Why Are You A Christian

00:01 Well, we do want to give glory to God and give praise and thanks to Him for His goodness. I just see this service this morning beautifully dovetailing with what the Lord has laid on my heart to share. So if you would want to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to John chapter 6. John chapter 6. 00:19 And I want to ask you a question this morning. Why are you a Christian? Why are you a Christian? And we sang about Jesus this morning. We sang about our praise to Him. Thank you, Aaron, for that time of worship leading us in it. Just focusing our attention upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:40 But I think it's an important question. It's a worthy question. Why are you a Christian as opposed to being a Muslim? Or as opposed to being a Hindu or a Buddhist or an atheist? Why are you a Christian this morning? 00:54 Is it because you were raised in a Christian family and that just kind of was handed to you and you just kind of came to a place where you own that for yourself? If that's the case, there will come time when you will have to answer the question, why am I a Christian? 01:11 Is it just because something happened and suddenly there was an epiphany and an understanding? And why is that enough to take you through the rough times in life and the difficult times in life? And so we're talking about motive this morning and about why we follow Jesus Christ. 01:31 It bothers some people that we are Christians, that we've been exposed to Christ so much as opposed to being exposed to Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism. You know, what if we'd been raised in another culture, in another country, and that would have been what was handed to us? 01:50 How do you make faith your own? How do you make it personal? And how do you know, as Brother Dustin shared, that in two years, five years, ten years, at the end of the road, when you come to the end, as we shared in Faith Foundations, that you're still going to be keeping on and keeping on? 02:09 How do you know that except for the work of God's grace and God's Spirit, as Brother Dustin indicated? What would Jesus flash on the screen today if He were to evaluate our hearts on this question? I've been pondering on this, musing on it since yesterday afternoon about the answer to this question. 02:29 Because God knows why. We don't often know why or what's going on in our heart. The Bible makes it clear that neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do or before Him to whom we will give an account. And the Bible says in John chapter 2 that He, 02:50 that is Jesus, needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. The Bible says that He knows the reigns. He possesses our reigns. That is the motives, the thoughts and motives and intentions of our heart. And so this morning we asked that question, why are you a Christian? 03:10 And for a text this morning, I'd like for you to look at verses 66 through 69. "From that time, many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more." You see, apostasizing is not all that uncommon in history. 03:29 We read today of modern people who are giving up their faith, walking away from the faith. That's not all that uncommon. In fact, Scripture warns us that we not allow that to happen, that we not put ourselves in positions where that could happen. And these folks walked away from Him and walked with Him no more. 03:48 Verse 67. "Then Jesus said to the twelve, Do you also want to go away?" You see, there's always that option. There's always that possibility. There's always that option in front of you that you could forfeit what you've known, what you've had. You could leave it. You could walk away. You could put it all in a pile, 04:09 leave it, and go your own way. And so Jesus gave them that option. In verse 68, Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" In other words, what else would we do, Lord? You. You have the words of eternal life. 04:29 And I think in that word, You, I think you could almost add You only. You alone. You exclusively have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know. 04:46 We believe it and we know it that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's why Peter followed Christ. That's why Peter stayed the course. Oh yes, there were times when he got sidetracked. There were times when he failed. There were times when he messed up. 05:06 But that's what brought him back. That's what determined his set before him, his gaze before him, is that I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And there's no other place. There's no other person. There's no other object. There's no other faith. 05:27 There's no other idea out there that would come close to comparing with Jesus. So there are various reasons why people claim to follow Christ. I remember back in the 70s when I was a teenager, there was a lot of people who were claiming to follow Christ. 