Making Faith My Own || Victory Church [Book of John #16]

Hey, I have a very vivid memory of being nine years old and there in Great Vine, Texas, right outside of Dallas. And my mom grabbed my older sister, Lara, my older brother, Bishop, and myself and went outside the little front door of our apartment and sat down on the steps. And then she started, I don't know what got into her, I think she was just like, I'm just going to make sure that my kids know Jesus. And so she starts talking about Jesus, explaining the gospel, and I have this thing of like, I know where this is going. And so then she looks at my sister and she says, Lara, do you believe this and do you receive it? And she says, yes. And now I definitely gulp because I'm like, I really know where she's going with this. And so then she looks at my older brother and says, Bishop, do you believe this and do you receive that? And he says, yes. And then she looks at me and says, Johnson, do you believe this and do you receive that? And I had my answer prepared, no. And you know, we talked about this last week, but I grew up in church. I don't know what your story is, but I grew up in a different context than this. I grew up Presbyterian. And so I sang in the very occasional kids' choir. I was in the handbell, come on, anybody, any of my handbell posse here, you know what I'm talking about? You get a little guy, like, if you really, you have to double, like that guy. I was the kid who got to wear like the robe and come in with the little candle guy and like light the candles at the front. Until one service, I sat on the front row and talked the whole service. And so they stripped me of my ability to do that. Like, that's a real story. My parents could tell you that story.

I was never able to light the candles again. That was my punishment. But I didn't believe. I didn't believe. I grew up in church and I didn't believe. I was just a kid growing up in church, right? And then after freshman year in high school, we packed up the church van and took a number of us kids down to, from Boone, North Carolina, down to Panama City Beach, Florida, for a youth retreat, youth conference down there. And one of those evening sessions there in July of 1994, the guy up on the platform was preaching and he talked about Jesus. And all of a sudden my heart started paying attention. And then he started talking about how much God loves us and how we rebelled against God and what Jesus did and what our response should be. And immediately my hand shoots up and, and I'm, I'm like, all of a sudden I get it. Like the light bulb came on in my head, honestly, he probably said exactly the same thing that my mom had said. How many of you know, though, sometimes like when somebody you don't know says the same stuff that the people you love, like you listen, like that happens every week where you're like something I say, you're like, that's good. That's the first time I've ever heard that. Your wife's like, are you kidding me? I told you a thousand times. So this guy probably said the same thing, but, but this was the night, like, like my heart lit, my heart responded. And the youth pastor pulled me aside afterwards and she said, okay, so were you rededicating your life? And I'm like, I don't know what that word means. That sounds like some weird Christian ease, but re means again. And so no, this was the first time I've ever believed.

This is the first time I put my faith in Jesus. And here's the deal guys. Everybody assumes that the pastor's kid is a Christian, all right, but maybe this will help us out over the next few minutes. There is a difference between being good at church and being good with God. And that day, God graciously, sovereignly, lovingly rescued me out of the kingdom of darkness and brought me into the kingdom of his dearly beloved son, Jesus Christ, July 1994, almost 32 years ago. And after that night session, I also very vividly remember this. I went outside and it was pitch black there at the beach and sat down at the sand and listened to the waves come in. And I made this decision for the first time in my life, I'm going to pray. I'm going to talk to God for the first time in my life. And the next morning I woke up and I found a Bible and I'm like, for the first time in my life, I'm going to read the Bible. But how many of y'all remember the first time in your life you read the Bible? You don't know what you're doing. And so I just did Bible roulette. I'm like that one. And I was just determined like Jesus is in here somewhere and I'm going to find him. I'm going to find this guy. And for the first time in my life, I said, I want to learn more about Jesus. And listen, listen guys. And from that day forward, my life has never been the same. And I've had countless, countless experiences with Jesus over the years. I got baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1997. I can't, I've been around here, Summer and I have been around here a long time. So like early 2000s through the mid 2000s, I can't tell you how many experiences we had with Jesus and our young adult services here at Victory. If you're a young adult and you're not in young adult ministry, what are you doing with

your life? The time that Jesus told me what our son's names were before they were conceived. God giving me the million person God dream, all the stuff here at Victory, like here's the deal. I can trace it all back to that one night in 1994. Panama City Beach, where I was born again, here's how I would say it, where I began to make faith my own. And listen, I don't know what your story is, but every single one of us needs the, that's when I made faith my own story. I'm gonna say it again. I don't know where you come from this morning. I don't know what your story is, but every single one of us needs a season, a moment, a date on the calendar, a memory, whenever it is, where you can say I moved beyond that and I actually came to the place where I made faith my own. We need that story. Every single one of us needs that story today. And in our kind of like year long journey through John, for the past few weeks, we've been sitting with Jesus as he sits with a woman at the well, and we've been here for so long because the story is just so good and it's so real, it's so practical. And a handful of these takeaways that have happened is basically Jesus invites us to abandon our empty wells, to come to him, to be the well that will never run dry.

