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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
Good morning, family. My name is Bui
and I'd love to invite you all to stand with me
as we read the word of the Lord.
We are reading in one John chapter five, verse one
through 12, everyone who believes
that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God
and everyone who loves the Father loves
whoever has been born of him.
By this we know that we love the children
of God when we love God and obey his commandments.
For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments
and his commandments are not burdensome For everyone
who has been born of God overcomes the world.
And this is the victory that has overcome the world.
Our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one
who believes that Jesus is the son of God.
This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.
Not by the water only, but by the water.
And the blood and the Spirit is the one who testifies
because the spirit is the truth.
For there are three that testify the spirit
and the water and the blood.
And these three agree.
If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony
of God is greater for this is the testimony of God
that he has born concerning his son.
Whoever believes in the son
of God has the testimony in himself.
Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar
because he has not believed in the testimony
that God has born concerning his son.
And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life.
And this life is in His son.
Whoever has the son has life
and whoever does not have the son of God,
does not have life.
This is the word of the Lord.
You all can have a seat, man.
It took him that long to read that.
And I gotta preach that whole thing.
You know, last week I I I assume most of you're here.
Ben Foot was in town
and uh, he was preaching the passage
that we assigned, uh, to him.
And I don't know if you were paying attention,
but we read about 10, 12 verses before he got up to preach
and he preached about three of 'em.
I said he kinda took the easy way out.
So I had to tell him afterwards, you know,
we pave by the verse around here.
So unfortunately we gotta cut up. I'm just kidding.
I didn't, I did not tell him that. Uh, we love Ben.
He did a phenomenal job. Love you Ben.
I know you track along with us every week. Uh, hey Mer.
But we, I tell you what, we do have a lot of work to do.
So, uh, we're gonna jump in. Merry Christmas to you all.
Merry Christmas to you at the Apex Campus.
Be there next week. Look forward to seeing you.
Merry Christmas To those who are listening in online, uh,
I wanna start out by asking you a question.
Do you ever look at someone's life
and think, man, they they are just killing it.
They got a great job, great house
kids are in like travel everything.
Beach vacations, they got a mountain house.
I mean they're, their in social media is like
a tourism commercial.
And if that's you, sometimes we don't like
you just so you know.
But the truth is like we can, we can do that.
Like I worry about that 'cause I post stuff on social media
and when I do it, like I try
to post things from God's word to encourage people.
'cause I mean I know most of the stuff on social media,
a lot of it's garbage.
And that sounds hard right outta the gate, sorry.
But I, you know, you try to encourage people.
Uh, we're proud of our kids. They do great things.
And so we try to share things that they're doing.
And I think man, like people could think our life is like
that just based on social media.
'cause you know what I don't do? I don't like put a picture
of my beautiful wife and my daughter on my Instagram
and say, well here we are again at 10 o'clock at night when
we were supposed to all be in the bed by nine 30.
And my incredibly strong
and steady wife started a conversation
with my sweet innocent 17-year-old daughter
that turned into an argument that the paint began
to peel off the walls.
And then myself as the loving husband, man of God stepped in
to usher in the peace of the Lord into the conversation.
And then somehow through a demonic shift
of events, I became the enemy
of everyone and had to sleep on the couch.
Like I, that happens, but I don't post
that on social media, right?
So I was having a conversation with someone
who is a part of our church, uh, a couple weeks ago.
And it's a guy actually went on, uh,
the extreme character challenge a 72 hour wilderness venture
out into the mountains of Colorado.
And this is a guy that you would think man,
like has everything together, checks all the boxes.
And we sat down and he
looked at me and he said, you know what?
I don't even know if I like my life.
He said, I'm anxious, I'm exhausted.
I don't really know where I stand with God
and I feel like I'm always chasing something.
And I just don't know if this is
what life is really supposed to be about.
So on the outside, he's winning,
but on the inside filled with uncertainty.
And if we're honest, that's not just other people, right?
A lot of us, we look fine, some of us look more than fine.
But when the room is dark,
when we put the phone down at night, the conversation
that starts playing out in our head is like, is this it?
Is this what life is really supposed to be about?
That's what this series
that we're calling Un Uncertainty is all about.
And so John, when he writes this letter through First John,
he's writing to real people like you
and like me who actually love Jesus.
But they feel this pull in their life, pulled by a culture,
pulled by this insatiable desire.
