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John 20:33–31

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Now, Jesus did many other signs
in the presence of the disciples

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which are not written in this book;
but these are written

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so that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

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and that by believing
you may have life in his name.

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Hey everybody,
good morning and welcome to CCC.

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My name is Joe.

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I'm one of the pastors here
and I'm glad you've come.

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We have a theme for this year for 2026,

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and our theme is simply More Life,
More Life.

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We have taken it from what
Jesus says in John chapter ten.

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I have come, they might have life
and have it more abundantly.

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Jesus wants you to have more life.

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Full, flourishing, abundant life.

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What we want to do is by December
of this year, when we look back on 2026,

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we want to

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see that we experience more
of what Jesus promised than ever before.

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That's our goal.

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This week is the last week or our ten week
series.

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We've been looking at
what Jesus says about himself,

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and we're calling this series

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I Am More because so many things
that Jesus said about himself began

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with the
"I Am" phrase, and they're all outrageous.

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They're all really over the top.

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If you ever hear me or Pastor Zach
say any of these about ourselves,

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you should run to the hills
because it is crazy.

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Jesus says stuff like,
I am the good Shepherd.

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I am the bread of life.

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I am the light of the world.

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I am the resurrection and the life.

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I am the way, the truth and the life.

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Last week I am the true vine.

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All those statements
we find in the Gospel of John.

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And here,
the passage we're going to look at today,

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John tells us his purpose
for writing what he wrote.

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This is what he says.

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Now, Jesus did many other

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signs in the presence of the disciples
which are not written in this book,

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but these are written
so that you may believe

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that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing

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you may have life in his name.

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John says something interesting
right there.

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He just says, I left out a lot.

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I left out a lot.

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I've been very selective.

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That's an understatement,
because the Gospel of John in my Bible

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is 22 pages long.

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That's it,

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22 pages.

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Put that in perspective.

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Biography for Elvis Presley,

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The Last Train to Memphis,
which is what they sell at Graceland.

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Don't don't even ask me how I know that.

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576 pages, 576 pages for Elvis

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Presley, 22 pages for Jesus Christ.

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But John

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says,
I had a reason for writing what I wrote.

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And those are my three points
that I want to cover.

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What you can know, what you can

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believe, what you can expect.

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That's it.

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What you can know, what you can believe,
what you can expect first,

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what you can know.

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So John is getting
to the end of his gospel,

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and he's thinking back on all the time
that all the experiences he had

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with Jesus.

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And he's realizing
how much he has left out.

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John chapter 20, he says it.

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Then in chapter 21,
he closes the gospel with this.

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Now there are many other things
that Jesus did

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where every one of them to be written.

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I suppose the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written.

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It's ten.

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All the world couldn't contain.

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Now imagine
what one day with Jesus was like.

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We have a sentence in the Gospels
that describes one day.

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This is the only sentence,
this information we have about that day.

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Jesus healed everyone that came to him.

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That's it.

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Can you imagine how many books
you could write on that day?

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The another day,
right after the resurrection, where Jesus

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is walking on a road
from Jerusalem to a mass,

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that rode
Jerusalem to a mass is about seven miles.

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And he comes across two disciples,
and he begins to talk with him.

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What he what it says
is that during that walk

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he explained
the whole Old Testament to them

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and how the entire Old Testament
was all about Jesus.

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Imagine

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the pastor
Zach, does a thing called the deep dive.

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He spends five hours there.

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They're going through theology for this
last time it was in the the Holy Spirit.

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Amazing stuff
and with all due respect to Zach,

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wouldn't hold a candle to that seven mile
walk with Jesus.

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And we don't have anything.

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No one wrote that down yet.

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There was a popular TV series
a few years ago, where Kiefer

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Sutherland starred as an anti-terrorism
agent named Jack Bauer.

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Anybody know the name of that?

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24? Yeah, it was called 24

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because every episode was one hour of

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Jack Bauer's
life, 24 episodes in a season.

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So every season was one full day, right?

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Eight seasons.

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That that was Jack Bauer.

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Jesus. It would just be incredible

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to have one full day.

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But John says, I wrote 22 pages,

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but I wrote it with a purpose,

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and I wrote it with one thing in mind,

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and that was to give you enough

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so that you could believe.

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And he says that
because he knows how human beings think.

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I mean, most of us think, you know what?

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It would be so much easier to believe.