The good news is, is that Jesus gives us eternal life, but that eternal life starts today, that God begins repairing us today, that we can worship Jesus in spirit and in truth. And then last week, we looked at this beautiful idea is that, listen, your soul will never be content until you partner with God to do the will of the one who sent you about being about saving souls. All right? And there's one more part of the story. Everybody say one more. I promise you, we're moving forward after today. There's one more part of the story that we need to see before we move on. Let's pick it back up here in verse 25. And then we're gonna finish this story today. The woman, this woman at the well, she said to Jesus, I know that Messiah is coming. And when he comes, he'll explain everything to us. And then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you, I am he, I am the Messiah. And then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man, I love it, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? And they came out of the town and made their way towards him. And here it is. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him

because of the woman's testimony. Here's what she said. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. Here's the verse. And they said to the woman, we no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. Wow, I'm gonna read that again. We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. Listen, I'm gonna be honest. I know I say this every week. That's one of my favorite moments in the Bible, right there. Why? Because it's so real it is. I mean, you can imagine yourself saying that. I mean, let's just track with the story real quick. There's this woman and she meets Jesus. He changes her life. She runs back and she tells everybody else about Jesus. And then many people put their faith in Jesus Christ. Okay, so I just wanna pause right there. Can we pause for 10 seconds?

Come on, guys. Can we pause for 10 seconds and just thank God for the people who introduced us to Jesus? Come on, can we just thank God? Could have been your mama, could have been your dad, your grandma, a coworker, a friend, a roommate. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the pastor of your church going on. Can we just thank God for evangelists? How beautiful are the feet of those who come bearing good news. I believe that the ninth beatitude is blessed are those who refuse to shut up about Jesus. Come on, blessed are those who are willing to risk rejection for the cause of Christ. Come on, blessed are those who are willing to hurt your feelings to talk to you about Jesus, to rescue you from hell, to pull you into the kingdom. Come on, guys. Some of y'all just need to send that person a text right now and say, thank you. And they're gonna be like, what for? And be like, we'll talk about it later. In fact, me, I never shared this part, but the pastor, you know, well, I know who the pastor was on the platform that night, 1994. He was a youth pastor then, Andy Stanley. Andy Stanley's the one who asked to raise hand.

And I responded to Andy Stanley's altar call. He's pastoring here in the city. I got a chance to tell him about 20 years after that. Because here's the deal, guys. You never know who's on the other side of your obedience. You don't know what's, when you sow the seeds, it's your job to be obedient. It's God's job to produce the results. You can't make somebody believe, but you have no clue what's gonna happen. So praise God for the people who would actually share their testimony with us and cause a response in our hearts. But here's what I'd say. Here's the tension in that text that we just read. Here's the tension in the text. Is that all that's a great place to start. Everybody say start. Okay, it's a great place to start, but it's a bad place to finish. Here's what I mean. Borrowed. Faith can inspire you. It can encourage you. It can even help to get you to Jesus. But eventually, every single one of us, you and I, have to actually get to know Jesus for ourselves. Let me say that again. Eventually, we actually have to get to know Jesus for ourselves. And that's what I love that these people do, right?

That these people invite Jesus to stay with them. Why? So they can spend time with Jesus themselves. They know what somebody else said, but they wanna know what Jesus actually said. And here's what happens. Something special happens as they spend time with Jesus. They no longer believe just because somebody else said it. Now they actually believe it because Jesus said it. Listen, they no longer believe just because somebody else talked about Jesus. Now they believe because Jesus talked about himself. All right, read it again, verse 42. They said to the woman, we no longer believe just, okay, in other words, that's part of it. It's a good foundation. We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we've heard him for ourselves. And we know that this man really is the savior of the world, right? Here's how I'd say it. They move beyond secondhand faith to firsthand faith. They move beyond kind of a secondhand smoke to firsthand smoke. Come on, somebody, go with me, right? And here's my conviction about this, is that this story reveals one of the biggest problems in Christianity today. Here it is, here's how I'd say it. Is that we are overwhelmingly building our faith

on what other people say about Jesus instead of spending time with Jesus ourselves. We are overwhelmingly building our faith about Jesus on what other people say about him rather than getting to know him ourselves, okay? So if I was to sit down with you and I'm like, hey, tell me about Jesus. Tell me about his character. What does he love? What does he hate? What's he like? And you gave that response. And I was to ask you, hey, how did you formulate that? How did you actually get to know who Jesus was? If we ask most people, especially those outside, but even some of us in here, most of that would come down to five sources, that we have five sources that we kind of get our knowledge base about Jesus from. Okay, let's talk about it real quick. The first one is the worst one, social. All right, so here's the deal, and this has just kind of taken over the last few years, is that YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have become the primary theologians in people's lives. All right, here's the problem with that. First off is that Jesus gets reduced down to a 60 second soundbite. The second is there's no accountability. Like you can just get on there and say

