And you need to know that this is a place— yeah, we have what, our agenda or whatever, we have our plan for what we're doing, but this is a place where you can bring all that stuff to God. And I know we just had our time of prayer. I'm gonna plan a little time of prayer at the end after I speak. Maybe I won't talk so long. Some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking, "Yeah, right." Do we need to meet with God today?

No, I mean, like, do you have a need today for God? There's so many that are carrying so much right now.

Jesus told us some things. He said, "I'll never leave you or forsake you." He said, "There will never be a day that you have to walk alone. There will never be a day that you have to shoulder that burden and carry it, because I'll carry it for you." In the word today, we're going to be looking at some things that Jesus said to his disciples, those closest to him. It'll be in John chapter 14, but it's a time where Jesus was having a meal with them. We call it the Last Supper, the, the last meal that he shared with his disciples before his crucifixion.

And in that time, he shared deeply with them about what was going to happen, but he shared about his love for them, his commitment to them, and what that meant for for their, their right now and for their eternal future. But I feel like in this moment we're carrying some things. Maybe some of you are doing just great, then you need to be spending some time in prayer, maybe even as I'm preaching, for those that are carrying a burden, because I know that there are many today that carry a heavy burden. Things in the past, things in the right now that are going on, things that are ongoing, things that maybe they haven't even addressed but is welling up within them. And there's just a need for us to draw close to God right now.

Those of you who are in a strong place spiritually, emotionally, mentally, I ask that you would spend some time right now praying for those who are going through it.

Feel that that is going on in our church and in our community.

We're entering in our sermon series that we've been going through, we're entering the final unit of that series. We've looked at a lot of things, looking at how all of Scripture is pointing us to Jesus Christ.

And while that's been, for me, it's been a great experience, I hope it has for you, kind of seeing some of those things that are pointing us to Christ. I want you to know that that's not just ethereal, that's not just out there, it's not just some concept, that it's real for us. That Jesus Christ, that everything in our lives should point to him because our life flows from him. I'm going to cut to the chase a little bit. At the end of the verses we're going to read in a moment, Jesus says, to his disciples, he says of himself, he says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to God the Father except through me." I gotta tell you, I've been learning a lot. I've confessed to you maybe, and some of you haven't heard this, and I'm gonna say it again, I've been learning a lot in the last year or so, maybe year and a half, about who God is as Father. Like, my father is here, Pastor Kendall, he's a good dad, he's a good father, he still is a good father to me. And while I have that experience, And it's not all of you do. Some of you had fathers that weren't there.

Some of you had fathers that you wish weren't there because of the things they did when they were there. I want you to know that God's not like any of them. He's our loving Heavenly Father who would do anything for you to bring you into a good relationship with Him. And not only that, He's not just sitting there somewhere up above, well, people say like the big man upstairs or something like that.

Like that, or they won't even reference him, and they'll just, they'll just think of God as the, the long white-bearded judge of all humanity. And yes, he is the judge of humanity, but it's not in the ways sometimes that we think and talk about. See, what he's judging is our hearts, and do we seek after God, and are we, are we longing for more of him? Because he, he literally created us to be in a good relationship with him. It was when sin entered into the world because of the choices of Adam and Eve.

They decided, you know what, we want to be like God We don't need Him. We can be God. And we're going to eat this fruit. They believed the lies of Satan. They ate of that fruit, and they said, "Okay, cool.

We've got it all figured out now." And the thing is, they didn't. They didn't understand it at all. It's what happens when you believe a lie and when you live a lie, is you find out that everything then has to be built upon that lie. But the truth is that Jesus came to reveal is that the Father in Heaven loves you. He said, "You've even got fathers on this earth that aren't good, and they still do good things for their kids.

How much more so will your Heavenly Father bless you?" He will give you his Holy Spirit, the presence of God with you here on this earth. He will give you his Holy Spirit if you ask him. He loves you. Jesus said there are birds, there are sparrows. He says these birds, they don't have like, they don't have budgets and spreadsheets.

They don't have to account for anything. They don't have to have a plan for where's my next meal or what am I gonna do tomorrow or how am I gonna pay my bills or any of that stuff. He says they just, They just simply live because your Father in heaven knows about them and he knows what they need. He said, you look at a field like a meadow full of beautiful flowers. He says, even King Solomon, as beautiful as he was, the, the greatest king that Israel ever knew, the most wealthy, the most wisdom-filled, knowledgeable man.

