I'd like us to return to a series that began some weeks back on the theme of sharing our faith with unbelievers. I used to mention that title in such a raw nerve in the hearts of many professing Christians, many evangelicals, who, at least in statistics of life, we learned that very few tend to share their faith on a regular basis. And just to mention, sharing your faith, they say, well, what are you going to do, make us feel guilty? Is that what this is about? No, I have no desire at all to make you feel guilty. I have a desire to help you in this whole matter of the sharing of our faith. There are a lot of reasons people tend to just not speak in behalf of Christ, or to tell that you belong to Him, that you come to know Him, you honor Him, you seek to love Him. A sense of, if somebody asks me a question, I won't have a proper answer. I don't know enough. I don't know enough to really speak well. Remember, Moses said he was not able to speak well, and that was his reason. We all have our reasons in regards to things like that. Perhaps there's awkwardness that you feel. Perhaps people think we're pushy, maybe we're intruding in their space, and people don't want us to tell us. They are enough to talk about. They're not. or maybe the thing that's most important to talk about. Don't talk about politics and don't talk about religion. I don't know what they want to talk about. They just want to talk about entertainment. They live in the amusement, entertainment generation. And the simple fact is, it is a responsibility that God does lay upon his people, and not just you, his people, not just the ordained, not just the gifted, but all of his people. are called to be right in the midst of this world's darkness. All of us people are called to function as salt amid the corruption of this present evil age. All of us people are called upon to walk in wisdom towards those who are without. But in our speech, we're seasoned with salt to give grace to those who hear, or that we would know how to speak as we ought to speak. especially gifted people, the responsibility of every Christian to confess the name of Jesus Christ. I'm not saying everybody should do the same thing in the same way. I do not believe that. I do not believe that at all. We ought to do something, in some way, to make the truth of the gospel known. And the fact is, folks, it is always a question, not so much of whether you're not gifted sufficiently, or you don't know enough, but in a real sense it does become a question of the heart. I don't mean this to be judgmental, I just mean to be liberal. The Bible tells us, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And when our lives are wrapped up in King Jesus, when our lives are wrapped up in his love for us, When our minds and our souls are wrapped up in the benefits and blessings that we possess as the people of God, we want to tell others, we've versed, and if we never did, if we couldn't, in some way, speak of the love we have for the Savior, of the greatness, of the grace that He has shown us. If we're living in the Gospel, If we're living with a lively faith in the benefits of the Gospel, it's not only going to help us to have the content to be able to speak the things we know, but it's also going to help us to do it in a manner appropriately. And I think I really was so confident, as I ought to be every moment and every day, that I am approved in the court of heaven. God smiles upon me, not because of who I am or what I've done, but because of my Savior, because of Jesus Christ. I am confident that God views me with the love the gospel tells me He does view me. Now, I don't care if people hate me. I'm secure in the knowledge of the love of my Father. They may frown, but God smiles. They may be hated by all men for His namesake, but my Savior has loved me, and that more than compensates for any hatred on the part of men. If I'm living in the light of the Gospel, and I know that God in His mercy has come to save me from my sins, that serves to humble me. I'm not going to be speaking to people with a proud, arrogant way, well, I'm a Christian, look at me. You have a holier-than-thou attitude with the Pharisees, who viewed themselves as righteous and put everyone else at arm's length and at a distance. This gospel humbles you, so you can speak the word of God, not only with the confidence that you're secure in the love of heaven, but you're also humbled before the mighty God of heaven. It also fills you with a sense of joy. You can't consider the blessings that the Gospel brings to you without having that sense of wondrous joy, rapturous joy, that God has shown me mercy. God has dealt so wondrously with a sinner like me, to sing of the amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. The Gospel infuses joy into the hearts of the people of God, as well as confidence, as well as humility. And the Gospel is a message of the love of heaven, the love of God to our souls, that God so loved the world that he gave his son to be God's son. John tells us here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us. He gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins. And you see, folks, when we read in the Gospel, When we live in the Gospel, we'll know the grace of the Gospel. When we preach the Gospel to ourselves, we want to also proclaim it to others. And because I think it's so important that we live in the Gospel, it doesn't think it's so important that daily we confess Jesus, if not to others, at least to ourselves, we begin with ourselves. I encouraged