whatever in the world you wanna say, right? And nobody's taking that clip down, right? Have you ever, maybe if you're on social, have you ever been scrolling and you just hear this dude talking about Jesus and you're like, what, what is that? Right, and you're like, that ain't my Jesus. Where'd you come up with that? Come on, guys, forget that the scriptures were written 2,000 years ago. Forget that we have 2,000 years of church history and church fathers nodding their head in agreement with these things. Let's hear what this dude thought of last night. Right, because he's already got 500,000 views, so it must be true, right? And then we got these guys who are using these gotchas, like, all right, guys, I'm gonna debunk Christianity in one statement. You say that the Bible is the word of God. Well, then why did people write it? And we're like, oh no, my whole faith fell apart. Because if social is your only source, then your faith will rise or fall based on what the algorithm is selling you that day. And for many people, tragically way too many people, influencers are shaping our theology more than pastors are shaping our theology, more than the word of God is shaping our theology. Why?

Because let's just be honest, if you're lucky, most people may get one sermon a week, but you scroll social for five hours a day. Do the math. 35 hours to one. And most people complain that the one is a one. No sermons, too long. Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. See, most of the pastors I know aren't pulling the punches anymore. They're saying stuff like this. We don't have disciples of Jesus in our churches anymore. We have disciples of TikTok. That's where we're actually going for our discipleship. And now AI has entered into the chat. I actually found this. This is a real statistic. There's data behind this, okay? Is that Christians are more likely than non-Christians to trust AI to give them spiritual advice. Hey, chat, who's Jesus? Be careful. You have no clue where it's pulling those sources from. Let me say it like this, guys. Here's the problem with this. An algorithm wasn't crucified for you. Come on, come on, guys. An influencer was not the word of God incarnate. Be careful where you're going to to get your sources of who the real Jesus actually is.

Okay, here's another source. Our family and personal preference, okay? Do not. Underestimate the importance of your early formative years of what was put inside you. Some of you, maybe your grandma told you that God is distant because he didn't come through for her or whatever it was. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this story. My dad was a leader in the church and then he'd come home and beat my mom. What do you do with that, right? Or maybe your family tradition was pagan or maybe I know we got cultures from all over the world. Maybe in your culture, Jesus was okay with having multiple wives. So what do you do with that? I'll tell you what you do with that. When you combine family with personal preference, you form a Jesus who's okay with you having multiple wives. Is that too real? Is that too real? Because I know you're here, but you got your family back and... No. But your Jesus is okay with that, remember, right? Well, here's the deal. If I'm greedy, then I'll form a Jesus who doesn't ask me to give, right? If I'm an addict, my Jesus is so gracious.

He's okay with it, he's all right. If I have same-sex desires, then I'll form a Jesus who affirms my sexuality. Here's the problem with all that. That's not the real Jesus. That's just you looking in a mirror and just like drawing the outline and be like, that's Jesus right there. I like that guy. Here's what David Platt says about it. He says, we are molding Jesus into our image. He's beginning to look a lot like us because after all, that is who we're most comfortable with. The danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands and worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead, we may actually be worshiping ourselves. Woo! Amen or oh me. And here's the thought. The easiest Jesus to follow is the one who looks like you. Be careful who you're following to actually get your information on who is the real Jesus. Here's the third source. Other religions, other religions, right? So depending on what your background was, be careful what you bring into Christianity. So I know a number of people, I've talked to you. You grew up Hindu, you grew up Buddhist, whatever it is,

and you actually found Jesus, okay? Be careful what you bring in. By the way, last night when I was looking, writing this down, like I preached myself happy for a second because think about this, guys. If you're looking for more confirmation about why Jesus is the real deal, here's one of the things I just love. Have you ever noticed that all the other religions talk about Jesus, but we never talk about their stuff? Because Jesus is a problem. Jesus is a problem. That's why everybody else has to incorporate because he's the real deal. So everybody else incorporates Jesus into their thing. Listen, they think I gotta solve the Jesus problem. Listen, I feel no pressure to solve the Muhammad problem. I feel no pressure to solve the Buddha problem. You wanna know why? Because they're dead. You can go visit them. You can go to the tombs and you can go visit these guys. But Jesus is alive. And so every other religion has to find a way. Like I gotta do something with Jesus, right? So Hindus believe that Jesus is one of the great gods. Buddhists believe that Jesus was one of the most evolved teachers. I don't know if you noticed this. Muslims right now are on a complete PR campaign

