A million verses of scripture in the Bible. St. John chapter 14. We're going to be preaching, starting with, we're reading, starting with verse one. Beautiful service today. Amen. I mean, this morning was beautiful. Tonight's has been beautiful. The singing. What else can you say? I'm so glad he sees what we don't. Amen. That's what salvation's done for me, and I just don't know how people live without Jesus. This world's a mess, and I thank God for grace and mercy. Amen. Well, John chapter 14, we're going to read the first seven verses and then just preach this for a minute or 30, Lord willing. Like I said, one of the most familiar verses of scripture that you'll come across. We hear this often. Most of you can probably quote what I'm going to read to you from memory. It's that well known, that well rehearsed in our lives. So if you'd like to stand as we read God's word, Amen. John chapter 14, begin with verse one. Jesus talking to the 12 disciples says, fellas, he says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father but by me. If you had known me, you should have known my father also. And from henceforth you know him and have seen him. You can be seated. Hold on that for me. Thank you. Again, I don't know if anybody in this church has probably not heard this verses of scripture probably at least a thousand times. Funerals. A lot of times you'll hear preachers go to this chapter at funerals. Let not your heart be troubled. We're comforted. in those first few words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was so insistent on this fact of let not your heart be troubled. He repeats that again in verse 27. He says again, he says, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid. So we're comforted. A lot of folks, if you'll read and study the different philosophers and educators, whatever, they consider that the theme of this chapter. It's a chapter of comfort. Sometimes things, however, sometimes things are out of our control, right? There are some things that just happen because, and there's nothing you can do about it. A lot of things we can control. Would you all agree with that? I can't control anybody else, but I can halfway control me sometimes, occasionally. And if I cannot control me, Miss Alicia knows how. Amen. She keeps me in line. Thank God for it. She's got a job to do. But a lot of times, things are in our control. And you notice how Jesus says this. He says, let not your heart. So that implies we have a little bit of say-so in this matter. If we can let not our heart be troubled, then we have a little bit of authority and power in this situation, whatever it might be at times, to not be troubled. Would y'all agree with that? Sometimes we get troubled by things that we really shouldn't get troubled about. You can stop it. You can control it. You don't have to worry about it. But sometimes we just choose to. I'll give you some verses. Six times the phrase let not your is found in your King James Bible. Let not your first one is Deuteronomy chapter 20 verse three. God's speaking to the children of Israel says, let not your hearts faint. Fear not and do not tremble. He says, neither be you terrified because of them. Now the them they speaking of was their enemies. Uh, the people that, uh, would, would stop them from worshiping God's people that would, was against him and moving through the wilderness. This was the enemies that was trying to prevent them from obtaining God's promise. And there are enemies in our lives that are there and their sole purpose is to keep you from enjoying what God has got for you. Alright, y'all are there. I think I see you. They don't want you to enjoy God. 2 Chronicles 15 verse 7 is the second time the phrase is found and it says, Be ye strong therefore. And let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded. So we've gone from don't let your heart be troubled, don't worry about things you don't have to worry about, to don't let your hands be weak. You don't have to be a wimp. You can be a strong man, you can be a strong guy. The strongest people you'll ever meet are in the Lord's army. Amen. So it says, but don't let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded. Let me encourage you just for a brief second this evening. There is reward for your work. So don't get weak at it. Don't be discouraged at it when somebody quarrels at you, fesses at you, cusses at you, when they hide from you, when all you want to do is give them a ride up the road. Don't be discouraged. in that. Don't let your hands be weak. Listen, you can finish whatever it is that God has set out for you to finish. You don't have to be a quitter. I don't like quitters. I'm one of those. I want, if I was, I'm going to do it. I don't like quitters. That's them starting people. You know, they're, they're, they're, they're different much too. But anyhow, you don't have to, you don't have to be in trouble. This versus the scripture is dealing with a man named Asa. Asa is trying his best to