The Most Important Question: Who is Jesus? Life of Christ Part 79

You know, when I was a kid growing up, you know what my favorite game show was on television?

The $64,000 Question. Anybody here old enough to remember actually watching that? Ah, yeah. Well, see, I'm not as old as y'all folks, but I do remember it. You say, really? How old are you, Lon? Well, I'll be 47 this year.

You say, gosh, you don't look that old. I know. That's great, isn't it?

God bless you people. You made my day. But anyway, I used to watch on television when I was a kid, and you know how, Quiz Show. Have you seen the movie Quiz Show? Quiz Show's all about the scandal from the $64,000 Question years ago, and they put this person in that glass booth, and then they close them all in, and they'd say, now, we are about to ask you the most important question of your life for $64,000. And I got to thinking, you know, that's not really true, is it? Is a question worth $64,000 the most important question anybody will ever ask you?

I don't think so. What might be a candidate for the most important question anybody would ever ask you in the world? Well, I think in the passage we have for this morning, Jesus, from my point of view, asks the most important question anybody will ever ask you or me, and then he answers it, so that's great, too, and then we'll talk about so what. So I want you to take a Bible and open it this morning to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22, and if you didn't bring a Bible, hey, that's fine, no problem. We want you to borrow our copy of the Bible, which is on the back of the seat in front of you, and we're going to be on page 699 of our copy of the Bible, 699 of our copy, or Matthew 22 in your copy.

Now, let me make sure we understand what's going on here. Jesus has entered the city through the eastern gate at the triumphal entry, and this is the last week of his earthly life that we're in now. He's going to the temple every day to teach the people, and on this particular day, which was probably Tuesday, he's been confronted all day long by a bunch of rabbis who are just asking him every kind of obscure, stupid question you can think of, trying to trip him up, trying to discredit him, and he's answered all of these questions with great wisdom. Now they're getting ready to leave and go home, and they're about to break up, and Jesus says to them, wait a minute, guys, wait a minute, hold on just a second, time out. You've asked me all these questions now. It's my turn to ask you one.

Oh, okay. Jesus, I got one question for you, and here we go, verse 41. And while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question.

Here's the question. What do you think about Christ? What do you think about the Messiah?

Whose son is he? In other words, who do you think the Messiah really is? If I ask you to tell me who do you think Jesus Christ really is, what would you guys say?

Now friends, this is my nomination for the most important question anybody will ever be asked. What is your opinion of Jesus Christ? Who do you believe that he really is?

Now when it comes to opinions of Jesus Christ, the world is never lacked for suggestions. According to the Jewish people, Jesus Christ was a man, maybe a great man, maybe even a great rabbi, maybe even a prophet. According to the Muslims, Jesus Christ was one of the prophets of God of whom Muhammad was the greatest. According to the Mormons, Jesus Christ was a man who worked his way up into being a god just like you can.

According to the Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus Christ was an angel of God, the first created being in the universe according to the Eastern mystics. Jesus Christ was an enlightened soul, a guru, a man who had attained nirvana. According to the humanists, Jesus Christ was a great moral and ethical philosopher. According to the Unitarians, Jesus Christ was a nice guy, you know. But would you notice in all of these things that most people would agree that Jesus Christ was a great man. Most people might even agree that Jesus Christ was the best man to ever live.

You say, but Lon, that's good. I mean, as Christians, that's good. Don't we want people to think that? Well, no, not exactly, because you see, underneath the surface in all of this is a subtle denial that Jesus Christ is anything more than just a man. And this was exactly how the rabbis saw the Messiah. And they said, what's our opinion of the Messiah? They said, He is the son of David. Now in the Old Testament, God had promised David, King David, that his descendant would be the Messiah, would be the one who sat on the throne of Israel forever. He said in 2 Samuel 7, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And God repeated that promise over and over and over in the Old Testament. So much so that by the time of Christ, the title son of David had become absolutely synonymous with the title Messiah.

They used him interchangeably. So when the rabbis answered the question and said, He is the son of David, that's who the Messiah is, were they wrong? No. Were they telling something that wasn't true?

No. It wasn't that what they said was wrong or untrue, it's just that what they said wasn't the whole truth. They didn't have the whole picture.

