Well, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Please silence your phones, put them on silent, put them in your pockets, and please prepare your hearts for worship. you Amen. Well, we welcome you all this morning. It is a blessing to be here to worship the Lord, and it is indeed a privilege to come before him, the access that has been given to us by his son. So this morning that we were in 2 Samuel chapter 13, the disastrous fall of David's house, A very humbling passage, and if you're unable to listen to it, it should be recorded for your edification later on. Our sermon passage for next week is Romans chapter two, verses five through six. That is there for you to meditate on it throughout the week, use it for your family devotions, and to prepare your hearts for that next service. And if you would mind turning over to the next page, we'll be discussing our announcements. One announcement is there is a birthday card out in the fellowship hall for Sandra. Her birthday is today. Is that right, Greg? Yes. OK. Her birthday is today. So if you haven't signed the card, go and sign that. Greg will deliver that to her so that she knows that our love is still with her. Uh, we have the practice for he's alive. So if you plan on singing that song with us after the service, um, we'll be meeting over here and practicing. Uh, he's alive for our Easter day service. Our second Wednesday testimony is this week. Um, our beloved sister, Isabel will be giving her testimony this Wednesday, uh, at six 30 and then at five 45, we have the Brown bag supper followed by Isabel's testimony. And then the ladies' brunch and Bible study. I know the ladies always enjoy that. If you have not had a chance to go and participate, I would encourage you to do so. They're walking through the Gospel of John that our former elder, David, put together. And so that is on April the 12th at 10 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall. And then we have the Good Friday lessons on April the 18th at 7 p.m. We will take turns reading through 100 scripture passages which narrate for us the final days of Jesus's earthly ministry. And it's always a blessed time. You learn something new each time you go through the accounts of Jesus's ministry. Lastly, we have the 2025 Annual Bunyan Conference at Providence's Theological Institute of New Covenants Theology, free John Bunyan Conference that will take place at Grace Church in Franklin, Tennessee. The dates are June 22nd through the 25th. Speakers include Dr. Joshua Griever, our own missionary to South Africa, Paul Carstens, our own pastor, Greg Van Court. For more information you can, or to register, you can go to the link that is there on the bulletin. So now as we come to the Lord for worship this morning, please take your red hymnals and turn to page 101, in the red, 101. Keep your finger there, and if you wouldn't mind standing for our call to worship this morning. Our call to worship comes from Isaiah 45, verses 22 through 23. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, for my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return. To me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear allegiance. That is the word of our Lord. Come Thou Almighty King, help us the name to sing, help us to praise. Father all-glorious, Lord all-victorious, come and reign over us, ancient of days. Come Thou incarnate Word, Gird on thy mighty sword, our prayer attend. Amen thy people bless, and give thy word success. Spirit of holiness on us descend. Come, Holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness bear In this glad hour. Thou who almighty art, Thou who'll end every heart, And ne'er from us depart, Spirit of power, To the Great One in Three. Let us pray this morning. Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning We lift up our voices to the God who is above every God. Father, we worship you for your name is great and it is mighty. Lord, we worship you for the salvation that you brought through your son, Jesus Christ, and that all who place their trust in him, Father, that make him the Lord of their lives, Lord, will be saved. Lord, we ask that for those who are here who do not know you, that they would come to know you this morning. Father, what a privilege it is to be called a child of God. And so we are if we have trusted in you, Father. What a great privilege it is to come before you and to worship your most holy name. We thank you for all that you have done. In your name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Still in your red hymnals, please turn over towards the back to page 580. 580 in the red, lead on, O King Eternal. Lead on, O King Eternal, the day of march has come. In spoke thin fields of conquest, thy tent shall be our home. Through days of preparation, thy grace has made us strong. And now, O King Eternal, we lift our battle song. O King Eternal, till sin's fierce war shall cease, and holiness shall whisper, the sweet Amen of peace. Not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums, Love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes. To lead on, O King eternal, we follow not with fears. For gladness breaks like morning, where'er thy face appears. Thy cross is lifted o'er us, we journey in its light. The crown awaits the conquest, lead on, O God of might. Please turn to hymn number 481. 481 in the red, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see. There's light for a look at the Savior, and life more abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Through death into life everlasting, He passed and we followed Him there. For us sin no more hath dominion, For more than conquerors we are. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. His words shall not fail you, He promised. Believe Him and all will go well. Then go to a world that is dying, His perfect salvation to tell. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Amen. Now we have the reading of God's Word. Good morning. Scripture reading this morning comes from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16, verses 13 through 16. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. What a confession that is, that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, and He is living. And so what we celebrate at communion is we celebrate a Savior who is alive. We celebrate a Savior who died on the cross for your sins, who died and was buried, rose again on the third day, and is now alive and sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. And so this communion, it's for those who believe that. It's for those who have trusted in their Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. And so there's three things that we ask of you, the first and foremost, as you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, not in your own works, not in your own deeds that you can do to make yourself right for you cannot. The work of the Lord is that he's the one that saved you. He's the one that completed your salvation for you. Secondly, we ask that you be a baptized believer. We leave the details of your baptism up to your individual conscience so that we may respect the Lord's work. as well as we ask that you not be under church discipline in your local congregation so that we can respect his work as he works in all the churches around us. And so as we prepare our hearts for communion this morning, please turn to hymn number 499 in the red. 499 in the red, rock of ages, collect for me. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure. Cleanse me from its guilt and power, not the labors of my hands. Can't fulfill Thy law's demands. Could my zeal no respite know? Could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone, Thou must save and Thou alone. Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling. Naked come to Thee for dress, Helpless look to Thee for grace, I, too, the fountain fly Sleeps, ego, or I die While I draw this fleeting breath When my eyelids close in death When I soar to worlds unknown See thee on thy judgment throne Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. In Romans 9, Paul is making the argument that God's promises to Israel have not failed. The fulfillment of God's promises is dependent upon not the success or the failure of man, but upon God. For Paul says in Romans 9, verse 11, referring to the sons of Sarah and Rebekah, namely Isaac and Jacob, saying that though they were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of Him who calls. God chose Isaac and Jacob not because of anything inherently good within them, not because they stood before God as righteous, but he chose them so that through them God's promise of a Messiah would come to bring salvation, not just to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles. For Paul says in verse six, but it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descendant from Israel belong to Israel. and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named." But Paul considers an objection to his argument of God's election in verse 14, saying, well, what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. He goes on to say in verse 15, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I have compassion. So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but upon God who has mercy. So therefore, brothers and sisters, what we remember and celebrate at communion is the mercy of God who saved us, not because of works done by us, not because of anything inherently good within us, because of God's mercy who called you to his eternal salvation. God's promise of salvation to save all of Israel has not failed, but was fulfilled through his son, Jesus Christ, the true offspring. And so as a result of God's salvation, we are able to partake of the communion not in fear. We are able to partake of communion not in shame, not in guilt, but in confidence that the God of mercy who saved us will receive us. For those of you who have not received this gift of mercy from God, I implore you. That he is offering it to you right now. That today is the day of salvation. You do not have to make yourself right or clean yourself up. That is his work. Your work is to believe. Your work is to trust in the God who is faithful and to keep his promises. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, what a great God we serve. Lord, what a God that we serve to come before you, that we can come before you as righteous, that you are faithful to keep your promises, Lord. Amen. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. And that is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So take this time now to examine your hearts before the Lord. Heavenly Father, the discipline that we receive from you is not always easy in the moment to accept. But Father, it produces the fruit of righteousness that leads us to eternal life, Lord. Father, forgive us of our shortcomings. Forgive us, Lord, for where we have fallen short. Forgive us of our sins this past week. And sometimes we feel ashamed, Father, to worship you. We feel ashamed to come before you in communion. But Father, help us to remember that there is nothing we can do to clean ourselves up. May we believe, Lord, in you, that you sent your Son to die on the cross and take our shame for us. who bore the reproach of our sin on His shoulders. Lord, that we can come before You in confidence, and that we can remember the great salvation we have through Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. This is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was broken for you. This cup is the new covenant of Christ's blood which was shed for you. As we sing our last hymn this morning, please turn to hymn number 598. 598, guide me, O thou great Jehovah. Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but Thou, Almighty, hold me with Thy powerful hand. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more. Feed me till I want no more. Bend now the crystal fountain, whence the healing stream doth flow. Let the fiery, cloudy pillar lead me all my journey through. Strong deliverer, strong deliverer, be thou still my strength and shield. be thou still my strength and shield. When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside. Death of death and hell's destruction, land me safe on Canaan's side. Songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to thee. I will never give to thee. Now please still in your red hymnals turn to page 824 in the responsive reading. 824 in the red, if you wouldn't mind standing for our responsive reading this morning. Comes from Psalm 107 verses 1 through 22. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say this, those he redeemed from the hand of the foe. Those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south. Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives fed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and for His wonderful deeds for men. For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Some sat in darkness in the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains. For they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. So He subjected them to bitter labor. They stumbled and there was no one to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and He saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for men. For He breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron. Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them. He rescued them from the grave. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men. Let them sacrifice thank offerings and tell his works with songs of joy. Let us pray. Father, we thank you that the word that we have holding in our hands this morning, Father, is perfect, inerrant, inspired, the very breath of God. It's sufficient to teach, correct, and to train us for godliness, Father. I pray that this word would continue to be proclaimed through Greg in this pulpit, Father, and all of those who take his place. Father, I pray that you would be with Phillip Way, that you would be with him as he preaches, Father, this morning. Lord, I pray that you would heal him from the eyesight troubles that he is having. Father, I ask that your hand would be upon him and your word would be proclaimed through him boldly this morning. Father, I pray for our sister, Sandra, Lord, as she is in rehab and unable to be with us this morning, I pray for those who are shut-ins, Lord, I think of Ben Fletcher, I think of Sarah Garcia, Father, I think of Marie Collins, that your hand would be upon them, Lord, as they worship you from the body at a distance, but are still present with you in spirit, Father. And Father, we thank you that your word is faithful to all of our lives, and I pray that your word would continue to go out to the ends of the world as the waters cover the sea. And we pray this in your son's most precious and holy name, amen. We'll come share the gospel with us, pastor. Well, please turn with me now in your copy of God's Inspired, Inerrant, Living, and Active Word. One final time to the Gospel of John. We're going to start in chapter 20. This is our 80th and final sermon in our series on John's Gospel. So as I mentioned to the men at the prayer breakfast yesterday morning, it's a bittersweet moment for me. It's been such a rich time together with you in this glorious gospel. And I have enjoyed hearing from many of you of how this series has given you a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished for you. It has strengthened your faith in Him, and how, for some, you've actually been given faith and life in Him through this Gospel, and how many of you have taken comfort in the divinity of Jesus, and you've been encouraged to press on. following him on the mission that he has given to us. What a marvelous thing it is that God is living and active by his inspired and errant word among his people. That is a wonderful I mean, I'm not simply up here dispensing a philosophy week after week when we come to hear the Word of God, but we are engaged together with and we're responding to the true and living God as the people of God. Isn't that amazing? So we come this morning to a close of this season at Dayspring, in which over the course of a little over two years, God has been shaping us and working in our lives through the Gospel of John. For those of you who've been with us from the beginning of the series, you're going to be reminded today of many of the truths that we have seen together over these years in John together. And for those of you who have only been with us for a short time or who may be visiting us for the first time today, it's a really good Sunday for you to be here because we're going to be looking together at the very central message of this whole entire book and considering some of the greatest highlights from John's gospel. So it's going to take us a little while to get through the whole thing. I encourage you, if you need to stretch your legs and stand up to do so, but settle in. We're going to have a rich feast to feed upon from God's Word this morning. I want to begin by just reading those final two verses of chapter 20, which serve as a fitting launching off place for overviewing the whole thing. You'll remember that this is where the Apostle John, he lays out very clearly his whole purpose for writing down this gospel. Look with me at John chapter 20. I'll begin reading God's word at verse 30. