But the question I'd like us to consider this evening, and really, I'd like us to really come up with a question ourselves, really. So rather than me just pose it to you, it's really that you need to think it through, and that we actually do get to grips with what this question is. So to start with, I'd be interested to know what your response is to this book. I've got a chart from the We've got a chart here. So I'd like to know what your response is to the Bible, what you think about it. So, we have two alternatives, either the Bible is not true, or in this chart we have the Bible is true. There are, you know, if the Bible is true, the only alternative is the Bible is not true, so one of these We can safely say it's true. Where we are right now is in one of these two rows. There is no other alternative. Either the Bible is true or the Bible is not true. You can't do anything about either of those. One of those is definitely true. You can't affect one of those two rows. However, you can choose to obey it And obviously the opposite is, you can choose to ignore it. So where you are right now has got to be in one of those boxes. You either, the Bible is not true, but you are obeying it. The Bible is not true, and you are ignoring it. The Bible is true, and you are obeying it. The Bible is true, and you are ignoring it. So right now, for each and every one of us, we are in one of those boxes somewhere. So let's take the first box. The Bible is not true, but you're obeying it. So let's take the worst case scenario for every single one of those. Because the idea is here, just in a couple of minutes, I just want to engage you in why you need to be listening to God's Word tonight. So the Bible is not true, but you're obeying it. So what's the worst that's going on here? You have lived your life by God's word. It is not true. You've lost friends for no good reason at all. You've also lost some family members for no good reason at all. They're not talking to you because you are obeying the Bible and they cannot stand the fact that you're obeying the Bible. This is the worst case scenario. OK, the Bible is not true. You're obeying it. You're laughing at work for no good reason at all because it's not true. The worst case is that you're probably being laughed at at work, and for no good reason at all. Another one? You've wasted a lot of time going to church on Sundays, you've wasted time meeting up at prayer meetings, because at the end of the day, it wasn't true, and you were obeying it at this time. That's the worst case. What's the worst case here? The Bible is true, and you've been obeying it. What's the worst it can be? you have a Heavenly Father. The Bible is true, and you're obeying the Bible, you have a Heavenly Father who cares for you. The Bible is true, and you're obeying it. You have the gift of eternal life. You're living your life by God's words, and you're in this box here, then you have eternal life. And I just jotted a few down from the list that have gone on and on. You have purpose in life. The Bible is true, and you're obeying it, and you're living your life by God's words, you have purpose in life. The Bible is true, and you're obeying it, you're very blessed because you have Christian friends who come to church, you have Christian friends. You have peace with God. So this could have gone on and on. And obviously tied to eternal life is that you know that you will spend eternity in heaven. So this is for somebody You cannot change one of those rows. One of those rows is the truth. Right now, you cannot change either of those. Either this is the case, the Bible is true, or the Bible is not true. You can't affect that. What you can choose is which column you're in. You can choose whether you're obeying God's Word, or you can choose whether you're ignoring God's Word. You cannot change one of these. One of those is the case, whether you like it or not. The Bible is either true or it's not true. You can't change that. But you can change which column you're in. If you're in this one, and the Bible is true, then you have a Heavenly Father, you have eternal life, you have purpose in life, you have Christian friends, you have peace with God. How about the Bible isn't true and you've been ignoring it anyway? Well, you've pretty much been living for now, OK? You've got to be right about what the Bible says, you've just been living for now. You do what you want. You ignore the Bible, you just get on with life and you do what you want. But, look at the worst case scenario, you will end up dying anyway. That's probably about the best that you can get. What about this one though? The Bible is true, but you have ignored it. If the Bible is true and you have ignored what God says, He says that you are an enemy of His. you will never truly be happy. The Bible says if the Bible is true, and you're ignoring it, and you're living your life by God's word, then God says you will never ever be truly happy, never be truly satisfied. The Bible says if the Bible is true, and you're ignoring it, the Bible says that you will go to hell when you die. Now have a look at those two columns. The worst that's going to happen to you, the trial is not true. Lots of friends, lots of family laugh at that waste of time, but this box here, you'll have a heavenly Father who cares for you. Eternal life, purpose in life, you'll have your sins forgiven. Peace with God, heavenly life. This column here, you choose to be