05:49 Celebrities. Big name people who were being born again. How many older people my age and older remember that? Being born again. In fact, Chuck Colson wrote a book, Born Again, and put being born again on the national best book bestsellers list, on national attention. Yes, everybody wanted to be born again. 06:10 And I'm not sure what some of these celebrities had in mind, but this person would announce, yes, I'm born again. And that person would announce, yes, I'm born again. And I don't know what exactly they were thinking because many of them probably didn't even really understand the gospel. But it was kind of cool to be born again. 06:30 But that's not cool anymore in our culture to be born again. And so people back then and even today, to certain degrees in certain places, politicians want to use Jesus to win votes. And if He helps you win votes, we're in. 06:49 If He doesn't help you win votes, we're not in. And that's why they're professing Christians. Or maybe the farmer wants to be a Christian so that God will bless his crops. Or maybe the child will become a Christian to please their parent. 07:06 Or maybe the sick will become a Christian and claim Christ so that they could have healing. Or maybe the materialistic person will claim Christ so that he can buy into the prosperity gospel that's being offered to him today. Maybe in times of trouble, the troubled would want to be a Christian so that they could experience deliverance. 07:27 We know by experience that there are prisoners who want to be a Christian so that they can get parole or release or look good on their record. There are those that we minister to that do that at times. Maybe the soldier, what we call foxhole religion, in the foxhole, in the trench, 07:46 when his life is threatened, he makes a bargain with God and says, "God, if You get me out of this situation, I'll serve You and I'll give my life to You," only to get out of that situation and many times renege. Or maybe the dating man, young man or young lady, will claim to be a Christian just to get the girl. 08:06 You know, that happens, to get the girl. And so if I'm a Christian, then I can get her or him. Or maybe in times past when there has been a draft, we've had young people that would claim to be a Christian so that they could escape the draft and go into 1W service or voluntary service or CPS service years ago. 08:27 Or maybe the hungry will embrace Christianity so that they can be filled. Oh yes, I'm a Christian. Now give me something to eat at the mission. Or maybe the poor are attracted to the prosperity that seems to accompany the gospel as people get their lives right and in order and then prosperity follows. They're attracted to that. 08:47 And so let me in on this prosperity. Or maybe the church member who wants God for a fire escape or just because it's the cool thing to do to join church. 09:03 Or maybe it's the pastor who claims to be a Christian because he's into control and he wants to lead a group of people, wants to be up front. Or maybe it's the salesperson who thinks, "If I come across as a Christian, then I'll get that next deal." Remember years ago when we were looking at buying a house out in Oregon, a realtor that showed us that house, 09:23 she got very spiritual all of a sudden. And oh yes, she could talk a good line. And she wanted to come to our church. Yes, I want to come to your church. And then we decided not to buy the house. And she got very unspiritual real quick. And so you know, salespeople can put on a good edge there to get the next deal. And a lot of reasons, 09:44 a lot of motivations why people will come to Christ in some fashion or form. Well, in order to understand Peter's setting here, we need to get the context of this event here. In chapters 6, verses 1 through 13, we're not going to read the whole chapter. It's rather lengthy. 10:03 But do you have that very familiar account of the feeding of the 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves and two fish? This is the immediate context with which this message is set. And so after having experienced that, of course, that'll get your attention. Wow, 10:21 I mean, maybe we can get Jesus to do that every day. You know, maybe we could have a fellowship dinner on the Sea of Galilee every week. You know, or better yet, maybe we could have Jesus come home with us and just make the dinner and even wash the dishes and take up all of our responsibilities. And so they were impressed. 10:41 And the people in verses 14 and 15 were ready to take Him by force. They were convinced that this Jesus, He's a prophet. Notice that word prophet there. This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. They weren't interested in the Son of God who would save them from their sin. 11:02 They were interested in the prophet who would provide bread for them. Verse 15, "Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to a mountain by Himself alone." And so they're ready to move on Him. They're ready to move Him, take Him, set Him up in Pilate's seat, 11:23 set Him up in Herod's seat, set Him up in the emperor's seat, in Caesar's seat. And then we can have free bread for everybody all the time. You know, and Jesus then escapes out of their grasp or potential grasp. 