you, in fact, I think I challenged you, I tried to challenge you. To spend some time writing out a personal confession of your faith. To put it in your own words. And I hope you've done it. If you haven't done it, it's not too late. Do it. Today, tomorrow, next week. I don't care, but take time to do it. Take time to sit down and think, what is it that I believe? What is it that I'm sure of? What is it that I'm confident of? With respect to who God is, with respect to what I am and who I am before God, with respect to who Jesus is and what Jesus came into the world to do, what is it that I know to be certain, what I know to be sure? And write it out. Write it out. And then once you write it out, put it in your Bible and look at it. a few times a day, a few times a week, to rehearse those things, to bring it to mind, to confess it in your own heart. Again, to preach it to yourself, to confess to yourself the great things you know to be so. And then, look at Teladonis. Put it up on your Facebook profile. Tell others what you believe. Write on your Facebook profile. I'm not saying this is a matter of law. I'm just saying it's a matter of suggestion. Put it out there. find somebody to talk to about the things you most certainly would believe. And since I gave you that assignment, I decided I would, in the face of that assignment, in the light of that assignment, I'd give you an outline of my own confession of faith, something I'd written out on. I rewrite these things frequently, but I always come back to them, and I always look at them, I've got notebooks from past years where I've written out my confession of faith and things that I believe, and I can go back over them and just see how my understanding has grown and developed. But I think, I make that a regular part of my own walk before God. And I find my days are far more rich as a believer when I've taken time to consider what I believe, to preach the gospel to me. And that helps me in preaching to others. that helps me to set forth the truth of the gospel to others, at least to make me prepared to give an answer to anyone who would ask me of the reason of the hope that is in me. For thus far, I've given you three parts of my own confession of faith. And again, I'm not setting this out for you because I think it's terribly eloquent. It's not. It's not. But it's simple. And it's helpful. And if it's helpful to me, perhaps it could be helpful to you. I gave you, first of all, the fact that I confess that I believe and a God who is a being of infinite immensity, majesty, goodness, wisdom, power, and glory. The God of the Bible. He revealed himself in the heavens. His glory is made known in the heavens. He's revealed himself also in the scriptures. And this God is a God of infinite majesty, immensity, goodness, wisdom, power, and of glory. And then secondly, I told you, I believe that I am made by this God, for this God, in the image and likeness of the God of heaven and earth. I'm not made for myself, I'm not made for what I desire and desire, but ultimately, as Augustine said in his Confessions, you've made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Thirdly, I told you that I believe that I'm part of a fallen race, a race that is by nature rebellious, in which we as fallen sinners are banished from the special presence of God by nature, and we stand under His wrath and His just judgment. That's what Scripture teaches, that we are in Adam. In Adam we are fallen. In Adam we have no righteousness. In Adam, we stand in need of divine deliverance, of a safe salvation that only God can affect, and only God can bring, to bring us out of our banishment in the far country, back into the family of his love and his grace, and bring us out of that into his grace. That's how we've been thus far. That's what I've attempted to set out to you before. It's nothing surprising, nothing new. It's something I think we all know in our own hearts to be true, but I tell you, it's a great thing, every day, to preach it to yourself, and not just to do it on the Lord's Day. All you do is just hear the Gospel, preach the Gospel on the Lord's Day. It does you good on the Lord's Day, I know. Probably your wife, your husband will say, you know, on Sundays, sing about you. Just live with the glow about you. But you don't seem to have that reflected in your life the other days of the week. Am I wrong to never tell you that? See, I preach the Gospels, and I write things on Jonathan Edwards on the Lord's Day. She thinks I'm the greatest saint in the world on the Lord's Day. The principle of privilege is to preach the Gospel, and so I'm most in tune with the Gospel on the Lord's Day. If I were at that church every day of the week, I'd be a really great Christian boy, because I'd be preaching the Gospel for myself. But I don't need an audience to preach the Gospel for myself. I just need to preach the Gospel for myself. I just need to be reminded of my own soul, who God is, who I am before Him. my great need before him, and what of his grace he has done for my salvation. He died for my sins, was raised from the dead, and now reigns as Lord of all. For I believe concerning Jesus Christ, who I believe that He, Jesus of Nazareth, is the eternal Son of God. And He became man, came into this world as the Messiah, Israel's promised, long-expected Messiah. He came into this world and He lived that sinless life that none of us could ever live, because it was ours. And he died for the sins of others, was raised from the dead, and now reigns as Lord of all. See, what our