Rod Gomez: The Titan Submersible, you guys know what this is?
2023, the Titan Submersible was run and owned by the CEO who said, you know what?
We're gonna go down so deep that we're going to see the Titanic.
Titanic, as you know, was that big ship that was indestructible, and
of course they were destructible.
As evidenced by the fact that they sank.
Well, these explorers were still interested in seeing the Titanic
that they entered into this thing called the Ocean Gate Titan.
The problem with this is that there were several people that told them over and
over again, your vessel is not safe.
There are things wrong with this that you need to figure out before you dive deep.
He ignored all the warnings, but there were plenty.
Here are just a few here.
From the first, from the first side here, this thing was only
certified to go down to 4,300 feet.
Titanic was at 12,500 feet.
That's a little different.
On top of that, the material that they used fundamentally
flawed, and you go that deep.
You need something solid and strong that's not gonna cave in.
Ocean Gate Sea admitted that it broke design rules, not just one rule.
There are actually several.
He fluted them because he thought, this is worth it.
We're gonna do something so exciting and so fun and so valuable to humankind.
That we're gonna put away some of these rules.
Safety monitoring system would only detect an issue milliseconds before an implosion.
Well, in 2023, that's exactly what happened.
Just milliseconds before the submersible was about to cave in, imploding,
and being destroyed and killing everybody inside an alarm went off
to let them know this is the end.
At what point then.
When they were diving into the water, did they know that this
is the point of no return?
Was it when they got past the 4,300 feet?
Was it at the top when they entered into the submarine knowing that it
wasn't the most safe thing to be inside?
Or was it when they were down low and they heard the millisecond alarm go off
before this whole thing caved in one of the youngest men in there, it was
a father son duo, one of the youngest men in there who was 19 years old.
Trusting his dad, trusting the captain who is piloting the submersible.
He gets in there, loses his life.
A lot of people don't realize that there are warnings all over the gospels
saying You need to know there are warnings about the way that you live
your life, the things that you do.
And what you also need to know is that there's a time when you
pass the point of no return.
When at some point, and we don't know when that is, we don't know what it looks like.
The Bibles didn't tell us always what that's gonna be, but you need to know
that when you ignore the warnings of the Bible and your life's about to implode,
there are signs along the way to tell you.
You need to be careful.
God wants you to know the truth.
And the truth sounds a lot like, Hey, you can't go this far.
Don't go this far down.
The Bible sounds a lot like, Hey, you shouldn't do that.
It sounds like warnings.
It sounds like, don't do this, don't do that.
But if we ignore those things, what could happen for all of us?
In fact, what will happen, the Bible promises is catastrophe.
Your life will implode.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not 20 years from now, maybe
not a hundred years from now.
Maybe because we find ways to keep you alive for a long time.
But if we ignore the Bible's warnings, what we're gonna find out.
Is that we set ourselves up to inevitably destroy ourselves.
This is a problem 'cause many think that they can def divinely, reject Jesus.
Many people can say, look, I'll get to it at some point when
I'm older or when I know more.
Or at some point when I'm older, I'll maybe I'll get baptized.
I just saw some people get baptized.
I was cool.
But when you continue to flaunt and push away Jesus' warnings and
say, I don't want to do that, you can't expect that at some point.
Jesus is gonna say, Hey, look.
I'm here anytime you want.
You want to come to me?
Come to me anytime you want.
Jesus doesn't say that.
He doesn't say that.
It's always possible to turn to him in repentant faith.
Which is why me and Lewis and Matt, Daniel, anyone else has preached to
you, pastor pj, we always warn you, Hey, now's the day of salvation.
Take the time now to not reject Jesus.
Make sure that you're running to him.
Make sure that you're surrendering your life to him because there
may not always be an opportunity.
You may not always have the chance to do what the Bible calls you to do.
And here's the rub, guys.
Here's what's awful about this.
The more you reject Jesus, the harder your heart becomes,
the more you ignore warnings.
The more you become immune to the sound of those warnings, it's like when you're
in your house, you become immune to the smell of what your house smells like.
You ever go to a friend's house and it smells like, oh, that's interesting smell.
It smells like curry.
Or it smells like, you know, a, a deodorizer, you know,
one of those fun smells.
Or even if you, if you go to a, I don't know, you get the idea here, you become
immune to those things on Sunday.