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It's so much easier to have faith
if if I could hear God

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speak in an audible voice once
or see him do a real,

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verifiable miracle, or.

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Or if I experienced something

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like Saul did on the road
to Damascus with lights and everything,

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and what John says as I wrote 22 pages

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so that you would have enough
and it's enough.

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Jesus tells a story, a parable
where there's a rich man

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who's in hell and he's talking to Abraham,
who's in heaven.

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And at the end of their conversation,
the rich man says to Abraham,

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please send someone to my five brothers
to warn them so they don't end up

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here in hell.

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And Abraham says, your

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brothers have Moses,
have the law and the prophets.

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And what what Abraham is saying is
your brothers have the Bible,

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and the rich man says, yeah,
but that's not enough.

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They won't believe just because of that.

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But if someone comes to them
from the dead, then they'll believe.

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And Jesus is telling this parable
and Jesus has Abraham say,

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if they don't listen

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to the law and the prophets, to Moses,
the prophets, neither will they believe.

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If someone rises from the dead.

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Ironic that Jesus is saying that

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because Jesus
is the one who will rise from the dead.

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What John says right
here, right at the end of 22, page two.

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They wrote this for one reason.

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It's so. It's enough for you to believe.

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That's why whenever
somebody is interested in Christianity,

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they want to know where to start.

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In the Bible I always say read the Gospel
of John because that's why he wrote it.

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And of course, then the

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question is believe what?

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And that brings me to the second point

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is what you can believe.

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So he says this in verse 31,
but these are written

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so that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

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and that by believing
you may have life in his name.

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First thing I want you to know
is he says, so that you may believe

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faith is very personal,

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but you have to believe it.

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I don't know if this happens
with other professions now.

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It happens to me if when I'm outside,
you know, in town, out in the wild,

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and somebody comes up to me
and they ask me what I do,

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and I say, oh, I'm a minister,
I can't tell you

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how many times the next thing they say,
oh, oh, that's that.

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My grandfather was a minister.

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I don't know if that happens,
if you're a lawyer or a banker.

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Happens to me all the time,

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and I always get
the feeling they're trying to let me know

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that they're covered.

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You know, they're saying, you know,

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I may not be very religious,
but it runs in my family.

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It's like.

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It's like,
I think faith is like high cholesterol.

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It gets passed down from generation
to generation.

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And I'm like, you know,
it doesn't work like that when

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when you die, God's not going to ask you
what your grandfather did.

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He's not going to ask you
how good a mom you were or

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how good of a dad you were,
even what church you went to.

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God's going to ask one question

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what did you believe about Jesus?

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I said

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one question.

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John says, I wrote these 22 pages

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so you could believe two things
about Jesus.

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The first is that Jesus is the Christ.

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You need
to know Christ is not his surname.

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You know, like I'm Joe Coffee.

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It's not Jesus
Christ is not his last name.

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Jesus is his name. Christ is his title.

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Christ is the Greek word for Messiah,

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Savior, Redeemer.

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What John is saying is, I'm.

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I wrote these things
so that you would know

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that you have a messiah,

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that you have a Savior.

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And he starts right at the beginning.

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And in chapter one,
one of the first stories he tells is John

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the Baptist looking at Jesus,
pointing at him and saying, Behold

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the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.

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The reason he says that behold,
the Lamb of God, who takes away

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the sin of the world,
is that justice demands

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that sin be paid for.

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Our whole legal system is based on that,

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that people are accountable
for what they do,

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and if they do bad things,
it needs to be paid for.

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Years ago, I saw an interview.

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It's a really good interview.

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Larry King Live Larry King was talking to
interviewing a man named David Brickner.

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David was the president of Jews for Jesus.

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He was talking about Jesus.

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Larry King is Jewish.

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And so Larry King ended up saying
at the end of the conversation, David,

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are you saying that if I don't receive
Jesus as my Savior,

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that I'm going to go to hell

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and everything just stopped?

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And there was silence of his waiting
for what?

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David and David's answer was
one of the best answers I've ever heard.

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He said, Larry,
I know that Jesus Christ paid for my sins.

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I don't know who's going to pay for years.

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That's such a great answer,

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because what he was saying is, Larry,
you know, people need to be accountable.

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You know, sin needs to be paid for.

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Jesus came and paid for my sin.

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Who's going to pay for your.

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But then I'm going to give you a quick
flyby

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of the Gospel of John
and all the things he tries to tell us,

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so that we could believe that we have
Messiah.