11:40 And we have the account here of Him walking on the water and His disciples going ahead of Him and Jesus going alone across the water. And the next morning when dawn broke, they're looking for Jesus. Where'd He go? Where'd He go? They realized that the disciples went alone and Jesus went alone. How did He get... 11:59 Where'd He go? How'd He get there? And they begin to pursue Jesus. Yes, pursue. They even go so far as to maybe pursue Him and follow after Him to try to find Him. But it's shallow. It's shallow. You see, if you really serve Jesus for any other reason than who He is, 12:20 your faith and followership will be shallow. Will be shallow. And so in verse 22 to 25, they start pursuing Jesus. And sure enough, they found Him. "Rabbi, when did You come here?" Verse 25. And Jesus just... I love the way Jesus just cuts to the chase. He said, "Most assuredly I say to you, You seek Me not because You saw the signs, 12:42 the signs pointing to Him that they might believe in Him and on Him, not because You saw the signs, but because You ate the loaves and were filled. 12:52 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, for the Son of Man will give you, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set His seal on Him." What Jesus wants to bring them to is an awareness of who He is. That's what that whole miracle was about. 13:13 He didn't just feed them because they were hungry, although that was the immediate need. He fed them because He wanted them to understand who He is and believe in Him and believe on Him and not just experience good things from Him. 13:32 Well, this sets in motion a whole discourse that's fascinating to read as Jesus exposed their heart. Remember, everything is naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And so they said, "Well, what shall we do that we may work the works of God?" Verse 27, He says, "Get your priorities right. 13:53 Don't labor for those things. Don't pursue those things which are temporal, but those things of the Spirit, those things which speak of Me." And verse 30 to 34, they have a mild interest. This sounds like a good deal. They said, "What sign will You perform then that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do?" As if He hadn't done enough. 14:14 And then our fathers ate man in the wilderness. And so He begins to talk to them about this manna which was bread that Moses... They said, "This is Moses giving us bread." It was actually God giving them bread. But Moses did not give You the bread from heaven, but My Father gives You the true bread from heaven, and I am the true bread." Whoa. 14:35 Wow. They don't know if we can handle that. Jesus being bread? What's He talking about? And they begin to grumble and complain. Verse 41 and 42, "Then the Jews complained against Him because He said, 'I am the bread which came down from heaven.' And they said, 'Is not this Jesus, the Son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? 14:56 How is it then that He says, 'I have come down from heaven'? What's this about? I mean, this guy's crazy.'" And they began to quarrel. They complained. Then later on, it says, "They murmured about themselves and bent down." And verse 52, "The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Because He kept pressing in. 15:16 He kept pressing in. "I am sent by God just like the manna, but I'm more important than the manna. I have seen God." In verse 46, "Not that anyone has seen the Father except He who is from God. He has seen the Father. Most assuredly I say, He who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. 15:36 I'm more important than Moses. I'm more eternal than your fathers. I'm more everlasting. I'm the living bread which came down from heaven." Verse 51, "If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I give is My flesh which I shall give for the life of the world." And He goes on to say that, "I give eternal life." What's this about? 15:57 And they begin to quarrel and fuss and fight amongst themselves. Is this man greater than Moses? Is he greater than the Old Testament? Is he greater than the manna that was given to us? And they begin to argue and argue amongst themselves. And Jesus then just... I mean, He just took it right one step further when He says, 16:18 "And furthermore, unless you eat of My flesh and drink of My blood, you're lost." Wow. Not only am I the bread that came down from heaven, but you got to eat Me, drink of My blood, and otherwise you're lost. And if you do that, you can live forever. 