It was an inadequate answer, not an untrue answer. And to point this out to them, Jesus asked them one more question to show them that the Messiah was much more than this. He said, Well, now, wait a minute, guys, I got one more question for you. How is it then, verse 43, that David, speaking by the Spirit, in other words, the Spirit of God was filling him, he was speaking divine revelation. One of the above selections is not that David was wrong. So he can't say, Well, David was wrong when he asked this question because he wasn't wrong. He was speaking by the Spirit. How then, speaking by the Spirit, could David call the Messiah Lord? For David says, Psalm 110, the Lord, God in heaven, says to my Lord, the Messiah, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet, verse 45.

If then David calls him Lord, Adon, the word in Hebrew that was commonly used for deity, if David calls him his deity, his Lord, well, then how can he be his son? You get the question? How many of you here are parents, have children, or grandchildren? Okay, good. Well, fair number. How many of you, raise your hand one more time, how many of you call them Lord? Raise your hand.

You don't? Now, I've seen some parents who act that way even though they might never admit it. But most parents in their right mind don't call their kids Lord, right? Most of them, when the kid wants something, doesn't go, All right, Lord, yes, Lord.

Anything you say, Lord? Some of us have some children who live in our house who think it ought to be that way, don't we? But we are in the process of straightening those little folks out and helping them understand that that is not the way it is. They are not the Lord's. If anybody is the Lord in that picture, we are.

And the same is true with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, correct? Now, do you understand Jesus' question? Nobody, no parent calls his own child Lord.

But if the Messiah is the child of David, the son of David, why in the world would David call him his Lord? You got the question? Oh, say, Well, Lon, that's a good one. What did they say? Verse 46, And no one could say a word in reply. They didn't know the answer. They didn't have an answer. And from that day on, nobody dared ask him any more questions.

You got it? They said, Uh-uh, we're not doing this again. You know, he answered all of ours.

He asked us one and totally outflanked us. We're through with this. We'll go work on trying to kill him, but we're through asking questions of him. Now, you got to understand, this was the brain trust to Judaism.

Do we all understand this? These were the best rabbis, the best scholars, and they couldn't answer a simple question like that out of the Old Testament. They were in a sparring match, in a battle with Jesus, and the ammunition was not bullets. It was questions, and Jesus wounded them mortally, and they left the field, and they never came back. Now, that's the end of the passage, but it leaves us with that question we all know and love, and what is that? Very good. So what?

Okay. Now, before we answer the question, so what, let's make sure we answer first the question Jesus asked. Do we understand the answer? If the Messiah is David's descendant, then what is David doing calling him Lord? That was the question. Let's make sure we all got the answer right.

What's the answer? The answer is found in the unique nature of who the Messiah is. The Messiah has a dual nature. He is both man, and he is God. He is both human, and he is divine.

And the answer is that on the human side of the Messiah, yes, his human side was descended from David, but his divine side, it was David's Lord. He was a unique being. He was both God and man. He was fully God in every way the Bible teaches. He was fully human in every way except that he had no sin nature.

And the man part of the Messiah was David's son, and the God part of the Messiah was David's Lord. He was a unique being. There has never been another one like him.

There never will be another one like him. He was the God slash or hyphen man. You say, Lon, how did that work? I don't know.

How do you understand that function? I don't know. How would you explain that?

I can't. I'm just telling you that's what the Bible says about it. And you realize, I'm sure, that this is the one key issue that divides true biblical Christianity from every other religion and every other philosophical system in the history of the world. Every other philosophical system in religion, no matter how different they might be on other things, they all agree on one point, and that is whoever Jesus Christ is, he was not Jehovah God in the flesh. They all agree on that.

But that's our battle line. We say in biblical Christianity, oh, yes, he was. He was God in the flesh. Now, I don't think we need to spend much time talking about the fact that he must have been the son of David. I mean, that's obvious because, you know, they had all the genealogical records in the temple then. If he wasn't descended from David, the best way to get rid of his claim of being the Messiah is go in the temple, get out the records, trace his line, and say, see, there, David's not in your line, you're history, Jack.

But nobody did that. So obviously, he was the son of David. There's no argument about that. But how do you prove that you're God? I mean, it was the other side of his nature that's the problem in terms of proving, how do you prove your deity? Well, you do a few miracles.

Yeah, but he did a few miracles and people didn't believe. You teach real good. Well, you can teach real good. That doesn't mean you're God. How do you prove you're God?

Well, let's look and see. I want you to turn back with me in the Bible to the letter that Paul wrote the Roman Church, Romans chapter 1. And if you're using our copy of the Bible, it's page 795. 795, Romans chapter 1.