read, thank you. Judah, I think it is Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin are false idols. And he's run into some resistance, as normal you would. And in order to figure this thing out, Asa goes to the prophet Oded. And Oded speaks to him and this gives this Asa courage to finish what God has called him to do. Let me say again, just trying to help and encourage you just for a minute, you can finish whatever it is that God has called you to do. You don't have to stop halfway through your ministry. You don't have to stop being a deacon. You don't have to stop being a singer. You don't have to stop being a Sunday school teacher. Just because things got a little rough today, you can do whatever it is God has set out for you to do. And that's why the second time this phrase pops up, he says, don't let your heart be troubled and don't let your hands get weak. Don't let your hands be weakened. Weak for your work shall be rewarded. You can finish your calling. Amen. He wants to take courage. He puts away all the false gods in the land of Judah and Benjamin. And then the next thing he's doing is he's putting away false gods. He's renewing the altar of God there in the land. What we need in our country this evening more than anything else in this world is not Republicans or Democrats. It's a renewed altar and presence of God in the life of the church and the Christian people. We have let our hands get weak. We've gotten so covered about. with politics and division and race and all that stuff matters, don't get me wrong. But what we need more than anything is God's word and God's presence in our lives and a willingness to say, you know what? God has called me to a purpose and I'm going to finish my purpose. Like Apostle Paul said, I have finished my course. So he says, I want to get rid of all the false gods. Asa does. I'm renewing the altar of God. Asa does. He gathers all the people around him. And all these people begin to notice Asa. They notice this man. They notice his commitment. They notice his challenge. They notice his change. They notice what he's trying to do. And they take notice of God because they notice Asa. Boy, wouldn't it be nice if America was full of a bunch of Asas? what we need. And you know what Asa does? Asa leads the people in revival. All because Asa says, I'm not going to let my hands be weak. Second one, the third one is in Jeremiah 29 verse 8. Jeremiah writes, let not your prophets and your diviners deceive you. Now, that's not the entirety of the verse, but that is the cliff notes, if you will, if you'll allow me to do that. He says, let not your prophets and your diviners deceive you. Now, me and Brother Todd was talking about this the other day. I'm not a big fan of some words. Some things people say in church, you know, I think they meant well, but man, they could have said that a lot better. And what is happening is we are being deceived by our prophets. Hello. We're being deceived by our diviners. You ever notice that when the lottery, I think the lottery, I don't play the lotteries and I don't encourage you to either. But I think right now it's like 800 million or something like that. It's a crazy weird number. Now listen, I'm not playing it and I think it's wrong if you do. But if you play it and win, it's even more wrong if you don't share with me. Amen. It's in the Bible. Thou shalt share with brother Gary. It's the 13th commandment in the book of Thibolonians, alright? But anyhow, it's like some big astronomical number. There's people consulting psychics and they'll do all kinds of weird stuff to try to get their magical numbers, their lucky numbers. Why is it Lady Cleo never wins the lottery? Does anybody ever think about that? Lady Cleo never comes up and says, don't mind, I was up there and the magic numbers are... Listen, if I was Lady Cleo, I'd be like, I wanna buy five lottery tickets. Not that one, not that one, not that one. I want that one. Not that one. That's what I would do if I had all that supernatural ability. Now, there is some truth in some of those, but some of those are just liars. He says, don't let your prophets and your diviners deceive you. We're living in a peculiar church time. We're in the Laodicean age. We have seen that the end starts as we preached last week. But in Revelation chapter two, I can't remember exactly which church age, it's not Laodicea, it's chapter two, so it's probably Smyrna somewhere through there. Verse two, he says, I know them that say they are apostles and are not. Jesus goes on to call this group liars. And what we are dealing with in our church age, in our church in general right now, churches, is multitude of false teachers. Some of them aren't false teachers, they're just half-teachers. They'll give you just enough truth that it sounds good. Now I believe, I'm old-fashioned, you know, you just want to tell the truth, the whole truth. and nothing but the truth, so help you God. When I was ordained to preach, that's one of the things that