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. To be a good student of scripture is to be a good student of literary technique. The Bible is literature, and it's made up of all different kinds of literature, written by all different kinds of men, prophets who had visions. It's written by apostles who wrote letters. Even portions of the scripture were written by the pagan king of Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar, in his own hand wrote some Scripture, but all of it, from Genesis 1-1 all the way to Revelation chapter 21 to the end, is authored by the living God. And so it's important to keep in mind that God is the author of Scripture. Even though men and others wrote down Scripture, portions of Scripture were quotes from a donkey. that God caused to speak. But it is all God's Word. The Holy Spirit is the author of the entire Word of God. And one of the literary techniques that the Holy Spirit loves to employ is a literary technique called recapitulation. It's just a fancy way of talking about retelling the same events in a different way, from a different angle, with different styles and different ways of looking at the same thing. And so we see it all the way through scripture, we see it in the creation account, you have it recapitulated in chapter two, you see it in the flood, you see it in the time of Israel and the kings, right? Like there's a story about the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, he came and he surrounded the city of Jerusalem when King Hezekiah was the king. Well, you get that story told three different times. You get it in Kings, you get it in Chronicles, and you get it in Isaiah, and you can see it from three different angles because it's a very important event. Daniel is a great example of recapitulation, where Daniel, it begins, you know, chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar has this dream about this statue. Well, it turns out that as Daniel interprets that dream, that it is talking about the kingdoms to come after Babylon. Babylon is going to fall to the Medes and the Persians, and then after that is going to be Greece, and then Greece is going to get broken up into four different kingdoms, and then Rome is going to come, and in the time of Rome, Messiah will finally come and establish his kingdom. That story gets told about four or five times in all different kinds of apocalyptic visions in Daniel. You get the same thing in Revelation, you get seven cycles, seven visions that tell the same thing over and over again from different angles about the beginning of the church age all the way to the end of all things, right? The world comes to an end seven times in Revelation, and if that book has ever troubled you, you can listen to our series that we did through that. So recapitulation is a very common literary technique that the Holy Spirit uses through all Scripture, and that explains why we get four different tellings of the gospel. We get Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're all telling the same story, right? The great good news of the virgin birth of the promised king, his perfect sinless life lived in the place of his people, his sacrificial death upon the cross, for their sins, his victorious resurrection from the dead, his promised ascension and reign and rule and sending of the Holy Spirit, and coming again to judge the living and the dead, and therefore all four Gospels call on you to repent of your sins and to believe in him for eternal life so that you stand on that judgment day at his coming in his righteousness alone. All four are telling that one story, but they're not identical, right? They're all telling it from a different angle, with different ways. and different perspectives with different stories. That's the way that God loves to retell the same stories over and over again from just different angles so that the most important stories get that repetition and you get to see how multifaceted they are and see them from all those different angles. That's what we have the Gospel of John, and so as we overview the Gospel of John, what I want to do today mainly is to focus not on what John has in common with Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but what's sort of unique in many ways to John. So when I preached this passage a month or so ago that we just read, I really focused in on the last part of verse 31, and those two purpose statements there. But there's actually another question here that we didn't raise and didn't get to answer that I want to look into a little bit, and it has to do with what John says there in verse 30, that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, but these are written. The ones that I've written, I have written so that you might believe and have life. So here's the question that I've got, and I want to kind of explore it today. in our time together. Why did John pick the stories that he picked? Why did the Apostle John choose the ones that he included? I mean, he's very straightforward here about the fact that there was a lot to choose from, right? He had a wealth of material. He lived with Jesus and walked with Jesus every day for years, saw everything that Jesus did, and he could have used any number of events, any number of things that Jesus had done and said and taught that he was an eyewitness to, he had story after story after story that he could have told, and yet he wrote down just a few of those in order to try to convince us to believe. That's interesting, isn't it? John wrote with a purpose to get you to have faith in Jesus and to have life in his name. And so the stories that he writes down are chosen very deliberately toward that goal. Each one of them is meant to push you as the reader a little bit further down the track towards reliance on Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior for eternal salvation. And so what I want to do is ask the question, why does he pick the stories that he picks? And in fact what John does, and people have noticed this, for the last 2,000 years is that he organizes his entire book around seven of these signs that he's talking about. They're miracles. That's what John means here by signs. We'll talk more about that a little bit later on. But unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he organized his book, his whole book, around seven signs or miracles, each of which, as they unfold through the story of the book, each of which tells us something new about Jesus, the Messiah, or even about ourselves in relation to King Jesus. So the whole book is organized around these seven signs, each one revealing who Jesus is, and then weaving in and out of those signs and sort of swirling around them all are seven statements that Jesus makes about himself, about who he is, and also seven witnesses who see these signs and then testify to who Jesus really is. So it's a fascinating way of organizing his gospel literarily, and of course, all of it is for the purpose of convincing you, like those witnesses were convinced, to really believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, to have true life in his name. So that's what I want to do this morning. I want to kind of think about the sweep of the entire book and to remember these things that John has written. So the main point, I think it's clear, the main point of the whole Gospel of John is this. Come to see and know Jesus through the eyewitness testimony. Come to see and to know Jesus through the eyewitness testimony to Him, and trust Him for eternal life. That's why John wrote this