to try and convince Christians, oh no, we're about the same Jesus that you guys are, right? Witches actually believe that Jesus used witchcraft. Come on, new agers talk about Christ consciousness. Everybody's incorporating Jesus because he's the real deal. Here's the problem. Don't bring that into the real Jesus, right? That's called syncretism. Be careful what you bring in that other people say about Jesus. Here's the thought, guys. Everybody wants a Jesus they can admire, but very few people want a Jesus they have to obey. But when you come to the real Jesus, you have to abandon what everybody else says about Jesus and be like, no, who does he say he is? All right, here's our fourth go-to source. Here it is, you ready? Politics, goodness gracious. Woo hoo hoo. All right, if you're new here at Victory, you're not used to hearing this sort of stuff talked about, okay? Let me just help us all out. Jesus doesn't belong to your political party, okay? Jesus is not a registered Republican. Jesus is not a registered Democrat. He's not an independent, okay? Jesus does not wake up and salute the red, white, and blue

and pledge allegiance to the flag. Jesus is above that. His throne is above that. It's higher than that. Our allegiance is not to Washington. Our allegiance is to Jesus. Jesus is above that stuff. But especially if you're younger, you need to hear this because you may think this is recent. Listen, politicians a long time ago figured out that if you talk about Jesus a certain way, you can rally that base to vote for your thing. Okay, on all sides, on all sides, okay? In fact, on the right and the left. I'll give you one for each. Let's start with the right. So our current Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, I love it. He got on the mic not too long ago and he quoted a scripture. The problem is it wasn't a scripture. It was actually a line from the movie Pulp Fiction. On the other side, our current California governor, God help us all, approved billboards in seven states that said this, need an abortion? California's ready to help. Right underneath that, Mark 12, 31. Love your neighbor as yourself. There's no greater commandment than these.

By the way, that's Jesus. Okay, we've got one man leveraging Jesus to make war and another man leveraging Jesus to kill babies. That's why half the nation believes that Jesus is a white nationalist and the other half believes that Jesus is a social justice warrior. It just depends on what your algorithm is feeding you, what your guy in Washington is saying, and what Fox News or CNN or MSNBC is feeding you that day. All right? Be careful where you're getting your source. In fact, Anne Lamott, I love this quote. She said, you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. I can't stand those guys. That's why I'm convinced God's a Republican. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You just made him one. Be careful, because who does Jesus say he is? And here's our last go-to source. Here it is, regrettably, church experiences. Okay, so people's view of Jesus, this is just honest, gets filtered through their experience of his people and his church, all right? So maybe you've been wounded at a church. Maybe you saw some pastor do some wild out stuff. Maybe you saw the worship pastor have an affair. Guy took some money, whatever it is.

Maybe you're in a church service and somebody said something wild or did something wild, and what happens is we take that and we put that on Jesus. And one of our problems today, this is a big deal for me, one of our problems today is that people are blindly following their pastor's preaching. And let me just be honest, some of these dudes in pulpits are whack, saying wildest stuff. I would even say some of this stuff is like what Paul would say the doctrine of demons. Like it is like craziness coming out from pulpits, and nobody's fact-checking them. Nobody's asking questions. Nobody's like raising their hand. Everybody's just sponging it up. In fact, if you'll allow me, I wanna correct. There are two big sayings of Jesus that have been corrupted lately by pastors. I wanna help us out with this. Two of these big sayings of Jesus have been hijacked by bad preachers, and here they are. Okay, Mark 4.42, which is God helps those who help themselves, and Luke 10.43, that God will not give you more than you can handle. So we've all heard these scriptures, right? So here, these are Jesus' sayings, okay? Here's the problem with this right here. Those aren't in the Bible. One, there is no Mark 4.42, and there is no Luke 10.43.

Also, these are not scriptures. These are what we would call cultural verses. That's not real. These are not real, but we've all heard them said as if they were scriptural truth. God will not give you more than you can handle. Everybody heard that one before? Okay, have you ever read the Bible? God gives people more than they can handle all the time, all the time, so you'll cry out for his help. God helps those who help. When you were at your worst and you could not climb out of the sin cavern, Jesus parachuted in to get you. Come on, guys. Here's our problem. We quote this stuff as if, oh, Jesus said, Jesus did not say that. Be careful who you're listening to. Be careful what you're just wholesale accepting that somebody would stand up on a platform and say behind a microphone, because remember, one of the famous quotes from Jesus, here it is, don't believe everything you read on the internet. Be careful just because it's on a screen and a church service and the guy's on a platform with a microphone, be careful believing everything he says. What I'm saying is that we can't just blindly accept everything we hear people say in the name of Jesus.

