Isn't this a great series? Brother Todd asked me, what are you going to do next after John? I think I'm going to start over with John. We're going to do it one more time. This is good. You know, you just get to love a gospel as you spend time with it. You get to love the Word of God. and you just want to stay in it all the time. Please stand with me and let me read from John 20. This morning, 24 to the end of the chapter. John 20, 24. Now hear the word of God. Now Thomas called the twin. One of the twelve was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, We have seen the Lord. So he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days his disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, Peace to you. And then he said to Thomas, reach your finger here and look at my hands and reach your hand here and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. And Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And truly, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Amen. Please be seated. As our brother Todd exhorted, study Jesus. Take Jesusology. Amen. Amen. And that's what we're doing in the Gospels. We sit at the feet of Jesus. We learn about Christ. We are not very much like Jesus. So when we learn about this one in the Gospels, it's different than what we're used to. This is not much like our own fathers and mothers. It doesn't look much like us. It doesn't look like our spouse. It doesn't look like the elders in this church very much. So, you know, what is this? This is Jesus. This is the Son of God. This is God walking on earth. This is Immanuel. So we're coming face to face with God. Did you want to get to know God? Did you want to know God? Come to know Jesus and you will know something of God. Well, let's look at the nature of our Savior Jesus in this passage. We get it. We get it. We get tremendous insight into who Jesus is, especially in his shepherding, because here now he's shepherding his disciples. That's what's happening in chapter 20 and 21. He's risen from the dead. He's coming to visit his disciples. His disciples had denied him. They'd fled from him. They were not good. They didn't act very well in the garden. They acted worse later. So now Jesus restores relationship with them. That's part of what he's saying when he's saying, peace be to you. He's restoring relationship with them, and then he's shepherding them. So I have two simple points here initially. First, Jesus is patient with the fearful, and Jesus is fearful with the doubtful. So two points this morning, and then we're gonna get to the point of the entire book of John, the Gospel of John. Jesus is patient with the fearful. Now, I believe that this is a continuation of verse 19. If you backed up to verse 19, which we covered last week, you find that they were huddled into this room. The doors were shut. They were fearing the Jews. Jesus came in their midst and said, Peace to you. And he said it twice. And again, what do we find? The same thing here. You note the word again in verse 26. Much like 19. So it is effectively a replay eight days later. So eight days later, not a lot of progress in terms of how they were reacting to the situation at hand. It's pretty much a replay. So Christ is coming back again. They're huddled in the room and the doors are shut. I believe the doors are shut are an indication that they're hiding out. We get that from 19. We see it again in 26. So here they're afraid. They're afraid again. They saw the risen Savior once. Ta-da! Risen from the dead. Satan didn't beat Him. Sin didn't beat Him. Death didn't beat Him. And certainly, the Pharisees and Sadducees and Sanhedrin did not beat Him. Amen? Jesus won. He showed up eight days later. They're still in the upper room. Does this sound like us? Yeah, this is us. That's why this is good. This is going to be helpful. This is us! How we're given to fear so easily. We're so fearful. The Holy Spirit has not been poured out in full measure or increased measure at this point. But again, why the fear? Jesus risen from the dead. Why are they afraid? He raised Lazarus from the dead. Somebody kills him. What can Jesus do? How about raise them from the dead? Could that happen? Given what they witnessed with Lazarus, given what they witnessed with Jesus, could, worst case scenario, somebody kills you, worst case, what would happen? Resurrection? Perhaps. They've seen it twice. They see it with Christ here. But they're afraid. Still afraid. So afraid. There are 365 reminders in Scriptures not to be afraid. Do you know that? 365 reminders. One for every day of the year. So why are you so fearful? Why are we so anxious? You know, if you step back and you look at it, it's irrational. Fear is irrational. Our fear is irrational, it's unbelieving. But here, I think this is a factor that you've got to remember. The devil is a factor in this. The devil is an expert at intimidating us. The devil knows how to make us afraid. He's a dragon, he's a severely wounded dragon, but he's the dragon and he knows how to generate fear in our midst. And it's not just the fear of magistrates. I'm telling you, they're not just afraid because of the magistrates. There is an oppression of the devil that is included. There's a temptation from the devil that's included in this fear. When the spirit of fear descends upon us, you know what it's like. It's a heavy, oppressive, demonic influence. And it's a point at which we must do battle. The devil clouds our minds. We lose perspective. We become irrational and confused. We identify the devil is the first thing we do. We need