If you went to church, there was this low hum that happened the whole time
Pastor PJ was preaching like that.
It was woo.
If you heard it, at some point you probably stopped hearing it because
your brain's like, okay, not a threat, just going to zone it out.
And so now I'm gonna just focus on whatever Pastor PJ's saying.
That's a lot.
What happens.
You begin to hear the warnings from the Bible and they just become noise, or it
becomes like the smell of your house.
You stop smelling it, you stop caring about it.
So you don't wanna do anything about it because it's like, it's always been there.
It's always gonna be there.
Here.
You need to know that the more you reject Jesus, the harder your heart becomes,
and because of that, the less likely you become to ever become a Christian
because you harden your heart to a point where there's no more opportunity.
Matthew chapter 12 is all about rejection.
The rejection of the Pharisees over and over again, and how
Jesus responds to their rejection.
Chapter 12.
We're gonna look a lot.
Well, not a lot.
We're gonna look at rejection and we're gonna see how Jesus deals with it.
Turn to me to Matthew chapter 12.
We're gonna go rapid fire.
We're gonna go pretty quick, so make sure you have your Bibles open.
You're ready to rock and roll.
'cause we have a lot of territory to cover.
We begin in Matthew chapter 12 with an argument about the Sabbath.
Now, the Sabbath was a day that was set aside for Israel, for rest and
for worship, and so on This particular day, Israel was supposed to just.
Sit back and relax.
They were to worship the Lord.
They were to enjoy their family.
They were to do things that contributed to their rest.
Well, on this day, which is one of the 10 Commandments, right?
This is a, you shall honor the Sabbath and keep it hol is what
the Bible says on this day.
Here's what took place at that time, Jesus went through the
grain fields on the Sabbath.
Okay, here's what he's doing.
He's going to the grain fields and what's he doing?
His disciples were hungry and they began to pluck the heads of grain and and eat.
But when the Pharisee saw it, the religious leaders of the day, they said
to him, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.
You're breaking the law.
You're a sinner.
I knew it.
You're not the Messiah.
Even though you're doing a lot of cool tricks, you're not
the guy and we can prove it.
You're breaking the Sabbath is what they were saying.
And Jesus responds to them and says, look, guys, you've got it all wrong.
Let me tell you how he gives three reasons why.
He says, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with
him, how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which was
not lawful for him to eat, nor those who were with him, but only for the priest.
So he's talking about an occasion where David needed help, he needed
provision, he didn't have the normal means, and so he went to the House
of God, the tabernacle, and he ate the bread that was dedicated to God.
He wasn't supposed to do that.
But the priest made an exception because of David's situation, and he
said David wasn't accountable for that.
He wasn't guilty, he wasn't breaking the law.
He says here in verse five, or have you not read in the law how on the
Sabbath, the priest in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless.
That is the priest.
They're working, they're the ones sacrificing the animals.
They're the ones cleaning up the ashes.
They're the ones who are caring for the tabernacle and no one
says, oh, you guys are guilty.
You're breaking the Sabbath.
He says, no, of course not.
They do what they're supposed to do.
So the law of the Sabbath is not binding at all situations at all times.
He continues on, I tell you, I tell you, verse six, something
greater than the temple is here.
Pop quiz.
Who's he talking about?
Something greater than the temple is here.
Who's he talking about?
Himself.
Jesus is saying, look, I am bigger than the temple.
I am more significant than the temple.
This is another way that, you know, Jesus is saying, I'm more than a man.
I am God in the flesh, essentially is what he's saying.
I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.
That would've been scandalous to the Pharisees.
What are you talking about?
Dude?
You're weird.
You're not greater than the temple.
This thing's fabulous.
It's magnificent.
You're just a man, and Jesus is saying, no, I'm not.
Verse seven.
And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
He would not have condemned the guiltless.
Jesus is saying, I'm innocent.
For the son of man is Lord the Sabbath.
That's another way that you know, he's claiming deity because he's
saying, I oversee the Sabbath.
I tell you how the Sabbath is to work, and you need to recognize that
I'm the one who tell tells you how it works and how it shouldn't work.
So you guys are wrong about this.
What we see here is Jesus charging them with learning how to actually
read their Bible the right way.
He said, you guys are reading the Bible and, and you really, you're
really trying hard to entrap me, but you're getting it all wrong.
