All right.
So, uh, last week, week we had a call really to a revival and that's
a revival to the cause of Jesus.
And so there are many causes in the world, but we are called as Christians to the
cause of Jesus to be deeply committed.
To be willing to defend, to be willing to advocate, to live,
promote and die for Christ.
And so that's the eternal cause that you and I are a part of.
Any particular in our context here in 2023 in Orange County.
We have within this course to know, follow and show the real Jesus for us to know
him, for us to be able to follow him, and then to show him in our life and in
our promotion again of Jesus the Christ.
And so we talked about a prayer last week, and so I wanted to remind us
that the prayer for last week was to pray, and hopefully you did.
If not, you can still add this to your prayer list.
This week is to pray for all of us to know the real Jesus to follow.
The real Jesus.
And to show the real Jesus to our friends, family members, coworkers,
classmates, and those around us.
And so we said, this is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna go ahead and we're going to study out for the beginning of the
year for the first quarter, Jesus.
And so our, our new sermon series is the Real Jesus.
And so we're trying to search for it.
We're trying to discover the real Jesus.
And so that's what we're gonna be looking at for the next, uh,
maybe eight or so weeks here.
And so we're gonna look at what was Jesus really like?
What does it mean to follow?
The Jesus of Nazareth.
What does it mean in our context today?
And so I sent out, actually, uh, those are on the church app.
If you look, maybe you got the notification a couple of minutes
ago, but actually there's a handout, if you will, in which we have about
our series in the book of Luke.
And so Alan right here, so you can raise your hand if you want
a hard copy, cuz Alan will, will go ahead and give you that.
And so it just kind of breaks down a little bit of our
series in the study of Luke.
We're gonna study out the book of Luke.
And Luke was a, uh, doctor who became a follower of Jesus and really became
kind of historian, uh, of Jesus.
And, and, and, and so he wrote this documentary, not documentary here, if
you will, but kind of like a biography.
And so we have some information about that and you can follow along in the app.
Just go to, uh, notifications, click on North oc and it should be there.
Or actually, I don't even think you have to click on North oc,
just go ahead and click on there.
What'd you say?
Newsfeed.
There you go, right on the newsfeed.
You can go over there and this will help you for yourself and also help
you throughout the time here in which we'll be studying out the book of Luke.
And I wanna encourage you as well to join us.
I know many of us, we have a lot of Bible studies we're doing on our own,
but I wanna encourage you to also walk through the Book of Luke as well
with us as a congregation so that we can all come to know the real Jesus.
And so again, if you want to, uh uh, uh, there's many resources that I put
in on the sheet there, some books to read as well, or you can follow along
with some commentaries, a lot of great commentaries out there, some not so great.
But if you even want some, uh, suggestions on some commentaries to walk through it,
I can go ahead and give you that as well.
So again, we're gonna be looking at some observations about Jesus and what
it means to follow the real Jesus.
Now I wanna say this real quickly and I'm probably gonna offend a
number of you and that's okay.
Jesus did.
Sorry, Jesus did offend it.
We'll see that here in a second here, but I wanna share something
real quickly and you know, it's, yeah, it's been something, man.
I'm actually grateful that I had this opportunity to share this.
I wanna share this real quickly here.
Is that this, I'm not sure what happened there and, and, and the formatting there.
These are quote unquote images of Jesus.
You're familiar with these, aren't you?
Yeah.
You've seen probably most of these, the one in the, in the bottom right.
That's the newest one that's come out in which they've tried to do some scientific
research that said, here's kind of what we think Jesus might look like.
Here's a little shocker for all of us.
That's not the real Jesus.
Even those pictures don't even match.
You guys get what I'm saying here, right?
And so those aren't the pictures of the real Jesus.
Now what happened is after years when people first started drawing
pictures of Jesus, they were really just trying to capture like what
he was doing and what he was like.
But in as years went by, people started to create an image of Jesus.
And a lot of times in their particular culture, they would
have a different form of Jesus.
So here you have many different cultures, all having a picture of Jesus.
So which one is He?
Guess what He, none of those.
We don't know exactly what Jesus looked like, and that's okay,
but this isn't the real Jesus.
And I look, let, let's do this here cuz I think this is important here.
And again, if you wanna use those images, amen.
But let me do this here.
My, my, my good friend, uh, here.
Here's my good friend.
We all know the campus minister, right?
Uh, Kyle Lsk, right?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
So here's a picture of Kyle Landsbury.
Now Jasmine's like, that's not my husband.