faith must realize, what we must be constantly reminding ourselves of, is that Christianity is different from all the other religions of the world, Because Christianity is not just a set of doctrines. Now, you know I believe in a doctrinal Christianity. I believe in the teachings of the Word of God. But it's not just that. It's not just a list of doctrines, a confession of faith. We say, here it is, here's all the truths that we understand and believe that we taught in the Bible. You can have all those truths nailed down in your mind and be able to recite them with perfect perfection. You can be able to answer all the questions on Jeopardy having to do with the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, and religions and the sets of Christianity. You can know it all, church history, the whole deal. I still do not know the Savior. Christianity is more than just a set of doctrines. It's not just a set of principles to learn, or a set of actions to be performed. Christianity is about a person. Christianity is about the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the most amazing, the most fascinating person imaginable. And this person, we are invited to know. We're invited to trust Him, to come to Him, to believe in Him, to enter into a life union and communion with Him. It's not only good for this age, but it's good for the endless ages of eternity. this week in my job as a preaching cab driver in Middletown. I had occasion to take a young fourteen-year-old girl to school, to high school. I was amazed that these fourteen-year-olds look like they're twenty-four, not just fourteen. But she told me she was fourteen, and she was in her first year at Middletown High School. And in a brief ride of some six or seven minutes, I learned an awful lot about this young lady. Again, young people, they wear their whole experience and opinions and life history right on their sleeve. And in this time, I was treated to her ambitions, her whole outlook on life. She told me about her plans to get out of Middletown, and she had a desperate desire to relocate in a place where she could meet celebrities. That was her yearning. I want to be in a place where I can meet celebrities, the people you see on television and movies, the people who she listened to with her music. She gave me a whole list of people who I frankly never heard of, but she was just yearning to meet. She really wanted to meet these people. She didn't mention one name, but I know. She told me, Bobby Brown. I don't know if you know Bobby Brown. You're making a face, right? I knew who he was, and I'm showing how hip I was, and then I said to her—I'm getting a little street cred here—I said, that's the monster, Dina Brianna! No? Bobby who? I'm sorry? Chris Brown. That's the one. Sorry, not Bobby Brown. Anyway, I was a second baseman for the Yankees in the fifties. Chris Brown. Okay. Chris, that's what he said, and I knew it. That's the guy, that's the monster that beat up Rihanna. Okay. I connected with her at that point. This guy's an astute observer of modern culture, he must have told us. But you know, I responded to that. I rightly pointed out I said, this is the guy you want to meet? That's a monster! And she made some sort of a poor case excuse for him, and I said, there's no excuse. It should have been indefensible, what the guy did. And I began to talk about the sad lives of the rich and the famous. And after she left the car, I began to think how I possibly could have been more positive, and not just downing her heroes, putting them in their place. also leading the conversation along more gospel lines. And so I'm determined now, when I see her again, simply to tell her, I know somebody who's a greater celebrity, and a greater person of significance and importance and brilliance, a star-studded person. He's not only going to spar for the last two or three or four years or fifteen minutes of fame that he's gotten in the culture, but he's been around a long time, and he's going to be around not only throughout all of your life, but through all of eternity, and he wants you to know him. And you don't even have to move out of Middletown to do it. You don't even have to move out of Middletown to do it. Kennedy hopes that a teenager is more excited about the prospect of meeting flawed celebrities who couldn't care less about them than we are about having met the sinless Son of God, the Savior and Lover of our souls, the One who is filled with grace and compassion and love to sinners, that He died for us. It shouldn't be that a teenager has more excitement about celebrities, but don't care about them, than we have about our Savior, who we know how greatly He cares for us, how greatly He's loved us, and what great things He's done for the salvation of our souls. And I say to you folks, if we live in the light of what we confess about Jesus, we should be far more excited than we tend to be, and far more desirous of telling others. wonders he is, how fascinating he is, how gracious he is, how worthy he is to be known and loved and served. What is it that we confess about Jesus as the people of God? I put it in my own words of confession, but what are the elements of it? What are the elements of a Christian confession about the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, it begins in the fact that we confess the glory of his person. We confess the glory of who he is, what his personal identity is. Remember how Jesus said to his disciples, who do men say that I am? In Matthew chapter 16. And the whole butt around