Okay, when Paul was on one of his missionary journeys, he meets these guys called the Bereans and they were classic examples of this. It says, now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica. Why? Because here's the first thing, they received the message with great eagerness. Awesome. And, everybody say and. And. Examine the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. That's Acts 29, 11, okay? So they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the scriptures every day to see if what he said was actually true. When did we stop doing that? When did we stop not just receiving, but actually examine? When did we stop asking questions? When did we stop double checking? You wanna know why you should double check? Because that's not Acts 29, 11. There is no Acts 29. Acts only has 28 chapters. That's actually Acts 17, 11. That's a real scripture, wrong verse. So here's what I'm saying, just because it's up there, don't believe it. Receive it and then examine it.

Go out there and search for yourself. Don't just accept what everybody else says about Jesus. Get to know him for yourself. I'm gonna give you one actual scripture. Now this one's real, that test is done. We're done with that, okay? We're done with that, okay? Here's a real scripture. The grass withers and the flowers fail, but the word of God endures forever. Here's what I'm saying, guys. Social media will fail you. Family will fail you. All the sources will fail you. Politics are gonna fail you. Pop culture is gonna fail you. The church may even fail you. Listen, I may even fail you, but the word of God will never fail you. Jesus will never fail you. So be careful what you're basing your faith on. Base your faith on Christ himself. And if we're not careful, here's really what I'm trying to say. We're gonna take a little bit of pop culture. We're gonna take a little bit of what mama said. We're gonna take a little bit of what dad did. We're gonna take a guy from Washington said. We're gonna take a little bit of what, with that cultural verse that I heard.

We're gonna take a little bit of what the pastor said that one time. I'm gonna take a little bit of what I would like Jesus to look like, and we're gonna swirl it around, and we're gonna form Franken-Jesus, who's got all these little different components based on what everybody else has said. Here's the problem, guys, here's the problem. Is that a fake Jesus can't save a real sinner. A counterfeit Jesus cannot save a real you. A fake Jesus can't heal your body. A fake Jesus can't drive out a demon. A fake Jesus can't give you eternal life. So be careful who you're, are you actually believing the real Jesus or the Jesus that culture tries to sell you? And that's why it's so powerful that these people in Samaria, again, in verse 42, what do they say? We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we've heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. Pause that, I'm gonna leave that up there just for a few minutes, okay? Do you see this? Do you see, I would call it the maturation, the faith maturation, okay? Look at these two words. Here's the first one, what's this first one?

Believe, okay, what's the second word? They moved beyond believing to knowing. That's a big deal. And here's even the first thing. What did the woman come back? They said, could he be the Messiah? So they began by believing that Jesus was the Messiah, okay? They ended with knowing that he really is the savior of the world. Okay, here's what I'm saying. If you've never studied this out, in this place of the world, in this time of the world, whenever you said the word Messiah, people thought of one thing, a cultural, political, military leader who's going to restore the glory of Israel. Can I say it like this today? The Messiah was gonna come and make Israel great again. Okay, he was a man, he was not God. The Messiah, so here's the, they believed that Jesus was a man who was going to make the nation great again, okay? But after they spent time with him, listen, that's what they believe because somebody else told them that. But after they actually spent time with Jesus, now they know that he really is, in Greek, it's soter to kosmos. It means Jesus sozo's the cosmos. They actually believe that Jesus

is the one who can put the universe back together again. Okay, listen, they move from believing and that he's a man as a national deliverer to knowing that he's God who's gonna put the whole thing back together again. Guys, I can't tell you how important it is to move beyond believing because of what somebody else has told you and actually coming to know Jesus for who he is as the savior of the world. That's what we call a turnaround, that their faith matured beyond believing what somebody else said and now they actually got to know Jesus for themselves because they spent time with him, okay? And let me be super honest. The greatest gift you could ever give me as your pastor, okay, is to maybe one day you come up to me in the lobby and say something like this or write me an email, whatever, Johnson, I no longer believe just because you told me. Now I've spent time with Jesus myself and I really do know he's the savior of the world for me. Now I know that. That is my. goal as a pastor, okay? My goal as a pastor is to get you to Jesus. My goal as a pastor is not that you would follow me. Listen, I'm gonna let you down. If I haven't already, I'll do it in five minutes.