They're pulled by false teaching. We've talked about that.
The world throws all kinds of stuff at us,
pulled by their own doubts.
And in one John chapter five, one through 12,
he aims right at the core question that's
underneath every bit of that.
And it's this, where does real life actually come from?
And we gotta ask ourselves the question,
we gotta do business with this.
Am I chasing life the world's way?
Or am I receiving life God's way?
I want you to listen to, to me really carefully here.
'cause there's two things that Jesus said
that are very important for us to understand.
Foundationally going into this.
And John chapter 10, verse 10, Jesus said, I came
that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Jesus, the son of God, left heaven so that you
and I can experience a life of peace, of hope, of love.
But he also warns us in Mark chapter eight, verse 36,
he said, what does it profit of man to gain the whole world
and to lose his soul?
And so the tension here
that we're gonna see in one John chapter five is this,
you can't experience life the way that God designed
apart from the Son of God.
And this for us is a church. This is not like a side issue.
Our vision here that we like throw up on the walls
and we put on t-shirts, it's for our communities
and our world to know and experience the love of God
and the life that Jesus came to make available to us.
That's, it's not just for us to hear about it, it's not just
to agree with it intellectually,
but for us to know it and experience it.
And this week when we celebrate Advent,
I'm pointing over here 'cause we,
I know it's not on the screens, but we have Advent candles
set up this week we're celebrating Advent joy.
And what John's gonna show us is joy is not about finally
getting the life that you've always imagined.
Joy is about receiving the life that Jesus imagines for us.
So if you have your Bibles turn to First John chapter five,
uh, verses one through 12.
If you hear some scratching, um,
this happened in the first service,
apparently my beard is like digging into this microphone.
We'll figure it out. So try to bear with me, uh, Nestor,
just wave at me if it's getting too
bad and I'll, I'll fix it.
Hey Chris. So look, we got a lot of verses to cover.
So I broke this down into four Mo I didn't do this,
John did this, okay?
Uh, but there's like four movements since if you're taking
notes, I want, you can write this down
or you can download the apps from the,
the notes from our Get Hope app, four movements.
The first is just verse one
and it's this Faith in the sun births new life,
births a new creation,
second movement verses two through five.
Faith in the sun reshapes how we live.
It actually changes us from the inside out. Movement.
Three, faith in the Son, rest on God's testimony.
That's all about how do we know this is true?
That's verses six through 10.
And then movement four, faith in the Son gives real life
now, but not just now,
but for all of eternity verses 11 and 12.
But as we walk through this, I want you
to ask yourself this question.
I want you to be honest, okay?
Don't do, don't gimme a churchy answer. Don't do that to me.
Don't don't do that. More
importantly, don't do it to yourself.
Am I chasing life the world's way
or am I receiving life in the sun?
Verse one, John writes, everyone who believes
that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God
and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever
has been born of it.
So John is setting the stage right here from the beginning
on what it means to know
and experience the life that God desires
for us to experience.
But notice John doesn't start with this.
He doesn't start by saying try harder.
He starts with new birth, new creation.
So he's not saying, everyone
who gets their act together is born of God.
What John's saying is everyone who believes very clearly,
everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been born of God.
That's where new birth comes from.
Two things we gotta unpack here.
One, what does it mean to be born of God?
Number two, what does it mean to believe
that Jesus is the Christ?
So being born of God? We'll start there at the top.
Clay talked a few weeks ago about the importance and,
and the value of using scripture
to interpret scripture, to understand scripture.
So we're gonna go back to the gospel of John,
which is near the beginning of the New Testament.
Just for a moment, chapter three, verses three through five.
Jesus is having a conversation with one
of the top leaders in the Jewish faith.
His name was Nicodemus.
And it says in verse three, Jesus replied, very truly,
I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God.
No one can experience the life that
that Jesus is actually gonna come that has come
to make available that I have come to make available
unless they are born again.
So same language that we see and first John.
Now if anybody is in the audience
and paying attention, they should
wonder what does that mean?
What does it mean to be reborn?
And so I hope you're asking that question.
Nicodemus asked that question, verse four.
He says, how can someone be born when they are old?
Surely they cannot enter into a second,
enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born.
Now just so we're all on the same page, Nicodemus was right.
You can't do that. You should not try that. Okay?
That would not be a good Christmas present from your mom.