16:38 Wow. Fascinating words. Wonderful words. Beautiful words. Wonderful words of life, the songwriter says. This is a tough truth for them to understand. And He's driving this point to see if they will trust Him, if they believe in Him, 16:57 if they believe on Him, if they understand who He is and want to know who He is. He's trying to find out those whom the Father has given to Him. 17:07 For He also says in this passage of Scripture, verse 39, "This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me, I should lose nothing but should raise it up in the last day." And so He realizes that this is a work of God. And He wants them to know that God is working in Him and He is doing the works of God. 17:28 So the ultimate test here is, will you follow Me in spite of your lack of understanding? Will you follow Me when the going is tough? Will you follow Me when other people are walking away? 17:43 Or will you leave your faith as a heap on the scrap pile of the Sea of Galilee and walk away? That's the great question. That's the great question. Why are you a Christian? Why are you a believer? Why are you a follower of Christ? 18:04 And what would it take for you not to be? It's easy to sit here this morning and say, "Well, yes, I'm a follower of Jesus. I love Jesus." We kind of have our cheerleading squads from church to church. "I love Jesus. Yes, I do. I love Jesus. How about you?" And the other side answers, "Yes, we love Jesus. 18:23 Yes, we do. Yes, we love Jesus." We have heavenly cheerleading meetings. But when it comes where the rubber meets the road, what would it take to turn you away? God forbid that there'd be anything that would turn us away. But the possibility is always there. 18:46 Just like with Peter, will you also go away? You're free. You're free to do so. What if you lost your job? Would you turn away from Jesus? What if you had your house destroyed? 19:04 What if your house burned to the ground? Would you turn away from Jesus? What if you were hit by a drunk driver? Begin to question God, "Why did You allow this to happen?" And people do question God. And we do question God. We ask God for answers at times. "God, why? Why did You allow this to happen? 19:25 Where were You when some of these happened?" But would a drunk driver hitting you and ruining your health and maybe killing a member of your family or a couple members of your family, would that turn you away from God? Be careful how we answer this morning. Because Peter said, 19:46 "Lord, though everybody else turns away from You, I won't." And it wasn't very much longer. It was within hours that he was denying the Son of God. What if you had crop failure? And we don't have very many farmers here, but crop failure represents financial adversity for the rest of us. What if you lost your business? 20:06 What if you lost your business because somebody took it from you? Because somebody stole from you? What if you had to file bankruptcy and God didn't come through for you in paying off your debts? What would you think of Jesus then? What if your children were taken from you because of your faith? 20:27 Or what if your children were killed because of your faith? What if you were put in prison? Oftentimes, think about that when I go in and out of prisons. 20:36 I oftentimes think, "Well, you know, I wonder which prison I'd end up in one day if they outlaw our faith or make faith a matter of privacy only." And you know the scenarios that can happen. What if they put you in prison? Would that be enough to turn you around? And they're not nice places, believe me. 20:57 They are not nice places, and they do not have nice people in them. Now, the place of prison wouldn't be so bad. It's the things that happen in the prison that makes it actually worse. Would that turn you away from the Lord? What if they beat you, persecuted you, physically assaulted you for your faith? 21:19 Or maybe even just for anything, would you question God to the point of turning away from God? What if they put you in solitary confinement? Now, some of us have the personality that that wouldn't be as bad as being in general population if you were in prison. 21:38 In fact, I've often said, Brother Brian, that if I was in prison, I'd want to just put me in a cell and leave me there all by myself. Then I'll make it. But you put me out in general population, whoo, that's scary. That's frightening. What if they put you in a dungeon? And by the way, everything that I'm describing to you is not outside of the realm of possibility. 22:01 It does not take much of an imagination to imagine these things because all of these things have happened to somebody somewhere sometime. So what if they put you in a dungeon with rats and darkness and human waste? 22:19 What if they stripped you of your clothes and put you in a cold room or a hot room? 22:27 What if they bound you hand and foot and put you over the side of the boat like they did Felix Manns, wrapping him or tying his hands and feet with a stick between him somehow so that he could not struggle, so that he could not get free, 22:46 and martyred him in the frigid river in Zurich? What if they burned you at the stake? What if they tortured you? I don't know the answer to these questions. For you, I barely know them for myself. 