In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of trusting in the Lord rather than relying on worldly things or human intellect. He highlights the examples of Moses, David, and Solomon, who were not gods but still trusted in God for their salvation. The speaker also mentions the significance of the Old Covenant and how it was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. The sermon concludes with a call to action, urging the congregation to turn the world upside down for Christ and reminding them of Jesus' humility and sacrifice on the cross.

Hebrews chapter 3, and then we will pray. Pray about everything the Bible says, right? How we need to be praying today. Praying men and women. So let's do that. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to gather tonight in your name, Jesus. You are the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and it's our desire to honor you with the best of our praise, with the best of our worship, with the best that we can give you, Lord. And you said the sacrifices of God are broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, that you will not despise. So Lord, we give you our hearts tonight, our very heart, to you, because you gave your heart for us, Lord. We love you dearly, we long to see you, and again, I pray your blessing upon this church, Lord, and upon your people here, that you would keep them encouraged in the midst of suffering, in the midst of trial, in the midst of tribulation, in the midst of our wilderness journey here, here at Calvary Chapel right now, Lord, that we would see you in everything. You told us to fear not, especially when we're in the wilderness, Lord. And so we choose to heed, not only to hear, but to heed your word and your voice tonight. Bless our time in your word, and Lord, minister to us. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, are we taping? Not yet. Okay. TV. Chapter 3 of Hebrews is a... Is this a great... The book of Hebrews is an incredible book. It talks about, really, Jesus Christ. When you read the book of Hebrews, look for Jesus. You'll see him everywhere from chapter 1 all the way to the very end. He is the culmination of everything that Hebrews is really writing about. And the last few weeks we've been learning in our study that the overarching theme, the main theme of the book of Hebrews is Christ is better. Christ is better. Jesus Christ has a better name. Jesus Christ is better than the angels. Jesus Christ is the greatest messenger. Jesus Christ has the greatest message. Jesus Christ has a greater salvation. Jesus Christ is a greater savior. Jesus Christ is the greatest sacrifice. And tonight we're going to see that Jesus Christ is the greatest high priest and that Jesus Christ is the greatest apostle. Capital A. The greatest apostle. And that Jesus Christ is even superior to one of the greatest and most reverenced of all Hebrew men and leaders. And that's who? Moses. Moses was an incredible, incredible man of God. A man to be admired. A man to be followed. A man to be listened to. An incredible man of faith. An incredible man of God. But he was not God. He was still a man. And he was fallible and prone to failures. And we're going to see tonight that Jesus Christ is even greater than Moses. So he's definitely up there. Literally up there. So really, Jesus Christ is better. He's greater than anything in our lives, isn't he? Greater than anything. Greater than anyone. Jesus Christ should be the supreme person and love of our life. The Lord of our life. The love of our life. He is our life. Amen? If you took Jesus Christ out of the equation, out of your life, where would that leave you? Where would that leave me? It would leave me wretched and poor and blind and naked and just dead in my sin. But Jesus Christ is the light of my life. He is the light of your life. He is not only our eternal life. He is that abundant life living within us. Aren't you glad Jesus is living in you? That's how you know you're a Christian. That's how you know there's something different going on. The living Lord of the universe is not just sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. He's sitting on the throne of our hearts. Paul the Apostle said, Christ in me the hope of glory. That's one of the mysteries revealed in the New Testament that the living Lord would come to dwell within his people. Incredible mystery that it's no longer, the word is out. In a sense, the word is in. The word is right in here. The living word of God, right? That's Jesus Christ. Now, since the book of Hebrews is grounded in the Levitical priesthood and understanding of the book of Leviticus is really important to understand the book of Hebrews. We know that Israel's sin had continually interrupted God's fellowship with his chosen people. Therefore, he graciously established a system of what? Of sacrifices, right? That symbolically represented the inner repentance of sinners and of God's divine forgiveness. However, the need for sacrifices never ended. Why? Because the priests, the people, and the priests continued to sin. Couldn't get around that. So the need of all mankind then was for what? Was for a perfect priest and for a perfect sacrifice that would once and for all actually remove sin which the priests nor the sacrifices could do. They could only temporary cover sin. Temporary forgiveness, not eternal forgiveness. But God's provision for that perfect priest and for that perfect sacrifice is found in and only in Jesus Christ. That is the central message of Hebrews. And as you're reading through the book, you need to be reminded, be reminded of that fact. The book of Hebrews, therefore, is a study in contrast between the imperfect and the incomplete provisions of the old covenant given under Moses and the infinitely better provisions of the new covenant offered by the perfect high priest, God's only son, and the Messiah, Jesus. Included in the better provisions are, it talks about this word better. It says we have a better hope. It says we have a better testament. We have a better promise, a better sacrifice, a better substance, a better country, and a better resurrection. All because of Jesus. As Pastor Pat mentioned over the weekend, the book of Hebrews was written primarily to young persecuted Jewish believers who attempted to do what? They were tempted to go back to the old way of doing things. They were tempted to go back to the old covenant that God had made with them in the wilderness after their deliverance from Egypt when they received the Ten