This is what happens when you reject Jesus.
You begin to read your Bible like a rule book, and you begin to
say, well, I gotta obey this rule.
I shouldn't do that thing.
These guys are trying to say, well, Jesus, you're a rule breaker.
You're breaking all the rules in the Bible, and Jesus saying, you
don't even know your Bible, dude.
You guys are reading it all wrong.
He says, haven't you read what a slap in their face?
It's like going to your professor or going to your high school teacher
who's teaching you chemistry, and they're saying, have you never picked
up a chemistry textbook before?
And then they're, of course they have.
Of course, that's a slap in the face.
He's coming right at them and bah hit them in the face.
He's saying, look, you guys don't even know your Bible.
I rule all of these things.
I oversee this point.
Number one, if you don't wanna reject Jesus for the wrong reasons, at least.
You don't wanna become like a Pharisee who's only looking at
the Bible like a list of rules.
And you need to always read the Bible with Jesus in mind.
Always read the Bible with Jesus in mind.
As you read your Bible, you have an Old Testament and a New Testament.
It's kind of like 60% Old Testament, about 40% New Testament.
The Old and New Testaments work together to tell the whole story of
God in interacting with humanity.
And in fact, someone once observed that the word history.
Is appropriate because it tells us his story.
It is God's story of his interactions with humanity.
One of the problems that you'll encounter if you have a hard heart toward God,
you'll read your Bible and you'll say, well, this doesn't make any sense.
This is too hard.
I'm not tracking with it.
I'm, I'm really just not getting it.
This is, this is not what I expect God to do, but there's a problem with
what you're doing and to show you that problem, I need a volunteer.
Okay?
I need a volunteer.
Come on up.
I'll come.
I'm come get you after Josh.
Okay.
In this bag, I have a hundred piece puzzle.
Really easy to do.
Really easy.
Are you ready to do a hundred piece puzzle?
No.
Yes.
Okay, good.
No, but yes.
Alright.
You have 10 seconds.
Go ahead.
10, 9, 8.
7, 6, 5.
Four, you're down to the last three seconds.
Three
is you actually doing pretty good.
You're actually doing really good.
Considering that you don't have any of the helps two.
Good try.
Alright.
Give it up.
Good try.
I just want you to know you were meant to fail.
It was on purpose, so I appreciate your, your sportsmanship, but
you may go back to your seat.
Okay.
Josh?
Josh, you have 10 seconds as well.
No, but you will have the added help of looking at the front board.
Okay.
You're gonna get the same 10 seconds.
I don't need the box.
Oh, you don't need the, okay.
Okay.
Alright, you ready?
You got 10 seconds starting now.
Okay, 10 done.
Done.
I was going for a Picasso, by the way.
Oh, okay.
Just the spread out.
Thank you.
Okay.
It still works in the illustration.
Thank you, Brad.
Give him a hand.
Can you put this back in your Dr.
Thank you actually hope before you do that.
Okay.
Putting a puzzle is hard to do all by itself, but if you try to put a
puzzle together and you don't have the reference to the photo, it makes it a,
a much more challenging thing to do.
In fact, the photo itself is what gives you all the clues for context.
Otherwise, all you're doing is looking at yellows and blues and reds.
And I see, I see, uh, oranges over here.
It's hard to do.
It's not impossible.
Really hard to do unless you have the reference to what the photo is in the
Bible, there's a lot of puzzle pieces.
Way more than a hundred here.
You can put that in here please.
Thanks.
Uh, there's a lot more than a hundred puzzle pieces in the Bible, but what makes
the picture make sense is if you see Jesus in those photos, in those puzzle pieces.
Looking at Jesus as the fulfillment, as the culmination of everything the Bible
points to makes the picture make sense.
Okay.
This is so important.
Lemme give you one more illustration of how this works.
I want you to listen to this, okay?
This is Symphony number six, a pastoral symphony by Beethoven.
Here's, here's what it sounds like.
Okay?
You'll notice in this symphony, lots of instruments are playing.
Each symphony component has its part here, the oboe is doing her solo, the oboist.
She's doing his wonderful solo.
But you'll notice in the background, if you listen, the
violins are still doing their part.
There.
I think that's a French horn.
You hear that?
That's staccato in the background.
All these pieces, putting their part together to make the hole.
Okay.
French horn, he's soloing now, but they're still supporting instruments.