Like, we're not gonna do that. What he's really saying is,
you, you didn't contribute
to your birth the first time, much less.
Do you have any ability to contribute to your ability
to become a new creation, to be spiritually reborn?
Jesus answers in verse five.
He says, very truly, I tell you,
no one can enter the kingdom of God
unless they're born of water.
And the spirit will get to that in a moment.
He says, flesh gives birth to flesh,
but the spirit gives birth to spirit.
And so when you go back to one John,
he's being so clear here.
But what it means, being born of God and knowing
and experiencing the life that God has for us,
it's not, I made a few tweaks.
It's not just I got up a little bit early
and added some more Jesus to my Sundays.
This is not, uh, I read the Bible a little bit
and I bought a toy at Christmas for a kid that's in need.
Being born of God is this.
It's saying, and owning and celebrating
and living your life as though you believe God did something
in me that I could never do for myself.
He made me alive. And we gotta understand this.
I'm telling you, because whether you're in here
and you're exploring Christianity,
which if you're here like welcome
to a place where it's safe to do that.
Or if you're an elder or a pastor in this church,
we can't lose sight of this 'cause it's so easy to forget.
The world tells us you can build your own life,
you can upgrade your own life.
But what John is saying is you don't build this life.
You are born into it. How?
By belief that Jesus is the Christ.
Well what does that mean? Stay with me.
I'm gonna break it down. You got two segments here.
Jesus is the Christ when he says Jesus very clearly,
he's talking about the real historical man Jesus
of Nazareth, who, who whose birth
that we're gonna celebrate here in just a couple weeks.
Quick aside, if you haven't gotten reserved your seats
yet, you can do that.
Text the word Christmas to 7, 2, 9, 8, 9. Get your seats.
Get seats for those that you're gonna invite.
But this is talking about Jesus, the man who lived,
who walked, who had, who had on human flesh, who taught,
who, who, who lived, who went to a cross and bled and died.
That, that Jesus was, what was the Christ?
What does the Christ mean?
Christ comes from the Greek word christos, which
also is the same word in Hebrew
that we translate the word Messiah or Savior.
And whether you know it or not,
like Christ was not Jesus' last name.
It wasn't like first name Jesus last name Christ.
This was a, uh, a title of a prophecy fulfilled the Israel.
They were God's people, the Israelites, they were expecting
one to come and to fulfill prophecy.
So what they would've heard here is is, is understanding
that Christ is this man Jesus
who is a true historical man,
but he's also the promised King from David's line.
This is a suffering servant who has prophesied for thousands
of years, was coming to take on the sins of the world.
The Son of God is gonna usher in God's kingdom.
And so Jesus to Christ is saying Jesus
of Nazareth is the long promised God sent Savior
of the world, who is the Son of God.
And we gotta recognize that this language, believing
that Jesus is the Christ, it doesn't save any room for
you know what, I'm a Christian
because I really think Jesus was a good guy
and he was a great teacher.
This this doesn't save room for like bobblehead Jesus
who is just here to kind of justify our conscience.
This is a, a, a paradigm shifting
divine intervention into the course of human history.
Which if true, it demands a decision, believe
or don't believe, that's
what John's getting at right here in front of us.
And so if you believe that Jesus is the Christ,
you are reborn of God.
Then he goes on to say, by the way,
we're halfway through verse one.
We're about 12 to 13 minutes in.
So I can understand why Ben last week was like,
I'm just gonna do three verses.
Good luck with the rest of it.
So I'm not gonna do that, but I do need
to pick up the pace at this point.
It goes on. He says, everyone
who loves the father loves whoever has been born of him.
What does that mean? It means new birth through believe
that Jesus is the Christ.
It actually gives you a new status as a child of God.
So if you believe Jesus is the Christ, you are now a son
or a daughter of God.
But it doesn't just give you a new status with God,
it also gives you a new family with God's people.
So you don't just get a father, you get siblings.
Some of them you'd like, some
of them stretch you, but they're family.
And as much as we'd like to at times we don't get to say,
you know, I love God, but I just can't stand as kids
and then think that you're actually
aligned with the heart of God.
You are family. It's why when we say around here
that we're a family who loves God, follows Jesus
and shares hope that could sound inclusive.
Like you're like, okay, so if I'm not a husband, a wife
with 2.3 kids in the house, I don't really No, no, no.