Commandments from Moses on Mount Sinai. They were tempted to go back to the rituals. They were tempted to go back to the sacrifices. To go back to the keeping of the old strict Mosaic laws. They didn't want to let go. Remember, as Pastor Pat was talking about, they didn't want to let go. Didn't want to loosen their grip on the shadows of the old covenant and to now keep holding on to the substance of the new covenant, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament were shadows. You couldn't quite see the Lord, but yet nevertheless, he was coming. And when John the Baptist came and said, behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world, the shadows were gone and the substance was right there standing before them. God in the flesh. Promised. The promised Messiah after thousands of years had come. God was true to his word. Let God be true in every man a liar, the Bible says. God is true to his word. His word is sure. It is true. It's powerful, sharper than any two edged sword. And if we'll hold on to his promises, especially in the wilderness times of our lives, he will see us through. And we won't have to want to go back to Egypt like the Israelites wanted to do. Jesus was the perfect fulfiller of the law. He was the perfect keeper of the law. He was the perfect standard of the law of God. They were having a hard time grasping onto that fact. Again, that everything in the Old Testament was pointing to to Jesus Christ, who, by the way, fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophecies. And that is impossible for any human being to do. Literally. Jesus had to be the son of God. And he is the son of God. Now, their longing to hold on to the old way of doing things was causing some real problems. It was setting them up for some real discouragement because they were trying to keep the letter of the law instead of trying to keep the spirit and the heart of the law that had now come in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can get hung up with that too, right? Trying to keep the letter of the law. I gotta do it, gotta do it. It's my duty, it's my duty, it's my duty. Versus wanting to keep the law out of devotion because I love him and I worship him. That's, one is religion, the other is relationship, you see. And we can get hung up with all, I've got to do this, and I've got to do this, and I've got to do this. No, we get to do that, not gotta do it, we get to do it. It's a privilege, it's an honor to worship and walk with Jesus Christ. The minute you fall into duty and obligation, you're falling back into religion. You're falling back into the old way of doing things. You need to let go, let go of that grip, and then just hold on to Jesus and enjoy him. Marvel at him. He is alive. He is alive and well in us tonight. John 117 says, For the law was given through who? Through Moses. But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. But doubting at times that Christ was the fulfillment of everything in their Old Testament way of doing things, this led to some problems. They started to drift, drifting. Drifting then led to dulling of their hearts. The dulling then led to despising of the very word of God itself. Which ultimately would take them down the dangerous path of departing from the living word of God. Doubting, drifting, dulling, despising, departing are also very serious warnings for those of us today. We're serious about our Christianity as well. It is possible for the Christian to backslide. You can do a study on that in the Old Testament. On that word of Israel, they were a backslidden people. They had slid back into the old ways of doing things. They had compromised and slid back into intermarriage with some of the pagan cultures around them that weakened their faith. It is possible for a Christian to backslide, not lose his faith, not lose his salvation, but to turn from God temporarily and get hung up in the flesh and self-dependence again. And taking God for granted. Taking his blessings for granted. Taking his provisions for granted. And believe me, Israel took God for granted. He did miracle after miracle after miracle. And they still had hard, stubborn hearts. So let's get to verse 1. And let's read. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. Thank you. Even though these folks were prone to falling away. These brothers. See that word brethren there? It means brothers. These were believers. He called them holy brethren. And I think at times when we see our brothers struggling in the Lord, we tend to want to give them the right foot of fellowship. Hey, this brother is falling back in some of his old ways. We tend to be judgmental. It's very quick to judge a brother, isn't it? And so I like that the writer here put the word holy in there because that word means set apart. Set apart for God's exclusive use. No matter what, their salvation was intact. God still loved them. God still cared for them. Although they were having some problems. He still calls them holy brethren. And let's be reminded of that when we see brothers who are struggling around us. A lot of us have come out of very strict and legalistic churches, haven't we? And it's taken us months, maybe years, to really come out of the old ways. Some of the bondage that we're in of can't do this, can't do this, do this, don't do that within the churches that we came out of. And let's be gracious to the brethren who are coming into Calvary Chapel and need some time to overcome some of those obstacles and not be quick to judge, be quick to encourage them and say, Hello, holy brother. How are you? Welcome. Set apart for God. We love you. We want to help you and encourage you and pray for you. He goes on to say there that they are partakers of the heavenly calling. Isn't it incredible that God called you and God called me. There was a day where you heard his voice. That day where he called out your name. And wasn't that awesome that he would even think of you and think of me to call us to himself. Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the father draws him. The father was drawing us to the son by the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. And then he said, Mark, Candy, Ray, BJ. He called out our names. And he said, come partake of the waters, the living waters, the waters of eternal life. Come partake of the forgiveness I have for you, Mark. Drink and be forgiven and be cleansed. We're partakers of that. A partaker is someone who's who has taken part of something, taken it and made it their own. And that is our salvation. That is our that is our inheritance. Now it's become our own. We're partakers of the heavenly calling. We got a call from heaven and thank the Lord that we heeded that call. You know, God is still calling today. God is not willing that anyone perish, but that all would come to repentance. Right. God is calling. But who is listening? We heard and we heeded. We realized we came to a place, a choice, a decision in our life that, yes, that I that I am a sinner, that I do need a savior. Jesus is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. I can't get to heaven on my own. I receive you as my my Lord. Jesus, come into my heart by faith. Make me your child. Make me your son. I don't deserve it. But thank you. That's what grace is, undeserved favor. And so thank the Lord. He started this whole process. He called us. We didn't choose him. He chose us. The Bible says, right. Let's be reminded of that as Christians. We can be so content in our Christianity at times that we forget about that calling that he initiated. He initiated this whole love process. We never would have loved him. The Bible says we loved him because he first loved us, not the other way around. Doesn't that keep us humble? Right. Doesn't that keep us broken? Doesn't that keep us thankful? That he loved us first. He's an incredible Savior. It says there in verse one, consider, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession. That word consider means focus your thinking on. It means to deeply ponder and meditate on wholeheartedly investigate. That word consider is used again in the book of Hebrews and in other places. Deeply ponder on the person of Jesus Christ. Consider, investigate, meditate on, on the apostle and high priest of our confession. Notice that the word apostle there is capitalized and the word high priest is capitalized. It's referring to the person of God when it's capitalized. Jesus is God. What does the word apostle mean? The word apostle means a sent one, a sent one. One who has the rights, power, and authority of the one who sends him. That's an apostle. One who has the rights, power, and authority of the one who sends him. And Jesus was sent to the earth by who? By the father. Jesus himself said in John 5 36, but I have a greater witness than John's. For the works which the father has given me to finish, the very works that I do bear witness of me that the father has sent me. He himself proclaimed that the father had sent him. So Jesus was the first. He was the greatest. Better, superior to all the 12 human apostles that were commissioned by Jesus to spread his gospel. Right. Jesus is the apostle above all apostles. Not only our advocate, 1 John 2 declares Jesus Christ is our advocate. He is our defense attorney. He's our defense lawyer in heaven. When the accuser of the brethren throws his lies to the father, Jesus Christ is standing there saying, now wait a minute here. I am marked. I'm Kennedy's. I'm raised defense attorney here. And those are all a bunch of lies. And I have the nails scarred hands to prove it. So he's not only our advocate. He is our apostle. Our great apostle in heaven. Jesus Christ is also greater and better and superior to every priest and to every high priest who's ever lived. You know that he is the greatest of all the priests. Capital P. And I think in our world today, we definitely need to point that out because many people today have an inordinate amount of attention and affection for a human priest. Jesus said to be very careful not to give them worship, to give them adoration, to give them praise. When we lived on the island of Guam, very heavily Catholicized country like the Philippines. The priest would come walking through the villages periodically and the people would run out and bow down to them and kiss their hands and would venerate them and exalt them. The Bible says, call no man father, but call no one father, but one, right? And that's our heavenly father. So this whole thing of the of the priesthood today, it can be very dangerous thing. And we need to be putting our attention and our focus on our great high priest, Jesus Christ. Because although in great positions of authority over the people, even human priests, you know, have needs to confess, don't they? They have need to repent and be cleansed of their sins. Yet Jesus Christ as the heavenly high priest, he is perfect. He is sinless. He is spotless. Therefore, he has no need for any forgiveness. He is the forgiver, not the forgivee. Hebrews chapters 4 through 10 will give greater detail to the supremacy of Christ in his office as role as our great intercessory high priest. So as apostle, what does Jesus Christ do? Jesus Christ pleads God's cause with us as believers. And he represents God to men. As high priest, Jesus pleads the believers cause with God, but represents men to God in heaven. That's his office. That is his present work right now. That is the doctrine of Christology. Who is Jesus? What does Jesus presently do? What has he done in the past? What is he doing in the present? What is his future work for us? Christ is always at work, you know that? God never sleeps and God does not slumber. The father, the son, the Holy Spirit are constantly active in the life of the believer and constantly active in the world today in drawing lost sinners to himself. Heaven is a very busy place. We tend to forget about that. There's lots of work to be done through heaven on earth. God has a plan and that plan is being worked out perfectly according to his sovereign will. You can read the newspapers and watch the TV and panic, panic, panic and freak, freak, freak. But remember that God is sovereign. He's in control. All things are going exactly as God has planned them to go in his perfect timetable. Nothing is out of kilter. Okay, God is not worried up in heaven and you know, you know, ringing hankies and handkerchiefs and oh my gosh, the world's out of control. What am I going to do? God knows exactly what he's doing according to his perfect timetable. So we don't need to worry. The Bible says be anxious for nothing because our great high priest is interceding for you right now. He's called our intercessory high priest. He's praying for you. He's taking your prayers that you pray to the father. He's your advocate. He's your high priest. He's your intercessor. He's all of those things for you right now, this very minute. And he never stops working on your behalf. He's incredible. The incredible king of kings and Lord of Lords. And that's why we bow down