The violins are supporting him as he plays.
You got the bases over here.
You say you have all these instruments.
I dunno how many people are there, 75 people, maybe.
They're all playing individual parts or parts corresponding
to their, your instrument.
They're all putting pieces together with the purpose of playing the whole
symphony, the whole harmony together.
If you were just to listen to the tuba.
Or the elbow by itself.
It'll sound strange, it'll sound incomplete.
It'll sound weird if you just heard one instrument.
But when all of them play together, something beautiful happens.
You hear the full melody as it was meant to be.
All these components working together to produce something incredible, a sound.
This is what it's like to read the Bible with Jesus in mind.
Each piece of scripture has its, has its component.
Each piece of scripture is beautiful in its own right, but it doesn't
sound quite right unless you're seeing it for the whole thing that
it's pointing to, which is Jesus.
Jesus is the fulfillment.
So when you read your Bible, here are a few ways to keep Jesus in
mind as you read your Bible so that you're not missing the whole thing.
You're looking at one piece for getting the whole.
When Jesus challenges them to read their Bible rightly, he's saying, look,
you need to read the Bible carefully.
You need to handle the Bible carefully.
If you don't want to reject Jesus for the wrong reasons, don't read the
Bible looking for the wrong things.
You need to read the Bible.
Looking for Jesus, looking for signs of how Jesus.
Has fulfilled or how that passage pointed to him, what Jesus says about it,
marriage, being a man, being a girl, what it says about your schooling, what it says
about how to be a, a good son or daughter.
What it says about being a family member, what it says about being an employee.
The Bible has a lot to say about that.
And as you read your Bible carefully, you're looking for
evidence of how it points to Jesus.
Number two, as you read the Bible looking for Jesus, you want to apply the Bible
consistently, which is to say the Old Testament and the New Testament are not.
Are not in combat with one another.
Some people will say, well, the God of the Old Testament, he's a mean God.
And the God of the New Testament is a nice God.
That's not the way the Bible works.
To read it consistently means to read it, saying, how do these pieces fit together?
How do they harmonize speaking of music?
And lastly, you need to understand that the whole Bible
really does point to Jesus.
Jesus is the fulfillment of all that was pointed to even in the Sabbath.
When Jesus says, I'm the Lord the Sabbath, he's saying that even the
Sabbath law pointed to the eventual rest that can be found only in Jesus,
which is to say, your true rest is not.
Stop.
Uh, your stopping from working, your true rest is found in Jesus Christ, the one who
gives rest to your soul, the one who gives you salvation, the one who makes your
life whole, complete, full, real, joyful.
That's the first part of Matthew chapter 12.
Jesus Lord of the staff.
He's arguing about his rule in creation saying, I'm the Lord of it all.
I'm the one that points to, but there's more.
If we don't wanna reject Jesus, if we don't want to mistake or,
or misunderstand what Jesus is saying, we need to keep reading.
Back to Matthew chapter 12, starting at verse 24, there is a kind of rejection
of Jesus that is so bad and so pronounced that eventually you can't turn back.
I was talking about this at the beginning, taking the tight
the Titan down to the Titanic.
Jesus talks about something super, super important.
I want you to follow along here in Matthew chapter 12, starting at verse
22, a demon oppressed man who is blind and mute, which is interesting, isn't it?
Someone who has a demon inside of them could have physical effects.
This guy is blind, he can't see, and he's mute.
He can't talk.
So this demon is constricting those passages.
It was brought to Jesus the man and Jesus healed him so that the man spoke and he
saw, and all the people were amazed and they said, can this be the Son of David?
The Son of David is a title that means is Jesus the Messiah?
Is he the one that was prophesied about to come and to rule as the new King
David, as the ultimate King David?
And of course, they're right about that.
Jesus is the fulfillment.
But when the Pharisees heard it, remember the Pharisees, they
have a hard heart against Jesus.
This is the danger that you might be in having a hard heart against Jesus.
The Pharisees come, they hear it.
Here's what they say.
They hear about it.
They said, it is only by Beals bull, which is a way to say the
devil, shorthand for the devil.
It's only by the devil, the prince of demons, that this man cast out demons.
So they're saying, Jesus, you're not actually doing anything important here.
You're actually the devil and you're just, you're just using
demonic tricks to send demons out of the way, knowing their thoughts.