We're saying regardless of any of that,
you are now a part of God's family.
We are actually united together.
That's why scripture says there is no slave nor free
nor Jew, uh, nor Gentile.
There's no black, white, old, young Republican, Democrat.
And some of us, we don't like other people's opinions
or politics and we just try
to write 'em out of the family blessing.
Sometimes we have a tendency to live life with Jesus
and podcasts or Jesus
and sermons instead of Jesus and his people.
And so we gotta, we gotta recognize if your version
of Christianity doesn't make room for God's family,
it's not the version that we read about in scripture.
So we're part of God's family birth, uh, faith in the Son.
It bursts new life, births us into a new family.
Second movement, faith in the Son, it reshapes how we live.
You get to verse two, he says by this, we know
that we love the children of God when we love
and obey his commandments.
So we obey God's commandments.
Verse three, for this is the love of God
that we keep his commandments
and his commandments are not burdensome.
Timeout, God's commandments are not burdensome.
Is there anyone in this room
or at our apex campus that would be willing
to raise their hand and say, Hey,
there has never been a time in my life where
what God was asking from me was difficult.
I me neither. So what is John saying here?
He's definitely not saying God's commands are always easy.
He's not saying that following Jesus doesn't lead
to some internal or external tension in our lives.
What he is saying is for someone who has been born of God
that has the spirit of God inside of them,
God's commands are no longer a cruel weight.
There a path to real freedom and joy in our lives.
You think about a fish, where is a fish most free
on the sidewalk or in the water?
I mean the water's a restriction, right?
I mean technically it is you.
You can ask the little mermaid.
I want to go where the people are.
I want to see him, see him dancing.
I did choir when I was younger, so just be a worship leader.
But look, okay, thank you. Well done.
Alright, here's the water is the only environment
where fish can actually experience life.
God's commands are like that for us. The world says, no, no.
Freedom is doing whatever I want to do.
Jesus says, no, no, no.
Freedom is living how you are created to live with me,
under my rule, within my love.
And then John brings up, he says like understanding this
and getting to this place in our life, it, it takes us
to this word that he uses overcome.
Verse four, for everyone who has been born of God
overcomes the world for this is the victory
that has overcome the world, our faith, our belief
that Jesus is the Christ.
You get to verse five, who is it
that overcomes the world except the one who believes
that Jesus is the son of God?
That's a rhetorical question.
The answer to that is no one, everyone who's been born
of God overcomes the world.
And this is our victory, our faith, our faith
that Jesus is the Christ.
When he's talking about the world,
he's not talking about people.
This is not saying, Hey Christians, you believe this
and Jesus, you're gonna overcome people.
He's talking about the systems
that the world preaches at us over and over and over again.
You are what you accomplish. You are what you own.
You are what's happened to you. And those are lies.
John said, no, no, no, you don't overcome that system.
You by hustling it, you overcome that system.
By faith, faith is a transfer of trust.
I'm not trusting my performance, my feelings,
culture's, definition of life.
I'm trusting Jesus. And you need
to know the world will disciple us every single day.
Faith in the sun is how you talk back.
Faith in the sun is how you put an anchor in the ground.
I say, no, no, I'm not defined by my situations
or my circumstances.
We can overcome the world.
So this week, as we're celebrating joy through advent,
I've gotta recognize joy is not something
that's experienced when everything in our life lines up.
Joy is understanding that even when my life is not lined up,
I trust in the one who gave his life from mine.
That's joy. Faith in the Son leads to new life.
Third movement, faith in the Son,
it rests on God's testimony.
This is all about, okay, that sounds great,
but how do we know this is true?
And I wanna point out in John's day,
people were rewriting Jesus.
Maybe he wasn't fully human,
maybe he wasn't really the son of God.
Maybe he didn't really die.
Maybe his death didn't actually deal
with the sins of the world.
And this is not anything new for us.
I mean, we, we hear the same things now just
with better graphics and better Instagram reels.
But ultimately this comes down to the the question,
how do we know that Jesus is the Christ?
And you remember earlier we looked back at John chapter
three and Jesus said, no one can experience the kingdom
of God unless they are born of water and spirit.
And you get to verse six of chapter five of first John.
And John writes this is he, he's talking about Jesus
who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.
Not by the water only, but by the water.
And the blood and the Spirit is the one who testifies
because the spirit is the truth.
For there are three that testify the spirit
and the water and the blood.