book, so that you would see and know Jesus for who He truly is, and then rely upon Him, believe on Him for eternal life, forgiveness of sins, everlasting salvation. So we're going to look at Jesus again today, so as to respond to him in faith. And we're going to do that under three main points. So point number one, we're going to look at the signs, the seven signs. And then point number two, the seven statements. And then point number three, final point, the seven witnesses. So if you're taking notes, you're gonna be writing down 21 things, right? Seven signs, seven statements, seven witnesses. And my hope and prayer, of course, is that as we make our way through all of that, as we think about how these three sevens are all functioning together in John's gospel, that you really will see Jesus for who he truly is, and you'll believe, you'll trust, you'll put your faith in him, and you, like these people, will find life in his name. So point number one, I want to look and think about the seven signs, and I want to think about how they function, how they organize together, how they logically fit and work. So you see in verse 30, he says that Jesus did a lot of other signs in the presence of the disciples, but John didn't write them all down. He had a lot of material to choose from. In fact, remember back from last week, John, he ended his book by saying there were many, many other things that Jesus did, and were every one of them to be written down, the world itself couldn't contain all the books that would be written. So John had to do some picking and choosing when he was deciding what to put into his book. So how did he do that? How did he pick and choose? Well, there are a few things to consider regarding that. First of all, the apostle John was writing the last of the four Gospels to be written. And in fact, in several places, several times in the book, John seems to be aware of the other three Gospels. There are several places in the book where he just seems to assume that you the reader, you're already aware of Jesus and many of the things that he did. So a lot of the times what you'll see in the book of John is him just sort of skipping over some of the more famous miracles and some of the more famous teachings, think of like the Sermon on the Mount, that make their way into all three of the other Gospels. It's as if John just thought, look, you've got that in other places. I don't need to tell it to you again. He just expects you to read Matthew, Mark, and Luke and to learn from them. what you need to learn there. So that's one thing that's motivating and sort of shaping the things that John picks and chooses. It's really fascinating, too, because John leaves out stories where he himself was one of the very few eyewitnesses to the event. John was part of the very innermost circle of disciples. Jesus had 12 disciples, of course, but then he had this innermost group of disciples, three of them in fact, who are often invited to be with Jesus for some of the most extraordinary and intimate events that happen. So the raising of Jairus's daughter from the dead, for instance. is one place where only Peter, James, and John were privy to be there. And did you realize that there were only three disciples present at the transfiguration? Again, Peter, James, and John. And even in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus takes all of them, but he takes Peter, James, and John. deeper into the garden, and just the three of them are a stone's throw away from where Jesus is sweating great drops like blood as he prays for this cup to pass from him. They're the only three that would have seen and heard that prayer. And yet John leaves all of those stories out. The raising of Jairus' daughter, not in the book. Transfiguration, not in the book. I mean, you get a little bit of a hint of it in chapter one when John says, we have beheld his glory. That's probably what he's talking about, probably talking about the transfiguration. But he doesn't tell that story. Same with the Garden of Gethsemane, just doesn't include the agonizing prayer of Jesus. But there's another thing, too. Notice there in verse 30 that John says that Jesus did many other signs. Not just things, right? He said things in chapter 21, the very last verse of 25. We saw that last week, how he said things there, but not here. He specifically says signs. He's putting special attention on these things by calling them signs. So what are those? They're miracles, right? But they're not just miracles. And so John, he doesn't use the normal Greek word for miracles here. Romans and Greeks knew what miracles were. They were amazing things that shouldn't naturally happen. and it generally drew attention to the person who did the miracle or who received the miracle. It was just a kind of way to say, you know, this is unnatural and amazing, this thing that happened. But John doesn't call them that. He calls them signs because they were something way more than just marvels that made you go, wow, that was an amazing miracle. we're going to talk about what that something more is in a second. But first, I just want to talk a little bit about miracles. We'll talk about the significance of them being called signs in just a minute, but I want to first talk about the significance of these amazing things that happen throughout the story of Jesus. John's argument here is that the signs that he tells you about, the miracles, ought to lead you to put your faith in Jesus and have life in his name. The signs that he tells you about, the miracles, the amazing things that he writes about in his book, ought to lead you to understand that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Believe in him and have life in his name. Now, I am well aware that there are many people in the world today who find that kind of argument just utterly unconvincing, right? That the accounts of Jesus's miracles ought to lead you to believe in him. But I think that the fact that we find that utterly unconvincing sometimes is mostly because people tend to rule out the possibility of miracles right from the start. People tend to begin with the presupposition that stories of miracles just have to either be legends or myths or hoaxes or something because supernatural stuff just does not happen. In fact, maybe you've told yourself that science, the scientific method, the way we go about discovering realities about the world, maybe you've even convinced yourself that science has completely ruled out the possibility of miracles. that we live in a closed set. If there are any mysteries out there, it's just because science hasn't yet answered those questions. And anything that's outside of that set, outside of that naturalistic closed box, is just ruled out of order from the start. But before you shut the door, and just say, look, science has ruled out miracles. If there are any mysteries, science will figure it out eventually. Before you shut the door on miracles, let me at least give you a few things to think about. For one, well, it's just not true that science has ruled out the possibility of miracles. That is not true. I mean, how would science even do that, right? I'm a huge fan of science, by the way. I love science. I enjoy doing scientific experiments. I believe in science. I mean, unlike probably half the people in this room here, I have tremendous respect and even trust in the scientific community at large. I believe that the Earth is spherical and not flat. I believe that the Earth and the other planets in our system revolve around the Sun. I believe in carbon dating. I believe in the speed of light. I even believe in the safety and efficacy of vaccines. John, don't leave. So I'm no enemy of science. To borrow a line from the Apostle Paul, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in science, I have more. But even the most thoroughgoing naturalists in the world will admit that science could never prove that there is not a God. And if science can never prove that there isn't a God, then if there is a God, a personal creator God above and outside of his creation, then presumably that God could choose to intervene into the world he created any time he sovereignly chooses to do so. The only way science could rule out supernatural miracles is to rule out the possibility of God. And that science cannot