Jesus said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid
waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
It is if, if there's conflict inside of a kingdom, it's not gonna do well because
that kind of disunity is destructive.
He says, if, if Satan, verse 26, Satan cas out Satan, he's divided against
himself, how then will his kingdom stand?
Jump down to verse 31.
Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people.
Pay close attention.
You listening, this is critical.
Listen closely to what Jesus is about to say.
If you're not tuned in, tune in now.
This is important verse verse 20, verse 31.
Again, listen.
Read this again.
Follow along with me.
Look at the screen.
If you don't have your Bible, therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will
be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven.
There's a category of sin that Jesus says is unforgivable.
There's a kind of sin that you can commit against God that
doesn't allow you to go backward.
There's no repentance available.
There's no opportunity to be right with God.
He says whoever speaks a word against the son, a man will be forgiven.
That is whoever says bad things about Jesus.
You can.
You can eventually repent from that, but whoever speaks against the Holy
Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or the age to come.
There is a kind of hardheartedness against God.
A kind of constant rejection against God that you cross a
threshold and you can't go back.
You dive in your titan down to a depth where there's no returning.
It's game over, and the thing is just like those in the Titan, you don't
know when that line is, but Jesus is saying there's a kind of sin.
He calls it the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which people debate what it means.
But let me just shoot straight with you here.
Even if we were to say, look, this is something that can
only happen with the Pharisees.
The type of sin that's committed here can be committed by Christians today.
When I say Christians, I mean people.
It can be committed by people Today.
There's a kind of rebellion against God, rejection of God, where you
reject him so much, you harden your heart against him so much that there's
no more opportunity to turn around.
That being the case then so that you don't reject Jesus for the wrong reasons, and
so that you don't act like a Pharisee.
I don't want you to become a Pharisee.
The Pharisees basically.
They try to discredit Jesus to avoid the truth.
Jesus is saying, look, you know that I've given you every
reason to believe in people.
You discredit me because you don't wanna submit to the truth
if you don't want that to be you.
Point number two, you need to fight and pray for a pure heart before God.
You have to fight for this guys because your heart is wayward and wicked.
The Bible says that your heart is deceitful.
And it does evil.
Your heart will lean toward doing the wrong thing unless you fight and pray
tooth and nail before God to say, God, please give me a pure heart.
Please help me.
God, I know that my heart goes the wrong way.
I can't trust it.
I can only trust you and God, I'm praying.
Please give me a soft, humble heart before you.
Some of you need to pray.
God, please help me to care about the things that I should
care about because I don't care.
God, I'm bored by the Bible.
I'm bored by small groups.
I'm bored by the things that my parents believe, and so God, I'm praying.
Please help me to care about the things I should care about.
I want you to imagine with me, you're a pilot.
You're flying in in Texas, weather storms.
There's lightning.
There's thunder, and so you're in the middle of this massive storm system.
It's dark all around and you can't see out the window.
In a situation like that where it's dark outside, you got your
instrument panel, you don't, you can't see up, you can't see down.
You have to trust your instruments.
And in fact, one of the cool things that a pilot can do now is
that they can turn on autopilot.
Autopilot will take them in in the direction that they program, and
it'll take care of the wind speed, or it'll take care of your engine speed.
It'll take care of your tilt, and it'll take care of your rudder.
It'll do all of that to help keep you going the right direction.
So a pilot can say, look.
We're just gonna put this thing on autopilot.
We'll just keep an eye on it as we make our progress toward
whatever the destination is.
I want you to pretend that you're, that you're that captain, but you find out,
even though everything seems fine, you find out because someone will let you
know the autopilot actually has a virus.
And even though it looks like you're making progress, it's actually
taking you in the wrong direction.
And even though it looks like things are fine, it's actually sabotaging your input.
You put in four degrees south and it's actually gonna put
you in 10 degrees north.
Everything you put in gets distorted and twisted, and even though you're
putting in the right things, you're trying to say, oh, go this way.
Go to Heathrow airports, uh, or go this speed and go this altitude.
It's taking it and it's distorting it because there's a virus in your autopilot.
What kind of situation would you be in at that point?
What would need to happen for you to get where you need to go?
What would happen?
You would have to take control of your, your vessel, or you couldn't just stay
there and hope that it worked out okay.
This is a little bit of how our hearts work like.