and worship him and worship him alone. The Bible says you shall have no other gods before me. And Jesus Christ is our God. We bow down and worship him and him alone. Those two concepts of the apostle and the high priest also bring about the the doctrine of mediator, right? Jesus is not only our advocate, not only our apostle, not only our high priest, not only our intercessor, but he is also our mediator, right? What is 1st Timothy 2, 5 through 6? All of you should really put this one to memory. It's a very crucial verse in the Bible. Doctrinally speaking, when it comes to sharing your faith with others, especially those within the Catholic religion and other and other religions like that. There is one mediator between God and man. The man, Christ Jesus. There are not many mediators. There is one mediator. Mary is not the mother of God in the sense of being the mediator. Okay? She needed a savior herself. She even declared in her magnificat in Luke chapter one. God, my savior. She knew she needed cleansing from sin. And she knew that her son was not only her son, but her savior as well. And so. The idea that Jesus Christ is our one and only mediator. 1st Timothy 2, 5 through 6. There is one mediator between God and man. Mediator is a go-between, right? A go-between between two parties at odds with each other. Two parties at war with each other, right? A holy God, unholy man. Okay? Well, there is a great gulf in between. How does that gulf get fixed and taken care of? Through Jesus Christ. He mediated the battle for us. He mediated the war for us. He did what we could not do. We could not approach God on our own. We could not have direct access to God. That is why they had to go to the priest in the Old Testament. So he could go to God for the people. And atone for their sins once a year in the Holy of Holies. But it all symbolically pointed to Jesus Christ. Every lamb, every bull, every goat, every dove. Everything that was sacrificed all pointed to Jesus Christ. The whole sacrificial system in the priesthood all pointed to Jesus Christ. That great mediator. The blood that was spilled pointed to the blood of Jesus Christ. Without the shedding of blood, the Bible says there is no forgiveness of sins. And all that blood was stained. But Christ's blood is perfect and pure. And God accepted that one sacrifice for all the sins of all the world. For all mankind forever. That one sacrifice Jesus Christ made. The Father accepted that sacrifice on your behalf and on my behalf. Isn't that wonderful? Awesome, incredible office and work of Jesus Christ. I encourage you to do a study on the person of Christ. And to dig into what you believe about Jesus. And why you believe in the doctrine of Christology. Especially when the Mormons come knocking on your door like they did at my house this past weekend. And as the Jehovah's Witnesses knock on your door. What will you tell them about the Jesus you believe in? Why is he different than the Jesus they believe in? And there is a difference, let me tell you. And I had the Mormon girls, sweet girls. My heart just went out to them. Flatly tell me, yes, that Lucifer is the brother of Jesus Christ. And my heart just went out. I said, how can you believe that? It's because they believe Jesus is something less than creation. Lucifer was a created being, an angel. And that's kind of what they teach about Jesus. He's something less than God. On equal par, positionally in a sense, as Lucifer when it comes to creation. Sad, but I was able to get some of the word to them. They had some good questions. And they wanted to sing a song for me. And I said, no, but can I pray for you? And neither one of us were able to accomplish either one of those things. And they went to my neighbors and my other neighbors. And we stopped and we prayed as a family for them. Working their way to heaven in a lot of sense. Works righteousness. A lot of the hang up here that some of these Jewish brethren wanted to go back into. The external, outward, works righteousness. Oh wow, I got to attain my salvation. I have to maintain my salvation. Boy, that sure brings anxiety in your life. If you've got to attain it and you've got to maintain it, you're in trouble. Right? None of us can attain our salvation on our own. None of us can maintain our salvation on our own, can we? It's impossible. Jesus Christ attained our salvation for us. And he's maintaining our salvation for us right now, folks. I mean, without the Lord's work on our behalf right now. As high priest, as intercessor, as advocate, as apostle, as all these things, we'd be toast. He's got us covered, folks. He's got us covered. And that generates worship within us. I tell you, when you do a study on the person of Jesus Christ. You're going to fall more in love with him. You study the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You can't help but to fall in love with Jesus all over again. It's like meeting him again for the first time. Meeting your first love again for the first time. Be like meeting my wife again for the first time 21 years ago. You know, she just floored me. I couldn't believe how beautiful she was, and still is. And Jesus is the same way. When we read through the Gospels, it's like meeting him again for the first time. And we're floored all over again. We say, Jesus, I love you. You're amazing. And I love Easter time. I love, I know it's very difficult for us to, we're not going to get through this whole chapter tonight. But, I love to see the passion of Christ. Not just the movie, but we already have the movie in a sense right here. We have all the word pictures right here. You can read all the accounts of the resurrection and marvel at what Christ did that week. On Sunday, when he walked in, they said, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, the son of David is here. He laid down the palm fronds, Palm Sunday, right? And then he went through that week, and he was attacked by the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees. And eventually, you know, he had the Passover, his last Passover meal. Got down and washed their feet. Broke bread with them. Symbolic of his body and his blood. And then he would go and be arrested falsely in the middle of the night. You know, they didn't normally hold court in the middle of the night. Why do you think they did it to Jesus? Because they knew he was trouble. He was there to disrupt their whole pharisaical outward religious righteousness works thing. And they had gotten the people wrapped around their fingers, and