He says even Solomon didn't look nearly as beautiful as a field of wildflowers. He says, even the hairs on your head— God knows how many you have— not even one hair falls out. Or for some of us, I'm getting to that point where they're getting thinner, like 100 fall out, you know. Some of you, it's thousands, millions, I don't know. Even the smallest of things, that, that the hair that falls out of our head, he's aware of that.

He knows that. He knows you that well, and he loves you that much that he cares about you. In all of those moments.

The love of Christ brought him to this moment in John chapter 14 where he's at this meal with his disciples. In that moment he's eating this meal with his disciples, he says to them, he says, "I've eagerly wanted to share this meal with you. This has been my desire for a long time leading up to this moment." And I don't believe he is speaking only of that moment. He was saying of the things that would would immediately happen after that, that he would be betrayed by one of his disciples. One of the men that was closest to him in his inner circle would betray him, would sell him out for the price of a slave, 30 pieces of silver.

Yeah, they had slaves back then. That's how much a slave was worth. They were all worth the same, you know, 30 pieces of silver. And for that price, Judas sold out Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, because of whatever it was Judas had going on. He didn't think Jesus was doing it right.

Who knows what his motivations were, but he says, "I'll sell Him to you. I'll betray Him." And so he does that.

But Jesus would go from there. He would get arrested. He would get beaten. He would eventually be sentenced by what we might call an illegal court trial, and He would get sentenced to death. He would get beaten, flogged, a crown of thorns driven into His skull.

He would get spit on. He would get mocked until they were literally tired of mocking Him. They mocked Him, our Savior Jesus Christ, they mocked Him so much that they just said, "Ah, I don't even feel like doing this anymore." Like they just did it until they were tired of it. And He willingly endured that because He knew what He was doing. He knew what He was acquiring, what He was purchasing, what He was achieving with that.

He was creating a people for himself. He was redeeming his people, and you are invited to be part of that redeemed body of believers in Jesus Christ. You see, his offer for salvation is for everyone. It's not just for Jewish people. It's not just for Gentile people.

It's not just for men or women or people that grew up in church or people that had a good mom and dad or people that were abandoned or orphaned or any of that. It doesn't matter what it is. He He bought everyone who will receive Him. So He's sharing this— yes, amen. He's sharing this meal with His disciples.

He says, "I've eagerly anticipated this moment." And so He talks to them. He talks to them about the future. He talks to them about what's going to immediately happen. He talks to them what's going to happen in the longer-range future. He talks about how He will die, He'll rise again.

He talks about how He will ascend into heaven. And even as those things were happening, they're like, I didn't know this was happening. He's like, I literally said it. Like, I couldn't have said it any more clearly. You just weren't listening.

And then he says, after I go into heaven, he says, you'll be sad that I'm gone, but I need to go away because if I don't go away, I can't send the Holy Spirit to you. But if I go away, I will send you my Spirit who can be with you at all times in all places. You can never have to be alone. He says, I will be with you through the presence of the Spirit of God. Let me read this Scripture to you, with you.

John 14, first 6 verses. It's such a beautiful chapter, but I'm going to just read those. Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be distressed." Ha! It's easy to say, isn't it? Are you feeling that today?

Oh Lord, I don't want to have stress. I don't want to be distressed. I don't want to be in a state of being overly weighed down by burdens and stress. And yet Jesus just says, "Don't let your hearts be distressed." Oh, okay. I'll try.

"You believe in God; believe also in Me. There are many dwelling places in My Father's house; otherwise I would have told you." Because I'm going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to be with me so that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way where I am going. Thomas said, Lord, we don't know where you are going.

How can we know the way? Jesus replied, I am the way, the truth, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus tells them not to let their hearts be troubled, don't be distressed.

And I think as human beings we wonder, like, how do we even combat that? How do we get away from that? Like, life is stressful.

I mean, you might be in a season right now where you're doing fine, you don't have too many stresses or cares or worries. I'm thankful for that for you. It doesn't tend to last very long, it seems. Just as a human being, no matter what your, your status in life is, no matter what your position in life is, there will be something that comes along that threatens this, this status quo equilibrium of everything going fine, and you'll find yourself having some kind of stress in your life, some type of thing that weighs you down and burdens you down. And yet Jesus says to us, as a human being himself, "Don't be distressed." Like, what is it about us that tends to dwell within those stressful moments so much?