And these three agree.
Is there anybody who wants to come up and explain that?
Here's what John's saying.
He's saying God has testified himself about his son.
Keep it as simple as I can.
When he, when he says through the water, what he's referring
to is Jesus' baptism
that we can read about back in the gospels.
And Jesus goes into the water. John the Baptist baptize him.
And when he comes up, um, uh, scripture tells us
that God actually speaks from heaven.
And he says, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased.
So let's say God himself told us this was true.
When he goes, when he is talking about the blood,
he's talking about the blood
that Jesus shed on our behalf on the cross.
He's saying, look, for thousands of years, we know that
for the forgiveness of sins,
there has to be shedding of blood.
For thousands of years we've known
that there's one who's coming.
Jesus came. He said he was that one,
and he believed it so much,
he actually bled and died for you.
And then John adds in the Spirit,
which also testifies the spirit, the spirit of God.
It's like a spotlight saying, look at him. This is true.
Look at how lives are changing.
Men and women are overcoming the world through what it is
that God is doing and changing their lives.
So you've got the water. The father saying, this is my son.
You, you've got the blood, the cross saying,
this is the sacrifice for our sins.
He gave his life for each and every one of us.
And then the spirit, that's the ongoing witness.
That's what convicts us in our hearts.
It says, turn away from death. This is true. Trust him.
And then John gets incredibly practical.
You get to verse nine. He says, if we receive the testimony
of men, which we do, the testimony of God is greater
for this is the testimony of God that he has born,
which is a past part simple.
It means has given the testimony of God that he has given
concerning his son.
We believe people's testimonies all the time.
We will buy a $500 TV based on a review that we read online.
We'll, someone said a thousand dollars TV down here.
There's a wife jabbing her husband.
We'll trust a stranger's post on social media
and get worked up for two days.
I do this, like there's times my kids go to bed
and I get on social media and
before I can fall asleep, I'm like, I don't,
I don't know if we ever really made it to the moon
or if the world world is round anymore.
Like, I don't know. I don't know.
Don't send me emails, okay?
We're not, I don't wanna know your flat earth theories.
This is not, this is not bait for you to jump in.
We trust what a friend says
about somebody that we've never met.
We trust the testimony of other men.
What John is saying is, if you can trust people, why is it
so hard to trust God?
These three things testify together.
And you get to verse 10, man,
and it's like a punch in the face.
It says, whoever believes in the son
of God has the testimony in himself.
That's, that's good. Whoever does not believe God has made
him a liar
because he has not believed in the testimony
that God has born, that God has given concerning son.
Whoever does not believe in God has made him a liar.
See, to reject Jesus. It's not being neutral.
It's looking at everything that God has done
and everything that God has said
and saying, I don't believe you.
And I know that's heavy, but it's honest.
I mean, I tell you the question that I've been having
to wrestle with all week.
And so welcome into it.
It's this, where in your life are you living?
Like God is lying and the world's telling the truth.
God says, life is in my son,
but we live like life is in our success.
God says, my commands are for your joy.
Command are for me to call you into serving those who are
around you, to to leverage, uh, the resources
that I've blessed you with in your life
for the sake of my kingdom.
These things are for your joy,
but we live like his commands are
really just killing a vibe.
God says, you're loved, but we live
like we're only as valuable as our last win.
You know, I I I do. I've got kids.
And um, you know, by God's grace
that they're passionate about a few sports
and they, they accomplish a lot of stuff.
I have a fear that like they could develop this
performance mentality that says, I'm defined by the last win
that I had or what I can accomplish.
And so what happens one day when a loss comes, I want them
to be so rooted in the gospel
and then, well, I'm still a child of God.
I'm still loved. I'm still a son of God.
I'm still a daughter of God. God's promises are
still true for me in my life.
And the reality is, so much of our anxiety comes from trying
to hold on to God's promises in one hand and then,
and then buying into the world's promises in the other.
And you know what it's like? It would be like tying a chain
around one wrist into a bumper of an F-150 pickup
and a chain around another one to a Chevy Silverado.
And not like gunning it outta the parking lot,
but just like putting it on low and letting 'em go.
Like the tension that we sit under
faith in the son rest in God's testimony.
God has spoken. He's given us his word.
And then John lands the plane with maximum clarity.
Verse 11 and 12. He says,
and this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life.
And this life is in his son.