to understand, and this is the very most important thing to do on the outset, is ask yourself, what is happening to us? What is this spirit? Discern the spirits. What is going on here? How are we reacting? How are we feeling? Why are we reacting the way we are? Fear. Identify the devil. Then identify the strategy. Resist it. And pray. I think this is endemic of American churches. Chinese pastors from Communist China come here to America and they say there's two things that we see in American churches. We see the paralysis of fear. and the paralysis of denominationalism that paralyzes the American church. It's the incapability of church unity. And I sense this to an extent that there's this level of dysfunctionality that shows up when you try to do church in America. You try to have a denomination in America. You try to gain a little bit of connection between other churches. You try to develop a little unity in your own church. And yet there is this weakness to the demonic influence. When the demonic influence comes in, evil thoughts follow. We think evil of our brothers. We think evil of their motivations and so forth and so on. And how quickly things have unraveled in this church again and again and again and again. So they say it's the paralysis of denominationalism or sectarianism, the paralysis of inability to be a unified body but there's also this paralysis of fear and this incapability of witnessing and joyfully subjecting ourselves to prison and to the loss of jobs. See, there's so few people that would say, I'm going to witness in the executive boardroom. I'm going to say a word to my manager about Jesus and witness and then risk losing a job over it. Remember, An American businessman was working with some Chinese Christians in China, this was about 15 years ago, and they asked this guy, do you stand for Jesus? Do you worship, or do you pray, or do you witness for Jesus in the workplace? And the guy said, if I did that, I would lose my job. And these Chinese believers just laughed. They just laughed, that's all they could do. They thought it was a joke. the paralysis of fear, the demonic paralysis of fear has infected the American church. And friends, when we realize this, and by God's grace, the Spirit comes on us, and we're released from the spirit of fear, we're enabled to testify to Jesus. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. I testify to this myself. I'm not saying that it's all those people out there. Whenever we do a conference, whenever I'm on a mission trip, whenever I'm about ready to evangelize, whenever we set out to do something, this paralysis of fear sits in. There's this, and I think there's a fear somewhat in some of our ministries right now to do more conferences. and to evangelize more, and to do a missions trip. I just did a short missions trip. It was like for days beforehand, I was under oppression. I prayed and I prayed and I prayed through those discouraging thoughts, it'll never work, they'll never receive you. This is a waste of your time. Why are you doing this? Again and again, assaulted, almost full time for five days. But I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, and by God's grace, made it through. Friends, this kind of stuff happens all the time. A sweet family in Montana sponsored a conference last year for the first time, at least in 20 years, in the vein of family discipleship. And the demonic, satanic pushback in Montana was intense on this family. And after the conference was done, I was talking to the wife of the coordinator and And it was very difficult. The very faith-filled, courageous family was able to push through all the pushback and bring the word of God strongly into Montana. And they're a very shy family. They moved up from Durango to Montana, and they're doing this ministry. And the Tuesday before the conference, the wife told me, the husband was losing nerve, like badly. Because part of it was he doesn't like to speak in front of people. So that was the thing the devil is going on to. And so he was afraid, fearful. His wife said, why don't we go out to the fire pit and pray? That's what they do. This couple would go to the fire pit. That's where they do battle, by the fire pit. So they moved out to the fire pit and began to pray. And just then, a wild mallard duck flew in. And they looked up and there he was, just a wild mallard duck flew in. and landed about 100 feet from where they were at. And they just watched him, it was the most curious thing in the world. And the duck waddled up towards them, came closer and closer. They were done talking, they just were staring at the duck. Came right up, six feet, four feet, two feet, and stood right by his feet and looked up at him. for 20 minutes. And then he got it. If this mallard duck is not afraid of me, I shouldn't be afraid of them. We, brothers and sisters, we are intimidated. How many of you do ministry? How many of you evangelize? How many of you try to do anything for Jesus? Are you ever intimidated? Yes, we are. It's natural. But pray. All I'm saying is pray. Pray. Pray through it. Jesus comes into their midst. He says, peace, brothers. Peace. He breathes on them again. He says, receive the Holy Spirit. He did that before. We can believe that he did something like that a second time, but certainly in Acts 2, the process continues. The point I want to make is that the process continues. This is the Christian life where we are intimidated by fear, but Jesus is the shepherd. He's working us through this. He might take a mallard duck, I don't know. He might just by His word