I'm gonna let you down. Jesus will never let you down. I am not trying to draw you to me. I'm trying to draw you to Jesus, all right? Colossians 128, Paul says, "'I long to present you as fully mature in Christ Jesus.'" That is my goal for you. I wanna hold you up to Jesus and be like, hey, Jesus, here's my work. I actually got them off of me and I got them to you. That's why Paul, Paul calls himself a divine matchmaker. Paul calls himself like spiritual e-harmony. Like Paul's goal is to hook you up with Jesus, get you on a date with Jesus. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 and one, he says, follow me as I follow Christ. In other words, if you don't know what Jesus looks like, just start following me and I'm gonna, eventually I'm gonna take your hand, I'm gonna take his hand, I'm gonna put the two together and I'm gonna step away. I love the fact that you would believe because of what I tell you, but after you spend time with him, you're gonna know it for yourself. That's the real goal of the thing. That is why, listen, if you're curious, this is why we don't preach self-help, massage your back sermons of victory. Because that's not gonna help your soul in the day of trial.

No, I want you to know Jesus for yourself. You gotta, you don't just wanna feel good. No, you wanna be good. You wanna know the good one. You wanna be attached and attracted to Jesus himself. I want you to fall madly in love with Jesus himself. That's why we're in the Book of John series for 40 years. Because John re-ends it and he says, these things are written so that you would believe and by believing, you'd have eternal life in his name. That's the whole goal of this thing is that you'd fall madly in love with Jesus Christ. Begin with my words, but then you would get to know him for yourself. And that is why it breaks my heart whenever I look out here and it's happening way too often. Whenever I look out and I see a pastor fall and then the people in the church fall, what that shows me is that their faith in Jesus was actually faith in their pastor, which breaks my heart. Listen guys, pastors, we talk about these things behind closed doors. Is that one of our great, like the thing that haunts us in the midnight hour is knowing that some people in our churches on that day will hear, get away from me, I never knew you. Because your faith was built on me and not on Jesus himself. And what I'm trying to say is this guys, it's not enough just to be in the room because it's possible to be in the shower

and still die of thirst. You got to open up your mouth and drink yourself. Listen, a friend of mine was in victory for years, like years, like six, seven years, okay? I met with him time and time and time again. And I'm just like, man, I got to get your heart to Jesus. Please receive the gospel. And he got baptized, he did the whole thing. But the deal with this, he would never receive love. He loved the idea of love. He would cry in worship. He loved being around love, but he refused to receive love. And he was just in it. And what happens was, because he wasn't receiving the love of Jesus, when a woman appeared who tried to give him some affection, he literally out of his mouth said, I'm leaving Jesus to go be with her. What I'm saying is we have to go beyond other people's faith and hitch our own lives to Jesus. And that's why it needs to be the goal of every parent, every pastor, every friend, every coworker, whoever. If you have somebody that you're spending time with to try and talk to them about Jesus, it's not your goal to get them to you. It's your goal to get them to Jesus. Listen, guys, every parent, yes, listen. When they're small, read them the scriptures and train them up in the way that they should go. And then you're trying to get them in here.

And so in children's ministry, somebody else can tell them about Jesus. And then listen, when they become a teenager, you better get their tail in youth group. You bet. Well, I don't know, he just doesn't want to go. I don't care. I didn't want to go to the stupid youth retreat thing in 1994, but my parents made me go. And that's where I got born again and God changed my life. Here's what I'm saying. Your kid is not the parent. You're the parent. You are the parent. Get them in the room, get them in the room, and then let God do his thing. And what you're doing, what you're trying to do over time is yes, raise them on your faith. And then you're slowly starting to hand them off so then they can actually lock arms with Jesus for the rest of their life. Because listen, you're not going to be here forever. And will their soul actually be secure after you're gone? It's my goal to take their hand, my son's hand, Isaac and Jeremiah, and take the hand of Jesus and then put the two together. And I have won. I don't care if everything else in my life falls apart. I have won if my sons know Jesus. Because when they stand before God on judgment day,

he's not going to ask, hey guys, was your mom a Christian? No. Doesn't work like that. I heard this phrase again, this old saying, that God has no grandkids. God only has sons and daughters. It's not about what your mom believes, what do you believe? Okay? Listen, you weren't born into the kingdom, you were born again into the kingdom. So on judgment day, listen, he's not going to be like, hey, what church did you go to? And you're going to be like, I went to Victory. He's like, oh, I love that one. Come on in, you get a free pass. It doesn't work like that. Don't work like that. Don't work like that. One, I don't think he's going to ask you anything, okay? I think he's just going to open up the Lamb's Book of Life, okay? But if he did ask, I think he'd ask this. What did you do with my son? Do you know my son? And does my son know you? That's why the apostle Paul cries this out. And I believe that he cried this out, Philippians 3. If someone else thinks that they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. And then Paul basically reads out his spiritual resume. He's saying circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. He's a super Jew. That's what he's saying. I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews in regard to the law of Pharisees.