We tend to almost seek them out, even though we say, "No, I don't want this. I don't like this." We tend to seek it out and say, "No, I'm gonna add so much to the point." that I'm at a breaking point, and that'll be like my thermometer of when I need to back off the gas, or am I just talking about me? Maybe it's just me. And Jesus says then, he says, "Don't let your hearts be troubled." Oh, there's a lot of things that weigh our hearts down. There's a lot of things that cause trouble in our hearts where we just say, "I don't know if I can take another step." And so many times those things are things maybe that we've created, but maybe it's just something that's a situation around us that's out of our control., and it troubles our hearts to the point that we feel like— like I asked a question one time, I'm like, "Is this why people go to the hospital?" You know, like, "No, that's just the trouble in my heart.

That's just the stress of what I'm going through. That's the anxiety." And Jesus says this, and what is his antidote for that? Because he doesn't say like, you know, maybe say no to some people here and there, maybe turn down a few opportunities to be part of something, to, you know, clear out your calendar space a little bit. I get excited when I look at my calendar and have what I call a white space day. You know, it's just white.

There's no notifications on it of something that I scheduled that day that I have to do. Also, those days worry me, especially if it's on a Monday, because it never ends up being a white space day by the end of the day. People will call, people will text, there will be something that pops up, something that I remember that just needs to be done, and it ends up being one of the busiest days ever. And here we are, we're looking at this, and we see Jesus saying— here's the antidote though— He says, "Believe in the Father." Now Jesus, He has revealed God to us as Father. That hadn't been done so much throughout Scripture.

There's a few places in the Old Testament where He is called the Father, usually the Father of Israel, the Father of the Jewish nation. They thought of Him as their Father to the group of people. But on a personal level, people, as far as I can tell, weren't always thinking or writing, at least in the scriptures, writing of God as their personal Heavenly Father. And Jesus reveals God that way. He calls Him Father Himself.

He is the Son of God. He's the second— Jesus is the second member of the Trinity. He's equal to God. There's the Holy Spirit. There's three of them: God the Father, Son, and Spirit.

There are three distinct persons, but one Godhead. It's, uh, It's a thing that is— there's a lot to study in what the Trinity is, and so I'm not going to focus so much on that today, but Jesus reveals that God is his Father. He yields himself to God as Father. He trusts in his Father the same way a child might say, "Yes, Daddy," and they do what their parent says, at least when they're doing it the right way. Sometimes kids just kind of want to do their own thing, but when they're listening to their father, they'll say, "Yes, Dad." and they do what he says.

Jesus yielded himself to his Father's will, his Father's plan, his Father's desires. He yielded himself to his Father and did what his Father in heaven sent him to do and told him to do. He would spend time with his Father. He would, he would spend time when others were asleep. He would stay up purposefully at night.

He would go into wilderness places where there weren't other people around, where there wasn't something to be done, where there wasn't a task list to be accomplished or checked off, and he would go into a place where there specifically wasn't anything except the opportunity for him to have a conversation with his Father in heaven. Jesus, the second member of the Trinity, God, fully God, fully human, still had to have a connection with his heavenly Father. And he spoke to his Father, and his Father spoke to him. And he would speak to him, and he would show him what to do and what was the next step and how to live, but more importantly, he maintained that connection with the Father above all else. That was what was so important.

Important. So Jesus says to us, he says that God is our Father. When the disciples asked him how to pray, teach us to pray like John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray, he says, "Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name." He relates to God as Father and teaches us to do the same. Our hearts cry out for a good Heavenly Father. We don't just want, like, what people mock Christians for believing, they are your cosmic sky daddy or something like that, is foolishness that people say usually online and dumb comments and forums, and you should just ignore them because I think they're just jealous.

They're jealous that we can believe in something that we can't see and yet we know intimately exists. We believe in something that we can't touch or feel and yet we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he's real. And so they can't understand that themselves, and yet here we are and we're saying, "Our Father in heaven, we know you're there, we know you exist, we know that you love us, and yet even when I don't totally feel that in the moment, I need that right now. And so would you give us today the daily needs that I have? I'm not trying to stack up blessings on top of blessings for here to eternity.

I just need today what I need for today, Lord, and I'll talk to you about tomorrow's needs tomorrow, okay?" And in that way, we're maintaining that connection with him. Jesus taught us to do that. And as we meet with him, as we connect with the Father, Jesus said to the disciples, especially to Philip that was talking to him, you know, he's like, he's asking about the way to the Father and all that, and so Jesus is addressing these things, but he's saying like, "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Here's how you avoid that. You believe in the Father.

You believe in God." He says, "Now believe in me." Well, obviously they believed in Jesus, right? He's literally right there with them. It's hard to you know, to ignore that. But what does He mean by that? Believe that He has come to atone for their sins.