And let's answer that question. How did Jesus prove that he was God? Here we go. We're in Romans chapter 1, verse 3. And here you're going to see both aspects of the Messiah's nature, both parts of his dual nature right here in verses 3 and 4. Now, it says we're talking about his son, regarding his son, who as to his human nature, verse 3, was a descendant of David.

We've already seen that, right? That verse 3 says he's the son of David. Verse 4. And who by the spirit of holiness was declared, was proven with power to be the son of God. Here's his divine side. Watch. By his resurrection from the dead.

The purpose of the resurrection was to prove to us, to vindicate to us that Jesus Christ really was the God in the flesh that he claimed to be. You remember a few years ago when they had the big Tylenol problem? You know, people were injecting all kinds of stuff you didn't want in Tylenol. Remember that? That was back when, you know, if you had some horrible disease and you wanted to die, you didn't need to call Dr. Jack Kevorkian. You just needed to go buy Tylenol down at People's and you could go. Remember those days?

Okay. So what did they do to solve that? Remember what American marketing did? Wonderful thing that American marketing is. They came up with those hated safety seals. Don't you hate those things?

I can never get that stupid plastic off. But what does it say on the bottle? It says, do not open if what? The seal's been tampered with or broken in any way, right? And what's the purpose of safety seals? What is American marketing trying to tell us with safety seals? What they're trying to say is because this safety seal is on here, this gives you the assurance that what this thing claims to be is what you're really getting.

No more, no less. You're getting exactly what it claims, right? Now, the resurrection is God's safety seal put on Jesus Christ. It's God's assurance to us that what we're getting is exactly what Jesus claims we're getting, no more, no less. He claimed to be God wrapped in human flesh and the resurrection is God's safety seal that says, friends, this proves to you that what you get is what you were claimed to get, what Jesus told you you were getting. You said, but Lon, how do I know for sure the resurrection happened?

That's a good question. And I've got a whole tape for you that you can go upstairs and buy. It's from Easter 1993. Don't forget that Easter 1993.

Go up in the bookstore and buy it. And I've got a whole long defense of the resurrection. I don't have time to do it this morning, but I'll just give you one quick thought. You know, history alone should prove to us the resurrection is true. If you read the Book of Acts, you know that in the Book of Acts, the central focus of all the preaching of the early church was the resurrection. If in some way the resurrection could have been proven to be wrong, the whole early church falls apart. All of Christianity falls apart.

There's nothing to talk about. Doesn't it seem strange to you that the violent enemies of Christianity and there were some, we know that. Doesn't it seem strange to you that they persecuted the preachers and even killed them. But doesn't it seem strange that they never went and found the body of Jesus and just brought it, laid it out there in the temple and said, look here, guys, here's the body of Jesus.

Now, Peter, you go back to fishing and Matthew, you go back to collecting taxes because it's over, guys. You say, yeah, why didn't they do that? Well, one, because they didn't look. Don't you think those people scoured the countryside looking for that body? Don't you think they got those Roman soldiers and said, hey, you guys, what happened to that body? You were there.

Come on. Where is it now? Where do you think that body went? Say, well, they flew it to America.

No, they didn't fly to America. You say, well, where did it go then? It went exactly where the Bible said it went.

It rose from the dead and went back to heaven. And that's why they couldn't find it. If I were over there and I were a Jewish rabbi and I was against Christianity and I was out to stop it dead in its tracks, I wouldn't waste my time persecuting the preachers. I wouldn't waste my time with James and John and Peter and Paul. I'd go find the body of Jesus Christ and produce it. That's what I'd be spending my time doing.

Then the whole thing's over. Why didn't these people do it? You say, because they weren't smart enough to think of it.

No, they were smart enough. They didn't do it because there wasn't a body. There was no body. Because it happened the way God said, and that's just one thought. But friends, there is no other religious or philosophical system that has ever claimed an empty tomb for its leader. Buddha didn't, Confucius didn't, Mohammed didn't, Joseph Smith didn't, Rabbi Schneerson, Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw. None of them ever claimed that they were going to rise from the dead because none of them ever claimed to be Almighty God himself. But that's exactly what Jesus Christ claimed.

Exactly. You say, oh no, Lon, I've been to college and I've been to university and I've had religion professors who told me that Jesus himself never claimed to be God. It was only his followers who claimed that. Well, that's hogwash.