But what if we said from here on out, every time we, we showed a
picture of Kyle Lansbury, the campus minister, we showed that picture.
Now I'm sure some might be like, well that's an upgrade for Kyle.
But Jasmine would say, don't you dare, but that's not Kyle.
But hey, there's similar features, both tall Caucasian guys.
At least he looks tall to me,
And you go, what?
So we have to ask the question, but then we said, well wait, but this is Kyle.
So which was the real Kyle?
Actually that guy on the left, right?
My left that actually, his name is Kyle Landsbury.
. So hopefully I don't get sued or anything like that, cuz that really
is a Kyle Landsbury found online.
Okay.
All right.
But for us, we know that's not the Kyle Landsbury, we know, right?
And so think about this, if for years all your family had pictures of you throughout
your generations and it wasn't a picture of you, how would that make you feel?
I just want to give some food for thought here as we talk about the real Jesus.
You know what I'm saying?
And again, some of you might be offended.
You want to throw your stones?
That's okay.
No, I love those pictures of Jesus.
Amen.
But I just wanna says we're going to study out as we're gonna
discover, as we're gonna attempt to follow and show the real Jesus.
Let's make sure we know who the real Jesus is, and let's make sure
we don't settle for counterfeits.
Let's go ahead and pray.
I need to pray.
Father, I thank you so much for the scriptures.
I thank you so much for Jesus.
God, I know I've been so inspired over the last couple months, but even
this week, just studying out Jesus, I'm so excited again to dive deeper
into Jesus, to understand who he is, his divinity, but yet his humanity.
God, it is so inspiring.
It is so awe, uh, uh, it it keeps me in awe.
Father, as I, as I look, and I, I just wish sometimes I was like,
I wish I would've been there.
To hear those words, I wish I would've been there to see, but God, I'm
grateful to be on this side of the cross, God, knowing that we have your
Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to come in contact with the real Jesus
so that we can follow and show him.
I pray right now, God, that your word may be spoken.
May your word be spoken.
We pray in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
I want you to do this here.
What with a personal to your right or left, uh, share.
What's one word that you would use, uh, as an to describe Jesus?
So some type of attribute that you either appreciate.
Just one.
Okay.
Just go ahead right now with a person next to you.
One word about Jesus.
Okay.
All right.
It was just one word.
Okay.
Here we go.
All right, let's get a couple hands here.
I want to hear what's, what's the one word that you used?
All right.
What's the one word that you used?
Okay, we'll go both Alexanders.
Yes.
Powerful.
Secure.
Influencer.
Come on, man.
There you go.
Look at you.
All right.
Loving.
Honest.
Okay.
Yes.
Faithful.
Faithful, forgive, forgiving servant servants.
Okay.
Up top.
Obedience.
Okay.
All right.
So a lot of good words.
And so I want us to do this, and we're gonna study out the book of Luke, but
I want us go to the end, and then we're gonna come back toward the beginning.
All right?
So let's go on over to Luke chapter 24.
We're gonna start off here in, uh, actually, verse 13.
It says, now, That same day.
Now, Jesus had died.
He had resurrected and he appeared to the women who came, but he had not
yet appeared to his male disciples.
And so here we go.
It says now that same day, two of them were going to a village called May,
said about seven miles from Jerusalem.
They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.
As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself
came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing them.
He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along?
They stood still.
Their face is downcast.
One of them named Cleopas asked them, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem
who does not know the things that have happened there in these things?
What things he asked?
You know, I think the real Jesus had a sense of humor.
He's over here playing around like, Hey, Y yeah, what y'all doing?
Uhhuh, . Hey, what?
What?
What happened to Jerusalem?
I don't really know what you tell me.
You know what I'm saying?
So the real Jesus, he was fun to hang out with.
Amen.
Alright, so we continue and it says here, and uh, there we go.
Alright, Eric, about Jesus from Nazareth, they reply.
He was a prophet, powerful and word indeed before God.
And all the people interesting as two of his followers, tell me about this Jesus.
And the first thing they said is what?
Gene said, powerful.
Now, the very first thing you think of when you're describing a friend is
the very first thing that you think.
That's the attribute that comes to mind.
Correct.
You think of your mom, your father, your best friend, your teacher.
That first word is the word that's predominantly the the the
uh, uh, your recounting of who they are and their character.
And the very first thing they say, this man was powerful.
In word indeed.
So I want us to look at that today.
And so we see here that the real Jesus is powerful.
The real Jesus is powerful.