do. So the question isn't really about miracles themselves. It's not really a question about can supernatural things happen. The real question at the root of the whole thing is about God. Is there a God or is there not a God? And science, as wonderful and beautiful a discipline as it may be, it simply is not equipped to answer that kind of question. It's the wrong tool for getting at that question. But I understand the skepticism. I just think that natural skepticism is more a product of our own limited experience than it is the result of any principled, logical thinking. The reason that we don't typically believe in miracles is mostly because we have very little experience with them. And in fact, we've kind of cut ourselves off because we assume that we're in this closed naturalistic system. We've actually cut ourself off from the entire structure of spiritual reality that would make miracles thinkable in the first place. So think about this. Here's just an illustration. Imagine that you have a guy that's, let's say he's in the 15th century, way before electricity. And you've got a guy in this 15th century. He lives on a tropical island right on the equator. The temperature never gets below a balmy 60 degrees or something like that. And let's say a boat lands on his island. A man gets out, walks up to the guy, figures out the language, and eventually finally says to him, my friend, in my fatherland, up in Greenland or whatever, Water can turn into this thing that's as hard as a rock. And the guy on the island in the 15th century who knows nothing about freezing or refrigeration or hail falling from the sky or anything like that says, that's crazy. Water is wet. Water is liquid. It moves. There's nothing that you can do to turn water into a rock. And the guy from Greenland would then say, Well, I know that your experience is limited to what you can know, right? I'm telling you a fact that you've never seen about stuff called ice back from my homeland. It doesn't mean that ice doesn't exist. It's just outside of your experience. If you've decided that miracles don't happen, that the supernatural is just not a thing, can I just challenge you for a second? that maybe that's because you're living on a little island of naturalism and it's that your experience is limited. I can tell you right now, people who have experienced true miracles, people who do know that they have happened, people who have experienced them for themselves have no trouble believing in the supernatural at all, simply because their experience has been opened up to something else. So maybe what you need to do this morning is open your mind just a little, open that naturalistic box, and consider the possibility that reality, that the whole of reality is bigger and deeper and more beautiful and fascinating than you have ever imagined. But here's the other thing about miracles, especially as Jesus does them. Why does the Apostle John call them signs? He calls them signs because these displays of supernatural power are not just bare displays of power. What do signs do? They point to something. You know, that's what signs are for, right? There's a sign there that says exit. That sign is not the exit. It's pointing you to the door that leads to the other door that leads to the exit, right? So signs are something that points you to some other reality, it tells you about another reality. Well that's why John calls these miracles signs, because they point to some reality. They're miracles that direct, they're miracles that speak, they are miracles that signify. So what do they signify? What do they point to? Well, they point to specific truths about who Jesus is and what he came to do. That's what they do. Every single one of the signs, every single one of the miracles in John's book points to something about who Jesus is and what he came to do. So let's consider them. John records seven signs in seven miracles, and each one of them The point is way deeper than just, wow, Jesus can do really amazing things. Every single one of those signs or miracles is pointing to who Jesus is and what he's come to do. So let's briefly review them. The first sign that we saw in the book was back in chapter 2, Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding. You remember that? I mean, it was years ago when we studied Jesus turning the water into wine at Cana, but do you remember what that was signifying from the sixth sermon in our series? It wasn't just signifying that Jesus can do an astounding trick to keep a party going, like turning water into wine, and none of y'all losers can do that. That's not what it's doing at all. If you remember the details of the story, you had six Jewish purification jars that Jesus said, fill them up to the brim, right? Fill them to the brim, and then once the Jewish purification jars were filled up, signifying the Jewish system of religion being filled up to the brim, bam, Jesus turns it all into wine. No more just the water of sustenance, but the wine of celebration and the messianic new age. You remember what Jesus was doing? He was saying the old has been filled up to the brim, and now the new age of celebration and salvation has come. The messianic age is finally here. The second sign was the healing of the nobleman's son in chapter 4. So the nobleman comes up to Jesus, says, come with me to my house and heal my son, Jesus, because he is dying. And Jesus says, you know, bam, your son is healed. I don't even need to go to your house. The man's headed back to his home. Servant meets him halfway, says, your son was healed at such and such an hour. And the man realizes that was when Jesus said that. It was Jesus who did that when my son was healed. And he comes to have faith and believe on Jesus. This was sermon number 14. And remember what it was signifying. It's signifying that the new wine of the messianic age, the great joy of the new age dawning, is personal and it's for us. It's not just something that's happening way out there that doesn't have anything to do with us. It has to do with that man and his particular son and you and me. That's what it's signifying. The third sign is in chapter five. Remember that one? The man who, he sat at the edge of the pool, right? He'd wait for the waters to stir and then, you know, everybody would rush into the pool because the first person to get into the pool would be healed of their disease. But what was this guy's problem? He was lame. And he tells Jesus straight up, I know if I could just get into the water first, when the waters are roiled up, that I could be healed of my paralysis, but I have no one to help me get saved. Sermon number 15. Do you remember what that sign's pointing to? It's pointing to your and my helplessness to save ourselves. Our inability and Jesus's ability to do it. The fourth sign, sermon number 18, feeding of the 5,000 from chapter six. What's that all about? Not just that Jesus can make bread, right? But that Jesus can nourish us spiritually. What we need spiritually is the bread of life, Jesus. What about the next sermon passage, the fifth sign? Jesus walking upon the water, also in chapter six. What does that say? It says that Jesus puts the sea, remember what the sea signifies, right? The sea is the place of chaos, it's the place of death, it's the place of terror, it's the place of the sea monster, Leviathan, the serpent, the dragon, right, his abode. And what does Jesus do with the abode of the dragon, the place of chaos? He puts it under his feet. He treads upon the serpent. He crushes his head. He shows that he is the creator and ruler of all the cosmos, including the serpent himself. We saw the sixth sign in sermon number 31. the healing of the blind man in chapter 9. What's that all about? Is it just a medical miracle? Is that all it is? I mean, would it have been just as significant and miraculous a sign if Jesus had healed his stubbed toe? No, it's signifying that you and I are blind, right? We are spiritually blind and Jesus alone can take that blindness away. He's the light of the world who comes to make the spiritually blind to see. The final sign, chapter 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. That was our 40th sermon. And what was that sign telling you? It was telling you that you are as dead in your sins as Lazarus was dead in that tomb. And