Believe that He isn't just one of them as far as, like, just another human being, that He is greater than them, that He has come from the Heavenly Father on a mission of salvation, on a mission to restore humanity for that which was lost. And so Jesus, He says, "You believe in the Father, now believe in Me as well." It's like, "Believe in me when I go away. Believe in me when I get arrested. Believe in me when they're beating me to a bloody pulp. Believe in me when I'm hanging on the cross and you don't fully understand what it is.

Believe in me when I'm dead for 3 days. Believe in me when the women that came to the tomb say that I've risen again. Believe in me when I tell you that I'm ascending to the Father into heaven and that I will one day return. Believe in me when I send the Holy Spirit to you on Pentecost, that I have gone to the right hand of the Father and I've sat there and I've sent the Holy Spirit to minister to you." Believe in me is the antidote for our anxieties. But Jesus says something else.

He said that he's going where? Where is he going? Does he say? To his— Father's house. Man, you're quiet.

Say it louder. Where? Father's house. Father's house. Why is that so important?

Maybe you had your sermon series companion guide and you read ahead Maybe you actually saw there was a website that was on there, and it's really annoying because it's hard to click on it when it's on paper, and you want it to open up on your computer screen, and you don't want to type all that stuff. It's okay. It'll come out this week in the text message devotionals we send out, which, by the way, if you aren't on our text message list, if you would like to receive a daily devotional that is prepared for you every day based on the Sunday sermon, there's a little connection card that is in the rack in front of you. Make sure you put your name and phone number on there. And we will add you to that list.

And if you haven't been getting them and you wish that you had, then also fill one of those out and say, "Seriously, what's happening?" And it might just be that you got tired of getting too many texts before and you blocked it, because I know a bunch of you have, and that's fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings at all. It's just here to help you, you know? It's just here to help you. It doesn't matter to me.

We know who you are. Mm. There is a list.

Um, I don't remember where I was at. It's fine. Oh yeah, so he says, uh, he says he's going to his father's house. His father's house. So he's going there, and as he heads to the father's house, he says, in my father's house there are many— what?

Oh, you guys don't read the same translation, do you? I heard some of you old schoolers that said mansions. You like those, you know, "Just Over That Hilltop" or whatever, all those songs, you know? You love those songs. You love the Southern Gospel group talking about them, "Got a mansion over the hilltop," you know, and all that.

We sang, did we just sing "When We All Get to Heaven"? Yeah, we sang that. I was thinking like, was that just in my head or did we actually sing it?

You Mansions people are fun. I love it. Have you heard like somebody tell you like they calculated the size of heaven because it talks about it being 1,500 miles this way, and 1,500 miles this way, and 1,500 miles that way. It's a big tall city wide, and it's a cube. I don't know.

And then they divide up how many people they think have actually been alive over all of human history. How many of those that they think have been actual Christians that have been saved by the blood of Jesus, so therefore how many people are going to heaven. They divide it up, and they've told you exactly how many cubic feet your mansion will be. Have you ever had one of those people do that? I've heard it.

I forget what they said it was, but it was humongous and way more than I need. Well, because I'll be a single guy in there. They said, "You're neither married nor given in marriage in heaven." So as a single guy, I don't need that much space, you know? You didn't think about that, did you? You'll be single in heaven.

Not dating, not looking, just single. We will actually be more united, more close, more intimate than anything you've ever experienced on this earth. The intimacy that you will experience both with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and with all other people who are also in heaven, you will have more intimacy than you ever could have dreamed here on this earth.

Some of you said dwelling places. In my Father's house, there are many dwelling places. Other acceptable words would be there are many tents. You ever think about your heavenly tent?

Tabernacles is another word sometimes. Your heavenly tabernacle. Interesting. You see, we like mansions. It sounds great.

I want a mansion. I haven't had one here, so why not have one in heaven? Sounds good. Okay.

I was told not to I used to cover my mouth when I taught.

So Jesus says, "In my Father's house there's many—" I go with dwelling places, and here's why. There's this little picture. I didn't put one on the screen. There's this little picture if you have one of these sermon guides. If you don't, there's a basket back there that we put like offerings and connection cards in, and there's some of these sitting under it, and you're welcome to grab one.

They're free and they're available to you. And we're on page 103 today. Anyway, there's a little picture of this little stone wall. Might be stone, might not be. I don't know what they use, but there's a stone wall and then there's a kind of a building and then there's a little bit added on to it.

Around here, there's a lot of mobile homes and there's hardly ever a mobile home that hasn't been added on to, right? It starts with like, well, we need a laundry room. So you build a little tiny, you know, aluminum structure on it and put washer and dryer in there. Then you're like, you know, we could add on to that, make a little porch with a roof over, just a carport kind of thing. And then you're like, you know what would be nice is to put some screens on this so we can enjoy it.