And in fact, this connection between Jesus and power is at least nine times
just in the Gospel of Luke alone.
And so we could see here some of the times here in which, uh, Luke mentions
that power in Jesus were connected.
And we looked at one of 'em already, and we're gonna look
at two of them some more here.
But we see this was a theme throughout.
As Luke went around, as he heard the eyewitnesses account, it kept coming back
to this idea of what Jesus being powerful.
And so let's go on over.
To Luke chapter four.
And so let's do a quick recap here.
This is a real, a simple summary.
We're gonna go into Luke chapter four here, but in Luke chapter
one, Jesus' birth is foretold.
Luke chapter two, Jesus is born.
And in Luke chapter three, Jesus' bathroom, there's more stuff that took
place, but you gotta read on your own.
But that's the point about Jesus.
Now we get to Luke chapter four, and this is where it starts to pick up.
We've been picking up steam and it starts to get into action now.
Now this is one of the most rich passages about Jesus.
His life is character in his ministry because we see the real Jesus being
revealed in Luke chapter four, the fulfillment of the Promised Messiah, and
then the words and actions that show it.
And so we take it up in Luke chapter four in verse one.
Brother and sisters, are you with me this morning?
Yes, sir.
Luke, chapter four, verse one.
It says, Jesus, after he was baptized, Jesus full of the Holy Spirit left
the Jordan that was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for 40
days he was tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them, he was hungry.
The devil said to him, if you are the son of God, tell this stone to become bread.
Jesus answered.
It is written, man shall not live on bread alone.
We'll stop right there.
You know what it says?
He was tempted for 40 days.
Many of us, I know.
I first read it, I, I used to always think, oh, he had just
been in the wilderness for 40 days and then he was tempted.
No, he had been undergoing temptations for 40 days, and now we're gonna rev up
to some major temptations here by Satan.
And let me ask you, this is resisting temptation easy?
No.
Every single one of us say no.
Right.
Whether it's man, we're, we're, we're tempted to eat something we shouldn't eat.
We're tempted to look at something we shouldn't look at.
We're tempted to gossip, whatever the case may be.
It's a lot easier said than done, isn't it?
And so even the ability to resist temptation for 40 days from the tempt
himself reveals what, how powerful he was.
Because again, it takes strength to be able to resist.
And sometimes we can resist on day one, can't we?
We can resist on day two maybe.
But day three, four and five boys starts to getting tougher and tougher.
Many of us.
We decided we're gonna go ahead and get in shape this year.
And we're like, uh, it hasn't gone so well recently.
Right?
Why?
Cuz the temptation to give in to how you feel has started to win.
You guys get what I'm saying?
And so for Jesus to persevere, Shows again what why they would remember him is what?
Powerful in word.
Indeed.
And then he goes on, we won't have time to read it, but he resisted temptation
to go ahead, or even in this case, to eat after he's been fasting for 40 days.
Jesus is hungry and they got some meals for 'em.
And what does he say?
No, no, I'm not gonna eat that meal right there, boy.
Oh boy, I don't know about you, but that, that, I'm sure that was,
that was self denial right there.
But then he goes and he resists the temptation to take control and
not trust God's timing and plan.
You ever struggle with that?
You ever want to take control?
You ever want to circumvent and undercut God's timing in God's.
But Jesus resists that temptation.
He resisted temptation of pride and things of this world.
And we take it on over to verse 14.
We're gonna look at Luke chapter four.
We're not gonna be able to hit on every single part, but we're
gonna try to get as much as we can.
So in Luke chapter four, verse 14, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power
of the Spirit and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside.
He was teaching in their synagogues.
Uh, yes.
He was teaching in their synagogues and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth where he had been brought up.
And on the Sabbath, he went into the synagogue as was his custom.
Did you catch that?
The synagogues When on Saturdays, on the Saturday, that's when the Jewish
people came together to worship God and said Jesus went as was His what?
So did Jesus go to church service?
Yeah, he sure did.
So should you and I, if we're gonna follow real Jesus, should
we be at the church service?
Amen.
I'm glad you're here.
All right.
Let's continue reading.
He stood up to read and then scrolled from the prophet.
Isaiah was handed to him, unrolling it.
He found a place where it has written a spirit of the Lord is on
me because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor.
He has sent me to reclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery,
recovery of sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free to
proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.
The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fasting on him.
He began by saying to them, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
This was Jesus announcement to the world.
Hey, guess what?
Something big's going on right now.