As for zeal, persecuting the church. As for righteousness based on the law, faultless. In other words, I memorized the Bible. I went to every church service. I got up on the platform and taught it myself. I'm more righteous than all of you guys combined. But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more? I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. Knowing Christ Jesus, for whose sake I have lost all things. We don't know for sure. Most people believe that Paul was actually married. And when he put his faith in Jesus, his wife divorced him. Everything was stripped away from him, all his money, all his possessions. He had nothing. He was whipped. He was beaten. He was left for dead. And he's saying, praise God, because I consider all that stuff garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ. I want to know. Come on. Can we say that today? I want to know Christ. Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him and his death. And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

He's saying, guys, I just want to know Jesus. I want to move beyond just hearing what other people say about him. And I want to know him. I don't want to know about him. I want to know him. Which means at some point, God helping us, every single one of us has to take responsibility for our own relationship with Jesus. And we have to learn how to feed ourselves. Can I be honest, guys? My sons are 17 and 21. I had no problem feeding them when they were babies, but if they came up to me this afternoon as a 17 and a 21 year old man, and we're like, dad, dad, dad, I'd be like, bro, feed yourself, idiot. Like, what are you doing? Like what? Eat. Eat. Yeah. Question. Why have some of us been Christians for 17 and 21 years and we sit down on a Sunday morning and we're like, feed me. I love that church. They didn't feed me. I'm not, I'm not saying this doesn't matter. I'm saying this is actually really important what we're doing this morning. I don't mind. I don't mind setting the table. I don't mind preparing the meal. What I mind is this being your only meal of the week. That's why some of you are so hungry.

That's why some of you about Tuesday, you get back in the sin because you're not actually building your life on Jesus yourself. You're just believing in what I say about Jesus. But I believe God is raising up a generation that will not settle to passively hear about everyone else's experiences with Jesus, but will press in to spend time with Jesus themselves and know him for themselves. I believe that God is raising up a generation who will worship outside this room, who will pray outside this room, who will fast outside this room, who will pursue Jesus outside this room, who will tell others about Jesus outside this room. Come on, listen. Let me ask you a challenging question. When was the last time outside this room that you were in God's presence and you walked away saying, Whoa, I just met Jesus. And if you don't have that, you need to get that. That's your, that's your warning sign is that your faith is way too much built on the church service instead of actually knowing Jesus for yourself. I'm not condemning you today. I'm encouraging you to keep moving. And just so you don't misunderstand me, I'm not just talking about having these like baseless experiences. No, what I'm saying is we have experiences that are based on the truth of the Bible. Here's what I'm saying. Don't just go to the word of God, go through the word of God to get to the God of the word. Okay. I'm not just reading the Bible to know about Jesus. That's what Jesus says to the Pharisees. He says, guys, you have the scriptures and you have them all memorized. But you're not just reading the Bible to know about Jesus. to refuse to come through the scriptures You're not just reading the Bible to know about Jesus.

to come to me to have life. You're not just reading the Bible to know about Jesus. This is the privilege that we have is to sit down and read the scripture and go through that scripture and allow it to introduce us to Jesus who's in the room with us and we get to know him more right there. When we lift up our voice in worship, we're not just singing words that are on the screen, we're going through those words to actually acknowledge the spirit of God that's already in the room. So here's what I'm saying, go read your Bible, do the thing. A lot of people ask the question like, hey, how can I get to know Jesus better? Well, if you're married, how did you get to know your spouse, right? You went on dates, you talked to each other, you listened to each other, you did the thing that the other person liked to do. So sit down and read the truth of the word, right? And then, if you don't know where to start, start in the book of John, okay? Don't do Bible roulette every single, no, just start walking with us, okay? And here's the crazy thing, then you pray, okay? You're gonna read the Bible, then you're gonna pray. I'm gonna demystify prayer

because we way overcomplicate it. Here it is, here's what prayer is. Talk to God, that's it, man. Okay, well, our father, and have Howard be your name, okay? I never understood that one, I don't get it right. Like, what are my prayer books? Like, no, no, no, talk to God, talk to God. You're gonna read the scripture, and then you're gonna say like, Jesus, that's really difficult. I need your help to help me to do that. In fact, here's what's happening in my life, da, da, da, and then do this. I'm gonna give you some spiritual advice. In the middle of your prayer, shut up. And let God talk. Because way too many of us are saying, well, God doesn't talk. It's because our prayers are like, Jesus, Jesus, give me, give me, give me, give me, amen, and then we walk out. And he's like, all right, see you next time, all right? The eternal worship music, you go through the word, it just acknowledged God in the room. Here's what I'm saying. There is a holiness to time. Everything in our life is so fast, so fast, right? Like, we click on a link on our phone, and we get so angry when it takes four seconds.