And then you go enjoy it and you realize, well, it gets awfully hot under this thing. And throughout the summer, I don't sit in it at all. What if we put some actual windows on it and closed it and then put an air conditioner in it and then we can enjoy it all year long, you know? And now your house is twice the size that it used to be. It's great.

It's a real simple and affordable way to add on to homes in Florida. And then sometimes you might find, if you're not in a 55 and up park, you find one of your kids or relatives is like, "I need a place to stay." And so then they move in and then they're living with you there and all that stuff. And you're like, "Ah, it was so much simpler when I just had the single wide with the laundry room." You know, but anyway, that's the closest example I can come up with in our life, in our part of the world, to what it was like when a young man in the time of Jesus decided it was time to go get married. Actually, his father would help him decide when it was time to get married. And his father would go and make a deal with another family, probably in a different town, you know, because all the girls in your hometown, like, they already know how much of an idiot you are, so he's got to go to another one to find a wife.

Got to go to another one to find a wife. And so he goes and he goes to find a wife, and the father would go find a wife for his son, and he would make a deal with this girl's dad, and yes, they would purchase her in a way of talking. Now we might think, oh, well, that's not cool. Why are we talking about buying girls to be a wife? Well, actually, in other cultures like non-Jewish society, they would just go say, you, you and me.

They would go sleep with her. He's like, we're married now. That's it. That was the marriage. So this is actually like elevating women.

It's putting value on them, saying you provide value in your father's household, and if you leave that to go marry my son, I'm gonna have the value of having you in my household, and I have to compensate your dad for that. It was actually valuing women in a way. Now we think that's ridiculous. Oh, okay, cool. So what we do instead is we just, guys, you're like, oh, you got to go buy her a diamond ring that's worth like 3 of your month's salary.

And when I was going to get engaged, I was like, well, first of all, that's not that much money. But second of all, how am I supposed to live for 3 months? She won't want to be like homeless with me if I lose my house by not paying for that for 3 months. So instead I got just a lot cheaper ring, you know? And guys, I'm telling you, you can always go to the pawn shop and get really good deals on other rings that guys have bought and their relationship failed, you know?

And so somebody sold that and their failure can be your success. So, Pawn Max is a great place to go get upgraded jewelry. I'm saying like there's no shame in it. If you think, "Oh, you got to get a new diamond." Those have been made for a long, long time in the ground, you know, and some kid had to dig it out of there and then it came over here and now all of a sudden it's worth money because somebody polished it. Okay, I'll get off my high horse.

Anyway, we think that our way of doing it is so much better and more enlightened than the way they did it. But the way they did it was this guy would go, the father would go, he would negotiate for this girl, they would come up with a bride price, they would— the father would pay that to the other father, and then the groom-to-be would leave. He didn't get to— like, they didn't see each other for a while. They might not even know each other that well. Now we think, "Oh, that's terrible.

How is that going to work?" It worked out pretty well. The fathers actually looked for somebody that was going to be very compatible, that the family values were similar, the upbringing was similar, and they would make it work that way. And then they just actually had a thing called commitment. They were like, "We're getting married and we're staying married." Except for when they did get divorces, and they asked Jesus about that, and He says, "Well, Moses allowed you to get a divorce because your hearts were hard, but God didn't intend it that way." It wasn't God's plan from the get-go. So when we're living according to God's plan, there's a way to do things.

Now for those that have, like all of us, fallen outside of God's plan, if you've fallen outside of His plan, in marriage in that way, there's grace of God, there's forgiveness, there's hope for a new day. So praise God for that. You're not like locked into it, your past things that went wrong, you know. But anyway, the groom and his dad would leave after they kind of made the deal. Now the woman is betrothed.

She would have a gift that was given to her, something like what we do with an engagement ring, but she would have something that would show that she was now betrothed to this man. And betrothal was legally on the same level as marriage in the sense of they don't sleep together yet, but if she goes and sleeps with someone else, or he goes and sleeps with someone else, that is a breach of the marriage contract. They actually could get a divorce then. They couldn't just say, "Well, it's off," and she throws the ring at him or whatever. Like, no, they actually have to go through the legal proceeding of getting a divorce.

But the son would go back to his father's house and he would start building. Yeah, ladies, you get married and you move in to your in-laws. Doesn't that sound fantastic? Go move in your in-laws' house. But don't worry, like, it was a separate house built on, kind of attached to it.