You can be blind, flying blind in, in, in your life trusting
that your autopilot, your heart is taking you the right direction.
But what you don't realize is that your heart is inclined toward evil.
Your heart is not on your side.
It's not your friend.
Your heart works against you.
And so even though you might say, ah, heart, I want you to
go to the right direction, your heart's gonna say, no thank you.
I'm gonna do my own thing.
I want to, I wanna serve my own ends.
If you're on autopilot spiritually, you're just coasting through life.
You may not notice that your compass is broken.
You may not notice that you're going.
Totally in the wrong direction, and that's why we can't afford to fly on
autopilot when it comes to our faith.
One way that you can check your autopilot is to make sure that your plane gets
maintenance, could send it to the mechanic and say, Hey, I need you to make sure that
the plane is calibrated to fly properly.
So the mechanic will look at it, he'll, he'll run, hi, he'll run your
computer system through his computer.
He'll make sure your plane is air worthy and that everything's
working as it should.
And that's a little bit of like how our heart works.
And a little bit of like how the Bible works.
When you're allowing your plane, your life to be controlled by the spirit and
to be updated by the spirit and to be, uh, calibrated by his word, your plane
now suddenly can fly the right direction.
'cause you have a map that's reliable.
The pharisees hard harden their heart against Jesus.
They know they can't see, but they don't care that they're on the wrong path.
They're working against Jesus.
You need to fight and pray that your autopilot is working well.
In fact, let's put it like this here.
I need you to do that by distrusting your heart, your autopilot, the
thing that directs you and your life.
In fact, Proverbs says this twice word for word.
Here's what it says in the Proverbs.
There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
There's a way where your autopilot directs you, where you
like, oh, this feels so right.
It feels like the right thing to do, but at the end is the way to death.
It says that in two passages verbatim.
Proverbs, Proverbs 1412 and 1625.
Don't trust your autopilot.
You need to trust the word of God.
Number two, fight and pray for a pure heart by asking God to guide your heart.
You know, one thing that I didn't say that you could do, that you could
do that would really be helpful.
The pilot can say, Hey, air traffic control.
I'm on the way to Heathrow Airport in London.
My autopilot's jacked up my instruments.
I'm not sure if I can trust them.
Can you help me guide to the right destination?
Air traffic control can say, yep, we got you.
We see you, you're at 24,000 feet.
We need you to go down to, you know, this many feet, and we
need you to go to this air speed.
Keep doing it.
We'll let you know how you're doing.
So air traffic control can actually guide you pretty manually
all the way to their airport.
Now, not without a lot of in information, a lot of input, but this is like
what it's, this is what it's like to say, God, please guide my heart.
God, I don't know how, how I should live my life.
I don't know what I should do.
I don't always know what my Bible says, but Lord, you can do that.
Would you please lead me?
And here's the thing, guys.
God wants to answer this request.
He just, you just need to ask, this is how you fight and pray
for a heart that doesn't reject Jesus for all the wrong reasons.
Thirdly, if you're gonna fight and pray for a pure heart,
you can do so by listening to the authoritative word of God.
The Bible says in Psalm one 19, how can a young man or
young woman keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
That's what the Bible says.
And if talking to God is like talking to air traffic control, listening to
the air, traffic control, listening to what they say is the third point.
If they say, turn three degrees this way, you should do that because
they can see things you can't see.
This is how God works with us.
When you read your Bible, you're seeing what God sees.
At least in microscope.
You can't see it all, but he's telling you, this is how life works.
This is what's good.
This is what's bad.
And when you trust him, it's like saying, air traffic control.
What do I do?
Oh, I should go this way.
Okay?
I'm gonna trust you.
I can't see, so I'm just gonna trust that what you're saying
is the right thing to do.
Otherwise, the danger is that you reject Jesus, and the more you reject
him, the harder your heart becomes.
We finish off with these final few verses here.
These guys are now asking Jesus for a sign.
Jesus, show us and prove to us that you are who you say you are.
Jesus says to them, okay, you want a sign?
Let me give you one.
He answered, well, before he says this, here's what he says, an evil
and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, and the reason he says
this is because they've already had several signs to look at.
He says, no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
In just a few days, we're gonna celebrate this sign that Jesus talks about.
This is the sign of his resurrection.
Jesus.
Predicts that he's gonna die and then rises again on the third
day defeating sin and death.