they didn't want to let that go. They had a good thing going. Those priests back then. They had a good thing going. And Jesus came and disrupted everything they had done for the last 400 years. He was a threat to them. And so we need to get rid of this guy now. And so they raised up false accusers against him. Those crying out, crucify him, crucify him. Half of them maybe were paid to say that. Who knows? Couldn't have been part of the same crowd. Maybe saying, Hosanna to the son of David. Who's this crowd now saying crucify him? But some of them were paid. You know, they paid people to mourn back then and to wail at funerals. And they would pay. People would do anything for money like they would today. Whether you're in religion or you're not. Whether you're in church and you're not. People still do it in church today too, folks. Hey, if they pay me enough, I'll do whatever it takes. I don't care if it's true or not. If the money's there, hey, I'll compromise whatever I need to do. Unfortunately, sadly, we have some churches like that in America today. Money is the church's God. It will never be that way at Calvary Chapel, folks. I can guarantee you that. It will never happen. Money will never be the God of this church. We trust in Jehovah Jireh, God our provider, to meet all of our needs. I don't know where I'm going with this. Okay. It says here, going on in verse 1, out of 19 verses. It says that Jesus Christ is the apostle and high priest of our, what? Confession. Now, when I got saved, I didn't go to some confessional and have to confess my sins to some human, fallible, sinful priest. That priesthood was abolished 2,000 years ago, so why go there? It's not biblical. I can go to my great high priest now. He is the apostle and high priest of my confession and of your confession, of our confession. What does the word confession mean? It means to agree on something, right? We have agreed with God's word and agreed with the facts of scripture, what? That we're sinners. That Jesus Christ is our only possible savior from sin. We have confessed that. We have fessed up to that, haven't we? We have fessed up to the fact that I am nothing in and of myself. We've confessed that privately to our high priest. I'm on our knees and we have confessed that publicly to others, right? If you confess with your mouth, Jesus as your Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10, 9 and 10. If you confess with your mouth what you believe in your heart, Jesus Christ, the Lord God raised from the dead, you will be saved. How many of you here have made that confession tonight? If you've not, you need to make that confession this evening. Because today is the day of salvation. If we're all saved here tonight, awesome, wonderful. Let's go out and spread that good news to others though. Because the clock is ticking on this dying world. You know that? The time is short. The time is short. The return of Jesus is near. His coming is near. We need to get the good news out. But he is the high priest of our confession. I haven't confessed anybody else to be my savior. I haven't confessed Mohammed. I haven't confessed Buddha. I haven't confessed Confucius. I haven't confessed Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite or the Heaven's Gate cult. We just had the anniversary of that, right? 30 some people took their lives in suicide following some wacko who's putting his faith in the Hail Bob comet to come along. We're going to catch a ride if you just trust in me. I know the way. We catch a comet ride. We're on our way to Nirvana. I can guarantee you they're not in Nirvana right now. They're in eternal damnation right now. That's a scary thing. You put your trust in folks. How do you know they're the real deal? We know Jesus Christ is the real deal. One thing ultimately primarily, and that's his resurrection from the dead, right? Otherwise, or as the saying goes, liar, lunatic, or Lord. Jesus is one of the three. Josh McDowell wrote in his little book, right? More than a carpenter. Liar, lunatic, or Lord. And he proved he was the Lord when he rose from the dead. Otherwise, where is Mohammed today? Where is Confucius? Where is Buddha? Where are these guys? They're dead. Jesus Christ is alive. Matter of fact, he showed himself to over 500 people at one time. You know, in a court of law, the more witnesses you bring in, the greater case you have, don't you? And Jesus Christ appeared to the apostles. He appeared to the women at the tomb. He appeared to them in the upper room. He appeared again to over 500 people at one time. And appeared to even Paul as an apostle born out, the least of all the apostles born out of due time, right? So he made the statement that he is. He's alive and well, and they watched him ascend into heaven. That's our wonderful Lord. And that ties into verse two. Which says of Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him as Moses also was faithful in all of his house. The sun was faithful. Remember that. If you remember anything tonight, just remember that. The sun was faithful. Faithful to what? Faithful to the task. Faithful to the commission that God, the father, had given and appointed him to do. You know, they didn't have some board meeting up in heaven. And Jesus said, well, I'll think about it, father. And I'll get back to you when my schedule permits. We'll chat a little bit later about it. They didn't do that. He didn't shrink back, did he? From leaving the glories of heaven. Now, if it was you or me and we saw the alternative, OK, perfect heaven, sinful, rotten, wretched, wicked earth. I wonder which one I'll choose. I think I'll stay here in heaven. It's a bit more comfortable here. Jesus Christ did not shrink back from leaving the glories of heaven. The glory he had with the father, the fellowship he had with the father from all eternity, from eternity past. That's a long way, isn't it? Can you think back to eternity past? That's how long they had been having fellowship together in heaven. The Godhead, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Perfect fellowship. No need for us. Why did they even create us? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, right? Elohim, the word in Hebrew, the plurality within the Godhead. Yes, the word Trinity is not used in the Bible. Let me tell you, it's implied from Genesis 1 to the end of Revelation. We are Trinitarian in our beliefs. Many churches are not. But there they were in heaven. They came up with this incredible plan of salvation. Let's create man in our image. Yes, man will fall. We will save fallen man. We'll show them how. And Jesus left the glories of heaven. And he came to this earth. He didn't run from the task appointed him. Jesus didn't complain. He didn't gripe about the work given him to do. To leave the comforts of heaven to come to this messed up planet as a man and then die for our sins. He was faithful. He didn't fight with the father. He didn't argue with the father. But he humbly, willingly, joyfully came to give us a chance to be saved through him. Philippians 2-7. You're familiar with that verse says that Jesus made himself of no reputation. Right? Made himself of no reputation. Not like some religious leaders today who seems that they live to make for themselves a reputation. You know, to be honest, folks, I don't care to have a reputation. I just want to be known that I was a lover of God and a liver for God. I live for God. I don't want a name on my door. I don't want a name on the pulpit. I don't want my own parking space that says Pastor Mark in the parking lot. Like the church that Pat and I came from had. We don't want any of that. We don't want any reputation. Jesus made himself of no reputation. It says taking the form of a bondservant. So instead of reputation, what do you choose? Be a bondservant. Be a slave. Be the servant of all. That's what being, that's true greatness, by the way. That's true greatness. Was your ability to lay down your life for others. That's what I want to be known for. That's what I want on my gravestone, on my tombstone. That Mark loved his God and loved his family and loved this fallen world. And P.S., God gets all the glory. Because without him, I couldn't have had that epitaph on my tombstone. And that's going to happen, folks. The day's going to come when we're going to say goodbye to this world. What impact are you going to leave here? Jesus, it says, turned the world upside down in the matter of three and a half years. You know that? And his apostles. Twelve men. One man gave his life, poured his life into twelve, and they in turn turned the world upside down. Don't you think we could do that with six or seven hundred adults here at Calvary Chapel Escondido? Couldn't we turn this town upside down for Christ? We could. And we can. And we will. By his grace. Jesus made himself of no reputation, took the form of a bondservant, and coming, he came in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. That's incredible. That he would become like one of us and then be crucified. And if you saw the movie The Passion, the term crucifixion, I don't know about you, has brought new depth of meaning to me. I don't think I could have took more than another two minutes of watching that movie. It was so brutalizing that every lash, every nail, every hit was hurting me. Because I realized he was doing it for me. He was taking the punishment that I deserved. And I didn't think I could handle much more of that. What love? I deserve that. I'm the criminal. I'm the one who sinned. I'm the one who failed God. I'm the one who walked away from the Lord. I should, I deserve all that punishment. Jesus took it all for me and took it all for you. If that doesn't cause you to fall more in love with him, I don't really think anything will, folks. That's why, again, I love reading the gospels, because it just brings out what God, the depths God went to for you and I. Hebrews 12, 2 says, looking unto Jesus, the author, the finisher, the originator, the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. So even though Jesus was despised and rejected by men, he didn't turn his back on us. Did he? He didn't turn his back on us, but he turned his back to his oppressors, didn't he? You see, instead of turning his back on us, he turned it the other way to those who were his enemies. Even though Jesus cried out in the garden of Gethsemane, remember the story? If it be possible, Lord, let this cup pass from me. The cup of what? The cup of suffering that he was about to go through. The wrath of God that was being stored up for you and I. The rejection of God. The wrath of God. The punitive part of God's wrath came upon his only son, for you and for me. If it be possible, Lord, let this cup pass from me. But then nevertheless, he said, what did he say? Not my will, but your will be done. Humanly speaking, Jesus Christ saw the agony that was coming. Humanly speaking, he didn't want to go through that. But he said, nevertheless, Lord, your will be done. I will take the stripes. I'll take the 39 lashes, 40 lashes minus one for them. I'll take the nails. And ultimately, he'd suffocate for us on that cross. That's what crucifixion is. You die by suffocation. You cannot breathe. I play in the men's basketball league here at the church. It's a dangerous thing to do. Most of you may not know this, but I literally almost died a few years ago playing basketball. And maybe this is wrong to compare myself with what Jesus went through here. But I got a small taste of that because I took a charge. You know what a charge is? It's when you stand there like a brick wall and invite the man to run through you. Not too smart. But that's what I did. And on this elevation of his dribble, his knee caught my hip just perfectly. The bone in my hip. And it drove up into my rib cage. And broke three ribs and bruised my liver. Now at that point, I thought I was just slightly injured. You know, I'm a macho man. You know how guys are with that. And ego and all that thing. I'm okay. I'm okay. And I got up and I continued to play in the game. And I went actually a whole week. And it was throbbing and hurting. But I thought I just had bruised my ribs. Well, I played again eight days later. Or a week later. And in that game, I felt some more pain. Intensified pain. And I was sitting out here the following day on the eighth day. And Pastor Pat walked by me and he says, Mark, you look terrible. And I said, thank you, Pat. And we have a great relationship. We can say these things to one another. And he says, I think you need to go see a doctor. Have you been to see a doctor? No, Pat. Shame on you. So I went to the doctor. And got an x-ray. And sure enough, the doctor looks at me and says, what do you think you're doing, young man? You have a couple of broken ribs. And you need to go home and lay down. And so I did that. And the following day was my day off Thursday. So this is about nine days after the initial impact. And I was in my kitchen at the sink. My wife was just about to leave. My kids were off to school. Thank the