they tell me, is you preach the entire word. You cannot just preach parts of it. You cannot just preach the little bits of it, the parts that you're comfortable with. We have to preach the entire counsel of God, I think is what Paul said. But what we're dealing with in this day is preachers preaching things that are incorrect. And Jeremiah said, don't let your prophets and your diviners deceive you. You can control whether or not you are deceived by these people. Brother Gary, how do I stop being deceived? You get in the book yourself. You read the Bible for yourself. You know your Bible. You have a relationship with your King James, holy, blessed God Bible. Amen? 1611, not the new King James, not the King James 2000, not the NIV, not all that stuff. You get in there and you dig into the Word of God And you'll be able to immediately recognize what is true preaching from what is fake preaching. Who is a deceiver and who is somebody that is trying their best to encourage and exhort and help you. And that's what it says in 2 Peter 2. He talks about those that preach damnable heresies and those that teach pernicious ways. Heresies are fundamental error in doctrine. We have got preachers and churches all around this world that are teaching damnable doctrines because they're teaching a part truth and a half truth and nobody knows the entire truth and people cannot get to heaven without the entire truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To be halfway saved is to be totally lost and go to hell. So you have a heresy, a fundamental error in doctrine. Pernicious ways are destructive ways. There are folks that their only goal is to destroy your life. And Jeremiah says, don't you let them do it. You have the ability to snuff out bad preaching. If y'all had snuffed it out eight years ago, you wouldn't be here tonight. You have that ability? You should know good preaching from bad preaching. You should read your Bible. Don't ever take a preacher's word for it. Read. Study. If it's me, Tom Price, Phil Kidd, Danny Castle, Billy Sunday, Maze Jackson, any of that crowd, Todd's got me listening to some guy now. Every day I get a text, listen to this one, listen to this one, listen to this one, listen to this one. And I'm listening to him, man. He's got some good stuff. But listen. I can listen to these fellas, and if I tell you you ought to listen to somebody, it's because I've vetted them out, you know, I've listened to them myself. I don't recommend nobody that I don't hear. Because you have the ability to know a fake from a real. And if you don't, I mean, I understand if you've been saved for like a week and a half, but if you've been saved any good amount of time, you should be able to spot real preacher from fake preacher. Amen. May move on. That's because that's not what I want to preach on. I can, but I don't want to. Well, let me, I'm just going to go ahead. He says, they preach philosophy, Colossians 2 and 8, and vain deceit after tradition of men, after the rudiments of this world. A rudiment is a grounding principle. And we're living, not only we have false preachers, we have false preachers teaching false principles. And people are confused. We'll base our entire Christian life on whims and motions. I love y'all to pieces, but how you feel does not ever trump the Bible. How I feel about something does not change what the Bible says about an issue. Whether we agree with the Bible or not, the Bible's the Bible, right? If me and the Bible disagree, I can promise you who's wrong. It's me. So don't be deceived. There are people that are only interested in how they feel and what emotions they can derive from you and what kind of response they can get. Listen, I love y'all from the bottom of my heart. But an emotional experience is not going to cut it in today's age. You better have more than emotions. You better have faith. The last three times that let not your is found is in Ezekiel 9 verse 5 and in these John chapter 14 verse 1 and verse 27. Six times. It's the number of man God says don't thank for fear, don't fear for failure, don't be deceived, don't stop the work till you're finished, and don't worry. You have the ability to not do any of those things I just read to you. So why is it that in the face of fear, and how is it in the face of fear and false prophets and failure that we keep pressing on? What is it that keeps you going Sunday after Sunday to church? What is it that gets you up four o'clock in the morning, right D, 4.30 in the morning to read your Bible? What is it that keeps some of y'all up after everybody else goes to bed at night so you can have just 10 minutes of quiet time in prayer and Bible study? What is it that motivates us to give the kids melatonin and Benadryl So we can just sit down with God and pray. It's faith. It's simple. How can you let not your? Because you can know in whom. It's about faith. Jesus said it. Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God. He's talking to this group of Jewish individuals that I believe made up the very first church that ever was born into existence, the first Baptist church in Jerusalem. And he says, boys, you believe in God. So don't let your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Jesus knew they believed in God. You have faith in God. I believe in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I have faith in that. I believe in God as a creator. I don't believe nothing exploded and became everything. I don't believe a ball billions of degrees hot spit forth a planet that's 75% water. that it just happened to go so far out and start spinning the right direction and rotating properly around in a circuit around this big ball of sun. If the earth stops one mile sooner, we freeze to death or we burn up rather. If it goes a mile further, we freeze to death. So it just so happened to stop exactly where it needed to be. I don't believe that. Now that takes faith to think nothing exploded and everything come from it. And then that everything spit forth a planet, 75% water. You talk about faith. I believe in the beginning God. You said you believe in that. I believe in God as a provider. I've read the story of Moses and the children of Israel coming through the wilderness and they had manna from heaven. Something that was, they'd never seen it before. It's different, it's new. But man, they're thankful for it. God provided it. Their shoes didn't wear out for 40 years. Guarantee you they didn't get them at Walmart. Amen. I mean, they just walk around for 40 years. I mean, yeah, they messed up. They should have been there in 11 days. It had taken them 40 years to get where God wanted them. And that happens to us sometimes. It's been a quick journey, but sometimes we prolong the distance of it. But, but, he said, you know what, I believe. He said, do you believe in God as a creator? Yes, I do. Do you believe in God as a provider? Absolutely. I really do. Do you believe in God as your Redeemer to this group of men, to this church? I'm asking you. Do you believe in God as your Redeemer? Job said, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Amen. I believe in God, don't you? I have faith in God. He's a deliverer in the book of Exodus. He brought them out of Egypt through bondage, and he brings them up to the Red Sea, and he gets them across to the Red Sea, and then he brings the armies of Egypt out to follow them, and then they're destroyed and drowned all in that river. I believe every word of that. And I know science has now proven that the specific area where the children of Israel cross is basically only three to four inches deep. Well, how's that supposed to dampen my spirits? They'll say, well, that's not such a big deal. It's just about yay deep. So the fact that they walked across there, anybody could do that. Well, praise the Lord. Where did the dry land underneath it come from? How in the world did God drown a whole entire army of Egypt in water that deep? The world tries to discourage us from what we believe, but I believe in God as a deliverer, don't you? I believe He brought them out of there. I'm sure enough as sure as my shoes are brown. I know God brought them out of there, brought them into that promised land. I believe God is a deliverer. I believe in God. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God as your shepherd. David said, the Lord is my shepherd after all. I shall not. I believe in God as a shepherd, as somebody that cares for, provides for, loves, cares, tends to my needs, makes sure I'm taken care of, gives me everything. I believe in God as my protector. I read how the king come down and said, Daniel, is your God able to deliver you? He said, O king, and live forever, amen? Listen, I believe in this very same God that Daniel was believing in, that he was faithful to, and I believe that same God that was faithful to not only was Daniel faithful to him, but his God was faithful to Daniel, and I believe that God is faithful to me. He's a protector. I like Deuteronomy 20 verse 4. It says, For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you to fight for you against your enemies. I believe in God as a warrior. I believe in God. And Jesus said, if you believe in God, you can believe in Me. Ain't that something? The confidence in the voice of Christ as He said, you believe in God, believe also in Me. I believe Jesus is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. I believe that with all my heart. I believe He's the door of the sheep. And by Him we come in and out and find pasture. We go in when they're in the storm, we rest, we can get renewed, we can go out and feed, whatever we need. I believe Jesus is the opportunity that we've all been looking for. I believe he is not only the chief shepherd, the good shepherd, but he's also the great shepherd. I believe that. I believe as the chief shepherd, he is coming again to get us to take that. I have faith in God. And if I can believe that God created, spoke the world into existence, I