That professor doesn't know what he's talking about. John chapter 8, turn there real quick. Page 758.

I want to show you something real quick. John chapter 8. Here Jesus is in another one of these little matches with the rabbis. At the very end of the chapter, John chapter 8, Jesus is talking about Abraham. And they say to him, verse 57, now wait a minute, you are not yet 50 years old and you've seen Abraham? Abraham lived 2,000 years ago. Look what Jesus said. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was, I am. Say, what is that?

What's he talking about? Well, do you remember back in the Old Testament where Moses saw the burning bush? And Moses said to God in the burning bush, he says, now God, I've got to know your name. When I go there to lead the Israelites out, Yul Brenner is going to ask me what your name is. And I've got to know your name.

What's your name? And God says, I am what I am. You tell him, I am has sent you. Jesus said, hey, guys, before Abraham was, I am. Now that's lousy grammar, but that's great theology. You say, oh, they didn't understand it to mean he was claiming to be the same God who spoke to Moses out of the bush.

Oh, yes, they did. Look at the next verse. It says, and at this, they picked up stones to stone him.

Why? Because the penalty for blasphemy in ancient Israel was stoning. They knew exactly what he was claiming. He was claiming to be Jehovah God himself. And that's why they picked up rocks.

And this is just one of many places I could show you. Don't you let anybody ever tell you Jesus didn't claim to be Jehovah God? He sure did.

He sure did. And he proved it by rising from the dead. Folks, if Mohammed had risen from the dead, I would tell you to go follow Mohammed. If Buddha had risen from the dead, I'd be following him.

I'd have my hair shaved, little old ponytail on the back. I wouldn't be real pretty, but I'd be following him if he rose from the dead. Rabbi Schneerson had people camping out in front of his grave waiting for him to rise from the dead.

Guess what? It's months later. He still is in that grave. And I don't know if they're still out there, but he's not coming out. Jesus Christ came out.

Why? Because he claimed to be God and he proved it. And that means he alone is the Messiah, the Son of God, God in the flesh, the one true messenger from God to man. I had a Jewish lady in my office a few months ago. And she said, you know, she said, I stopped getting involved in religion years ago. She said, but now I've got children and I'm a single parent. She said, I need a place to bring my child where he can get religious values and I need a safe place for me and him. And so she said, some folks told me about your church and they were so nice that I came and visited your church.

And everybody was just so nice that she said, you know, I've been visiting for a few weeks and I wanted to come in. She said, I don't believe in Jesus. I'm not a Christian. I'm Jewish. But she said, I like your church.

And so I wanted to come in and sit and talk with you about this and kind of explore my options. Now, what would you have said to her? Say, well, I don't know. Say, well, yeah, we are nice people here. You know, we brush our teeth three times a day. We recycle. I mean, we're nice people. We've got a great Sunday school department. Yeah, this is a safe place. At least we try. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. You know, what do you say to her? Say, well, what would you say? I said, well, ma'am, call her by name. I said, you know, none of these things you've brought up are really the key issue, ma'am.

The fact that we're nice people, the fact that your children get a good religious education here, the fact this is a safe place. None of these are the key issue, ma'am. I said the key issue is whether or not Jesus Christ is really who he claimed to be. The key issue is whether Jesus Christ is the Jewish Messiah, your Messiah, and God in the flesh. If he is, then you need to forget coming here primarily for religious training or to feel good or because we're nice people.

You need to come here because you've surrendered your life to him and you're coming here to worship him and to learn how to serve him. And if he's not who he claimed to be, then you need to blow him off, forget this whole church deal and sleep in on Sunday morning. Did you really said that to her? Well, yeah, I was nice, you know, but isn't that the key issue? Am I wrong?

Is that the key issue? And she said, well, you know, I can sort of believe in God, but she said, I really got a problem with this Jesus Christ person. She said, you know, we were taught as Jewish people that he was a prophet, a great prophet, but God in the flesh, the Messiah? She said, you know, I'm not so sure about that. And I said, ma'am, let me tell you something. Whatever Jesus Christ is, he's not a prophet.

She said, excuse me? He's not a prophet. I said, because a prophet would always tell the truth.

Granted, she said, well, sure. You know, how could you be a prophet and lie? I said, OK. Now, Jesus claimed and I showed her in the Bible, Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh. If he's telling the truth, then he's a whole lot more than a prophet. And if he's not telling the truth, then he's a lunatic and a psychotic maniac. But he's not a prophet. You cannot pass him off and get away with making him a prophet. That's the wrong answer. He's either God in the flesh or he's a lunatic.