23:07 You see, I'm a chicken when it comes to many things. I'd like to say that I'm this great man of faith and power, and none of this stuff would phase me. That would be foolish. 23:19 But I do know that we could sit here and imagine all the possibilities. Now, I'm not wanting you to do that necessarily. Imagine all the possibilities and think there's no way I could do this and not factor in the grace of God and the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. When you get there, 23:39 there's grace for these experiences. There's power to go through these experiences. Else no one would have ever made them but the strongest and the toughest and the most spiritual. But for the sake of argument and illustration, what if they abused your children and raped your wife? Would that turn you away from the Lord? 24:00 What if they lied about you? What if all of your family was on one side and you were on the other side? They were in unbelief, and you were the only one in all of your family standing for God. Would that turn you away? Family pressures are pretty strong, 24:21 especially in our Anabaptist circles where we emphasize family and we almost sometimes, dare I say, idolize family. 24:31 We wouldn't want to be cut off from the Franchoft, cut away from the kin, folks. I'm not asking this morning what you invest in, what you teach, what you preach, as important as that is. Asking, would there be anything that you could conceive of that would turn you away from Christ? 24:51 And this is not outside of the realm of possibility. The Supreme Court weighed in on this a number of years ago. There was a man by the name of Jonas Yoder. How many of you know Jonas Yoder? In 1972, I think it was, in Wisconsin. How many of you know what happened to Jonas? 25:12 Well, Jonas was approached by the state and said, "You will send your children to a government school." He said, "I will not send my children to a government school, a public school. I am responsible to educate my children as a man of God." He was an Amish man. "I'm responsible to keep my children separate from the world. I'm responsible for the raising of my children. 25:32 I will not send my children to a government school." They said, "Well, what if we take your children from you?" He said, "You still don't understand. I will not send my children to a government school." "Well, what if we take you? What if we sue you?" They threatened lawsuits. We said, "The state said we'll sue you, and you'll lose." And he lost twice. 25:55 He lost in court two times. And he said, "You still don't understand. You can sue me, but I'm not sending my children to a government school. Period." And that went all the way to the Supreme Court. 26:15 And the Supreme Court sided with Jonas Yoder and said, "You do not have to send your children to a government school if you improve that it is a conviction and not a preference." And so the court, you can read about it online, 26:36 the court issued the injunction that if Jonas Yoder could prove that he had a conviction against sending his children to a government school, then he could win and he could keep control of his children. And he proved that. 26:57 And in so doing, the court gave five tests of a conviction versus a preference. Now, I think that there are maybe three areas, three levels of conviction. There's preference. There's a conviction and a legal conviction. 27:18 The court didn't recognize that. But I think there are times when we have preferences so strong that we would say we believe and are convicted of the fact that this is what God wants us to do. This is what God wants us to do. This is how God wants me to live in any given situation. It may be less than or more than a preference, 27:38 but this is how the government defined a conviction. So whether or not it's a biblical definition, we won't go there necessarily right now. But a legal conviction, this is what they said. Number one, would the threat of peer pressure turn you away from your belief? 27:59 In other words, would the threat of peer pressure of everybody being on the other side, would that turn you away from your belief? All of your acquaintances, all of your coworkers pressuring you, pressuring you, pressuring you, 28:19 would peer pressure turn you away from your belief? And in this context of our message this morning, would peer pressure ever turn you away from Christ? Legitimate question. They said, "If peer pressure would turn you away, then it's not a conviction. 28:37 You have no legal standing." Then the second criteria that they developed was, would the threat of family pressure turn you away from your belief? The threat of family pressure. So now, this is not just peers. 28:56 So a doctor with his peers having to stand for truth and all of the other doctors in his profession looking at him and saying, "You got to get this right because you're wrong." And he says, "No, you still don't understand. 