say to you, peace, brothers, peace. Brothers, do you hear the words of Jesus here? Peace. It's okay. I've got it under control. Brothers, it's under control. That's what He's saying here. It's okay. Everything's going to be okay. That's what He's saying. That's what peace is. Everything's okay. But the process continues. the people of God received the Holy Spirit. In Acts chapter 2, 40 days later, they ran out, they witnessed the gospel across cultural boundaries. It's what they did with tongues, which by the way can be a challenge. It's one thing to witness to people who are your friends, but it's another thing sometimes to cross cultural boundaries and minister to the Hispanic brothers or those who don't know Jesus. Well, that's what they did in Acts 2. And then you come to Acts 4, and again, it seems like they're losing nerve. You know, they had a very powerful Pentecostal outpouring in Acts chapter 2. Then in Acts chapter 4, they're again overwhelmed. And people that tell me there's just one outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and that's it, that's all you get? The Holy Spirit just doesn't really do anything after that? That's bogus. The Holy Spirit comes. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's what we're instructed to do. And in Acts 4 we see an additional pouring of the Holy Spirit upon them. So it's not just a one shot deal or two shot deal. No, this is the Holy Spirit coming to them and innervating them and encouraging them, energizing them to do the witnessing work. They pray for this outpouring. Now Lord, look on the threats of the magistrates and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word. And that's when the house was shaken. That's when they received the Holy Spirit and that boldness, that holy boldness that enabled them to get back out there and do it one more time. This is the Christian life. This is a process in our lives. We might actually have a great day where we're Elijah and Carmel, but then the next day we're crawling under the tree and we're saying, Lord, now just let me die. Isn't this the Christian life? Isn't this what happens to us again and again? This is the early church. And this is how Jesus is nurturing their faith. He doesn't quench the smoking flax. He blows on it very lightly and He works with us. He helps us with where we are and He takes us to the next level. This is how Jesus works with us. This is the Christian life. Secondly, more insight on the shepherd for us this morning. Jesus is also patient with a doubter, patient with a fearful, patient with a doubter. This is Thomas, verses 27 through 29. Thomas apparently was not there eight days earlier. The apostles witnessed to him the resurrection of Jesus. He says, I don't believe it. I'll only believe it if I see it. Now, please understand, there are those who do not believe, and there are those who are weak in their belief. There's two kinds here that we need to contrast. There are those of rank unbelief that even if somebody rose from the dead, and Christ speaks of this in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You remember what he said? He said, even if somebody rose from the dead, it would do no good. They have Moses and the prophets. Some will not believe if they saw Jesus in a vision. They wouldn't believe. If a hundred people rose from the dead and Jesus appeared in a vision to them and said, Hey, I'm here. I'm alive. And those people would not believe. That's the point Jesus made in the parable. But in the case of Thomas, this is not rank unbelief. Jesus understood that this man was weak in his faith, but there was still a little faith to be nurtured here. So Thomas was having a hard time believing the words that Jesus had said before he went to the cross. Remember, Jesus said, I will rise from the dead. He had said that. Evidently, Thomas didn't believe the words of Job or the words in the Psalms. He would not let his Holy One see corruption. Evidently, Thomas didn't believe the Psalms. Thomas didn't believe the words of Jesus. Thomas did not believe the words of the apostles. Thomas was weak in faith. Now this is helpful to some of us who doubt. I'm sure many of you doubt from time to time. Yes, we have a measure of doubt in our lives, but Jesus is helping Thomas along here. He's shepherding Thomas, and He offers Thomas a little empirical evidence. Verse 27, He said to Thomas, Reach your finger here and look at my hands. And reach your hand here and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believe. So empirical evidence is sometimes helpful. So I think this is what we can draw from this. that there is something positive that can be contributed by this empirical evidence. It helped Thomas. It stirred up faith in him. And we could see that by Thomas' response. The response to the empirical evidence or the response to the sign or the miracle that happens is key. That will determine whether there is an increase of faith or an absence of faith. The response is absolutely key. That's why it was important. Jesus took a look at him, knew his faith was weak, said, here, Thomas, let me help you here. He showed him his hands, his side. And Thomas' response is what? My Lord and my God. Now, this itself is extraordinary, where I don't believe that anybody said that. Anywhere in the Gospels as far as I know that nobody else took that leap of faith The testimony itself brothers and sisters must be a leap of faith Don't you agree? He's the first one to say my lord and my god. I That's a demonstration of powerful faith in this man Thomas. We see a leap of faith