Lord she was still there. And I went to move a dish. And when I went to move the dish, I heard another crack. And another one of my ribs that was hanging there broke. And that was the third rib that broke. And it pushed up against my lung. And I immediately went into shock. I turned white as a ghost and began to tremble and shake. And I walked over to my wife very gingerly, of course. And I said, Bronwyn, I think I've injured myself. And I think I need to go to the hospital. And she looked at me kind of strange. She goes, are you sure? I said, yeah, I think I'm in trouble. And I said, let's go get in the car. And I tried to walk to the car. And I could not make it to the car. And I collapsed on my couch and began to hyperventilate because my lung was collapsing. And I thought I was going to die. And I had her call 911. And they were out within five minutes, three or four paramedics looking me over. And they were talking about giving me a tracheotomy and slicing my neck open so I could breathe. I'm going, great, I'm going to die in my living room. And right in front of my wife and these fine gentlemen. And this is not the way I want to go out, Lord. But I have never experienced so much pain in my life. I have broken bones. I have been in car accidents. I tell you, I thought I could not breathe. Have you ever been in that point where you can't breathe? It's a very frightening thing. Now, that was nothing compared to what Jesus Christ went through. Comparing my agony and pain to his was nothing. But I got a little bit of a taste of the sufferings of Christ. The Bible says, you know, that we are partakers of his sufferings. That's not a favorite verse for a lot of the faith teachers within our community today. But nevertheless, it's true. You know, it even says that Jesus learned obedience through the things that he suffered. That's a hard one to grasp, isn't it? He learned obedience through the things that he suffered. He learned to depend on his father more than he ever had before while here on earth. And let me tell you, I was depending on God a lot that day. When they got me to the hospital, they gave me a CAT scan. The doctor walked in, shaking his head. He says, Mr. Turner, you are a very lucky man. And I went. I had nothing to do with luck, sir. Thank you. God loves you. He says, you have three broken ribs and your liver is bruised. The liver almost hurt more than anything. So my lung did not puncture. It did not collapse. It came close. But all these things were going on. And it took me quite a number of months to heal. And the Lord taught me some wonderful lessons of humility during that time. And keep praying for me because I'm still playing basketball. But the Lord, the Lord is, the Son was faithful. Even more than Moses was faithful. The Son was faithful. The Son is faithful. Jesus has been faithful to forgive us. Jesus has been faithful to walk with us. Faithful to talk with us. Faithful to love us. Faithful to listen to us. Faithful to live in us. Faithful to never leave us. us and to never forsake us. You know, it says that in Hebrews 13, five, he will never leave us and never forsake us. That's faithfulness, isn't it? I love that word never, because it means just that never, what don't we understand about never? The minute you doubt him, the second you doubt him, just remember Hebrews 13, five, he will never, ever, ever leave you or forsake you. You may feel forsaken. You may feel forgotten. The children of Israel felt that way in the wilderness, so we're not going to get into tonight. Pastor Pat and Joyce may be feeling that this evening after getting the news today that percentage wise, you know, the percentages, the odds aren't real good that are that are 90 percent that she will get another tumor. That's the news that came out today for Pat and Joyce. They're walking through the wilderness. Their faith is being put to the test. And but the Bible says, count it all joy, embrace your trials as friends, because the trying of our faith produces what? Patience and endurance, and that's what he's trying to produce in their lives right now. I don't understand why I'm not going to try to explain why. I don't know why, but God's taking him to the valley right now. I love Psalm 23, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil for you are with me and your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Isn't that encouraging? When David is being pursued by his enemies, those who wanted to kill him, wanted to murder him, put him out, put him, take him out. He said, Yea, though I walk through the valley, I see shadows of death all around me. I will fear no evil. You're with me. And God is with Pat and Joyce right now. Like the footprints poem, right? The darkest hour of their life. They see what they look back and see what set of footprints, whose footprints are those folks, the Lord's Jesus, he's faithful to carry them through this time. So many scriptures in the Bible say, fear not. I encourage you to do a word study on that phrase, fear not. That's the that's what we're praying for Pat and Joyce tonight. Fear not, Pat and Joyce. God is with you. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. Moses was faithful in all of his house, he was faithful to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, faithful to love them, faithful to lead them. But Jesus was greater than Moses in all of that. Wasn't he? Don't look to men, look to God. Tonight. I love Psalm 118, eight, you know, well, I gave it away. The very middle verse of your Bible, this is a fun fact, biblical fun fact to know. Psalm 118, eight, the very center of your Bible. Says it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. It's better, Jesus is better, that was the theme tonight, wasn't it? Christ is better. That's what we started off with, Christ is better. I love Hebrews 13, eight as well, says Jesus Christ, the same yesterday. The same today and the same forever. That means if he was faithful yesterday, he'll be just as faithful today and just as faithful tomorrow. If he is just as loving yesterday, kind and forgiving, then he will be today and he will be tomorrow. He never changes. That's called the doctrine of immutability. God is immutable, right? God never changing. Isn't that something to put, isn't that a rock? Isn't that a refuge for us to put our trust in? You see, that's what God is designing for us, folks. No matter what he brings our way, and he's going to bring joy and suffering our way, you may as well accept it. You can't get around it. I