29:08 I will stand in front of my peers or a lawyer or a schoolteacher or whoever is approached by their peers." Then it goes, they went deeper and they said, 29:20 "Would your family turn you away from this belief?" So you're standing here and the kin folk are saying, "You're crazy. You're out of touch. You're out of touch with reality. Just give in a little bit. Just compromise a little bit. 29:42 Just throw this out to them." And if your family and that pressure would turn you away from your belief, then it's not a conviction. It's a preference. This is the legal definition. And then they went one step further. And they said, "If you were threatened with a lawsuit, 30:03 would that change your mind?" And they threatened Jonas Yoder with lawsuit after lawsuit. Like I said, he lost in court two times by the grace of God. By the way, this was a major, major, decisive victory for the homeschool and Christian school movement back in the '70s. 30:21 It opened up the legal gates for us to function with homeschools and Christian schools. Would the threat of a lawsuit where all of your personal comfort was removed and all of your stuff was taken away and it cost you everything that you have by way of financial resources to fight that lawsuit, 30:42 would you change your mind? And they said, "If that threat of a lawsuit would change your mind, it's not a conviction. It's a preference." And then they went further. And they said, "The threat of jail or physical pain, discomfort, separation from loved ones, 31:02 separation from family, separation from your job and all of your influences, all of your comforts, and you're sitting in a jail cell alone, locked up, would that change your ideas and your mind?" And they said, 31:21 "If it does, then it's a preference, not a conviction." And then they added one more. And maybe you know where this is going. But would the threat of death change your mind? Would the threat of death, "We're going to torture you. 31:41 We're going to kill you. We're going to kill you, take your life, and we're going to make it the worst possible scenario," would that change your mind? If that would change your mind, according to the Supreme Court, what you have is a preference and not a conviction. 31:58 Well, applying this this morning to this passage of Scripture, the conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that He and He alone have the words of eternal life and there's nowhere else to go for salvation, 32:18 would you change your mind if you were threatened with severe death? Jonas Yoder said, "Do what you want to with me. I'm not changing my position." Wow. 32:37 So what is the basis of genuine faith in Christ? I want to give you four things from these two verses in closing. Number one, the authority of His words. Are we convinced of the authority of His words? Verse 67. Peter, 32:57 when he answered the Lord Jesus' question, "Are you going to go away too?" Or in another way would be, "What would it take to turn you away?" Peter said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." There's no other place to go. 33:19 You have the words. The authority of the words of Jesus, the authority of the Word of God. How convinced are you this morning that the Word of God, the Bible we hold in our hands, is the unchanging, authoritative, inherent, 33:39 inspired record and witness from the God of the universe? If you're not convinced of that, we're in trouble. 33:51 Where could we go? You have the words of eternal life. There is authority. There is authenticity. There is spiritual reality in the Word of God, in the words of Jesus Christ, in the pages of Scripture. There is all of that. 34:10 And Jesus said it in verse—I can't lay my eyes on it. He said, "The things that I speak unto you, the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life." There's an authority of His words. 34:25 The second thing that is the basis of genuine faith in Christ is the exclusivity of His person. What we mean by exclusivity is the word exclusive means the only one, the only place to go. There's no other place to go for salvation, 34:47 for eternal life, than to Jesus. 34:51 You remember the words that He spoke amazed people who heard Him because He spoke with authority and not as the scribes and the Pharisees. Never a man spoke like this man when he said, "Come follow me." And Jesus alone is the expression of the eternal God, the brightness of His person, 35:10 the express image of His person, the ultimate communication of God to man. Are you convinced of that? If you're not convinced of that, where else would you go? Where else could you go to find anybody better, more authentic, more authoritative, more true? 35:32 So we have His authority, His exclusivity, the one and only Christ. And then we have the identity, the identity of Christ. Because what He's wanting to show us in all of the Scriptures is who He is. That's the reason for all of His miracles. 