You don't understand, but something is happening in your midst, and those who are
able to catch, were like, wait a second.
This is this.
This is, this is just, this is in our regular Sabbath teaching right now.
. And so Jesus point, and he says, guys, you know, there's prophecies.
You know, we, every week we look at a prophecy and, and we look at one
of the prophets and he goes, this one right here is bean fulfilled.
That's a bold claim, isn't it?
And he says, he went, and that's where he started.
And that was his sermon right there.
And he goes, and he sits down, because back then you would stand up as you
read the word in the, in the synagogue, and then you would sit down and teach.
And so he goes, and he, he, he drops the mic, but then he picks it back up moment.
Do you know what I'm saying?
He's like, this is gonna be sit down.
He told me, yeah.
They're like, whoa, hold on, man.
This, this dude's off the hook.
And Jesus is going and he's showing, Hey guys, the kingdom of God is here.
It's upon you.
The Messiah, the long way to Messiah is here and people are fired up.
At first, they're like, man, this is cool.
You hear Jesus, man, whoa, this is awesome.
You hear his words.
But then as he keeps going, people get upset.
They turn.
You ever seen that happen?
People love you and then they turn on you.
We see it all the time in cancel culture, don't we?
And so he, he says something to his hometown that starts
to offend his hometown.
And he goes on and he ruffles their feathers cuz he starts making these
connections between the Gentiles who are non-Jews and how they'll be blessed.
And those who want signs or those who won't believe in him, how
they'll actually be part of judgment.
And so they take offense to this.
And we take it up in verse 27 and it says, and there were
many in Israel with leprosy.
This is Jesus finishing off here in the time of Elisha to prophet, yet not one of
them was clean, only naming the Syrian.
Now this really got them fired up because the Gallens, the
Syrians were their rivals.
So they hated them.
So now he says, Hey man, remember this time we're only the one
who was a part of your enemies.
He was the one blessed by God.
And they get upsets.
What?
What did you just say?
It says, all the people in his synagogue were furious when they heard this.
They got up, drove him out of the town and took him to the brow, the
hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff.
But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Picture that scene.
People are so mad.
Wait, I like what you said, but hold on.
Now I'm offended.
You know what?
I'm offended too.
You know what?
I'm offended too.
Hey man, can we talk to you?
Jesus?
Hey.
Yeah.
Come walk with us over here and they're walking over and now they
wanna throw 'em off the cliff.
And Jesus does what they make.
Get about my way, man.
, it says he walked right through them.
Jesus said, man, that's not going down today.
I just started my preaching and teaching in this town.
He said, no.
He says he walked right through.
If we had all the biggest fellas in here, you know what I mean, all
around me, and I just said, man,
That's what the scene was like for Jesus.
Now, let me ask you this.
Is that someone you would consider to be weak?
Again?
What are we seeing powerful in Word?
Indeed.
You can see now why that would be one of the first things that these disciples
would say because they remember.
They can recall.
They know the stories.
Whoa, wait a second.
He was no pushover, and in my language, Jesus was no punk.
You probably haven't heard that in the sermon before.
Have you And we see here, Jesus walked right through again.
What powerful in Word?
Indeed.
Let's continue church.
Are you still with me?
Then he went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilean on a Sabbath.
He taught the people, there's that Sabbath again.
They were amazed at his teaching because his words had authority.
In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by a demonn.
In impure spirit, he cried out the top of his voice.
Go away.
What do you want with us?
Jesus of Nazareth.
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are.
The holy one of God.
Be quiet.
Jesus says sternly come out of him.
Then the demonn threw the man down before them all and came
out without injuring him.
All the people were amazed and said to each other, what words are these
with authority and a power he gives order to impure spirits, and they
come out and the news about 'em spread throughout the surrounding area.
Wow.
That, that, that was powerful, wasn't it?
We see this situation in which do you have this man who's possessed?
We don't know exactly what that looked like, but Jesus
goes and says, shut up again.
That's a Marcel version.
As he cried, he's like, but you be quiet.
Get about this man.
Right now, I don't know about you, but when I get around people that seem to
maybe be potentially, uh, uh, uh, in a, in a off position, you know what I'm saying?
Uh, I tend to want to make sure I'm looking for the clear exits.
I wanna make sure that I'm safe and others are safe.
And so there's a defensive posture, there's a, Hey, let's just make
sure everything's gonna be okay.
You know what I mean?
But Jesus goes over here and he doesn't shy away from it, but he
approaches it and confronts it.
Could you please be quiet?
Is that what he did?
