Who Is Jesus Really? Holy One Of God Series

Everybody happy to be in church this morning? If you are not happy to be here, we’re gonna pray for you in a minute. For real, some people may not be happy to be here, may have been coaxed or tricked, or maybe think they’re at the movies, or come to the wrong place by accident—it has happened before and there may be somebody here who’s not having a good day, month, or year, and we’re glad you’re here. This is the place you need to be and we want to pray for you. So let’s pray. Lord, we just thank you so much that we can come to church and we can get help. Thank you for the young lady who spoke to me recently, she just can’t stop smoking marijuana. We just pray you’d help her. We pray you’d empower her. We pray you’d help her to be sober and to enjoy being sober, and all the other issues that may be plaguing her. We pray that you would just encourage us. That is why we’re here. We’re not here to hear a sermon and just go home, we’re here to experience God and his power. I pray that we would do that. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Let me say something to all the people who are regulars, that let’s be careful that we don’t get into a pattern or habit of just coming to church, forgetting why we’re here. You’re walking into church next to people who are here for the first time, maybe at church for the first time in their life. Believe it or not, many people never go to church and they come here for the first time. People who are coming here with a lot of burdens, suicidal, marriage broke up, husband just beat them last night, and you never know. So we always want to be a light to those people. What I say for the next three hours is not going to be able to change—forty minutes or so—is not all that’s going to change their life. Sometimes they need a relationship with you out there. Let’s keep that in mind. The other thing is that last week was mother’s day. We did not have roses for all the moms. So, can we have all the moms, one more time, stand up? We want to give you all a round of applause—all the moms. So we have roses for the moms. If you are not a mother, do not take a rose. For real. People last week were just grabbing roses! This is not for the women, this is for the moms. If you want to be a mom, this is not for you. We ran out of roses last week after the 9:30 [service]. Because women were taking them and they shouldn’t have been? I don’t know. This is for the moms only. Moms, if you see a young lady that you know is not a mom taking a rose, just snatch it out of her hand! And you keep it. You don’t have to give it back.

Let’s see your Bibles, pens, lesson plan. Let’s turn to Luke 8. Star Wars is coming. How many of you are going to see Star Wars? You know what I was thinking the other day? This doesn’t have anything to do with the sermon. How was it that C3PO has the same voice? That was like 20 years ago. That brother’s probably old now. Is that a person? Isn’t it a person giving the robot a voice? How does he have the same voice? The same guy [is] twenty years older. Is it really the same guy? That’s a trip. That’s a cool dude, C3PO. He’s just so logical. He’s like the new generation of “Danger, danger, Will Robinson!” Remember him? Lost in Space.

Seven or eight, nine years ago I did a video, a series of videos, for public schools. One on anger, violence, one on sexual purity, and one on something else, and one on gangs. In the gang video we had about thirty, forty kids in a classroom asking questions. “What are gangs? Why are kids getting in gangs? What are they getting out of it?” At the end of the discussion, after hearing all the answers, I said, “Is there anything good about gangs?” They said, “None.” “Would you advise a kid, for his well-being and his advancement in life, to get in a gang?” They said, “No. There’s nothing good about it.” I said, “Why do you do it then?” I was thinking about this. Do you think the devil and the demons believe that Jesus Christ is God? Do you think they worship him as God? Do you think they obey what he says? Do you think that they fear him as judge? Some of you say, “Yes,” some of you say, “No.” We’re going to talk about that in a minute. But why is it, that if they do believe he is God (which we’re going to see in a minute), and [if] they do worship him when he comes into their presence (which we’re going to see in a minute), [if] that they do what he says when he talks to them, [if] they do fear his judgment ([as] we’re going to see in a minute), [if] they do know he is judge and fear him as judge ([as] we’re going to see in a minute), then why is it that they tell us not to, and we believe them? They tell us, “Don’t worship him.” They tell us, “Don’t believe he’s God.” That’s why we have all these religions where people doubt whether he’s really Lord. They tell us, “Don’t fear hell. God’s not going to send you to hell.” They tell us, “You don’t have to obey him all the time. Don’t do everything he says.” Why is that? When they in fact do?