in this column here, you're basically making a conscious decision that you're prepared to risk that, You're prepared to be an enemy of God, so never truly happy, hell will you die. So I hope that as we've just had that brief intro, you should be thinking to yourself, right, the question we should be answering is, how can I be here? Surely we should be thinking to ourselves, how can I know a heavenly father? How can I know, have eternal life? How can I have this purpose in my life? OK, so the question for us tonight is, get my notes back here. So the question is, how can I have eternal life? How can I know God is my heavenly Father? When I used to come to church, when I was much younger, I used to think of all different things that would occupy my mind while I was sitting in church. I used to do things like count the numbers on like a countless night. Really, really well-rounded things. Just counting like that to see how many I could get. But I'm going to sit there and think, I wish someone would tell me One, two, three, how can I become a Christian? How can I have eternal life? Please tell me. Number one, number two, number three. Make it clear for me, OK? Sometimes you're sitting there, and sometimes you just go over your head. I need to think to myself when I'm younger, please just tell me, nice and simply, how would I have eternal life? Well, the interesting thing is, somebody does actually raise this question with Jesus. And we did actually read it. So this evening, we're going to look at the power of individuality. And in some ways, it's the maleficence of the paladins. But in other ways, it does cause a quite considerable explanation. So what is the primary message of the Egyptian analysis? I'm trying to get a piece of paper in front of you, so I'm going to let you write down what you think the Egyptian analysis is really all about. I wonder what ideas you have. maybe be love your neighbour, or maybe be love everyone, or who is my neighbour, or do good to everyone, or don't do good things to people who can only do good things back to you. I mean, part of it is terrible, it's definitely about loving your neighbour and who is my neighbour, but that's really part of an explanation. And the explanation is, it's showing us one main thing, and it's showing us how can I have eternal life? That is what it's really answering. So if you're sitting there thinking, yes, I must be a Christian, what do I need to do to have eternal life? Then let's go through this passage and see what God has to say to us. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through the passage, pretty much verse by verse, and draw out the teachings from it. So verse 25. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? a self-justice lawyer, someone who's an expert in the autism law, in the first five books of the Bible. He's a very educated man, he's a very sophisticated scholar. And he asks the question, what shall I do to enhance my life? It's another question. Is there anything wrong with the question? No, there isn't. What shall I do to be saved? These are the kind of questions that we should be asking. If we look at this box here, we think to ourselves, sure, that's a really good question to ask. What can I do? What can I do to have eternal life? You talk about, what can I do to have peace with God? If everybody considered there was a hell to be avoided, there was a heaven to be gained, such a good question to ask. What can I do to inherit or have eternal life? However, with this man, his motives, let's look at his motives very, very quickly. If you find out he wasn't actually asking very sincerely. And it tells us he had an underlying motive. And his motive says here, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him. So he's actually asking this question to test Jesus. So what does that really mean? Well, trying to put Jesus to the test kind of means tempting as well, but he's not trying to make Jesus sin. So he's not trying to make Jesus into sin. So what is this lawyer trying to do when he asks this question? He's obviously a skilled expert in the law of God. And he's really testing this unofficial Galilean lay preacher to see if he can deal with this really difficult theological question. But why is he doing this? Well, it could be that he's just interested in knowing how much he doesn't know about the law of God. But probably he's really going to use his preaching. So he's probably actually just trying to expose how naive he is. How naive is this creature? What does he really know? It could be that he's really jealous of the popularity of Jesus and just cannot understand him. He's just trying to undermine Jesus. We find that Jesus does face a lot of these challenges where people are undermining him. People ask him questions, trick him up on when he taxes the Caesar, on divorce, on the resurrection, and when it came to stoning the woman who was caught in adultery. So we find that throughout Jesus' life, These people are always trying to undermine you. Anyway, this man asked this question. It's a good question. Yes, it was asked with one motive, but he doesn't ask it. So what did Jesus respond in verse 26? And Jesus said to him, what is written in the law? What is your meaning of it? So he turns this question back on the lawyer. So he switches roles. So he asks him, you know, well, you're a lawyer. You specialize in the law, of course. You specialize in these things. It's your speciality, it's