So you'd have your property, you'd have your place, your ground, and somewhere within that father's household area, inside that fence, they would build another home, sometimes with a thatched roof between them, just kind of a a cool place to hang out in the day. It's one of those such places when Jesus was preaching and they cut a hole through the roof and lowered a guy down through. It was kind of that attached area between two homes on the same property, and I still don't know why they didn't just say, "Excuse me," and bring the guy in. They had to dig through the roof. It's like, now I've got to get a roofer, thanks.

But anyway, I always liked that joke. I guess you guys didn't. It was too fast, I know. I threw it right over your heads. You weren't ready for a joke.

So So they would bring the girl, or they would bring the— sorry, he would build the home, and then what he would do is he would go to where his girl was, to her town, and bring her to be with him. Now when they would do this, it wasn't up to the son to say, "All right, you know what? That's good enough," because he just built the tiniest little shack and he's like, "I got to hurry up and get married," and his dad's like, "Mm-mm, you can't bring her home to that. That is not a home, okay?" That's literally like 4 boards, you know, and a sheet of plywood and some rusty metal. You can't bring her home to that.

She will not like that at all. You got to do better, son. And so the father would say like, he would tell him how to fix it, how to build it, how to make it a home. And meanwhile, while he's doing that, she's at home being ready to be married. She's like learning the last few things like, you know, how to actually, I don't know, cook a roast or something.

I don't know what it is that they had to learn, but she's like learning all the stuff like, All the stuff where she got like a C in sewing, you know, she's like, "No, you gotta bring that up to an A. You're gonna have to like sew some stuff now," or whatever, you know, 'cause they had to sew everything. Anyway, so like she's learning all those last things. She's learning like what does it mean to actually be a wife, not just to be raised by somebody who was a wife, but what does it mean for me to be a wife? And so she's learning all those things.

She's keeping herself pure. She's keeping herself with her desires for her husband. She's saying, "He's providing for me. He's making a home for me. He's gonna bring me to be with him." and I need to be ready to be his wife.

And so what would happen was then the father, at the time when the son had built this new home sufficiently to bring his bride home to, he would say, "Okay, son, go get your bride." He's like, "Yes!" And he goes and he takes some buddies with him and they get this thing called a hoopah. And it's like one of these things you would carry somebody in, like an old school, like carrying a princess or a queen on, you know? It's got like a nice fancy carriage thing on it, but you gotta carry it. Fun fact, Benjamin Franklin actually had one of these when he got older. He had guys that would carry him around in like a chair inside of a cabin thing.

It was really cool. Anyway, he would go, they would show up, they would have torches, lights, lanterns, a horn like a shofar, a ram's horn, and they would show up usually in the middle of the night, blow the horn, they got trumpets, they'd be like, "He's here!" And she's like, "Oh!" Now she had to be in a state of readiness. She had to have her go bag ready, you know what I'm saying? If you don't know what a go bag is, it's like when you're ready for when everything goes wrong in society. You're like, "Okay, let's go," you know?

You got all your supplies in there, and they grab the go bag, and she's ready to go. Her friends that are with her that are going to attend with her to the wedding, her attendants, they have to be ready to go too. If you start looking at some of the parables Jesus tells, you know, the parable of the 10 virgins, the 5 foolish ones and the 5 wise ones, they had plenty of oil with them, to be ready for this moment at any time. They were prepared for that moment. The parable of the wedding banquet where some guy said, "Hey, these guests were invited to my wedding banquet, but they didn't show up." See, they would send out invitations, but it didn't have a save the date.

Nobody knew when the date was. Nobody knew when the father was gonna tell the son to go collect his bride. So they just had to be ready to show up and drop everything to show up to this wedding. And then that guy in that parable says, "Well, if they didn't show up, then go invite other people. Drag people in from the highways and the hedges, whatever it is.

Just bring people here because I want my banquet hall full." So they start bringing people in, but there's one guy, he shows up, but he doesn't wear the wedding clothes that are given to him. He's just kind of wearing his street clothes, and the guy that's in charge of the banquet says, "Hey friend, how'd you get in here? Where's your wedding clothes?" And the guy's speechless, so he kicks him out. And we look at all that and we're like, "What does this have to do with it, Jesus?" Jesus was giving a picture of first-century Jewish engagement, betrothal, and marriage, and He's using those things that they were very familiar with to illustrate what He was doing. Jesus came, and for the bride price that He paid for His bride, He paid with His life.