can believe that Jesus Christ is coming back one of these days to get me, take me home. I believe in Him as the chief shepherd. I believe He's not only my chief shepherd, I believe He's the great shepherd. The Bible says the great shepherd is that shepherd that changes the sheep. I thank God I am not what I used to be. Amen. How can I have faith in God? Because I know I'm not what I was. Amen. And something supernatural took place inside of me that changed me. They were no longer drug addicts. We're no longer drunks. We're no longer womanizers. We're no longer harlots. We're no longer whatever it was we used to be. Drunks, wife beaters, husband beaters, some of y'all. I mean, bless your heart. Amen. Some of you may still get punched on every now and then. But listen, especially when you tell that herb on the hype from the preacher and in that red truck. But anyhow, I believe in all that. I believe Jesus Christ is the same yesterday. I believe He's the same right now. I believe He's going to be the same tomorrow and a million tomorrows from now. I can believe all that because I believe in God as a Creator, God as a Provider, God as a Deliverer, God as my Friend, God as my Shelter, God as my Comforter, God as my Keeper. I can believe in Jesus Christ because I believe in God. He changed me. He's a good shepherd. He'd give his life for his sheep. I believe he is the light of the world. I believe he is the life. I believe He's the resurrection. I believe He's the true vine. I believe He's the bread of life. I believe before Abraham was, I believe Jesus is. Amen. I believe all that. I believe before David was, David called Him Lord there in Psalms, I think, chapter 2. I believe that. I believe Jesus was preexistent before all these fellas. I believe He was active in creation. And everything was created by Him and for Him and by Him all things consist. I believe that. I believe He was active in the wilderness. I believe brother Todd, that rock that followed them was Christ. I believe that. I don't believe in lies. I don't believe all that. You can believe what you want to believe. I'm not here to preach to you what you believe. I'm here to preach to you what does set the Word of God. And the Bible says that rock followed them. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Whenever I'm thirsty, there's a rock. Amen. Whenever I have a giant to face, there's a rock. Amen. Whenever I need a shelter, there's a good solid place to put my feet. My feet are on the rock. Amen. I believe in Jesus Christ. He delivered David from lions, bears, and giants, oh my. Amen. I can have faith in Christ, in Jesus Christ, because my Heavenly Father, my God, has faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus, John 1, 1, is the Word. He's the Lamb, He is the Way. But what kind of way is He? Now here's the message. Our intention is to preach onto you on the subject a two-way street. Jesus is I am the way. What kind of way is he? Is the Bible that you hold in your hand, that King James Bible, is it just about you? Are you even in there? Are you in the narrative? Are you in the story? Did God talk to you in the Gospels? Now you can find yourself in situations and scenarios and applications, don't take me wrong, but we are not the central person, character in this book. It was written to you, but not necessarily about you. Folks, stay with me. He is the way. Do you think the Bible is just a book that tells us about sin and the fall of mankind? Well, it tells us that, doesn't it? But it tells us more. Jesus, number one, is our way to God. If you're going to get to God, you have to go through Jesus. Oprah's opinion does not matter here. Bless her heart. She's going to split hell wide open if she don't get herself saved. And then all these millions of Oferites are going to find themselves in hell. Or Ofertonians, I don't know what you'd call them. Bless her heart. I mean, there's other things I could call them. It's nowhere near as nice as what I've had. But Jesus is our way to God. You start thinking back to the Garden of Eden. What is it that we lost in Eden? With Adam and Eve, we lost paradise, right? Would y'all agree with that? They had a perfect life and blew it. You know, Adam and Eve had the first husband that always put his underwear on the hamper. Adam had the first wife that never nagged. Put your clothes in the hamper. They lived in the first house where the kids listened all the time. Wait a minute, they didn't have kids. Even more perfection. Joke. That was a joke. You know, Eve never had to worry about Adam stepping out on her. Who's he going to go out with, an elephant? But she didn't have to worry about it, did she? He was faithful. I mean, where you been, Adam? Nowhere. I smell orangutan on you. Eve never had to worry about that. Adam didn't have to worry about it either. You imagine, you know, you walk home and said, Eve, I know you was at the grocery store today and I seen Cheetah flirting with you. And I don't think you need to