We're like, wait a minute, am I on the moon? What the heck, right? Like, we want drive-through spirituality. We wanna have it in two minutes or less, right? There's no drive-through kingdom, guys. Like, sit down, acknowledge him in the room. Be with him, spend time with him. That's what these guys did. They spent time with Jesus. And in spending time with Jesus, they got to know him more. Get environments where you can know him more. If you're new to faith, go through our foundations class here at Victory. Come to Saturday morning prayer over here in our chapel, 8 a.m. every single Saturday morning. Get in a small group. That's what I'm saying, just get around people who are gonna stir up your faith and point you to help start making faith your own. Any place you can grow and continue growing and make faith your own. Here's what I'm saying. Don't just believe that Jesus is love. Spend time with him and know that he's love. Don't just believe he's the way, the truth, and the life. No, no, no, spend time with him. And then know it. You won't just believe it, you'll actually know it. Listen, I don't believe that God is my healer.

I know that God is my healer because he's healed my body. I've moved beyond belief to knowing, all right? So I'm saying we have these opportunities with God because every single one of us needs to be able to point to a moment in time where we could honestly say something like this. I no longer believe just because of what my mom, dad, friend, or pastor said. Now I've spent time with Jesus myself, and I know that this Jesus really is the savior of the world. Guys, we have an opportunity to move beyond borrowed faith to personal faith. And today could actually be the day that you make your faith your own, not just knowing about Jesus, but actually knowing him as the savior of the world yourself. Amen. Amen. Let's take a step right here. We're gonna receive communion together. All right, so if you're at the right side of an aisle, once you reach down, grab that book, and you can pass that down. If you're online, I invite you to join with us. And this is kind of our step, right here. We're not leaving what we just talked about. We're taking a step in that direction. And here's what I'd say. Communion or the Lord's Supper

is for those who have put their faith in Jesus, or maybe today you're putting your faith in Jesus for the very first time. All right? So when you get the communion element, once you go ahead and take the bread out. And here's what I love about this moment that we get to share, especially with what we were just talking about. This may be the first time you've ever received communion of your own free will. Right? Maybe you were raised a Christian. Maybe you grew up in church where they just passed around and everybody did it. Maybe your mama was like, took one and put it in your hand. You're gonna do this, right? And maybe this is the first time in your life where you're like, no, no, no. I make the choice. Because I don't just believe because of what everybody else said. No, now I know for myself. He really is who he says that he is. So we're gonna receive this communion together, okay? Once you get the bread out, when you get that, once you break it in your finger, then we're gonna pray together.

Father, I thank you that the body of Jesus was broken so we could be made whole. What a gift. What a God. And so right now, God, I pray. Over every single area of brokenness that's inside the body of Christ today. Some people are broken in their thinking. Some people are rocked with fear. Some people's relationships with family have been broken, even have a fence towards the kingdom of God. I don't know. Brokenness in the body or the bones or the blood. Right now, I speak the shalom of heaven over your body, over your relationships, over your mind, and I say by His stripes you are healed. In Jesus' name. Right now, we receive this bread and we do it in remembrance of the broken body of Jesus. And Jesus took the cup and He poured it. He said this is the cup of the new covenant. Covenant means an unbreakable God promise. And what He's saying is this, is that we are not made right with God based on Paul's spiritual resume. By your church attendance, your Bible reading, your Bible memorization. All those things are great, but they will never save you. There's actually one thing, and that's the spilt blood of Jesus Christ. That's what actually makes us right with God. So in just a second, we're gonna pray. And I'm gonna invite some of you to maybe pray with me for the very first time to put your faith in the saving finished work of Jesus and to repent of your sin and to make Him your God. Okay? And maybe that's the first time you've ever prayed that or maybe you're coming back home, but I'm gonna invite the rest of the family to pray with you. Let's pray like this. Say, Jesus, today I make faith my own. I no longer believe just because of what anyone else said. I know that You truly are the Savior of the world. So I repent of my sin and I put my faith in Jesus.

As my God and my Savior, I receive Your forgiveness. I am born again. I receive eternal life. Help me to know You more every day, from today until the day that I see You face-to-face. I'm gonna live for You the rest of my life. In Jesus' name. And right now, God, we take this cup and we do it in remembrance of the precious sacrifice of Jesus Christ that brings eternal life. We do it in remembrance of You. Let's drink the cup. Thanks for being a part of Victory Church on the Pando app. We hope this content was a blessing to you. But we want you to know that you're not done yet because we want to hear from you. So send us a letter and tell us things like what God is doing in your life, how we can pray for you, or even content that you would like to see us create in the future. We just want you to know that we see you. You're important to us and we'd love to continue to create some things in the future that will bless you. So send us a letter and we hope to hear from you soon.