Amen.
Get a be quiet.
In fact, you wanna get outta here.
And he says, the demon left him again.
He's powerful in Word.
Indeed.
And then we see here this mention here that his words had authority
and what authority and power.
And so what?
What happened here again, is during this time, all the rabbis,
they would quote former rabbi.
So if they ever did some teaching, you weren't supposed to say things really,
from the I perspective, it was, Hey, rabbi so-and-so, or according to this so-and-so.
But Jesus didn't do that.
He came in and had the I statements.
And so he's not pointing, Hey, remember you've heard this,
or Rabbi so-and-so said this.
He's saying, truly, truly, I tell you.
And so he's speaking with what authority, even authority
over the spiritual realm here.
And so Jesus again is showing us how powerful in Word indeed he is.
Brother and sister, let's keep going here.
Are you with me?
Church, we going over to the end of the chapter, it says that
daybreak, so at right before this, it was, it was nighttime.
It was the end of the Sabbath day.
And so he had started healing and he was helping people at night.
And now it says that daybreak is so, Jesus' schedule is pretty packed.
He's denying himself takes some power and some strength to deny yourself.
Doesn't.
And so he goes and says that daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place.
The other gospel will tell us that he went out to pray and it says
the people were looking for him.
And when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.
But he said, I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other
towns also because that is why I was sent.
And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
Jesus shows us here, look, this has just begun.
I have a cause.
I have a mission to proclaim the good news.
And it can't just be local.
It must get out to everyone.
Everyone must know about the kingdom of God and its arrival that the
King Messiah is here revealing God, revealing truth and revealing
salvation not only to Jews, but to all.
And so Jesus is about the cause that, again, brothers and sisters we're
reminded that we have the cause of Jesus.
And that we too should follow this real Jesus, that we are committed,
that we don't wanna see just our own households, but we wanna see all the
towns here in North Orange County have a chance to hear the good news of Jesus.
We want every single soul to be able to hear and know that Jesus
was powerful in Word indeed.
And so we're deeply committed to the cause of knowing him and following him and
showing him to our local communities, our coworkers, our classmates, our neighbors,
our friends, our family members.
We want 'em all to know the real Jesus brothers and sisters.
And again, we see what we see in chapter four.
Just as quick, brief overview, we see him fulfill the promises of
the Messiah, and we see him show it with his actions and with his words.
And we see, whoa, this real Jesus is powerful in Word indeed.
And so you say, well, what does that mean for me?
Then what can that mean for you and I today in 2023 and in our lives
and in our church life as well?
And I believe that this is so cool, I'm so fired up about this, is that
when we follow the real Jesus, that means we can have God confidence
when we follow the real Jesus that will lead us to God confidence.
You guys get what I'm saying here?
And so what is confidence is this, it's humility before God
and confidence in his presence.
You see, it's not arrogance, it's not being naive and
just going, oh, I got this.
No, no, no.
It's a humility that God is the one and only that God is sovereign.
That he is the almighty, that he's everywhere.
He's all known, he's all powerful.
He's all loving.
He's gracious that we are aware of that, that he is it, that we aren't
puffing ourselves up, but that he is who he is in a proper place.
But then we guess we know that he's with us.
And because he is all those things we could be what?
Confidence in his presence.
And those of us who have repented him and baptized have the Holy Spirit.
So his presence is always with us.
So if we continue following the real Jesus, we have what?
Confidence, humility, and confidence.
At the same time, all in one, aware of who God is.
Impressed by God, wanting to know him and follow him.
And then being able to have the confidence that he is in my midst.
He goes before me, he's with me, he supports me and he's within me.
Brother and sisters, how cool is that?
If we follow the real Jesus, this is what is at hand.
This is what you and I have confidence that we are within his favor, that
we have God's favor in our lives.
I know for me, I can, I can often forfeit this confidence because I, I, I can
start to forget that that that one God is with me and I start to think, okay, I'm
doing for God, but God's somewhere else.
You get what I'm saying?
And so when you start to feel like, I know God is, he sees, but I don't
know if he's really right with me, then the confidence starts to
fade and I start to get insecure.
I'm not sure about this situation.
And so my prayers aren't with confidence, but my prayers are likek.
Good God, can you please do this?
And so then I forget.
But then when I'm reminded.
. Now, wait, the one and only goes before me.
The one and only is with me.
The one and only is supporting me, the one and only is living within me.
Then that confidence comes back.
I can approach situations differently.
Now.
I can see things in a different perspective.