was a bunch of things. Some said you're righteous, some said you're one of the prophets. A bunch of things were said. And then Jesus asked the most important question. He said to them, but who do you say that I, the Son of Man, am? And Peter answering for his own faith, and I guess others believe this as well, he said, you are the Christ, you are the Son of the living God. He confessed that Jesus was Son of the living God. Now, I don't know, it really dawned upon Peter all that's involved in the very confession that he himself made. But he's speaking about Jesus, not just in terms of his humanity. There's something greater than his humanity. That was there for everyone to see. But by faith he saw that Jesus had a relationship with the Father that made him unique. He was the unique Son of God. What John calls the only begotten Son of God. That phrase, only begotten, it speaks again of uniqueness. He's the one and only Son of God. The Jehovah's Witnesses will say, look, we're all sons of God. Yes, that's true. We're all adopted sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. But this is one who is only begotten. That's unique. He's only the unique son of God, in that he is the eternal son of God. John tells us in his opening words of his Gospel, in John chapter 1 and verse 1, he says, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God the same, was in the beginning with God, all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." And he tells us in the words of verse 14 of that very chapter, that that Word he's speaking about, who is with God, who is God, who is Creator of all things, that that Word became flesh and welt among us. That Jesus came into the world In a true humanity, He became flesh, but He didn't cease being what He always was. Don't think of the Incarnation, Jesus, like metamorphosis, or He came like a transformer from one kind of thing into another. No, He was the eternal Son of God, and He remains the eternal Son of God. But He's the eternal Son of God made flesh. So how could that be? I don't know the answer, how it could be, I just know it is. I just know that the scripture testifies in every place that Jesus is unique, he's different. He had pre-existence, and he had pre-existence as deity. The prophecies that preceded him said such things as, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called what? Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God. everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Micah could speak of him being from above, even from everlasting. That passage spoke of his birth in Bethlehem. One would be born in Bethlehem and be from above, even from everlasting. Come to my New Testament, and we see that Jesus has the names of God given to him. He is Yahweh. He is Jehovah, the God of the Old Covenant. The things in the New Testament that are said about Jesus are the very things the Old Testament said about Yahweh, said about Jehovah, Yahweh God, the Covenant God of Israel, that he was the good shepherd. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. Of Yahweh it says, to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess. And Paul in Philippians 3 says, to Jesus every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess. It says of Yahweh, he will be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. The New Testament says that's what Jesus has done. He's become a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. He is, oh, the names of God. He has directed, he received the worship of God. It was before him. Thomas, seeing him in his resurrection glory, fell at his feet and cried out, My Lord and my God! You're an angel. And John, in Revelation, fell at his feet. He said, Get up on your feet! I'm going to fall sober with you! But every time Jesus was seen at worship, and he did it often in the Gospel records, At no point did he say, no, no, this is inappropriate. You shouldn't be worshiping me. He received the worship of God, because he is incarnate God. We confess the glory of his person. He is the eternal Son of God. He is the second person of the Trinity. We confess God to be the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We're baptized into the name, not names, but name singular of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You believe that, don't you? We confess that to be true! We confess the glory of Jesus' person! Astounding! The eternal God come in the flesh! Is that not Chris Brown in the face of that? Come on! How could we lose the sense of the excitement of the wonder involved in the incarnation? There's something that's a reality that suffuses our senses of joy and gladness every day of the year. We not only confess the glory of this person, we also confess the grandeur of his offices. In other words, his official work. is defined for us in terms of the title that he's given in the Scriptures. Do you know what that title is? That title is the Christ. The Christ. And a lot of people out there, get them? Take problems away from their mind that Christ is not Jesus' last name. He didn't come from the family of Christ. He is Jesus, the Christ. And the Christ is expressive of an office. It's the Greek term that's the translation of the Hebrew term, Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. We believe in Jesus the Messiah. And what is the Messiah? Well, it's a Hebrew word that speaks of one who is anointed, the anointed one. And when you look at the subject of anointing, that's when they put oil upon your head and set you apart to an office. Who received