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Chapter two Jesus cleanses

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the temple, makes the first prediction
of his resurrection.

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Chapter two.

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Chapter three.

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He gives that world famous verse.

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Jesus is the one who said, For God
so loved the world

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that he gave his one
and only son, that whoever believes in him

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should not perish
but have everlasting life.

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Chapter four.

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He spends time with the Samaritan woman.

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She leaves.

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She goes into town and she tells everyone,
come see a man who told me

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everything I've ever done

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and he loves me still.

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Could he be the Messiah?

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Could he be my Messiah?

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Chapter five Jesus heals on the Sabbath,
and people begin to realize that

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he calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath,
that he is making himself equal to God.

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Chapter six Jesus feeds 5000 people

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and then calls himself the bread of Life.

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Chapter seven.

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People were really struggling with Jesus

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because they realized that he is more
than your ordinary prophet.

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If there's such a thing
as an ordinary prophet.

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Chapters eight and nine Jesus says,
I am the light of the world,

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and any to prove it,
he heals a man who is born blind.

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Chapter ten.

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He calls himself
the good Shepherd, alluding to Psalm 23,

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or that was chapter nine. Chapter ten.

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No. Chapter ten, chapter 11.

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He raises Lazarus from the dead,
and he says, this is just the beginning.

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And he has that verse.

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For he says, I am the resurrection
and the life.

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He who believes in me,
though he die, yet shall he live.

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Chapter 12 is Palm Sunday.

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So chapter 12 all the way through
chapter 21, the last week of Jesus life.

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And during those chapters we see Jesus
having the Last Supper with his disciples.

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We institutes communion.

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Judas betrays him. He's arrested.

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He he's tried.

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He's how he's hung on a cross.

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He dies. He's buried.

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He resurrects, appears to Mary Magdalene,
the disciples, Thomas More disciples.

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All that John writes down

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so that you would know

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that Jesus came for you,

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that Jesus on the cross paid for your sin.

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And when he resurrected,
it was like a receipt

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to make sure that you knew

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that your sins had been paid for,
that when Jesus

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said, For God so loved the world,
he was talking about, you,

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that's the first thing.

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The second thing John says is,
I've written all these things that

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you would know that Jesus is the Christ,
that you have a Savior,

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but that Jesus also is the Son of God.

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That's why he wrote all the
I am statements.

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That's
why they find those in the Gospel of John.

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He's trying to say, listen,

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00:14:36,692 --> 00:14:40,462
he's trying to keep people from doing what
most people do, which is to say that

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00:14:40,462 --> 00:14:44,633
Jesus is a really good man,
a really good moral teacher.

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And it's it's crazy
that they come to that conclusion.

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00:14:49,622 --> 00:14:52,608
I, I read this to you eight weeks ago,

285
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in that sermon, but it's a quote from C.S.

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00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:57,446
Lewis, from his book Mere Christianity.

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00:14:57,446 --> 00:14:59,899
And I really like this quote.
So let me read it again.

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C.S. Lewis says, I'm trying here
to prevent anyone saying the really

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00:15:04,253 --> 00:15:08,157
foolish thing that people and often
say about him, I'm ready to accept

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Jesus as a great moral teacher,
but I don't accept his claim to be God.

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That's the one thing we must not say.

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A man who is merely a man
and said the sort of things Jesus said

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would not be a great moral teacher.

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He would either be a lunatic on the level
with a man who says

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he's a poached egg,
or else he would be the devil of hell.

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You must make your choice.

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Either this man was and is the Son of God,
or else a mad man or something worse.

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You can shut him up for a fool.

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You can spit at him
and kill him as a demon, or

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he can fall at his feet
and call him Lord and God.

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But let us not come

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00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:45,628
with any patronizing nonsense
about his being a great human teacher.

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He has not left that open to us.

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He did not intend to.

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If Jesus was the Son of God,

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it means he has absolute authority.

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It means when you look at Jesus,
you know what God is really like.

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It means that his sacrifice
has infinite value.

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It means to resist Jesus.

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It's not just disagreement,
it's rebellion.

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And to trust Jesus is not just belief.

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It's coming home.

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John says, I wrote these 22 pages

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so that you would have enough
to believe two things about Jesus.

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One, that he came for you
and that you have a Savior.

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And two he is the Son of God,
and you can trust him with everything.