Listen, whoever has the son has life.
Whoever does not have the son of God, does not have life.
You almost don't need a commentary
or a pastor to unpack that for you.
This is what I want you to leave.
Life is a gift, not a trophy. It's a gift.
God gave us eternal life. You don't earn it.
You, you, you don't have to pay him back for it.
You don't have to work off your sins
like spiritual probation.
And I hope there is. I just gotta believe there is somebody
in this room right now that is carrying a burden from
something that's a part of their past
that they just can't move on from.
And you need to understand that's not how it works.
Jesus took it to a cross.
He paid for your sins so that you could have new life, so
that you could have an abundant life that's not walking
around with guilt and shame and condemnation.
Life is not God's reward for your performance.
It's a gift because of Jesus's performance.
We gotta get our hearts and our minds around that.
It's not about your accomplishments, it's about your belief.
And this is why John can be so blunt.
Whoever has the son has life,
whoever doesn't have the son, doesn't have life.
So you can have a full calendar, a full house
and a full bank account and not experience life.
Or you can have an uncertain future.
You can have some scars. You can walk with a limp.
You can have some losses.
Look, I wanna recognize this time of year, man, I,
I know there's many of us in this room right now
that this is our first Christmas season
without that loved one in our life.
There's people in my community group right now
that have just gotten some news.
You know what? They might have six months left to live.
But through the sun, we have life.
Eternal scripture tells us
Jesus is gonna put all this brokenness back together again.
One day he will wipe every tear away from every eye.
God's word tells us that in Christ, we don't have to mourn
as those who have no hope.
And so the question this week,
it's not, do you go to church?
It's not even do you believe in God?
The question is, do you have the son?
Do you have the son for our communities
and all the world to know and experience the love of God
and the life that Jesus came
to make available church family.
I i just have this holy discontent that I know there are men
and women and students who said
that they believe in the name of Jesus
but aren't experiencing the joy and the peace
and the purpose that he came to give to us
This advent joy.
It's not my life is perfect, it's his life is mine.
And so I wanna give us a chance to respond, okay?
Not not just to, not just to think, not just to listen,
but to actively respond.
And so I'm gonna give you an opportunity to respond,
but it's gonna be a bold response.
And so I know in this room, at our Apex campus,
there are men and women
who are at a place of just saying, you know what?
I wanna receive life in the sun.
I, I, I've, I've been chasing life the world's way.
I've been successful on the outside.
All the boxes are checked,
but I don't have what John is talking about.
Or maybe you say, I've been around church,
I know about Jesus, but I've not fully trusted him
with my life, with my sin, with my future.
So I want you to hear God's testimony again.
Whoever has the son has life, not whoever's never messed up,
not whoever can explain one John in the Greek,
Whoever has the son.
And so if that's you and you're here in a
moment, the band's gonna come out.
They're gonna play a song. Some of our pastors and elders
and prayer team, they're gonna come down front.
And I just want you to come down
and I want you to tell them, I wanna receive Jesus.
And they're gonna pray with you. They're gonna pray for you.
And in your seat right now, maybe you're just in a place
of saying, Jesus, I believe you are the son of God.
I don't know everything Jason was talking about
with the water and the blood and all that.
But I know you live the life that I didn't live.
I know that you died for the forgiveness of my sins.
I know that you rose from the grave
and I'm putting my trust in you.
Forgive me. I want to experience life in the sun.
And if you're in that place when the band plays, I want you
to be bold and I want you to come down
and I want you to let someone
know, I want to trust in Jesus.
I believe there's another group in the room right now,
and you're just tired of
chasing the world's version of life.
You believe that Jesus is the Christ,
but you've been living in that tension.
This is what God calls me into. This is what the world says.
And if we're honest, you're living your life.
There's though God's lying.
And if that's you, I same plan.
We're all gonna stand and sing.
And I want you to come forward
and I want you to let somebody know that you need prayer.
Or maybe you just need to come to the front
of the stage right here and treat it like an altar
and lay something down
that you've been carrying for far too long.
But man, this season at Christmas,
when we're celebrating advent joy,
can we just be filled anew with the spirit of God,
recognizing that Jesus left heaven
and came down to earth so
that we could experience an abundant life.
And so I'm gonna ask all of you to go ahead
and stand together here at the Raleigh campus
and for you all at the Apex campus, and we're gonna sing.