work. What does the scripture say? What's your reading of it? So we see that not only is he turning the question back on this man, but also Jesus shows a higher regard for the scripture because he's saying, in actual fact, yes, in the scriptures you will find the answer to this. So does the lawyer, sir. Verse 27. So he said to him, you shall have the Lord your God in all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your might, and your neighbour as yourself. Can you imagine this lion, he's there with hundreds of his friends, Jesus is there, and they're having this introduction, there's lots of other people around. Imagine this lion with hundreds of his friends, feeling quite confident, yes, this is, I'm quite happy with this, this is my speciality, yeah, if it was Mark's, mine would be his speciality, you know, the 12, the first five books of the Bible, yeah, complete confidence. And yes, the answer he gives is completely correct. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your might, and you're amazing yourself. He's quoting Deuteronomy 6, verse 5, and then it's just 19, verse 18. And in fact, the words he used are exactly the same as Jesus' teaching. In this one, in another passage of Mark, Jesus actually answers somebody else with the same answer when somebody asks him about the first and most important commandment. That's in Mark 12. And Jesus actually answers the question with this. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like this. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. You see, this boy does know the law of the cross. He does understand this. And he can quote it. He can actually put it word for word. What does Jesus say to that? So Jesus says to him, you have answered my name. So I'm going to just kind of shift between these two characters. To start with, the lawyer there, he's testing Jesus. Now, if I'm going to ask a question in my class, I'm pretty certain I already know the answer. But when I ask a closed question at them, it's a closed question, I'm going to have an idea of the answer. So if I take them right, OK, it's maths, what, 80 times 0.6 something, there's a pretty good chance I know what the answer's going to be. And if they can answer me, I can say to them, well done, OK, good, you've got the answer correct. I'm not going to ask them a question I don't know the answer to. So at this point, Jesus says to them, well done, yes, you've got it right. So suddenly, they flip this roller, OK? To start with, the lawyer's asking Jesus a question. But suddenly, Jesus has actually turned it now in his head, and he's actually making a judgment on the lawyer. He's actually turned it around, and he's asking him a question. The lawyer's answering, saying, yeah, well done, you've got it correct, yes. he suddenly flips it around. Startlingly, the lawyer thought he was the expert. Suddenly Jesus is showing the naturopaths, I'm making a decision about you. He's actually showing the naturopaths, the lawyer isn't the expert. It's Jesus. Now the lawyer has been tested and evaluated. But Jesus is so complimentary. You have answered correctly. Well done, yeah, absolutely right. You've hit the nail on the head. So how do you tell the lawyer, this is what you need to do? Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and might, and you'll make the righteous God. Spot on. You've got it right. That's what you need to do. And it wasn't really usual for the scribes and Pharisees to get it right. It's quite unusual. It's quite an unusual situation. Jeremy Fee, the Pharisees, the scribes, they're completely into the big picture, and they're so focused on the fine detail. I've missed this verse completely. I've never noticed this verse before. Matthew 23, verse 24. You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. I've never said that word before. The idea that, you know, you have a gnat in your soup, or your drink, whatever it is, but you would actually swallow a camel. If you do the same thing, you know, you miss the big picture. You're so focused on the little gnats floating around in your soup, but you would actually swallow a camel. The idea is they're so focused on the detail, and they miss the big picture. If you do the same with this flyer, You can see how it is that you can have peace with God. You can see what you need to do. Love the Lord your God with all your being and your name, grace yourself. But that's not what Jesus said. So he says to him, you've answered rightly. He doesn't stop there. He goes to something else. Jesus says, do this and live. Jesus asked the question, what can I do to help return to life? What can I do to avoid hell and gain heaven? Jesus said, do this and this. You must love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself with all your being. And then Jesus really hits it home. Because at that time, a lot of people thought that they could actually win God's favor, and God would look down on them, by keeping God's law in certain ways. OK, that's fairly similar to some people today. And it was said in the Scribes and Pharisees book, if you want to please God, you must follow God's law. So Jesus said to this young man, OK, you are determined to have eternal life, and you are determined to do it by obeying God's law, right? This is how you have to do it. If you want to have eternal life, you must obey God's law, absolutely, 100% perfectly, then you'll have an inherent eternal life. OK, so you've got