you need the one who is the resurrection and the life to call your name and bring life to you, bring you to life. So you see what's going on with all of those miracles? They're not just party tricks that show that Jesus is a really great guy to be around. They're not just there to show you how powerful Jesus is. Every single one of them is talking about who he is and what he came to do and who you are and what you ultimately need desperately and cannot provide for yourself, your utter helplessness to get it apart from Jesus, the one and only Savior. John wants you to understand that as you read all of the stories of his book. As you think back on the book, that's what he wants you to understand. He wants you to realize right here and right now that you are hopeless and helpless in sin, as helpless as Lazarus was dead. You're as helpless as that paralyzed guy trying to get into the pool. And yet here, here, standing before you this morning in the Word is the giver of true life. I mean, don't you want that? Don't you want that? Don't you want to be brought to life spiritually? Aren't you tired of being spiritually dead? He is here right in front of you. His gospel, the good news, is right here in front of you. And it doesn't take anything special to get it. You just say, Lord, I know. I know that I'm that guy next to the pool. I know that I'm Lazarus, dead in my sins. There's nothing I can do to save myself. Nothing. But you're the all-sufficient Savior. You're the one who gave yourself so that my sins could be forgiven. I'm trusting in you with everything I've got to save me. These signs are written, and they're written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing in him, not by doing any good works, by believing in him, have life in his name. That's why John wrote these seven signs down. Don't turn away from them. Follow the signs, and then follow Jesus. Well, point number two, the seven statements. So underneath and weaving in and out, swirling around these seven signs, are these seven statements made by Jesus himself about himself. So Jesus testifies to himself about who he is and what he has come to do. So not just in the doing of the seven signs, but also in declaring these seven statements, these famous metaphorical I Am statements from the lips of Christ that we have looked at and studied throughout this series. And the thing I want to remind you of is that all of them are claims to deity. So remember, God, the true and living God of the Hebrew scriptures, he is the great I Am. That's his name. I am who I am. And in all seven of these metaphorical I Am statements, Jesus is ultimately saying, I am. I am Yahweh. I am God. But before I remind you of these seven, let me first remind you that there are three I am statements in John's gospel which are not metaphorical. And these are all declarations of God's name, his covenant name, applied directly to Jesus by himself. So the first is in chapter four, at the very end of his conversation with that Samaritan woman at the well. She says to Jesus, I know that the Christ is coming and will tell us all things. And Jesus replies to her, I am. The second instance is in his dispute with the Pharisees in chapter eight, where Jesus tells them, before Abraham was, I am. They understood his claim because John tells us, right? They took up stones to execute him for blasphemy. And then the final one, we saw it in the Garden of Gethsemane, when that mob came to arrest Jesus. And he asked them whom they sought. They said, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus replied, I am, which you'll remember sent hundreds of Roman soldiers to the ground. Those are the three which are not metaphorical. The seven metaphorical ones also identify their claims to deity and talking about Jesus's identity. So each one of them is revealing to us that Jesus is God and revealing some aspect about Christ. The first statement, It's from chapter six, just after the sign of the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus says there, I am the bread of life, signifying that he is the giver of true life for all who partake of him, all who trust in him. The second one comes right before the sign of the healing of the blind man. Jesus says, I am the light of the world. And then he gives sight to the blind. Again, signifying that he gives light to those who sit in spiritual darkness. Third, this is chapter 10, we heard Jesus teaching his disciples saying, I am the door. Signifying what? That no one can enter into the kingdom by any other way than through Jesus. Fourth, also chapter 10, Jesus declares there, I am the good shepherd, identifying himself with the Lord of Psalm 23 and signifying his great love and care for his sheep, protecting them even to the point of death. A good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep. Fifth, immediately before performing his very final sign, the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11, Jesus proclaimed, I am the resurrection and the life, signifying that he's the one who holds the keys to death and the grave. Sixth, in John 14, Jesus makes the powerful I am statement there. I am the way and the truth and the life, which is just packed with meaning, right? Jesus is not merely one way among many ways to God. He is the only way. He is the truth, confirming his identity as the Word of God. And Jesus alone is the source of all life. He is the creator and the sustainer of all life and the giver of eternal life. And finally, seventh, this is in chapter 15, Jesus says, I am the true vine, signifying the life-giving, sustaining power of Christ. It is only those who are united to him by faith who live and bear fruit. And did you notice how each and every one of these I am statements are all of them ultimately about life? Because Jesus is the one, Colossians 1.17, in whom all things hold together. He is the one, Hebrews 1.3, who upholds the universe by the word of his power. Jesus is claiming to not only be your creator, your redeemer, but your very moment-by-moment sustainer. Your every breath, thought, word, minute, all of it owes its entire existence to Him and His will. He is the Great I Am. That's His name. He depends on nothing. Everything else depends on Him. And so you will only find what you are looking for, what you are searching for. You will only find what you were made for, created for. You will only find true life in him, no one else. These things were written so that you might believe and have life in his name. The seven signs, the seven statements, third and final point, the seven witnesses. the seven witnesses. So in and around all of these signs that point to Jesus as the great I Am that John wrote about are witnesses who testify to the truth of who they have realized Jesus is. So look back at chapter 20 with me and verses 30 and 31 again, because there's a particular logic that I want you to see here. There's a particular logic to this passage and the way that John writes it. And it's very important, but sadly, it's obscured, entirely obscured by the English translation. So as you read verse 30 there, and as I see it here in my English Standard Bible, it just says, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, right? It's almost like it's a brand new thought. Now Jesus did many other things which are not written. But verse 30 actually begins with the most commonly used Greek word for therefore. Therefore. Now that's interesting, because if it just started with now, that's kind of a signal that this is a brand new topic, sort of a disconnected topic from what came before. But all of us know that any time you get a therefore, it's connecting it to what was just before. And so once you realize that, that John writes therefore, Jesus did many other signs, you realize this is a different deal than it first appears. It's not a new thought. It's a thought that is very closely connected right back to verse 29. Look at that, verse 29, Jesus said to Thomas, Have you believed, Thomas, because you've seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have believed. So you see the logic. And then he says, therefore, Jesus did many signs. You see the logic of this thing? Blessed are those who believe without seeing. That's you and me, right? We are among those, among the millions who have believed in Jesus without