35:52 That's the reason for all of His signs. That's the reason for all of this book is that we might know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. For that is eternal life. John 17:3. "And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." And so Peter said, 36:13 "I know and I believe. I am fully convinced. I am thoroughly persuaded that you are the Christ." And again, you can add the word alone there. "You only, you alone are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And then you have the eternity, 36:34 eternity. This is an eternal matter. He said, "This is an eternal words. This is an eternal Son speaking eternal words to eternal souls with eternal destinies. 36:50 And I am convinced and fully persuaded that you have the words of eternal life as the Christ, the Son of the living God. Everyone else is inadequate. Everything else is perishable. Every other word is lies, 37:10 and everything else is nonsense." And so that's all God expected Peter to say. "I believe on you. I believe in you. And I will live for you." It's very simple. 37:27 And when that happens, the resources of heaven are released to give us the grace to bear all these other things. Because sitting here in an academic, academic setting, not in a school setting, but in a mental setting with a mental exercise, it's not like living it. When the pressure comes, 37:47 when the pressure from family, when the pressure from peers, when the pressure from stress, when the pressure from opposition, when the pressure from health, when the pressure from financial adversity and loss, when the pressure of the loss of life is in front of us, what we're doing here this morning is more of an academic exercise. But when you get out there in the real life, it's where the rubber meets the road. 38:08 And that's when God's grace kicks in and says, "I will take you through. I will enable you. I will strengthen you. My grace is sufficient for you. 38:18 For my strength is made perfect in your weakness." But coming back to our questions this morning, is there anything that you can imagine could happen to you that would possibly turn you away from Jesus? If there is, then you have some work to do. 38:41 You have some spiritual work and business to do with God. Peter, you see, had done that business. The crowd hadn't. The crowd couldn't do it for Peter. Peter couldn't do it for the crowd. "Mom and Dad can't do it for you. You can't do it for them. You can't do it for your children. 39:02 They can't do it for you. I can't do it for you. You can't do it for me." Everyone has to wrestle with who Jesus is themselves. And by the grace of God and the enabling power of His Holy Spirit, we can come out on the right side. I remember, I don't want to be crude this morning, 39:23 but I remember our first pregnancy, 39:27 my wife and I lost by miscarriage. 39:36 And the doctor, when we went for the next pregnancy, I forget at what point, the doctor said, "A real good pregnancy is hard to shake." In other words, it's the troublesome ones that end up in miscarriage. 39:53 It's nature's way of purging out that 39:59 weak conception. I think that's interesting. The Lord brought that to mind when I was studying for this message, that real faith is hard to shake, real faith. And so what you have to ask yourself is, do I have real faith? 40:18 Because if you have real faith, if you really do believe that He has the words of eternal life and that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, if you really do believe that, it'll stand up to anything that comes along. If you don't, your faith is shaky at best or nonexistent at worst. 40:40 So you need not have perfect faith. You need not even have strong faith. But you must have real faith, real faith. 40:55 And that comes from an interaction with the person of Jesus Christ. I cannot create it for you. You cannot create it for me. Parents cannot create it for their children. Children cannot pass it on to their friends or our grandchildren. It can only happen when the soul, 41:16 the naked soul laid out and manifest in the presence of God, is gripped with the reality of who Jesus is. Let's pray. 41:33 Lord, this morning, we find ourselves somewhat unsettled with these questions. And yet, Lord, we also find ourselves greatly encouraged. 41:46 Because while we're unsettled in the certainty of our answer at times because of the weakness of our humanity, 41:57 we are not unsettled in the truth of the reality of Your words and Your identity, that You have the words of eternal life and You are the Son of the living God and no one else. 42:19 And so, Lord, even when our faith is weak, even when our faith is as small as the grain of mustard seed, we have great hope that those who have been given to the Son by the Father will persevere all the way. And so, 42:38 Father, may You work a work of faith and truth in us that is unshakable, not because we're so strong, but because we have encountered God through Christ. 42:58 Make us hungry for that encounter where we lay ourselves out before You, Lord, and say, "God, You see everything within me. It's naked, laid bare before Your eyes. 43:17 Create an authentic faith within me that cannot be shaken and that will never die. In Jesus' name. Amen."