to love God with all your heart, all your strength, all your might, you must never give up, and you've got to love your neighbour perfectly, all the time, 100% of the time, with all your being. This paradigm has been addressed to us today, because people still have this attitude today towards winning God's favour. People have this idea, you know, I can win God's favour, I can do things to make God pleased with me. And even though people might not say it, they do have this idea that at the end of, when life finishes, there are going to be some idea of scales. Do you know, I'm sure that I do more good than I do bad things. Generally speaking, I'm pretty certain. So they have this idea that there's going to be scales. And they also think that they have done more good than bad things. Well, the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says, in actual fact, you have done absolutely nothing good. Even the best you've done, is like filthy rags. There's nothing on this side, OK? It's all on that side. OK? So none of us can claim we've done anything good that's turned out to be anything bad. As a matter of fact, God says all our righteousness is a filthy rag. He said more than that. He said, if you want to play that game, if you think it's the only time of your life, and if you have one thing, one thing on this side, things wrong, and then you think, well, anything that did manage to do any good, it's all wiped out anyway. Because the Bible said, all who sin and come short of the glory of God. But Jesus said to Elijah over there, whether you answer correctly, do this and live. Evidently, when he said, do this and live, he's actually saying, do this right now. Do this continually, continuously. You must love God with all your heart, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Not once, not one-off. All the time, 100% of the time, you must continue to love God with all your heart, strength, soul, and mind, and maybe yourself. And if you stop at all, if you stop for a minute, for a second, you've broken God's law. Because it says in James 2, verse 10, whoever shall keep the law and yet offend in one thing is guilty of breaking them all. So it marks a great mistake. If you just stop loving me for one second of your life, then you've as good as broken all the laws of God. So what's Jimmy doing to try and make this young man realise? He's trying to make him realise that he's making an educational mistake. If he thinks that he can earn eternal life, Jimmy's being too kind to him. He wants this young man to realise. He's saying to him, you cannot do it. It is impossible. It is impossible for you to keep God's law perfectly. I mean, the law of God wasn't designed for us to actually learn our way to heaven. It's leadership, but we can't do it. So what's the young lawyer's response to this? Well, Jesus says to him, so do this, and you will live. And the lawyer can kind of feel the quiet in Jesus' laughter, because he knows the law is just too much of him. He knows how to love God with all his heart, soul, and strength, every second of the day. So, you can just see things in white. The other bit, I love my neighbour. Pretty certain I'll do that. Okay? So, okay, Jesus, define neighbour for me. I'm pretty certain I'm there because Jews, they go to interpret neighbours being somebody who is near to them. That's what it meant for them. So, members of their same family. Other Jewish people, that's how they refer to their neighbours. I'm pretty certain people thought, I love these people. OK, maybe I don't quite mention love God all the time, but in this bit, I'm pretty certain I've managed that bit. So he says to Jesus, and that's typically a kind of lie. He wants to define these terms. What does neighbor mean? He's pretty certain I've already covered those things himself, especially in front of his friends. OK, Jesus, who is my neighbor? OK, so Jesus responds. He doesn't give, like I said to Michael last time, any of these definitions of this word. dictionary definition. I'll tell you why in a couple of minutes. Jesus doesn't answer in that way. He doesn't give a straight answer. He tells a story, a story that we're very familiar with. So what does that mean? Well, Jerusalem is located on a series of hills up here. Jericho is down here in the plain. One is 3,000 feet above sea level. The other one is 1,000 feet below sea level. So it's quite a big difference in height. And there's a 17-mile road that connects these two cities. It would have been quite a rocky pathway down. And I think it was for robbers and bandits to find out. So verse 13. Jesus answered him. A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell on a thief. He stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed him in half dead. So Jesus starts the story. And so he explains to this man and opened his eyes to realise the natural fact that just the Jewish people were not his closest neighbour. So, there's this man coming from Jerusalem downhill to the place where Jericho is. If he's walking in that area, he's bound to be a Jewish person. Maybe he's been worshipped in the temple. And I imagine that all of Jesus' hearers would be fairly familiar with the roads, OK? And they may have heard of things that happened to people along it. So this man's attacked. He's stripped of his clothing. He's beaten up. He's been given the sticks. They picked him up maybe to incapacitate him, stop him from following them, or maybe to