try to get away from it as much as I can, and God still nails me with adversity. It's going to come. The question is, how are you going to handle it when it comes? You know, trust in the Lord, trust in princes, trust in men, trust in intellect, trust in programs, trust in political heroes, military heroes, social heroes, cultural heroes. Israel did that. Oh, we have Abraham, you know, to look to. We got Moses. We got David. We got Solomon. Oh, we got all these guys that were really non-Gods. I said, hold on, wait a minute here. You need to trust in me because I'm standing in your midst now. You need to depend on me fully, solely, wholly for your salvation. Okay, we got through four pages of nine pages of notes. Let me close with something from the Daily Bread that was from March the 4th. Happy adversity with question mark, happy adversity, it's kind of like a oxymoron paradox. James 1.12 is the verse, count all joy when you fall into various trials. On the back of a wedding anniversary card were some wiggly lines drawn by our three-year-old grandson. Alongside was a note from our daughter explaining that Trevor told her what he had written. He wrote, I'm writing a letter for your love and happy adversity. Trevor's mistake, quote unquote mistake, has become our watchword because happy adversity embodies the biblical principle of facing difficulties with joy. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. From our perspective, adversity is anything but happy. We have the idea that the Christian life is supposed to be trouble-free and we see little value in hardship, but God sees it differently. J.B. Phillips' translation of James 1.2 and 3 reads, when all kind of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends. Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. Hebrews 3.6, but Christ has a son over his own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope, firm to the end. That's the proof of our salvation, you know that? Evidence that you're a Christian is perseverance and endurance in the midst of hard times. Affliction does not come as a thief to steal our happiness, but as a friend bringing the gift of staying power. Through it all, God promised us his wisdom and strength, so don't be offended if I wish you happy adversity today. Life's burdens are designed not to break us, but to bend us to God. Let me say that again in closing. Life's burdens are designed not to break us, but to bend us toward God. Unfortunately, children of Israel got all bent out of shape. They wouldn't bend toward God, they wanted to go back to Egypt when the trials came. Although God led them with a pillar, a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. Although he rained down manna from heaven. Although he gave them meat to eat, water from the rock, their shoes did not wear out for 40 years. They murmured and griped and complained, and wanted to go back to Egypt because they didn't want to be in the wilderness. Didn't want to learn the lessons God had for them, and that generation all died in the wilderness. They did not enter into God's rest, which meant the promised land, the land of promise that God had for them. Even Moses didn't, because he took some of the of God's glory for his own when he struck the rock. And what was it, Mount Horeb that he that he died on? No, thank you Nebo. He got to see it, but he didn't get to go in, didn't enter into God's rest. And tonight, there is a rest for the people of God. There's a rest for you tonight. That rest is utter dependence upon the Lord. Who are you depending on today? Yourself or the Lord? Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Lean out upon your own understanding, and all of your ways of knowledge, and he'll direct your paths. Trust it. Without faith, the Bible says it's impossible to please God. You want to be a God pleaser? Walk by faith, not by, we walked by faith as we sang this past weekend. I love that song. It's true. Are you walking by faith tonight? Are you trusting in, relying upon, and clinging wholly, fully to the Lord? Like if you were out in an ocean drowning and going down, and somebody came by and thought life was over to you. What would you do with it? If you grabbed it and held on for dear life, then you're, that's faith. You're trusting in something to hold you up, to keep you from going under, to rescue you. Christ is that life preserver. He can carry you through every storm. And again, I lived on Guam for many years, and went through many typhoons. In the middle, every single one of them, the outer destructive winds come and pound, and they pound, and they pound, and they pound some more for three or four days. Knock out your power for a week, and so forth and so on. But when that eye passes over, every storm has a, has an eye in it. Right? There's perfect calm, and it's how, that's, that's weird. But it's such a good example. It's a good spiritual principle there. The storms are going to come. Jesus Christ is the calm in the eye of the storm. No matter what you're going through tonight, no matter what it is, He'll give you the faith to get through it, if you lean on Him, rest in Him. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the time we could gather tonight, and I just pray that there's been some words of encouragement, and comfort, and exhortation here for all of us, including myself. Lord, we, we love you with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Now help us to love one another, love our neighbor as ourself. Help us to put into practice, Lord, what we're hearing. And Lord, if we're in the wilderness tonight, Lord, we know there's a place of rest for us. We, we, just help us to implicitly trust you, God, that you know what you're doing, even though we don't understand, Lord. We're frail, we're fragile, we're but dust, Lord, we're clay pots. We don't, we cry out to you, Lord. We hold on to your scripture, which says that the trial of our faith be much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried by fire, might be found to praise, and honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. So Lord, turn up the heat, if that's what it's going to take. Burn away all the dross. Burn away all the, all the self-dependence, all the self-effort in our life, everything of self, Lord, burn it away. That we'd be totally, fully, utterly dependent upon you, that we could enter into that place of rest tonight, Lord. There is a rest for the people of God. You're the Prince of Peace, Jesus. We love you. It's in your name. We pray, amen.