I'm now God-centered as opposed to maybe self-centered or others centered,
and so that could be my challenge.
What might be your challenge when it comes to this?
Again, if we follow the real Jesus, this what it can lead to, but when
we veer from following him, we then lose this God confidence in our lives.
But I don't know about you, but I want this God confidence in my life.
I want it this month.
I need it this week.
I need it in the next 25 minutes.
Imagine having this confidence at your job tomorrow, at your school tomorrow.
Imagine having this confidence when you gotta have that hard talk with so and so.
You see, we can have this confidence in doing God's will.
We can have confidence in choosing what's right over what's easy.
We can have confidence as we go and try to show the real Jesus to those around us.
Cuz see, once we know the real Jesus that we start following him, then
that confidence will lead us to show the real Jesus to those around us.
I say, hallelujah man.
Jesus is good.
I say, hallelujah.
God is good.
I said, man, oh man, this is so cool.
I'm like, Jesus, you're so awesome.
And I don't know about you, but I just, I've been so fired up this week.
Cause I'm like, this is the one I get to follow.
And in some ways it'll reflect upon me.
And if people will see the real Jesus, they'll see this,
this powerful Jesus in my life.
And I just go, wow, that's incredible.
Again, I want my kids to see that.
I don't want them to see religiosity.
I want them to see the real Jesus and see that he was powerful.
And if I follow the real Jesus, they'll see that.
And then they'll make their choice on whether they now want to follow him.
But brother and his sisters, we are so richly blessed to have the real Jesus
before us, to have the real Jesus beside us, the real Jesus supporting us, and
those who have repented and baptized to have the real Jesus living within you.
And so there's victory ahead.
There's victory this week.
There's victory tomorrow.
There's victory in your life if you follow the real Jesus.
And so therefore we can have confidence.
Let's go ahead and let's close it out here.
Brothers and sisters, are you still with me?
Yes, sir.
Let's close it out here.
I wanna give a prayer for the week, actually, a prayer
and action step of the week.
So again, I'm asking the church here, can we all join in praying for one another?
Amen.
And so the first thing here is I want to ask you, please read Luke chapter
five through six this week and just make your own observations, your own notes
on what you notice about the real Jesus.
And we're gonna see some things no matter what's going on in our life.
And that's gonna be really cool.
And maybe you can share throughout the week with those around you.
But here's the prayer for the week.
Pray for the church to experience Gods this week, not just you, but
that every single one of us will be able to experience it this week.
Can you join me in that prayer?
If you can go ahead and take a picture, write it down,
whatever it is you need to do.
In a second, we're gonna take communion.
And again, we close out here being reminded that the real Jesus is powerful.
And when we follow the real Jesus that leads to confidence.
And as we take communion, we take the emblems that represent his blood and body
that will sacrifice for us on the cross.
And so we do this every week so that we can remember Jesus' sacrificed, so that
again, we can not only be God centered, but we can be cross inspired and that
will lead to us being spirit led.
And so as we go back and we think about Jesus on the cross, you can actually
see even more so and maybe the greatest time of Jesus displaying his power.
And so we read here in Hebrews chapter 12, it says, let us fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who, for the joy
before him endured the cross again.
He is divine.
He had the authority.
He could have came down from the cross, but he decided to stay on.
And endure the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God, what incredible power it took to choose to die, knowing
he had the power to release himself.
And for that we say hallelujah.
We say Thank you for exerting your power to resist the temptation
to give in to what's easy, but instead to do what is right.
And you and I benefit from that so that we too now can have salvation in Christ.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much.
We thank you for Jesus dying upon the cross.
We thank you for the resurrection.
We thank you for the life of Jesus.
God, I just, I just get so excited when I look at the character of Christ, when
I see him, uh, quieting demons, when I see him walking through a crowd, when
I, when, when I think about the words His, his power and his willingness to,
to even speak truth to his hometown and, and even ruffle feathers and
offend them, God, I get inspired.
I go, wow, the Lord that I follow is powerful and Word indeed and God.
Then to see that we have a chance to have this God, God,
that we can see you clearly.
We can see our role in your story, and then have the comforts knowing that your
presence in favor is with and upon us.
So thank you Lord Jesus.
Thank you for saying no to the temptation to give in.
Thank you for saying yes to the father's will.
Thank you for leaving us an example to follow, and God, I pray that we fixed
our eyes on you so that we too may resist temptation and follow in your
footsteps, doing what's right to the glory of the Father in the name of Jesus.
Amen.