intimidate him. Apparently, they didn't succeed to cure him. Jesus said they left him literally half-dead. Jesus thought this detail in the story, the idea of him being half-dead, and beating him up, and having his clothes ripped off of him. So the idea that Jesus is trying to build up this picture in these people's eyes of this scene. He's actually adding lots of detail in to get us an idea of what's happening to this man. Jesus continues the story in verse 31 and 32. So this idea of this man lying there, he's been beaten up and his face ripped off him. He's half dead. He's not moving. He's covered in blood. He could be a Jewish person. So what happens next in the story, verse 31 and 32? Now a church officer, there's a priest hanging down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side, like by the Levites. And he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. So, unfortunately, the sheriff was saying that the person was punching him, saying he'd come down the road a few minutes later and the heart of the man was beating there. Now, these two people that had come along, i.e. Chase's men, due doubt they followed the same practice as the other man. And you can imagine the Jews standing around, imagining them thinking to themselves, oh, good, you've become the Levite priest. They'll sort you out. You can imagine them thinking, well, we can eat these people up. They'll soon be able to support a man if he needs it. But what they're responsible for is a man. Each one in turn will cross over and pass by the other side, leaving the man to die. And you don't know the problem. You don't know the reasons we're doing this. Imagine they thought they had valid reasons for actually not dealing with him. And it could have been that one to the other one was the priest, both involved in the proceedings in the temple. Touching a dead body, if they thought it was a person who was dead, and they were there should be firing themselves. So maybe, and I've assumed by myself, it could be they might come to themselves, well, we'll stop. I don't want to get my life in danger. There's bandits around here. No way am I going to get involved with that person. The Jewish people don't be sitting there thinking, what? OK, what happens next? Ah, no. There'll be a Jewish lay person trying to come by, and they all will sort it out. So they'll just creep in the other house, OK? But, you know, they work in the temple, and you probably won't be able to get involved, especially if you look like you're dead. A Jewish person's not going to come along. A Jewish lay person, yes. He'll come along and sort this person out. Because they were expecting a third character. Whenever stories are told in the New Testament, we find it often involves three characters. If you think of the story of Talents, there's three people there. The Parable of the Great Puppet, remember, there's three different groups of people that are called in there. So they would be expecting a third person to come along. But they were not expecting what Jesus was going to say next. Because Jesus then says, in verse 33, by day's comparison, as you journey, came to where he was. So what's so special about Somality? Well, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians about 800 years before. And the Assyrian policy was to get their young men, young girls to go up into the Northern Kingdom and to intermarry with the Jewish people that were there. So in actual fact, Jewish people regarded the Samaritans as half-breed, as a mongrel race, completely defiled. They were no longer Jews. And the Jewish people absolutely despised these descendants, absolutely despised them. And in actual fact, the feelings were reciprocated. The Samaritans felt the same way. And there was no love lost between these two people at all. So if you were listening to this, a Samaritan was hanging on. This was as far as I was in. And then, anyway, their first order, and they have absolutely nothing to do with Samaritans whatsoever. What Jesus is going on to say must have completely stopped them in their tracks. So Samaritan comes along, and what do you do? Remember, he's actually answering this person, this man's question. Well, Samaritan, as he drove, he came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and banished his wounds, calling on the wild lion. And he set him on his own animal, brought it to him, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took it out to Nari, gave it to him, and said to him, take care of him. I'll tell him all you spend when I come again, I will repay you. Well, this is a mouse, and he's coming along. He's obviously fairly wealthy. He's got a donkey. He's got goods. He's got money. And there he is, walking down this pathway. He is at an extremely high risk of attack. If you face him, he knows the bandits are around, but you see a man injured lying there, obviously being beaten up. And here is him, he's got a donkey, he's got money, he's got wine, he's got oil on him. He's at an extremely high risk of attack, but that doesn't stop him from stopping. He's also in the region where there's a Jewish people. And this man, he's very likely to be a Jew. Well, I mean, he's on the path from Jerusalem down to Jericho. That doesn't stop him thinking of the man. And he doesn't just offer, as it were, kind of roadside assistance. He offers full recovery service back to the village. And he doesn't just drop him off at the village. He actually looks