actually seeing these signs that happened, just like we never saw Caesar getting assassinated or George Washington getting inaugurated, right? We never saw that, but we believe it. We are among those who have not seen and yet who have believed. And then John says, therefore, You need to know that Jesus did many things in the presence of the disciples, including me, he says, and I have written them down so that you'll believe. Blessed are those who believe without seeing, so I've written them down for you so that you can believe. It's an interesting logic, isn't it? The logic of Christian mission, like from minute one all the way through the last 2,000 years until the moments that you and I believed in Jesus, the logic of Christian mission is that certain people were chosen by God to be eyewitnesses to Jesus Christ, his Son. Not everybody. Certain people were eyewitnesses to Jesus, and those eyewitnesses saw everything. They experienced everything. They saw the miracles, they heard the teachings, they saw the events, they saw the life, they saw the death, they saw the resurrection. There are certain people who saw all of that. And now for the last 2,000 years, the expectation is that on the basis of listening to those eyewitnesses, everybody else is going to believe. That's the logic. So here's what I want you to see in that. There's not a single person here in this room today who would say to you, I am a Christian because I have seen the resurrected Jesus Christ and I am an eyewitness to his miracles. For the last 2,000 years, everyone, literally everyone who has become a Christian has done so on the basis of listening to the eyewitnesses and not being one themselves. They just believed the testimony. Now, straight up, I'll be honest, that is a bit of a hard sell. That I have to believe something, especially something as incredible as the fact that Jesus is God and he got up from the dead. I've got to believe that on the basis of someone else's testimony, of eyewitness testimony from someone else. That is a hard sell to me. I think it's a hard sell to all of us, especially to us hard-headed modern people who really want to see everything for ourselves. And besides that, one of the reasons that we're so hard-headed is because we're living in an age where we've gotten used to being lied to, right? We've gotten used to being jerked around and spun and disinformed and deep-faked by people who want us to believe certain things in order to further their own agenda. So typically, we don't react very well or quickly to someone saying, I saw it with my own eyes, trust me. Trust me. But on the other hand, that also doesn't mean that we always reject out of hand eyewitness testimony, does it? You do believe that Caesar was assassinated. You do believe that Washington was inaugurated. You believe those things on what basis? On the basis of eyewitness testimony. So we don't disbelieve everything. We're not just hard skeptics all the way down. We're just careful. about what we believe. And we're right to be, we're right to be careful. It's a very human thing to want to be careful about what you believe and base your whole life upon. And the thing is, here's what I want to think, here's something that I think we miss a lot of times. These eyewitnesses to Jesus, they were also very careful about what they believed. I think it's far too easy sometimes to assume that because these people lived 2,000 years ago before we did, and they didn't have electricity or whatever, that they were therefore these podunk, gullible, primitive people. They weren't. I mean, think about Thomas, right? Thomas was not gonna believe unless he saw the scars for himself on the body of the risen Lord Jesus. Mary, Peter, John, none of them were eager and hardwired to believe, right? None of them jumped into believing. It took time. They had to be convinced. And the thing is, it's not wrong for us to question them, too, and to ask questions like, you know, John, Peter, James, is it possible that you are lying to me? Is it possible that what you call eyewitness testimony is actually just a hoax, like the kind I see on the internet all the time? Is it possible that your eyewitness testimony is not so much testimony to a reality, but it's just that you've been duped yourself? And maybe you're not the perpetrator. You've been duped. Maybe your eyes played tricks on you. It's fair to ask those kinds of questions of these eyewitnesses. But here's the thing. These eyewitnesses to Jesus's life and his miracles and his death and his resurrection and his ascension, these eyewitnesses invite you to ask those questions of them. Are you lying to me? They all invite you to ask those questions. And when you begin to ask those questions, what you're going to find is that they hold up without a scratch to that kind of scrutiny. They hold up to those kinds of questions. So let's just think about it together for a minute. Just think about it. Were they duped? into believing that Jesus rose from the dead? Did they make it all up in order to start a religious movement? Why don't either of those explanations work? Because the Romans knew where the tomb was. They put a seal on it, guards in front of it. And if the disciples were duped into thinking it was empty, or just made it up and returned to town and started saying that Jesus was risen from the dead, they would have had Jesus's body hung on the city walls to put down that kind of movement. Or maybe Jesus wasn't really dead, just mostly dead, right? got flogged and crucified. It's called the swoon theory that explains what happened is basically that. right after being tortured, mocked, flogged, nailed to a cross, hung in the midday sun for three hours in the Middle East to die a terrible death by asphyxiation, that Jesus actually just swooned. He passed out. He looked dead. They stabbed him through with a spear. People thought that he was dead. They took him to the tomb. They buried him alive. He rolled a heavy stone to seal off the entrance, and then, sort of in the cool of the tomb, he kind of came to, smelled the fresh tomb air, got up, rolled the one to two ton stone away, scared the daylights out of the Roman guards, and then he walked miles on wounded feet and convinced people that he had conquered death. I don't think so. Look, the eyewitnesses, every single one of them said, I saw him, I touched him, I spent time with him, 40 days, I ate broiled fish with him. I saw him ascended. We didn't just take the word of someone else, we saw him. I mean, start to think it through. You start to think through clear eyes. You put your clear eyes on this thing and you start thinking about it, you realize really there's no other explanation that makes all of this make sense. So I think the question comes to you. Shouldn't you just believe them? Shouldn't you just believe? Shouldn't you just believe their eyewitness testimony that they saw what they say they saw? And it's not just the apostles either. John's book, it's organized around these seven signs with seven I am statements by Jesus, but also seven other witnesses who see who Jesus is and testify to that. I'll just run through them really quickly and then we'll be done. John the Baptist calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Nathanael, one of the earliest disciples, calls Jesus the Son of God and the Messiah, the King of Israel. The Samaritan woman at the well in chapter four testifies to Jesus as being a prophet and also ultimately the Messiah, the King, who told her everything she ever did or knew about herself. The man born blind doesn't know what to think, but he just says, look, I'm not getting into all of this theological stuff with you Pharisees. All I know is that once I was blind, I was born blind, and now I see. Just a simple testimony to Jesus. Martha confesses her faith in Jesus as the King, the Messiah, the Son of God, and the one who gives life. Thomas declares Jesus to be my Lord and my God. And the seventh witness, of course, is God the Father himself. First in a voice from heaven that says, Jesus first says, Father, glorify my name, and then a voice from heaven comes and says, I have glorified it, and I will continue to glorify it again. And then, In the resurrection itself, God supremely witnesses to the truth of who Jesus is by raising his son from the