And this is exactly what he does.
And he says, this kind of sign is a special sign that if you reject it, you're
in big trouble because you have more knowledge of what's true and therefore you
have more accountability for that truth.
He says here in verse 41, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with
this generation and condemn it for they repented at the sign of Jonah's preaching.
And behold, look.
Something greater than Jonah is here.
Jesus is saying, if Nineveh had the chance to hear Jesus preaching,
they, they would've repented because they pre, they were repented at
the, at the preaching of of Jonah.
Jonah went to Nineveh, said, Hey guys, you need to repent.
They re, they responded and they repented.
Jesus is saying, you guys have far more to work with and yet your
heart is hard and cold against me.
The danger for you all.
The danger for all of us is that when people reject Jesus, part of
the reason they do that, one of the reasons they do that is that they, they
make unreasonable demands of Jesus.
I was listening to an atheist this week on a, on a, on a
YouTube video, and he said this.
He said, Christians make bold claims about who God is, what
he's come to do, all those things.
He says, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Which sounds pretty reasonable, right?
Extraordinary claims.
Jesus is the God.
He's the son of God, and he came to live and die in our place, and
a rose again on the third day.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Makes sense.
But I would say, how about the, how about the resurrection?
That's a pretty good one.
He died, he rose again.
There's really no better explanation than, than what we say here is true.
I mean.
The challenge for all of us, and the challenge for you, especially if you're
on the verge of rejecting Jesus again after another sermon about him, is
that you examine the evidence fairly.
Jesus tells the Pharisees, look, you've had plenty of signs,
you've had plenty of miracles.
You've had plenty of options and opportunities to respond as you should.
So if you're not gonna examine the the evidence reasonably,
you'll end up rejecting Jesus.
I would encourage you to think about the evidence that the Bible offers.
You.
If Jesus is who he says he is, and he's done what, what the Bible says he's
done, you ought to be 100% sure that it's not true if you're gonna reject
it, because tonight, Jesus is calling you to repent and put your trust in him.
Tonight, Jesus is calling you not to play games anymore.
Not to play church, but to trust him.
Turning away from your sin, putting your full trust and your confidence in
Jesus because the evidence is there.
Jesus has provided so much of it.
There's something called the watchmaker analogy.
Have you heard this before?
The watchmaker analogy.
This is a very common one, but I want you, I want you to know this one.
This was, uh, designed by a guy named William Paley in the 18 hundreds.
Here's what he said, um, in a nutshell, I'm gonna make it really
simple 'cause that's what I need.
But he says, imagine you're in a forest and all you see is dense woods.
You got trees and shrubs, and you got rabbits and all sorts of
things in there in the forest.
And as you're making your way through this dense forest, you come across a watch.
And you pick up the watch and you begin to look at the watch and you say, oh, look at
all this, the machinery inside, it's got someone's name, it's got initials on it.
William Paley said The only reasonable thing to think if you pick up a
watch in the middle of a forest is that somebody left the watch.
Makes perfect sense, right?
No one's gonna guess.
I wonder if the tree made this watch.
I wonder if it evolved.
If it just kind of emerged by itself, I wonder if the alphabet
just kind of magically showed up.
This is a little bit of what Evolution teaches, and William Paley says, if
you can see a watch in the force and recognize, oh, somebody made this and
left it behind, then it's really not a stretch to look at all of creation and
say, well, clearly somebody made this.
Because a watch, even though it's complex, is not nearly as complex.
And as well designed as your DNA.
Your DNA is far more dense with information, far more beautiful and is
designed by God, and it communicates far more than a watch ever would.
The evidence is there.
Your job is to evaluate it fairly.
And again, going back to my last point, your heart wants
to go a different direction.
That means you really have to work hard at this.
Here are three things that I need you to evaluate.
Three areas of evidence that you need to consider.
The first one is the resurrection.
Jesus lived, he died, he rose again On the third day.
There's no, there's no denying that.
People have tried to debate this for years and they realize it's impossible to do it.
The most probable explanation is that Jesus really did die and rise again.
Second, I want you to examine the evidence that manmade religion fails.
It doesn't work.
Jesus has this interesting story about a demon being cast out of a person.
And then seven demons coming back and entering into that person.
There is evidence that people can cast out demons, even if they're not Christians.