in his life as he realizes the deity of Christ. Now it's important here to note that when the pagans in Lystra saw Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14, they brought the sacrifices to them and prepared to worship Paul and Barnabas as gods. But the apostles tore their clothes and they ran out and said, men, why are you doing these things? Why also are men with the same nature as you? We also are men with the same nature as you and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them. Well, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them? Jesus did. Paul didn't. Barnabas didn't. They were incensed to see these pagans attempting to worship them. And they responded in an appropriate manner. Jesus receives the testimony of Thomas, my Lord and my God. And Jesus does not correct them in any way, shape, or form. Therefore, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, are just wrong. They're faithless. They don't have faith. They don't have the faith of Thomas. And this is the problem with so much of American religion. The Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons formed in the 1820s came out of the demonic humanist rationalism of the Enlightenment. And by the way, if you ever get this impression that somehow Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons are the only ones that bought into the proud humanist thinking of enlightenment, no, no, no. That was America that bought into it. It's just different forms of it. There are many forms of humanistic, proud rationalists who can't acknowledge that God is one and God is three at the same time. Yes, the proud rationalists say, well, that doesn't make sense. That's what they say. That doesn't make sense. To my infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely capable mind, you know, they'll say something like that. You say, well, tough bananas. I know it doesn't make sense. But that's because you're not God. Jesus is our Lord and our God. But then in verse 29, Jesus brings out the key point, and I think the most important point in this, and that is that Christ would rather we not rely upon the empirical evidence. Look at verse 29. So while the empirical evidence was helpful to build the faith of Thomas, Jesus says that's not the end game. That's not what we're going for here. Verse 29, what does Jesus say? Take a look at it. Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. You see, generally miracles don't help people to believe. It only hardens their hearts, generally speaking. It's one reason why miracles aren't done very much. Because it either turns some people into Sinoholics, where they'll require a sign every single Sunday, or they won't come back the next Sunday. Or, you just have your typical American anti-supernaturalists, who will say, well, we'll find an explanation around that one. And we'll find an explanation around this one. So you've got the Sinoholics over here, And then you have the atheistic, materialistic, anti-supernaturalist over here. There are churches somewhere around the world that are still responding to miracles such that they would believe more so after the miracle instead of responding with a faithless Sinoholism or the faithless atheism materialism. So miracles are always going to be rare because faith is rare. Jesus did other signs as well, most probably after His resurrection is referred to here. But the ultimate goal that God has for our lives is not the miracles, it's the faith. And the faith to believe without the miracle, without the sign, without the empirical evidence. That's the end goal. Why? Because God loves faith. God's heroes are men and women of faith that will believe in the fiery furnace even if they don't survive it. See, God loves faith. To believe in Him, to believe His promises, to believe in His resurrection, the hope of His resurrection, in all of the torments and the trials and the martyrdoms of the saints. God wants faith. He wants us believing, believing God's words no matter what. Believing God's word if He doesn't cure you, sister. Believing God's Word if He doesn't deliver us from the persecutor's hands. Still believing Him. Still hoping in Him. Still holding to His testimony and His promises for dear life. Knowing that His promises are true and Jesus has gone to prepare a place for me. And holding to that promise, the faith that doesn't require an empirical evidence or a miracle. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. So, Jesus wants Thomas to go to another level in faith. He doesn't want Thomas coming back next week, Jesus I'm doubting again, could you lift your shirt one more time? Jesus, I'm doubting again. Let me look at those nails. I pulled some of the nails off Calvary's mount. I'm gonna compare the nail to the mark. I need the evidence. I need the empirical evidence. That's not faith. That's not faith. That's not what God wants. God wants faith. Now this leads to the final point. The point of the whole book. We have studied the Gospel of John for five years. We have completed a full 145 sermons on the Gospel of John over five years. And some of you are thinking, well, what is the point? Can't you get to the point? And that's exactly what John does here. So take a look at verses 30 and 31. It's right here. Truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in the book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. So that's the point. The point is this, the point of all of this that has come over five years, and y'all have sat there patiently through all of this, you've heard 145 hours of messages. What