go to that grocery store in the morning. They didn't worry about that stuff. Man, they lived in perfection, paradise. And because of their sin, and ultimately our sin, we lost that. And if you're ever going to get that type of life back, you're going to have to go through Jesus. He's your way back to that. You know what? We lost, not only paradise, we lost fellowship with God. God would talk to Adam. Adam could talk to God. And then they lost that. We've all lived in a time in our life when we had no fellowship with God. You are out there on your own. And without Jesus Christ, you had no way to get to the place where you could even have the nerve to talk to a holy God. Jesus was our way back to fellowship. Our fellowship with God. Now hang on to that one. We're also talking about, we lost life. The moment Adam and Eve sinned, they died. Now we don't look at this, and I was talking about, man, I was listening to a preacher this morning, and he explained that beautifully. They died spiritually, and they died immediately. Now, it took the body a while to catch up. Same way it is with us. Now, you're spiritually redeemed now, but the body's not. The body lags behind. We're slow. But man, they lost that eternal life. And Jesus said, I've come that you might have life. So your way to retrieve your eternal life is through Jesus Christ. He is that way. He offers us something that Buddha can't offer. We were lost. You are dead and trust your sins and in some circumcision of your flesh have quickened you together with him, have given you all your trespasses. Ephesians 2 verse 12 through 18. I won't read all those for you. Go back and read those later. But it says you were without Christ. And because you were without Christ. You were aliens. from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope and without God. You and I were in a mess and Jesus came and was our way back. You and I was where, maybe some of you maybe still are, the prodigal son. that wasted everything on righteous living. Some of us, maybe we were that hateful older brother that didn't want our brother to come back home. That happens in a lot of churches and a lot of lives and it's sad. A lot of us, Miss Alicia has a shirt, I think Miss Libby has a shirt, we were that 100th sheep that he was willing to leave the 99 and go find and rescue. Sometimes I feel like I wasn't even a sheep. Sometimes I was just a piece of a leg and an ear there from Amos. I was nothing of value, nothing I could do for Him, but He loved me. And Jesus is my way back. I was in the ditch, and Jesus got me out. Willing to get down in the ditch with me. Him that knew no sin became sin, right? He took upon himself the form of a man. So he's our way back to God. He's our way back to fellowship. He's our way back to perfection. He's our way back to life and not just life. Oh boy. Life more abundant. If you're not living, and I'm not talking about financially, you can be poor as Job's turkey and still be living an abundant life. It don't take money to be abundant, but it does take God and Jesus. Life. You ever wonder how did Lazarus live the rest of his life after Jesus had come forth? You think Lazarus was like, oh great, I gotta go to work today. Or was Lazarus like, great, the bills are due. I believe Lazarus went down to the post office and got a cutoff notice from AEP, and Lazarus was like, praise the Lord! I'm still here. I know what it was like to be dead. So now I'm going to embrace life, even with the bills, even with the heartaches, even with the mess. I bet you Lazarus lived every day for however long it was. I don't know. We don't know. Some of us, You need to embrace life. You've been resurrected, so why don't you start living? That'll preach somewhere down the road. Jesus is your way home. He said, I am the way. I'm going somewhere. And they said, well, Lord, how do we know? He said, I am the way. Whatever you lost, Jesus will give you back. But it's not just about us. This thing with Jesus saying, I am the way, it's not just about our way to God. And the Bible better be more to you than a road map to heaven. If that is all you get from these 66 books, you're missing the point. It's not just a rule book. It's not just a road map. I mean, it's more. The Bible tells not only the story of your restoration to God, but it lays out for us the story of God's restoration to us. See, we're so busy, we focus on what we lost in the garden that we don't ever take the time to look at what God lost. You ever think, it wasn't just my fellowship with God that was broken. God's fellowship with me was broken. God could not commune with man as he did prior. Remember, God comes down and looks for Adam, and Adam had did what? He had hid. that fellowship, which was two-way street, was broken. So Jesus not only made it possible for Adam to get back to God, but he makes it possible for God to get back to Adam. What we had lost in that first Adam we gained in the second, right? So, God's way to you. See, God lost just as