the anointing oil when they were placed into a role that they were expected to fulfill. Well, basically, there were three of those roles in Israel that received anointing oil. And that was the office of the prophet, the office of the priest, and the office of the king. There was anointing oil given in each of those times when Solomon was set apart to one of those offices. And you see, when you look at the prophecies of the Old Testament scriptures with regard to Israel's Messiah, you know what you find out? That he was expected to be all that. That the Messiah was to be the prophet like unto Moses. That Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 18. He said, the Lord your God will raise up to you a prophet from among your brethren, and it's not Muhammad, folks. Any Muslim that tells you that that's talking about Muhammad, just simply point out to them that Moses says he's going to be a Hebrew. The Lord your God can raise up from among your brethren. It's a Jewish Messiah, not an Arabian one. It's not Muhammad. I know they point you to that and they say, here in the Bible it speaks about Muhammad. It tells them no. It doesn't speak about Muhammad because this is a Jewish Messiah. This is a Jewish Messiah. Read once what it says. The Lord your God will raise up to you one from among your brethren. He's talking to the Israelite nation. He's going to be a Jewish messiah, and unto him you will hearken. Whatever he says to you, you will do. You'll be cut off from among the people. He's expected to be a prophet. He's also expected to be a priest. The 110th Psalm speaks of the word has sworn and will not repent. You are a priest after the order of Melchizedek. The whole meaning of that gets kind of fleshed out in the book of Hebrews. And Melchizedek was this character you read about in Genesis chapter 14, and he had this distinctive aspect that he was a priest and he had a king. You see, in Israel, those lines were kept separate. Judah was the line from which the king came, and Levi was the tribe from which the priest came. But here you've got a priest who's also a king in Melchizedek. And Jesus follows that pattern. He's a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And you see, the priest was one who would offer sacrifices unto God that dealt with sin. And the expectation was that one would come who would offer a sacrifice for sin, to put away the guilt of the people. And you read Isaiah chapter 53, what do you find? You find that there was a servant of the Lord, a servant of Yahweh, one who would be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And it's this one who would be not wounded. for our transgressions. He would be bruised for our iniquities. It says of him that it pleased the Lord to bruise him, to put him to grief, that he would make his soul a sacrifice for sin. All we, my sheep, have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. There's one who would be a priest who would bring a sacrifice acceptable to God to put away sin. And you know what that sacrifice would be? his own self. There would be a priest who would be a sacrifice. He would offer himself unto God without spark for the sins of his people. Jesus is that priest. That was the expectation of the Old Testament Scriptures, and is fulfilled to a T in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is our prophet who teaches us, who shows us the things of God. Jesus is the priest who offers sacrifice for sin, of which he himself is the great offering he brings to God, to put away our guilt, to put away our sin. And then a priest also intercedes. He does that work of offering up the incense upon the altar. There's an altar of incense as well. And Jesus fulfills that role as well, in that he intercedes, he prays for his people. And in the right hand of the majesty on high, he ever wins, Hebrews tells us, to make intercession for us. This is a person of great grandeur. He has an office that's much more important than the office of Prime Minister of Great Britain, much more important than the office of President of the United States, much more important than the office of any emperor that has existed in human history. He has the office of Messiah, the Christ, the prophet of God, the priest of God, who offers sacrifice to take away sin, and that his prophet-priest is also a king. The kings of Israel were also anointed, and Jesus is the king. God said to him, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. The 110th Psalm. The second psalm, I will set upon my king, upon my holy hill of Zion. God says, I'm going to tell you who the king is. And the king's not Caesar. And the king's not Louis XIV, even though he reigned for 70 years over France. not any human potentate, any human president. There's only one king whom all the kingdoms of this earth will ultimately give tribute. That's King Jesus. Revelation tells us the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Take it in. Take in who your Lord is. Take in who this Jesus is. He is the eternal Son of God. He is the Christ of God, the anointed prophet of God, the priest of God who effectively deals with our sins. He's the King that God has set upon His holy throne to reign and rule over all kingdoms and all peoples. And then there's another thing we confess. We confess the greatness of his work. I mentioned part of his work in terms of his priestly office, the work of sacrifice that he did. But you know, that work of sacrifice, though it was an important part of his work, it's not the whole of the picture. It's a fuller picture