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And that brings me to my third point,
which is what you can expect.

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That's what he says.

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But these things were written
that you may believe that

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Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing

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you may have life in his name and word.

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Life is the Greek word zoé,
which is quality of life.

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It's like what you would think of
if you were on vacation at the beach

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and had just a wonderful day, and you're
sitting at that on the deck of the beach,

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looking at as the sun sets over the ocean
and you think to yourself, this,

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this is living.

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This is what life should be like.

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That's Zoe.

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What's interesting is that John writes
this at the end of his life.

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He's the last living disciple,

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00:17:27,980 --> 00:17:32,701
and his life has been anything
but sitting on a on a deck,

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00:17:32,901 --> 00:17:36,388
looking out at a sunset
in the ocean after perfect days.

333
00:17:36,955 --> 00:17:39,091
That's not what he's talking about.

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00:17:39,091 --> 00:17:41,844
It's like John comes
to the end of his life,

335
00:17:41,844 --> 00:17:45,798
and he remembers back to John chapter
ten, where Jesus says,

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00:17:45,798 --> 00:17:49,318
I have come that they might have life
and have it more abundantly.

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00:17:49,651 --> 00:17:54,173
And John says, it's true, it's true.

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00:17:54,890 --> 00:17:58,110
You can have life
the way it was supposed to be,

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00:17:58,110 --> 00:18:01,113
because that's what I have lived.

340
00:18:02,514 --> 00:18:05,517
I, when I watch TV, I channel surf

341
00:18:06,151 --> 00:18:08,454
like all the time.

342
00:18:08,454 --> 00:18:11,423
The remote control is one of the greatest
inventions in the world

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00:18:12,407 --> 00:18:13,442
for me.

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00:18:13,442 --> 00:18:15,811
It's the bane of my wife's existence.

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00:18:15,811 --> 00:18:19,681
She likes to see the end of shows for,
you know, closure.

346
00:18:20,149 --> 00:18:23,068
I don't, so I'm channel surfing.

347
00:18:23,068 --> 00:18:27,172
And I saw the other day
that, back to the future is looping back.

348
00:18:27,172 --> 00:18:30,843
Back to the future is an old time
travel movie with Michael J. Fox.

349
00:18:31,827 --> 00:18:35,397
And just if you don't know, I'm
going to tell you a little bit about it

350
00:18:35,397 --> 00:18:41,520
that the time travel machine
is a Delorean car, but the mechanism

351
00:18:41,520 --> 00:18:45,624
that gives the energy for time
travel is called the flux capacitor.

352
00:18:48,143 --> 00:18:49,878
I know, I know too much about this movie.

353
00:18:49,878 --> 00:18:50,913
I'm sorry.

354
00:18:50,913 --> 00:18:53,432
All right,
but the flux capacitor in the movie,

355
00:18:53,432 --> 00:18:56,902
the only the only thing
that will give it enough energy

356
00:18:57,269 --> 00:19:01,940
to actually travel through time is either
plutonium or a bolt of lightning.

357
00:19:01,940 --> 00:19:05,010
That's the whole
premise of back to the future one.

358
00:19:05,427 --> 00:19:09,298
But at the end of the movie,
in order to tee up the sequel,

359
00:19:09,565 --> 00:19:12,234
they have the professor fly
into Michael J.

360
00:19:12,234 --> 00:19:13,652
Fox, his driveway,

361
00:19:13,652 --> 00:19:17,272
and he's come from the future, and he's
made some adjustments to the Delorean,

362
00:19:17,823 --> 00:19:22,010
and he opens it up and he opens the flux
capacitor and and Michael J.

363
00:19:22,010 --> 00:19:24,746
Fox is worried about plutonium,

364
00:19:24,746 --> 00:19:28,667
but the professor just starts
grabbing garbage and putting it into

365
00:19:28,667 --> 00:19:33,422
the flux capacitor, banana peels
and coffee grounds and leaves and sticks.

366
00:19:33,422 --> 00:19:37,226
Because the flux capacitor
can then take anything

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00:19:37,226 --> 00:19:40,345
and convert it into pure energy.

368
00:19:42,564 --> 00:19:44,850
That's what John's talking about.

369
00:19:44,850 --> 00:19:47,853
There are two ways to experience life

370
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the way it's supposed to be lived
abundant life.