we have done is we've carefully reviewed the record concerning the works and the words of this person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let me just say this. It is quite amazing to me that over the last 2,000 years, Billions of people have believed this gospel. Isn't that amazing? And these people, not one of them put their hand into the mark of where that spear went into the side of Jesus. Not one person, except for Thomas. Billions of people have believed the word, and not just Jews or those in the Roman Empire, but every tribe and nation and culture has been impacted by this person, by this record written by this humble fisherman concerning the person, the work, and the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. There has to be something supernatural about these words. So what was it that John wrote? John says, I want you to believe, based upon what you heard, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. I want you to believe that. So what did you hear? You heard his words. You must be born again. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. You heard him say, I am the good shepherd. come to lay down my life for the sheep." You've heard him say that. You've heard him respond to a woman who is caught in adultery. Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. You've heard him respond to the Pharisees. You've heard Him respond to those vipers and those whited sepulchers. You've heard Him at all these levels. You've heard Him say, here's what I really want for my disciples in this body. This is my number one desire for your life, and that is that you love one another as I have loved you. That you not go out of your way to offend each other. that you not go out of your way to create disagreements with each other, that you come to agreement with each other, that you forgive each other seven times a day or 490 times, that you continually forgive each other as I've forgiven you, that you love each other as I have loved you, that you lay down your life for each other as I laid down my life for you. You've heard him say this. What do you think? What do you think about this? You've heard about His miracles, seven in the Gospel of John, seven miracles in the Gospel of John. You've heard about this. Now, what do you think of this person? What do you think of Jesus? Do you believe in Him? Is that your response to these words and to these works, the seven miracles that Jesus did in the Gospel? Jesus changed the chemical constitution of water into wine. Are there any chemists here taking high school chemistry or college chemistry? Did you turn water into wine in the lab? Did you do that in your high school or college class? No, Jesus turned the chemical constitution of water, H2O, into, I don't know, H-C-K-L-C-L-2, whatever, I don't know. He did that. He healed the nobleman's son at 20 miles distance. I Google mapped it. Cana to Capernaum. 20 miles. Rearranging cells in a guy's body, 20 miles away. Can you do that? He healed the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda. He fed the 5,000 using a little boy's lunch. He walked on the water on the Sea of Galilee. He healed the man born blind. He raised Lazarus from the dead on the fourth day. And then he rose from the dead himself, never to die again. So what is this? Who is this? He came, He did these signs, these works, these words. Who is this? What does all of this substantiate? He is the Creator. That's what most of these miracles were all about. He's the Creator. He knows how to create fish, dead fish, cooked out of nothing. He can create live fish. He created dead fish cooked and ready to eat out of nothing. This is creation. Ex nihilo. And I asked our theistic evolutionist friend one time. Can't remember his name. He's the guru of the theistic evolutionists. I said, He created wine out of water, ex nihilo, with an appearance of H. What do you say to that? And his response was, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's all I remember. Ergo, take the glory of the living Christ away from him, because we've got a scientific explanation for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm turning it off from here on out. This is the Creator. He creates the ex nihilo, where there's no wine, He makes wine. Where there's no organic fish molecules, He makes fish food for us. And He absolutely is in control of the molecules of water, the winds, the turning of the globe, whatever creates all the winds, the tides, the moon position, whatever it is, Jesus controls all of it, so that when He stands up and says, cut it out to the winds and the waves, the earth, the globe says, yes sir. What you just said, sir, is happening now. This is Jesus walking on earth, God on earth, in material bodies such that we can see Him and know Him and get to realize something of, yes, His human nature and His divine nature in one person. It's beautiful. And then above it all, He conquered death. He is the Christ. He is the Anointed One. He is the King that came to save his people from their enemies. So what did the verse say one more time? The verse said, I've written this that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ. Now I want you to think about the word the Christ, because that's key. The word the Christ, sometimes some people render it Messiah, but it's really the anointed one. And the number one most important passage in the Old Testament referring to The anointing of Jesus is Psalm 45. So people understood that there was a Christ to come. There was an anointed one to come. And Psalm 45 is all about this anointed one who was to come. There are a few other passages, but this one is it. This is ground zero. But you want to know. You've read about Christ. You refer to His name. You pray to Him. Who is He? What is Christ? Who is Christ? Shouldn't you know something about the name? Well, it's here in Psalm 45. So, turn to Psalm 45. Let's briefly look at the One who comes who is the Christ. Psalm 45, gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, with your glory and your majesty, and your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness. And your right hand shall teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The people fall under you. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever the scepter of righteousness, the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness, therefore God, your God, here it is, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions." The point is, this is it. Psalm 45 is it. Psalm 45 is standing there. Psalm 45 is happening. The King, the Anointed One, has come. The Anointed One is a reference to the Anointed King. When we say Jesus Christ, we're saying Savior, Anointed King. So remember, that's who Christ is. He's the Anointed King. So here's the point again of the 21 chapters. You need to believe that this is it. The Messiah is here. The Messiah was sent from God to save us from our enemies. He's come. He's efficient. He rides prosperously for truth, humility, and righteousness. He will get it. He will get truth. He will get righteousness and humility in his kingdom. In this church, we will see a growth of humility and truth and righteousness. In this church, the victor has come. His arrows are sharp in the heart of his enemies. The Savior has come. The very Son of God who came to save us from our enemies and establish a kingdom of righteousness in the world. So the point is this. We read this gospel and we believe that He is here. This is the one. He has come. And He has come to establish a perfect kingdom which begins in our hearts as righteousness and humility. in us. To the extent there is not humility in this church, to the extent there is not righteousness in this church, no kingdom. But to the extent that there is righteousness and there is humility and truth, there is the kingdom of Jesus. Well, let's close with this because we have to hit this last part of it. This faith is accompanied by life in His name. Verse 31, one more time, here it is. These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. Now what is it about the name of Christ that is so important? This is a fitting bookend to John 1 and verse 12. That's where it started. It started with John saying, he came to his own and his own received him not, but as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God to those who believe in his name. So what is it about the name of Christ? There's many references to the name of Christ. So what is it about the name of Christ? The name is who he is. at its very essence. It has amazed me how we have named our children with an intention towards that quality represented in their life. And how many times the Lord brings something of that quality or that characteristic to them? It's as if we're praying a blessing, a specific fruit of the Spirit or a character trait, and we begin to see it in them as the Holy Spirit works in their lives. But here's the interesting thing. If you named me Joshua, I would not be Joshua at its very essence. meaning that Joshua is deliverer or savior, meaning that perhaps once or twice in my life, I dive before some kind of a semi and grab a three-year-old and we tumble to the side and I save his life. Now, that may happen two or three times in my life if you would name me Joshua. But I would not be Joshua at the very essence of the meaning of that word. Does that make sense? I am not Joshua. I am not Jesus. Jesus being a Greek reference to the Hebrew rendering Yeshua or Joshua of the Old Testament. So the point is that Jesus is named Jesus because that is who he is. In fact, if you're gonna write something down, if your style is you only write six words down for a message, I think this is what it should be. The reason why Jesus is named Jesus is because that is who He is at His essence. He is all about saving, all about delivering, all about salvation. He is salvation. He is Savior. He saves to the uttermost. Nobody rescues like He rescues. Nobody beats enemies to a pulp like He can. Nobody delivers as Christ delivers. He saves by really delivering us, not just from mosquito bites, not just from our cancer, but from sin. and death. If you had a choice between a Savior who could cure your cancer or Jesus who can cure your sin and your problem with death forever, which would you choose? Jesus is the Savior. He saves to the uttermost. He can save you from all of these sins. Somebody just told me that gender dysphoria is everywhere in rural schools today. It's primarily addressing the rural counties. So huge percentages of kids in our county have gender dysphoria. Almost more so than the cities. But He can save you from this. He can save you from gender dysphoria. He can save you from the divorce mentality, homosexuality, cross-dressing, pornography. sexual lust and sexual addictions, lying, sloth, cheating, drugs, drunkenness, envy, pride, the things that take our nation to hell and take their people with it. Jesus is the Savior. He saves us from all of this. You know, sin and the devil, I think the best way and personal experience. And y'all could say the same thing I'm saying. Sin and the devil wrap the tentacles