much, if not more, than I lost. And we say all the time, you know, the Lord, Jesus has brought me back to God, Jesus has brought me back to God, and that's true, and I'm not downplaying that. But also, Jesus brought God back to me. God's world was turned upside down in the Garden of Eden. The creation that He took the time to mold, to breathe into man's nostrils, to love, to care for, to sit out in this beautiful place. That relationship was not only lost on Adam's side, that's lost on God's side. And God lays us out a book that is constantly telling us the story of how God is coming back to mankind. Not just Jesus coming in the sky, but God coming back to here. It's not about me getting up to there all the time. I need God back in here. This world is broken because God does not live in a lot of here's. So we're looking at God's fellowship. And we talk often about our fellowship with God, but what about God's with us? How is it that God can now dwell within you? Right? That's the question. Paul in Colossians 1.26 says, Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you. He's more than an intercessor. He is an intercessor, but he's more than that. He is an advocate, but he's more than an advocate. Job 9, verse 33, Job says, in Job's day, says, Neither is there any daysman betwixt us. Job says, I don't have nobody to get God to me, and I don't have nobody to get me to God. That may lay his hand upon us both. Jesus took us in one hand, and takes God in the other, and he brought those two together. Restoring both fellowships. Now how does he do that? Jesus is in you. How many of y'all believe Jesus is in you? Raise your hand if you believe Jesus is in you. He is in you. How many of you believe that not only is Jesus in you, but you are in Jesus? And Jesus said, I am in the Father. Jesus completed not just our restoration, but God's restoration. If I am in Christ, and Christ is in me, and Christ is in the Father, guess who I am now in? The Father. And guess who the Father is now in? Me. God now has a... What's that preacher's name, Todd? Adrian Rogers put it, God now has a home in this earth because Jesus restored that broken fellowship of God to us. Not just us to God. but God to us. It's deeper. And this message is way deeper than I'm going to get into this evening. But there's a restoration. Jesus is a two-way street. He gets us to God and God to us. Job said, in Job's day, he says, I don't have somebody who can take us by both hands. Jesus came and said, I can take you both and I can redeem and restore. Job didn't have it. Moses didn't have it. Moses. The Bible says what the law could not do that. God sending his own son, the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin, the flesh. See, God can fellowship with me because I'm in the sun. Holy God hears all the holy God can't look upon sin, right? But Jesus made it possible for God to look upon us. God can now talk to you. God has in his last days spoken to us by his son in Hebrews. God lives in me. So Jesus is not the way, not only for my fellowship, but God fellowships with me. I am in Christ, Christ in me, and God is in Christ. Paul wrote that. And now and on we knew that we were born again. We're fully restored, completely redeemed, and completely saved. You can't... See, and this is... The folks that are anti-eternal security, they don't see this. In order for you to go to hell, if God is in you, and you are in God, and Christ is in you, and you are in Christ, in order for us as saved, born-again people to go to hell, God and Jesus Christ have to go to hell with us. And I can assure you, at best, Jesus done paid that once. And I know there's debate on that and I'm not going to get into all that. Jesus paid that price once. There's not any more sacrifice for sin and there's no more punishment for sin. It's just a matter of how are you willing to get on the street. Simple. You've been restored to God and God has been restored to you all because of Jesus Christ and His willingness to be our days man, to take both sides by the hand and bring us together. Mediator, if you will, but more than just us to God, He was God to us. So this evening, don't just get focused on God and the fact that you can approach God. And that's great, and I'm not downplaying that at all. That is great. But man, it'll shout your socks off if you'll grab hold of the fact that God can fellowship with you. Not only can God, but God wants to. And Brother Gary, can you prove that? Yeah, John 3, 16. For God so loved the world. that he gave his only begotten son. God wanted back with us so bad that he gave his only begotten son. Well, we lost life, we started dying immediately. God had no place to go, now he lives inside of you. Beautiful, beautiful story of love and restoration in John 14. It's not just about heaven. Jesus says, you believe in God, right? You believe also in me. Why? Because I'm your way back to God and I'm God's way back to you. Amen. I'm finished. You thank the Lord that I'm finished.