dead, witnessing to what Jesus was saying and all that Jesus accomplished by raising him from the grave. So let me ask you a question. What else do you want? I mean it. Don't cross your eyes and blur your vision at that question. What else are you waiting on to say, okay, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. What else do you need? All these people, all these people that we've been talking about from all walks of life, from all starting places, with all kinds of experiences and presuppositions, wind up pointing to Jesus and saying He's the real deal. Millions of people throughout history have believed in Jesus on the basis of their eyewitness testimony. What else would you demand of God? Jesus, he once said at the end of Luke 16 in a parable, that if a person refuses to hear those who testify to himself and to who he is, then neither will they be convinced should a person rise from the dead and go to them. And the point is this, lots of people saw the signs that Jesus did with eyes of unbelief and hard hearts that never believed in him. Judas, for example. The problem is not ultimately a problem of the eyes or a problem of the mind. Ultimately, it is a problem of the heart. If you're digging your heels in against Jesus, even seeing a miracle isn't going to change that. You would find another reason not to believe, to refuse him. So here's the deal. There were a select few whom the Lord chose to be the eyewitnesses to his promised son. Everyone else, the billions he expects to believe on the basis of their eyewitness testimony. I mean, John could not be any more clear here. That's how it's supposed to work. I wrote these things down. I saw them, I heard them, I wrote them down so that you will believe them and have life. And blessed are you, Jesus says in the verse right before it, blessed are you if you believe without seeing. That's how it is supposed to work. So when judgment day comes, and it is coming soon, no one is gonna be able to look at God sitting on his judgment throne and say, the reason I never trusted in your son is because I didn't see it for myself. That's just not going to fly as an excuse, because the answer is going to come back. All of this multitude that no man can number from every nation and every tribe and every tongue believed on the basis of this eyewitness testimony. Why do you think you were something special? And maybe it's not that. Maybe it's not that you want to see and examine the evidence for yourself. Maybe you're waiting for a certain feeling to happen. Maybe you're not that familiar with religion, and you just kind of had the sense that, well, this is religion after all, and it's supposed to feel, isn't it? Well, when I get this feeling in my heart, whatever it feels like, then I'll know, and then I'll believe. I mean, yeah, once you know these things to be true, There are all kinds of emotions that get launched, right? There's joy, there is gratitude, there is worship, there's humility, there's affection, there's hope. But the first question of Christianity is not an internal emotional experience. It's not a question of feelings. It's a question of what is true? What happens in history? Did Jesus rise from the dead? They say he did. What do you say to that? The answer to that question is not dependent at all on you feeling anything. It's just a matter of you looking at it with clear eyes and saying, yes, I believe, or no, I don't. If you're a Christian, too, this morning, if you've already said, yes, I absolutely believe, It's an encouraging truth, isn't it? That the truth of Christianity, and therefore the establishment of your eternity with your Lord and Savior Jesus, it does not rise or fall on your feelings. It's so encouraging to know, and it's a good reminder that just because I'm feeling down today, or because I'm not feeling very spiritual today, that that does not affect the reality of what has happened to me in Christ. I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon, because he talks about this very thing. Charles Spurgeon says, If these things are true, so if it's true that Jesus is who he says he is and that he has done and accomplished what he says he has done, if these things are true, then they are true, whether your heart dances for joy or sinks in despair. Whatever becomes of our changeful feelings, thank God, facts are stubborn things and alter not. Experience cannot make a thing true and feelings cannot make a thing to be a lie. Over the head, then, of all the storms and turmoils and changes of my poor, weak, silly nature, there rises a rock that is higher than all things, a rock which cannot be moved. Let the storm rage as long as it will. Christ Jesus, the anointed Son of God, died in the place of all who trust in him. I trust in him, and therefore I am saved. If he be indeed commissioned by God to save believers, and if he be himself God, pledged to save believers, then I, a believer, am as safe as the angels which surround the throne of God. Whatever I feel or do not feel, I am a saved man. since I heartily believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is anointed of the Lord to save his people. Amen. The facts, praise God, the facts don't care about your feelings. Whether you're up or down today, whether you're feeling particularly spiritual or particularly not spiritual, Let your heart grab onto this, that there rises above you, higher than the highest heavens, a rock which cannot be moved. And that is Jesus Christ died to save sinners. And if you just trust him, if you believe in him, if you call on the Lord, then you are a saved man or a saved woman who has life, true life in his name. Rejoice in that today. Let us pray. Our King and Lord Jesus, we thank you and we praise you that you are the rock that never changes, the same yesterday, today, and forever. That the salvation that you won for us through your life and death and resurrection will never be revoked, will never be changed. Your promises will never, ever be upended. Your promise will forever stand that those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, that whoever believes in you shall never perish, but have everlasting life. Lord, we thank you for these truths, and we thank you that they are true regardless of what we feel about them. And merciful Heavenly Father, If there is even one person in this room who doesn't yet personally believe on Jesus as their Lord and Savior, we pray, oh God, that your Holy Spirit would be about the work of giving them true spiritual life, giving them the gift of faith so that they might come to Jesus and find forgiveness of all their sins. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, our King, and our friend. To his glory, amen. Please stand together. I want to remind you of several things. One is there is a birthday card on the hall table where the bulletins were. And you'll have a couple of minutes after the benediction to sign it if you haven't yet already. And then I'm going to take it over to Sandra. Also just a reminder that those of you who are going to be singing He's Alive for us on Resurrection Day, praise God he's alive, they're going to be rehearsing up here after the service, and then we have all sorts of joyful and busy church life activities coming up. So this Wednesday night, I want you all to be here to hear the glorious testimony of our beloved sister Isabel, thank you. Isabel, I pray that she arrives safely back to Austin by plane today so that she can be here and give her testimony on Wednesday. It is a remarkable testimony and you want to be here for it. We're going to have our brown bag supper at 545 in the Fellowship Hall if you want to come beforehand. But at 6.30 in this room, Isabel will be giving her testimony. And then on Saturday, providentially, you know, Holy Week begins next Sunday, it's Palm Sunday, and that kicks off Holy Week. Providentially, the Lady's Bible study this Saturday at 10 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall happens to fall in John's Gospel on Palm Sunday, and the triumphal entry of Jesus. So that'll be a great time. For the ladies, if you've never come to a ladies' brown bag brunch and Bible study, this is the Saturday to do that, 10 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall. And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.