He didn't give anything of earthly value. He gave something of an eternal spiritual value. He gave of his own life to redeem his bride. He says, "You're worth something to me. You're worth everything to me, and I'm going to die for you." Folks, those of you who are redeemed by the blood of Christ, that are Christians, that are part of the Church of Jesus Christ, you are called the Bride of Christ.

And when Jesus said to his disciples here, he says, "I'm gonna go away from you for a little while." I'm gonna leave. He says, I'm going to— I'm going to my Father's house. He was speaking directly about their wedding ceremony. He says, I'm going to my Father's house and I'm gonna prepare a place for you. I'm building a home on my Father's house that you can be there with me.

And he says, and my Father's house has many mansions. No, it doesn't fit, does it? Many dwelling places, probably. Maybe it's mansions. I don't know.

Maybe it's a tent. Listen, King David said, "I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to live in the palace of a king." Like, we have rubber doorstops these days, you know? He's like, "I'd rather do the job of a little rubber wedge if that's what it takes to be in the house of God." A tent in the house of God for all eternity? It's awesome. It'd be fantastic.

I also bet it doesn't be like 98 degrees feels like 110 up there either, but I don't know. I don't know. This is for you, Tom.

He's like, "It's got to be cold by the time you take that last sip." I'm like, "Yeah, but I usually need that to finish talking. My voice is getting bad." That's my thermometer that says when I need to wrap it up.

So Jesus says, "I'm coming back." Folks, what time are we living in right now? Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He's preparing a place for us. He says, "I will return. I will return, and I will bring my bride-to-be with me." That's fantastic.

That's exciting. That's good news for us. But it also is a call for us, because if we're the betrothed bride of Jesus Christ, then folks, there's something we need to be doing. We need to be keeping ourselves pure and holy, Keeping ourselves devoted to one husband, one person.

The church has been bad at this. We've decided that we like the things of the world sometimes. We've decided that, you know, yeah, Jesus wants us to keep ourselves pure and holy and all these things, but, you know, there's some really exciting things in the world and I really want a taste of those first. Can you imagine, folks, can you imagine, like, if a young man says, "Hey, you know what? I'd love to marry you, sweetheart." And she's like, "Yeah, okay, that's cool.

But first, you know, there's been a few guys that I had my eye on. Can I date some of them for a little while? You know, can we go— I'm gonna spend a little time with them, maybe live with a couple of them for a little bit. Can I do that first before I commit to you? Like, I'll marry you for sure, but I just want to go have some fun with them for a little while." Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine any guy saying, Yeah, okay. No. Maybe a really, really desperate guy who's tried a lot and hasn't gotten anywhere, but that's seriously like, no, that's not gonna happen. Seriously. And yet that's how we're treating Jesus Christ so many times.

We say, Jesus, you know, like, I really want to be with you. All eternity sounds great. I want you to come and bring me to be with you. I want all that experience, but in the meantime, Jesus, I'm kind of like, I'm kind of still thinking there's some fun that I've got to have in this world. There's some stuff that I want to do.

You know, there's some movies that I still want to see that I know they don't glorify and honor you. I know that they're totally contrary to keeping my heart and mind pure and focused on you, but I still want to watch those movies. You know, Jesus, there's some things that I want to do. There's some relationships that I still want to have that are highly inappropriate, but I'm still really ready to do that, Jesus. And I'll be with you in a little bit though.

Jesus, I know that you said you'll provide for me, but man, I just like playing the lottery. Seriously, I found a lotto ticket in my backyard. It had blown, you know, somebody threw it out their window. It's like, what a literal loser. You lost and then you threw it out the window.

Like, stop it, you know? Like, oh my goodness.

There's so many things that we think, oh, I'm gonna do this stuff because I'm here and I can do it, and I'm gonna be attracted to that for a while, but then there's gonna be a day where I decide I'm gonna put all that beside me. Now I'm I'm going to be ready for Jesus.

Folks, Jesus gave His life for you. And you want to play around with the things of the world? You want to water down your faith? You want to just kind of have the loosest of commitments to God and say, you know, thanks for everything you did, I'm going to see you in a little while, but for now I'm enjoying everything life has to offer on this earth. Folks, I've said it before, sin wouldn't be so popular if it wasn't so enjoyable in the moment.

Like, in the moment, sin is fantastic. You love it so much while you're doing it, otherwise you wouldn't keep doing it, right? Except God is trying to say, "I didn't create you for this. I created you to be in a relationship with Me where I, as your Heavenly Father, am giving you every good gift that you need. Not only that, but I've sent My Son to give up His own life to purchase you from everything that sin stole from you back in the Garden of Eden and every day since." I have given my Son to give his life for you, to purchase you, to buy you back, so that you can be prepared as a bride waiting for your groom.

