-foot sticks sticking out of the ground.
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They never got taller.
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They never grew any leaves.
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Do you know what that told me about those trees?
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They weren't living.
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They weren't living.
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But if you have true faith, even if you have what you would admit to being weak faith, you should see progress over time.
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You should be able to say, "Hey, you know what?
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I got so much room to grow, I know that, but I'm going to tell you what, I'm not the same guy that I was a year ago.
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And I'll tell you what, if I'm being really honest, I'm not even the same guy I was a month ago.
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And I know I got a long way to go, but wow, by the grace of God, look at how far I've come.
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And I want to encourage you to let that be the thing that verifies your faith.
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Like Nicodemus, keep after it.
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Keep after it.
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If that's you, keep after it.
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Get your face in God's word.
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Read and try to understand what you can, praying to him, asking for help.
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Get on your face and cry out to him and talk to him like your heavenly father.
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Get involved in your small group.
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Be surrounded by people who are going to love you and are going to encourage you, and especially, hopefully, after this message, will not criticize you because you're not saying things the way they want you to say them, and maybe you should be further along at this point than you are.
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Be surrounded by people that are going to encourage you and push you to Jesus.
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But look for growth over time.
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So Jesus' death, verified.
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But as for your faith and as for my faith, let it be verified.
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Like Joseph, like Nicodemus, Let it be verified by the way that we live.
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Amen?
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Amen. Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, what an incredible encouragement it is when we read Your Word and we see that there's people in Your Word that are just like us.
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Sincere and weak, and believing but sometimes cowardly, but growing and changing Because we belong to You.
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Father, I want to pray for us as a church.
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When we are tempted to be critical or condemning, instead we would be asking how we could come alongside.
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But Father, I want to pray for the person here, whether they're sitting here, whether they're watching this, wherever they may be, that maybe they feel like that secret disciple that nobody knows.
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I pray Father that you would, whatever you did in Joseph's life, do that in their life.
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That they would step up.
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And Father, in the days that they're discouraged, I pray that they're able to look back and see the way they're growing over time.
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We thank you Father, not just for these things, but for all of the ways that your word gives us, that we might verify our faith.
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Most of all today, Father, we thank you for the Passover lamb who laid down his life, fulfilling every prophecy, demonstrating a love that was completely unwilling to stop short of anything, so that we might have peace with you.
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Thank You, Father, for Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb.
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It's in His glorious and incomparable name that we pray.
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Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 19:31-42
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why is it important that Jesus' death was verified (John 19:35)? What are the implications in the truth that Jesus literally died?
What do you think prompted Joseph and Nicodemus to step up at this point (John 19:38-40)? In other words: why do you think it was here that they decided to stop being “secret disciples”? What kind of event(s) could happen today that might encourage a “secret disciple” to go public with their faith?
Breakout
Pray for one another.