around us with a hundred million psi of force. I mean, they've got you. Sin has got you. The devil has got you. With a hundred billion pounds per square inch of force, there is no way that you can execrate yourself. from the bonds of the devil in sin. It's impossible. But for the Savior, Jesus, a stronger than the devil is here. The Messiah has come to set us free. And if the Son will set you free, you will be free indeed. And that's what he said in John. This is who we're talking about. Now the challenge here, to all of us this morning, believe in him. The whole point is this, we told you about him, now believe in him. You've heard all these messages, you know what he's like. You know that he can toss devils, a thousand devils at a time, toss them all the way out. He can face the devil, the devil has nothing on him. In his own tribulation at the cross, the devil had nothing on him. Because He overwhelms the devil, overcomes the devil, and overcomes our sin, and then beats death, the final enemy for us, as well. A greater than the devil is here. Let me close with one example. See, miracles are signs and they give us a more significant message. So the healing of the lame man at the gate of the temple, called beautiful, is a great example of this. By the way, do you know why they called that gate beautiful? Do you know why? Remember the lame man who'd been there? He'd been lame from birth, and he'd been there forever and ever. Right there at the gate of beautiful at the temple. Do you know why they called the gate beautiful? Because something beautiful was going to happen in AD 33. That's my guess. It's not in the Word, but I'm just throwing it out. And it is a very beautiful thing. Well, you know the story. Peter and John go to the temple to pray, sees the lame man right there, and Peter filled with the Holy Spirit. looks to the man and says, silver and gold I have none but such as I have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk and hallelujah that man got up not only did he walk but he ran and he leaped and he praised God for what God has done in his life Now this again, a picture of what Jesus does to us. See, the spiritual ability for us to be able to praise God and to be set free from this selfishness, this self-focus, this man-focus, this world-focus, this judgmental attitude towards brothers and sisters, such that we could never be able to worship God on a Sunday morning. God delivers us from all of that. We're delivered from our paralysis. We can move our hearts, our hands, Our legs kind of dance a little bit if we need to, but we know how to praise God now. We know how to praise God because of what Christ does for us. In Acts 3, verse 16, Peter explains this in the sermon because everybody's, whoa, what just happened? That's incredible. That was a miracle. And so Peter explains it by his teaching. And you know, these words are some of the most amazing words. Peter says, you killed The prince of life. The word actually there is the source of life. Isn't that something? You killed the source of life. The originator of all life on earth. All the billions of people on the globe. All the 14 quadrillion animals on the earth. All the life of the plants and the animals. And all the life in the universe. He's the source of all of it, and you killed Him. Now just aside here, you kill the originator of life, what do you think is going to happen on the third day? Kind of wild guess. What would happen? Okay. That's off subject. Peter said you killed the originator of life whom God raised from the dead, and now listen to this, and His name I believe these words are very carefully put in here. And His name, by faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. Now, here's the question. You take a magnifying glass and you go right down in this passage and you ask yourself, was it His name that made this man strong? Or was it faith in His name that made this man strong? This is where we're really thinking for a moment. Was it His name that made the man strong? Or was it faith in His name that made the man strong? Which was it? The answer was, somebody just said it, yes. Yes. Either way, we'll take it either way. Some might say, Well, Luke was backspacing on that one. No, he wasn't backspacing. I don't believe that. I think it's both. Don't you all agree? I think it's both. So friends, when you say His name, it is His name that gives life. So two things. Invoke the name of Jesus and believe in His name. That's what we're saying here. Invoke the name of Christ, Jesus, and believe in His name. Just say His name. I believe His name itself has power. I believe believing in His name has a power. Invoke the name. Believe the name. Either way. That's what the text is telling us here. When you say His name, though, you must know what His name stands for. What does His name mean? When you say the name Jesus, you are saying that Jesus is the all-powerful Savior that absolutely, totally, ultimately saves to the uttermost. That's why He was named that. That's who He is, and that's what He does. Believe it. Believe it. He is Savior. He is named Savior and He is Savior. He really does save to the uttermost. So the point is you must believe in this Jesus Christ, the Savior, this anointed King, the real Jesus, the ultimate Jesus, the ultimate Christ, the very essence of Savior and King. There is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Meaning that there is no other Savior. There is no other name. This is it. This is God's Savior. He has sent His Son to save us. Don't wait for another Savior. Don't look to