Jesus says to his disciples, he says, "You know where I'm going, and you know the way to get there." And like many people might say, like, "No, I don't. How do I get there, Jesus?" He says, "Well, I'm the only way to the Father." He says, "I myself am the way, the truth, and the life." So many people are lost and they don't know the way to God, and it's up to us to show that to them. Then there's so many people that their life that they're living, they think that they've got life figured out, but they have no idea what life truly is. You know, C.S. Lewis talked about, he says, "God offers us so much.

He offers us a holiday by the sea." He was British, so that's what they called it, a vacation by the sea. He offers us a resort vacation, and instead we're happy to make mud pies in the slums. Like, we think that that's really living, and he's like, "God's offering us all this, and you're just sitting here like, 'This is fun. Yay!'" That's how each of us are living our lives. We're living life thinking, "I've got this figured out," and he's like, "I've got so much more for you." Jesus said he's the truth.

Folks, we've lost sight so many places in so many ways in what truth even is. Anymore. We think we know what truth is, and yet we're lied to daily by everyone and everything around us. And we think, "Oh, I would know truth if I saw it." The problem is you never see it, except in Jesus Christ. If everything else around you seems fake and false, Jesus Christ is truth.

So my closing question is, have you received Jesus Christ? And do you need to draw closer to Him to be prepared to be the bride of Christ. I said we would have a prayer time. I said I might finish quicker. I'm like 2 minutes before the top of the hour, so I feel like that's a win.

Elaine, could you come up and play? I want to open the prayer altars up front, and I want to invite you for 2 things. One is that if you've never received Jesus Christ as your Savior, He has given everything for you. He's given everything to draw you to Him, to redeem you as a bride waiting for Him. And today is your day that you can accept Him as your Savior.

But then there's another thing, and that is you might have been a Christian. You say, "You know, I'm Christian. I've been baptized. I've been following Jesus for this long." But the world has gotten a hold of your heart. You're an unfaithful, engaged, betrothed person to Jesus Christ.

You've been unfaithful to the husband to which you were called. To prepare yourself for. It's time to repent and say, "Lord, what do I need to do to seriously live for you?" The other thing that you might want to come pray about is some kind of weight, as I was talking about in the beginning, the weight of whatever is weighing you down and crushing you and pulling you down. And I want to invite you to come forward. Maybe you sit up front, or maybe if you can kneel, you kneel at the altar.

And just bring that before God and just say, "Lord, just fill me up and heal me.

Make me whole again." I'm going to lead you in a prayer and invite you to come up to the altars now for any of those reasons or anything else that you might have going on. Don't do it all at once. On the count of 3, I'm going to call you to come up. 1, don't wait. 2.

Don't hesitate. 3, there's no shame in it, there's only glory. Come pray.

Lord, we do confess our need for you. We confess our utter dependence on you.

Lord, we rely on you for our life. Just as you said, Jesus, you said that even the sparrows, the birds in the air, not even one of them falls to the ground without you knowing. And we're— we are worth so much more than mere sparrows. God, we confess, we know that You love us. We know that You've done everything for us, to be with us, to draw us to You.

May we be found faithful.

May we be found faithful in our day, in our generation.

Lord, there are people carrying a burden, something that's weighing heavily on them, and we just pray, Lord, that You would move in their lives in a big and mighty way. That you would move the stones, the boulders, the obstacles, the things that are, that are blocking their path, the things that are weighing them down. We pray that you would remove them. God, we take off those burdens, we put them at the feet of the cross because we know that Jesus Christ has already paid that price.

Lord, we pray for healing for those that are seeking it today. Lift up Lila, Michelle's mother. Lord, I know that she's in a tight place right now. Lord, we pray that you would bring healing to Lila. Pray that you would help her body to get strong.

Lord, we know there's people with all kinds of medical diagnoses, but Lord, you're a great healer and our great physician. And we ask, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, by his stripes we are healed, by his blood we're redeemed. We pray that you would bring healing Lord, for salvation. Oh, this is the most important thing, Lord. We just pray that there would be those who don't know you right now that would say, 'Today is the day.' For anybody that doesn't know Jesus Christ as their Savior, don't leave this place without accepting him.

Jesus, we confess our sin. We confess our need for you.

We believe that you are our Savior.

We repent of our sins, our falling away from you, and we pray that you would fill us, come into our lives, fill our hearts, fill our lives, lead us and guide us every day. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.

Amen.