to the work of Jesus. Because you see, what qualified Jesus to be that sacrifice that would put away our sins? See, the sacrifices of the Old Covenant had always to be spotless and blameless sacrifices. You couldn't offer a lame sheep or a blemished calf. You couldn't do that. It had to be without spot, without blemish. And Jesus is the Lamb of God who is without spot or blemish, because He went to the cross, having lived a life upon this earth, in which the Book of Acts tells us He went about doing good. That's what He did. He went about doing good. There was no evil to be found in him. There was no sin to be found in him. There was no rebellion to be found in him. There was no offense to be found in him. He's the one who, in his baptism, we read in the Gospels, the Father declared, This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Jesus could say, Which one of you convicts me of sin? That's what he said to people in his generation. I can't come in the presence of my daughter and my wife this year, and most of you also, and say, which one of you can convict me of sin? I've lived among you long enough that you could, if you were keeping records, you could just read the Rite Acts about all the sins I've done, that Jesus could stand in the midst of his contemporaries, people that knew him, and he could say, which one of you convicts me of sin? And there's silence. There's silence. I'll say the worst! They could say, well, Jesus, I was there when you did this and that and the next thing. I was there when you told that lie. I was there when you were guilty of greed and covetousness and envy. I was there when... No, no. No one could say a single thing about Jesus. He said, I always do the things that please my Father. That's one of the conclusions of the book of Hebrews, is He's holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher than the heavens. That's our Lord. That's Jesus. It's the one whom we confess. He lived the sinless life we ought to have lived but could never live because we're sinners. He died that atoning death that we deserve to die. That's where the guilty was. Then we read of the triumph of his resurrection. I'm glad in the midst of all the blood and gore of Mel Gibson's movie about Jesus, I did conclude with about 20 seconds of the Resurrection, but you know the Resurrection is a highly important matter. It deserves a little bit more than 20 seconds in our thoughts. It deserves great consideration that the Lord who died for us now lives for us. He conquered sin. He conquered death. You see, if Jesus had remained in the tomb, Then the only conclusion that we could have gathered was that he's a sinner just like we are, because the way he's going to sin is death. He died, he's a sinner, he can't save us. But the fact that he was raised from the dead, you know what that says? That tells us that death had no claims on him. Death had no claims on him, because he never sinned. He died not for his own sin, he died for my sins. He died for your sins. He didn't die for his own sins. He had no sin to die for. Hence, God raised him from the dead. People put him to death. God was in their midst, and they took him, and they nailed him to a cross. Peter says you took him, and you crucified him, and you slew him. But you treated him that way. You know what? God raised him up. God raised him up. God wants everyone to know. Jesus didn't die for any sin he committed. He died for the sins of others. And God demonstrates in the resurrection that everything that Jesus claimed about himself is true. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. Don't doubt it. Don't doubt it. He's raised from the dead to make that claim fully good. And he says, I'm the bread of life. He that comes to me will never hunger, never thirst. How do I know that that's true? There's an open tomb that declares it's true. Jesus lives to make good that word when he says, I'm a good shepherd who laid down my life for the sheep. So how do I know he's a good shepherd? How do I know the death that he died is for me? He's risen! That's the reason. He says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. How do I know that? Again, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea is vacated. The Son of God is risen. What a great work, with the salvation of God's people, living a sinless life, dying the sinner's death, being raised in triumph. And then that Jesus who died and rose is the Jesus whose Ascendant to reign. It tells us, wherefore God highly exalted him, gave him the name that's above every name, the name of Jesus. Every knee should bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Folks, you see, when I tell you I confess Jesus, that's what I confess about Him. I confess the glory of His person. I confess the grandeur of His offices. I confess the greatness of His work. I'm not saying confess all that to every person I've ever talked to. No. You've got to be selective about what's needed in a given situation. That's what I believe, the core and depth of my being. That's what I need to constantly have before my own heart, before my own mind. I need to feed on the reality of this great Savior, in the fullness of His glory, His person, in the fullness of His perfect and powerful work, in the fullness of His I'm going to ask you as we close this morning, do you confess any of this about Jesus? Is this your belief? Is this your heart's conviction? Is this what you know to be so? It's not just enough to just sit in church and say, well, I'm doing the Christian thing. I really have