Jewish Exorcist did this, and it seems like Jesus acknowledges
this, but that's manmade religion.
They might be able to do something good, but even the little good that they do
makes a lot more problems for that person.
'cause it creates a vacuum where more demons can enter, more evil can enter.
The only thing that works is when.
Evil is eradicated and filled in by the spirit, spirit of God changing us.
That's evidence you should look at.
Religion doesn't work.
Jesus.
He works Jesus, he saves Jesus.
He makes all things work.
Number three, Jesus is approached by his mother and his brothers, and
he, and they say, Hey, Jesus, your mother and your brother are here.
And Jesus says, oh, fantastic.
Hail Mother Mary, full of grace and truth.
Blessed is thy womb and thy womb of your a.
Jesus doesn't say anything like that.
In fact, this is the one time Jesus could have said Mary is special.
Honor her.
Pray to her, revere her.
You know what he says?
He says, my mother and my brother, who are my mother and my brother,
and then he points to his disciples.
He says, these guys, these guys who do the will of my father,
this is my mother and my brother.
These are my people.
Jesus does something remarkable.
He says.
These men are more important than my family because they're doing God's will.
They're following the signs.
They know the signs of the Bible.
They know the signs of my, my life, my work.
These guys get it.
That's a big thing to say, especially 'cause we think his
mom was some kind of believer.
But even his mom takes a backseat to his disciples.
Remember, he has three favorite disciples, Peter, James, and John, and then he
has the others who are following his teaching and is following his leadership.
That's a big sign for any Christian who becomes a Christian.
They recognize Jesus becomes everything.
He's number one priority in my whole life.
That's what a Christian says.
He's number one in my, my marriage.
He's number one in my schooling.
He's number one in my college choices.
He's number one in my hobbies.
He's number one on my Wednesday nights.
When I think about what I'm gonna do and how I'm gonna spend
my time, Jesus is number one.
That's the big change in Christian relationships.
Jesus becomes number one.
That's a big sign, and you ought to pay attention to that and evaluate
and examine that evidence fairly.
Why?
Well, because the more you reject Jesus, the harder your heart becomes.
Here's something interesting.
Speaking of the Titanic, why did the Titanic sink hit an iceberg?
Hit an iceberg.
That's, that's the technical reason, but I don't think the Titanic
sunk because it hit an iceberg.
It sank because those in charge ignored multiple warnings.
They had different opportunities to avoid a collision course with an
iceberg in the middle of the night.
So they hit the iceberg.
Yes.
But they, they did that because they ignored warnings, multiple
opportunities to avoid the iceberg.
Tonight, you have yet another opportunity to avoid the iceberg called death.
It's coming for all of us at some point, and Jesus is giving you yet
another opportunity and a warning to say, look, you either repent and you
trust Jesus Christ, or you live for yourself and you do your own thing.
Please don't put away your stuff yet.
Stay with me.
I'm almost done.
I promise I shouldn't have changed it.
Let me, I know the last line is the key to put things away.
Don't do that yet.
'cause I, I wanna make an impassion plea with you.
You don't know your last opportunity.
Can I just say that honestly, without trying to be scary?
I'm not trying to scare you.
I'm just saying the reality.
None of us know our last opportunity.
Are you confident that you're right with your Lord?
Are you trusting Jesus tonight?
Are is your heart right with the one who made you?
What does Jesus call us to do?
Repent and believe.
Turn from your sin.
Put your full trust in Jesus.
That's what he calls us to do.
That's it.
I mean, that's really a life changing decision, but that's it.
The more you reject Jesus though, the more you kick the can down the
road and say, well, maybe I'll do it later, or maybe I'll think about
it and I still need more time.
You don't know how much time you have.
The more you reject Jesus, the harder your heart becomes.
Rejecting Jesus never really leaves you the same.
Tonight, I would love for you to examine your heart.
Are you listening to Jesus?
Are you responding to him or.
Are you still resisting him?
Still rejecting him?
Like the Pharisees?
I encourage you to think long and hard about that as you prepare
to go to your small groups.
Let's pray and I'll send you out.
God, we thank you for the night and ask that you please now help us to spend
great time, honest time, vulnerable time, even fun time in our small groups.
Give us a great time interacting with this truth.
Help us to learn from one another and to grow as a result of what we study tonight.
We ask this all in Jesus name.
Amen.