But in between won't work. Now, I said, ma'am, you've got to take the Bible. You've got to go home and read the New Testament. And you've got to make a decision who you believe Jesus Christ to be. And once you make that decision, everything else will flow out of it. Be a piece of cake. And if you're here this morning and you're like this lady and you sense something's missing in your life and you're kind of checking out this thing called Christianity. Could I say to you, make sure that you keep the first thing, the first thing. Make sure you keep the main thing, the main thing. And the main thing is who is Jesus Christ?

That's the main thing. When I was 21 years old, I was a Jewish college student and I made a decision to become a Christian. Now, I knew I was going to pay for that decision, but I made a decision to become a Christian. And the reason I made that decision is not because I had a great affection for the church. In fact, I didn't have much affection for the church at all. It was not because I thought Christians were such wonderful people. Most of the ones I had met were not. It was not because I believed in creationism, that Jonah was swallowed by a fish, that Adam and Eve really lived.

None of that. I didn't believe any of that. And it was not because I like Christmas carols. I really did like Christmas carols. But that's not why I made the decision to become a Christian. I made the decision to become a Christian because at 21 years old, a street preacher put a Bible in my hand and said, you need to go home and read this and make a decision as to who Jesus Christ is based on the evidence. And I went home and began reading the Gospel of Matthew and about two months later came to an absolute firm conviction that Jesus Christ was exactly who he said he was. And that's why I became a Christian. And friend, you're ready to become a Christian when you can look people right in the eyeballs and say that same thing.

I believe Jesus Christ is God himself who died on the cross to pay for my sin and be my one and only bridge to heaven. And that's the only reason to become a Christian, not because we recycle and not because we're nice people. That's the wrong reason to become a Christian. So, well, I made the decision. You still haven't told me. So what?

OK, I'm gonna tell you right now. What this means is if Jesus Christ really is who he said he is, if he really is God in the flesh, one thing it means, and I'm not going to take any time with this, but one thing it means is that he's Lord of everything, including you. I had a guy when I was a young Christian who told me, he said, Lon, I want to tell you something.

Don't ever forget it. There's not room in the universe for two lords. There's not room in your life for two lords.

And let me tell you something. You didn't rise from the dead. So you don't have the qualifications to be Lord.

So who does that leave? And I went, oh, OK. I never forgot that. And I'll say the same thing to you. Friends, there's not room in your life for two lords. And since you didn't rise from the dead, you don't have the qualifications to be Lord. Only Jesus Christ does. We'll come back to that some other time. But what I really want to impress upon you is this. If Jesus Christ really is who he said he is, then this is the point.

Everything he said about the afterlife is exactly true and accurate. There was an article in the Washington Post this past week. I don't know if you read it. Washington Post. I don't read it all that often, but I do read it. It's kind of like the Washington edition of the National Enquirer.

You know what I'm trying to say? But I read it occasionally. And so I was reading the Washington Enquirer last week. And there was an article in there about people coming back to church. I don't know if you saw it. And they interviewed this one lady and she said, I stopped going to church as a teenager.

I haven't been back in 20 years. She said, and now I've got a child and I've decided to come back to church. She said, but the reason I stopped going to church was because I could not stomach, I could not deal with, I could not intellectually accept the fact that Jesus Christ was the one and only way.

I could not buy that. And she said, now even that I'm going back to church now years later, I've picked a church that doesn't teach that. Well, what do you say to a lady like this?

I'd say, ma'am, I'm really sorry you can't intellectually buy that. But you know what? You haven't been to the other side and you don't know. Neither have I.

Hey, folks, neither have you. There's only one person who has the claim to know what's on the other side and know it right and accurately. And that's Jesus Christ.

If he is who he said he is and if he is God in the flesh, that whatever he says about hell and heaven and eternity is right. And it doesn't matter whether you and I intellectually agree with it or not. And what Jesus said was this, John 14, six, I am the way, the truth and the life.

Nobody. I didn't say that. He said that nobody comes to the father unless they come by way of me. He said that. Now, if he's not God in the flesh, we don't pay any attention to that.

But if he is, if he is, brothers and sisters, we better pay some attention to that. I was at the high school senior banquet last night and my son was graduating, so I went. But I had been before too, you know, and we were sitting there and it was a nice, fun evening.