371
00:19:50,606 --> 00:19:55,277
The first is to spend your whole life
chasing those those slivers of time,

372
00:19:55,277 --> 00:19:59,131
those moments where everything seems like
it's perfect,

373
00:19:59,882 --> 00:20:02,851
like everyone you love is healthy
and everything is going well,

374
00:20:02,851 --> 00:20:05,871
and you're looking at a sunset
over the beach, and those things happen

375
00:20:05,871 --> 00:20:10,375
just like a little tiny
drop on the tip of our tongue

376
00:20:10,759 --> 00:20:13,795
to remind us of what heaven will be like.

377
00:20:15,047 --> 00:20:19,167
The other way is to have something change
deep down in your soul,

378
00:20:19,918 --> 00:20:25,040
so that every circumstance you go through
gets processed into pure life.

379
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:26,992
Into Zoe,

380
00:20:26,992 --> 00:20:29,211
where everything that you experience

381
00:20:29,211 --> 00:20:33,198
turns into love and joy and peace

382
00:20:33,649 --> 00:20:36,535
and patience and goodness.

383
00:20:36,535 --> 00:20:38,003
That's what John's talking about.

384
00:20:39,438 --> 00:20:41,607
John says, I know what it is.

385
00:20:41,607 --> 00:20:43,558
I know what Jesus was talking about.

386
00:20:43,558 --> 00:20:49,281
You know what it is and what it is
is that Jesus has come for me,

387
00:20:50,032 --> 00:20:53,035
that Jesus is the Son of God.

388
00:20:53,335 --> 00:20:56,338
And there's a change
that has happened in my soul

389
00:20:56,872 --> 00:20:57,873
and now expenses.

390
00:20:57,873 --> 00:21:00,058
That's what I want.

391
00:21:00,058 --> 00:21:02,728
That's what I that's what I want for you

392
00:21:02,728 --> 00:21:04,880
at the end of 2026, for us

393
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:07,883
to look back and say something happened

394
00:21:08,150 --> 00:21:11,670
deep down in our souls,
and for the first time, we began

395
00:21:11,670 --> 00:21:15,891
to experience different circumstances,
circumstances that other people

396
00:21:16,041 --> 00:21:20,662
that would not produce life
and other people produce life in me,

397
00:21:21,780 --> 00:21:22,347
John says.

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00:21:22,347 --> 00:21:25,167
I wrote 22 pages

399
00:21:25,167 --> 00:21:27,386
so you would know enough

400
00:21:27,386 --> 00:21:29,671
so you could believe

401
00:21:29,671 --> 00:21:31,740
that Jesus came for you.

402
00:21:31,740 --> 00:21:33,258
He is your Messiah.

403
00:21:33,258 --> 00:21:34,977
You could believe
that he is the Son of God

404
00:21:36,028 --> 00:21:39,147
and that you could experience life,

405
00:21:40,315 --> 00:21:42,651
life the way it was intended.

406
00:21:42,651 --> 00:21:45,654
The life that you really, really want.

407
00:21:47,122 --> 00:21:49,641
Would you pray with me,

408
00:21:49,641 --> 00:21:50,309
father in heaven?

409
00:21:50,309 --> 00:21:53,312
Thank you for, the Bible.

410
00:21:53,879 --> 00:21:57,382
I am so grateful that you have
given us everything that we need.

411
00:21:57,716 --> 00:22:00,002
And I know there are some here
that just like.

412
00:22:00,002 --> 00:22:02,988
Man, I wish I had one thing more, but

413
00:22:03,538 --> 00:22:08,126
John says Euro 22 pages and it's enough.

414
00:22:09,177 --> 00:22:11,163
I pray for, everyone here

415
00:22:11,163 --> 00:22:14,149
that we would all believe in our hearts

416
00:22:15,233 --> 00:22:18,236
that Jesus is the Christ,

417
00:22:18,987 --> 00:22:21,890
that Jesus is our Messiah, and that he's

418
00:22:21,890 --> 00:22:25,043
the Son of God with authority
in every aspect of our lives.

419
00:22:25,494 --> 00:22:28,497
And then I pray that you would
give us the life you promised.

420
00:22:28,980 --> 00:22:30,048
Thank you.

421
00:22:30,048 --> 00:22:32,601
Thanks for providing
such a wonderful Savior.

422
00:22:33,618 --> 00:22:35,370
We pray this in his name.

423
00:22:35,370 --> 00:22:35,821
Amen.