no real reason to be all that concerned about What do I make of Jesus Christ? Jesus the Christ. See, that's what Christianity is all about. It's not whether you like my preaching. It's not whether you like one another. It's not whether this is a good crowd to be among. It's what do we believe about Jesus? That's the center and heartthrob and motivation for all that we are and all that we do as the people of God. If you confess Jesus, and the glory of who he is, and the grandeur of His office is as the Christ and in the greatness of His work. Because if you don't, you know what? Jesus wants you to make that confession. He lives to bring sinners to Himself. He lives to work in the lives of people. He wants you to embrace Him in all that He is. He wants you to see Him in the fullness of His glory. He invites you in the Gospel to come to Him, to believe in Him, to follow Him, that you would be His disciples. Working to Him is your teacher, your master, your Lord, your all in all. I assume that, if not all of you, at least most of you make that good confession about the Lord Jesus. But I have another question to ask you. Jesus had rivals. Is there something you trust, cleave to? look to, are consumed with, more than Jesus? That's the rub for a lot of us. You want to think about the week that you lived this past week. I mean, again, I don't want to make you feel guilty. I don't want anybody to walk away, oh, I just made me feel bad. But really, what did you think about through this week? I know you have a lot to think about. You have your jobs to think about. You have your family to think about. You have important birthdays to think about. I hope you remember the anniversary that's coming up. A lot of things to think about as we live life in this world. But where was Jesus in all the thinking you did, in all the thoughts that you had? If we had a thoughtometer that was able to just run back the tape of all the thoughts that flitted through your mind in the past week, how much time was given to Jesus? Did you give more thought this week to Herman Cain? So, he's been—listen, everybody wants to know what's going on there. You caught more off with that than you were with your Lord. Some of us get all caught up in the political stuff. Some of us are far more able to give voice to our political beliefs than we are about who Jesus is. And I'm just telling you, that's not where you're supposed to live as a Christian. You've got to come back to the things you know to be so. You need to come back to what you believe. You need to believe those beliefs. You need to affirm those beliefs. You need to confess those beliefs. And before you're ever going to be able to tell another person what you believe about Jesus, you've got to be sure in your own heart who He is. You've got to be sure in your own mind who He is. And you've got to be confessing Jesus to yourself. And you need to be feeding upon who Jesus is. You need to be living upon the realities who Jesus is. Folks, if I didn't believe that Jesus was the Savior of my soul, I wouldn't walk out the door in the morning. Because what's the use? What's the use? The world's just going to chew me up and spit me out. I'm not going to be able to honor Christ in any way conceivable. If I didn't believe He was the Lord of Glory, that He's the head of the church, He desires to bless His people, what am I doing standing here in the pulpit? I wouldn't come into this pulpit. I don't believe he had a word for you, and he had something for me to share with you from the Scriptures, to call you to greater love for him, and greater faithfulness to him, and greater allegiance to him, and greater obedience to him. I don't believe he was the head of the church who could bless this world. What am I doing in the pulpit? What are you doing here at worship? I don't know if he'll be gone next week. What are we doing? This is what we claim to believe as Christians. And my question to you is, is it a living faith? Is it a living reality in your soul? And is it something you live in, and feed upon, and make central, or is just something peripheral out there in your life, and you'll visit it on Sundays, get back on it, but leave it out there for the rest of life, because the rest of life is given over to other things. Our life is to be centered in our Lord, and what we know of Him, and what we confess about Him. And I just plead with you that the Christian faith is all about Jesus. Make, in your life, more about Jesus through the theme of your own daily living. That you give more to Him, and think more of Him, and consider Him, and the fullness of what's revealed about Him. and confess the glory of this person, the grandeur of his offices, and the greatness of his saving work. Let's commit our thoughts to the Lord as we go to him in prayer. Father, we are astounded that you would call us into this life union with your son Jesus. We're thankful, Father, that he ever lives to receive sinners, that he lives to bring us to knowledge of himself and to growing in him and to making more of him in the life we live day to day. We ask you to forgive us that we are so prone to wander, so prone to allow other things just to come in and become the central factors of how we live life from day to day. We ask you, Lord, to help us to have our minds riveted upon the beauty and glory and wonder of Jesus. We ask you to hear our prayers, we ask you to bless your people, we ask you to make us to be a people whose lives are truly centered in the gospel. Hear us, as we ask these things in Jesus' name.