Seniors were going up and giving tributes for other seniors, girls for girls and guys for guys and this kind of thing. And it was real nice and, you know, real uppity. And then these two girls went up and one of them started to try to speak and she couldn't. She just broke down and started crying and she just couldn't pull it together. So her friend spoke for her and the two of them were up there together and her friend spoke a little bit. And her friend said, well, you know, and I think I got most of this right.

She said, you know, we got to know each other real good in eighth grade. And then I knew she wasn't a Christian. I knew she didn't share my faith. But I began really praying for her and I began trying to build a relationship with her. And then even though she was into some other things that I didn't want to be into and even though we kind of drifted back and forth and even though we went through some good times and some bad times, I kept on praying for her, kept that relationship open, kept inviting her to church events. And she said finally she came to a church event, a camp, a retreat. And after the retreat was over, after one of the sessions, she came back after she talked to the speaker and said, I just became a Christian. And she said, now we're the best of friends. And this other girl, the girl that this had actually happened to had finally pulled herself together and she spoke and still was very choked up. And she said, I've got to say, this girl here since eighth grade, she's loved me, she's cared for me, she's prayed for me, she's reached out to me.

And the reason that I'm a Christian today and the reason I've got some hope in my life today and the reason my life has some direction today is because of this friend standing next to me. We were all in tears by then. I mean, you know, we're supposed to have fun. We're not supposed to cry at these things.

But everybody in the audience was just all choked up to see these two girls standing up there and hear this going on. And I thought to myself, golly day, if this 13-year-old eighth grader understood John 14, 6, I am the way, truth, and the life, nobody comes to the Father but by me, and believed it enough to put her life on the line to reach out to her friend, what in the world is wrong with the rest of us? And I think, friends, it's got to be, I'm not sure we really believe this. I think we really think our friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers, that there's some other way they're going to access heaven.

But there isn't, not if Jesus is telling the truth. You say, Lon, but you're always pushing this on us. You're right. And you know why? Because the easiest thing for a church to lose is its passion for reaching lost people.

That is the first thing to go, folks. And suddenly we become a Christian country club. But that's not what God put us here for. God put us here to believe that He's the only way and to build relationships with our friends and tell them.

And then I walked out of that place and I was just on cloud nine. I said, God, this is a girl who had been coming to this church and she was no bigger than a squirt. And if we got the message across to her, dear God, then, God, we're doing something right. If we got the message across to her. Now, I want to know whether or not we're getting the message across to you and me.

Those friends you see every day, those attendants, the people who deliver to your door, the people who pump your gas, the people who sit at the desk next to you. I mean, if they're not Christians, what's going to happen to them? Jesus told us. If He's God in the flesh, then He's right.

He's the only bridge. So are we building relationships with them? Do we have a burden and a passion to reach out to them?

Well, I can't answer for you. All I can say is I'm dedicated to the fact this is not going to become McLean Christian Country Club. This is McLean Bible Church. And what makes a church different from a country club is both have relationships, both have community.

In both places, people hold each other up and encourage each other and their friends. But the difference is I don't know a country club in the world that's out trying to reach lost people for Jesus Christ. But a church is supposed to do that. We're a church, and may God help each one of us who make up the church to have that passion. Friends, when we say we believe Jesus is who He said, the implications for the way we live and interact with our friends every day are enormous. And I hope God will use the example of that 13-year-old girl who's in the service this morning to really impress upon you and me our responsibility to the people around us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you so much that Jesus Christ is who He said He is. And that His death on the cross meant more than the death of Buddha, the death of Mohammed, the death of Joseph Smith, the death of Rabbi Schneerson, the death of Karl Marx. That it meant for the first time in history there was a gateway open for men and women to approach a holy God and have their sin forgiven for eternity. And so, Lord Jesus, we're so grateful that you were willing to come and live as a man to do that for us.

Impress upon us here that you are exactly what you claimed. And that that has some enormous implications for our lives, for our daily living. And as we go out of our homes this afternoon, tomorrow, to work, help us to look at the people around us, to see them like you see them as people desperately in need of the payment for sin that you paid on the cross. Help us build loving relationships and seek to reach out to them even as this young girl did. Give us the tenacity and the commitment we need to stick with them and to try to bring the love of Jesus Christ to bear on their lives. Make us a church, God, not a country club. And use us to touch lives for the love of God. We say this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.