another Savior. If you're looking to alcohol to save you, if you're looking to food, or movies, or entertainment, or escape, or whatever it is, you know the fake saviors, don't you? Yeah, they're all over the place. We know the fake saviors. People have a hard day, they go watch sports. You know what people go to for their salvation. Is that your savior? Or will you go to God's savior? God has sent a Savior to save us. This is our Savior. There is none other. In the name of Jesus, we will be saved. So when you call on His name, you must be saved. You see? You cannot not be saved. When you call on the name of Jesus, you must be saved. Because if you were not to be saved, then Jesus would not be living up to His name or His reputation. This is the very essence of who He is. When you call upon Jesus, the Son of God, the carpenter from Nazareth, to save you, He must save you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. and your household. Amen. Father in heaven, this morning we rely upon your Savior, Jesus. No other name, Father, no other Savior, but the Savior who is the Savior, the ultimate Savior, and that is Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is our Jesus. He is our Christ. He is our King. He is our Lord. He is our Lord. He is our God. And we worship Him. We receive Him by faith. Father, we pray Your Spirit to work strongly in the hearts of those who have heard this message. It was the goal of John that we believe in this Savior that was presented. And it's our goal too. Please save by the name of the living Christ, Jesus. Amen. He said He would raise us up at the last day. When did He say that? Where did He say that? John 6. Everybody say John 6. Alright. That's the end of Sunday school. As we come to the Lord's table now, we remember the death of Christ for us in faith. We hold to the death of Christ. the death of Jesus that was in our place that He would die on the cross for our sins and give us a forgiveness of sins and He would be our righteousness, our sanctification and our justification. So we remember these things at this table. But I want to go over the names of Christ one more time because remember He is the very essence. If you name me Kevin, I am not the very essence of handsomeness, as many of you have noted. So we've already talked about that. We are not the very essence of these names. Chad, you are very courageous. Whatever the word meant. But you're not the very essence of that. Jesus is the essence of salvation. The very definition of salvation. Christ, He is the anointed King who would conquer all our enemies and bring a rule of perfect righteousness. He's not going to blow it. What a relief. David blew it. All of the kings of the earth, they have blown it a million times. They're so disappointing. But Jesus, not so. Amen. He's going to pull it off. This is the perfect King. The perfect Christ. The very essence of this. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. There are many lambs sacrificed. But this was the Lamb that would take away the sins of the world. Throw them away. Get them away. Cleanse them. Erase them. Forgive them. Release us from them. All of that. This Lamb came to pull it off by His death on the cross. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Another important point, that is, His death and His efficacious death was absolutely determined, would happen from the foundation of the world, such that it was as if it happened at the foundation of the world. The blood of the Lamb, efficacious to stop the devil. We overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. We're redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Jesus is our Passover. That's another name for Christ in 1st Corinthians 5. He's our Passover. There's a lot of Passover lambs, but this lamb would truly serve to keep the avenging angel from casting all of us into hell forever and ever. This is the Passover lamb. The avenging angels will pass over us on Judgment Day, and we don't have to worry about any kind of a judgment into eternity. Why? Because we have the Passover lamb The ultimate Passover lamb? It was Jesus. And then finally, there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Christ, the ultimate mediator, making everything right between God and man. He's also the Prince of Peace. Many princes promised peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Jesus is the Prince of Life. He came to bring life. As we already mentioned, the very source of life. Nobody else can say, hello, my name is life. Jesus is so identified with life that you can just call Him life. So, amen. These are the titles for Jesus. When you think of life, think of salvation, think of redemption, think about all of these aspects. Remember, Christ has come to bring all of this to us in perfection. Amen. For those of you visiting, take a look at the back of the bulletin. We have an instruction concerning taking the Lord's table at the church. We encourage you to read that before you participate with us. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we praise you for Jesus, the perfect Savior, the perfect Jesus, the perfect Christ, the perfect Prince of peace, the perfect Prince of life, the perfect mediator between God and man, the perfect Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world. Father, thank you. Father, we bless you. Father, we receive this bread and this wine as a representation of the body and blood of the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for us. And we receive this. by faith. We hold to our Christ now. In Jesus' name, Amen.