after him every night. But he doesn't just look after him overnight, he then gives you the money to actually pay him if you ask him. And he doesn't even just do that, he actually then says to him, well, if it takes more than that, then I'll come back and pay you. So what is Jesus really doing here? Jesus is stretching this idea of reality here as far as he can possibly go. He's chosen two groups of people that are so polarised, so far apart, He's actually stretching these people's minds, the idea of reality. This mountain is actually doing this to this Jewish person. So Jesus is pretty much saying here, at this point, unless you love your enemies, as this mountain is loving this Jewish person, to the point where you risk your life, it's pretty darn dangerous to stop him here, unless you love your enemies so much that you risk your life for them, to actually stop your enemies from dying, then you're not a neighbour to them. So he's actually saying to Manasseh, prepare to risk your life to save someone who's your enemy, then you're not being a neighbour to them. So Jesus asks, in verse 36, which of these three do you think was a neighbour to him who fell among thieves? And Manasseh says, well, he has no choice. He has to say the one who had mercy on him. And his response is very straightforward. to grant the necessity to be put down or shown up. And this specifically states the fact that from Jesus' parable, the one who showed mercy. What does Jesus say in response? His final comments. And Jesus said to him, go and do life for it. OK, it's not. Jesus isn't putting it down now. He's actually making a recommendation. Saying, go and do life for it, and you will inherit eternal life. That lawyer's asking the question, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus is saying, right, do that. I wonder how the lawyer got to that point. Up to then, he thought, well, I'm pleasing God in everything I do, and I love my neighbour. So in the space of about half an hour, he was just showing him that in actual fact, to love his neighbour, he, that Jewish man, that lawyer, would have to love Samaritan, to the point where he would have to risk his life to save a Samaritan from dying. And he had to love like that 100% of the time, continuously and never stopping. And that guy actually saying, well, I could do that? No way. Absolutely impossible. Jesus was saying, it is absolutely impossible for you to finish God that way. So what did that guy learn? He learned that he could not love God with all his heart, with all his strength. He could not love his neighbour as he thought he could. It was an impossibly high standard. But Jesus is not just showing the lawyer that it's impossible to keep the law of God, but he's showing us too, that it's an impossibility to keep God's law. So our question was, okay, here's our boxes here, so our question was, how is it that we can have a Heavenly Father? How is it that we can have eternal life? Just as that man asked that question, how is it that I can earn eternal life, have eternal life? And what Jesus is saying here and to us tonight is, there is absolutely nothing you can do. You cannot achieve it on your own. The standard is impossibly high. You cannot love God with all your strength, with your soul, with your might, 100% of the time, you know, with a burning white love. You cannot love a labour as Jesus expects it to. Impossible. So how is it that we can have a chance to give an end to the gift of eternal life? Because God expects in each and every one of us perfect righteousness. That is his law. He says, that's what I expect from you, and you will have to give it to me. But how can we offer it? None of us can. But the Bible shows us that God's son, Jesus, came down from heaven, and he did live that perfect life for us. He didn't sin once. He lived a life of complete obedience. And he obeyed God's law in every aspect. I wonder as God looks down on us tonight, each and every one of us, wherever we're sitting. I wonder if he sees us struggling to please God by doing things. I wonder if he looks down on us and he sees our pathetic good deeds, you know, tempting us, and they cover us, and they make us acceptable to God. The amazing news is that God doesn't even look down on us, because that's what he thinks of us. Because Jesus, through his life and his death, he's able to offer us something that's like a praise, as it were, because he offers us the perfect life that he lives, his righteousness. I wouldn't dare to even contemplate what it must be like to stand before God without Christ's righteousness. I just can't imagine what that must be like to try and make a girl fall. I've done this and that. It doesn't even dare think about it. You just shrivel under his gaze. However, if you have Christ's righteousness over you, then you can stand before him. So in answer to our question, what can I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus shows us that we cannot do anything at all, nothing at all. But Christ has lived a perfect life, and he offers you his righteousness. So I'd say, this evening, if you are searching for eternal life, if you're searching for a purpose in life, if you would love to know your sins forgiven, then ask the forgiveness of your sins. Tell God that in actual fact you have nothing to offer him, that your righteousness is nothing. and asking, praying in Christ's righteousness. And then we know what it is to enter into eternal life.