The Story of The Bible

[00:00:00] Midweek. [00:00:04] I am so excited to be back. I've been gone for a couple weeks, so it is nice to be up here with you. We've been in a really cool sermon series on doubt. [00:00:13] And the thing about doubt is it can really go one of two ways. [00:00:19] When you're struggling and you're doubting things, doubt can either pull you farther and farther and farther away from your faith, or, if done properly, doubt can be an awesome tool that propels you deeper into your faith. [00:00:37] And we had Katie up. Katie's my sister, my best friend. I love her. We had the beautiful Lex and Man, that sermon was great. If you did not get a chance to hear that, please go back and listen to it. She talked about the existence of God and just. She's brilliant. [00:00:55] We got Jovan the man. Love him. [00:00:59] And he really broke down. Like, what happens when life doesn't look the way you think it should? [00:01:06] Any victims of life in the room? [00:01:10] Okay. At least two of us. Good, good, good. [00:01:14] And then Emily was up last week, and she's 19 years old, and she's so brilliant. I see her speak with such a passion for God, and I just. I adore her. [00:01:27] And tonight I'm up, and tonight I'm gonna be talking about this book. [00:01:33] And see, I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was a theologian through and through. [00:01:41] My dad was also a historian. The man has his thd. And so any question you ever have in the world, you could go to my dad, and he knows the answer. [00:01:54] So that's the home I grew up in. And I grew up in a home where we read this. So, like, dinners, we would have devotional. [00:02:01] My dad, God loved the man, but he would, like, print off articles that we would then have to write paragraphs on, and then we'd have to discuss it at dinner. Okay. Like, I grew up churched. Okay? I grew up in this book, but by the grace of God. When I was 16 years old, I had an experience with God that most of you know about, that I was pregnant and my relationship with God changed drastically. [00:02:30] It wasn't a faith. That was my parents. [00:02:33] It wasn't a Bible reading at devotional time during dinners. It became my faith because I experienced God in the kind of way that altered everything. [00:02:47] I found God in the kind of way where I felt loved by the creator of the universe. [00:02:56] I felt called and loved, and where others had dropped me, God had just put his arms around me. And from that point on, I wanted to know what was in this book. [00:03:07] I wanted to know who he was and where I could find him. And so I was very blessed. From that time on, I have read the Bible. [00:03:17] But many of you, you really only have understanding. Most people really only have an understanding of the Bible by what they're told. [00:03:28] The cool thing is this Bible Bible sales have been up. This book is the number one best selling book of like all times. Always. Like, this is always the number one bestseller. [00:03:39] And between Gen Z, this book is up like 24% year over year in sales. And it's crazy. It's like billions of copies are being sold, millions of copies are being sold. [00:03:54] But oftentimes if you grew up in church, you were taught the Bible by someone. You heard stories growing up, maybe your parents told you stories or maybe you really know nothing about the Bible. [00:04:08] But most people have a point of view about this book not because they've actually read it cover to cover, but because of what someone has told them. [00:04:19] But here's what happens. [00:04:23] You go away to college or you grow up, or you watch some tiktoks or you watch some debates, and then people point out to you the other things that are in the Bible, right? The stuff you did not learn in Sunday school class. [00:04:35] They point out to you the other stories that's not really preached on Sundays. And then you start having these moments of like, well, wait a second, do I really believe what's in there? [00:04:47] And I want every single one of us to have a confidence in this book. [00:04:53] I want every single one of us to be able to lean on what's in here. I want you to have the experience of when life is more than you know how to handle. You have a God who meets you in this book. [00:05:08] You have a God that meets you everywhere you go. [00:05:12] And what I really wanted to do this entire series was because I do not want doubt to yank out our faith. [00:05:22] I have very close friends who went away to college and they would have some very smart professors and they would say stuff about the Bible. They would belittle them, make them feel stupid. And then these friends have literally walked away from God because of dumb things that smart people have said. [00:05:42] And I do not want that for you, especially you younger crew. I do not want you to have a picture of it like a deck of cards. You know, how you build the house with the deck of cards and someone says one thing and your whole card house falls. Because now you're not really sure if you can believe it. [00:06:04] And so here's the cool thing. I believe that if you understand how we got this book, it Gives you more security, more interest, more understanding of what's inside the book. [00:06:21] And this topic is harder than I know how to talk about. I'm going to be super honest with you. I'm like a student coming at you tonight. [00:06:30] I've been studying and studying and studying. And I wish I was more of a theologian, I wish I was more of a historian, but I tried to learn from a lot of very smart people. [00:06:42] And if you have a hunger to know interesting things about like the original manuscripts of the Bible or how we got the Bible, there is a man named Wesley Huff and I highly, highly, highly recommend looking up his YouTubes. He's got a website, I follow him on Instagram. He was on Joe Rogan a couple of, maybe less than a year ago and he became, he kind of blew up because he's very smart and very has a lot of wisdom in what he does. So I highly, highly recommend him. You're gonna hear some of his stuff tonight. And then also I am gonna recommend a sermon series. [00:07:23] Whoa, it's a lot of Sarah. [00:07:27] I'm gonna recommend a sermon series. It's called the Bible for Grownups. It's by a man named Andy Stanley. And I'm gonna be kind of using a lot of his outline tonight too. [00:07:38] And so he is a genius at taking things that are hard and making them very simple and very understandable. And so he's got a four part series. So I highly recommend going back and listening to that. I think it'll be very helpful for you. [00:07:51] But when we think about this book, we often think this book starts from the beginning. [00:07:58] But really the reason we have this book, it doesn't start from the book of Genesis. [00:08:04] The reason we have this book is based on the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. [00:08:14] If those events did not happen, we would not have the Bible. [00:08:20] Okay, now here's what I know. We take this book for granted. We take it for granted because this is how it comes to us. It comes wrapped in genuine fake leather. It comes sometimes with your names on it. Okay, I got my name embroidered in this. Makes me feel good. [00:08:36] It comes with maps and it comes with study notes and it comes with numbers and cross references and it comes with all these things, but that is not how the world got the Bible. [00:08:47] And so we look at this and we look at this book and it's so easy to take it for granted. [00:08:53] You can get it anywhere. You can get it free on an app. And so most of us have a Bible in our home or a Bible in our room that we don't even read. [00:09:03] It's so easy to take this book for granted. [00:09:08] But what I want you to know is this is not just one book. Many of you have heard this. I believe Lex said it in her sermon. But this is 66 books. [00:09:20] So when you open it up, you're gonna have an index and you're gonna be able to read all those, okay? This is not how the Bible was formed. I just spit so much. Did you guys see that? [00:09:30] That was incredible. Watch out. [00:09:35] My kids will sometimes make fun of me after church. They'd be like, you spit everywhere. I just saw it happen. So, okay, so it's 66 books. But here, listen to this. It's written over 1600 years, okay? This was not a book that we got all at once. It was written over 6, 1600 years by 40. [00:10:01] Over 40 different authors in three different languages across three continents. [00:10:09] It's hard to wrap your mind around this, but this is a library of books that was written over a long period of time. [00:10:15] And I want to show you this next picture. It's a cross reference picture. I think I've shown this before. But the idea of this picture is that in this book that was written over 1600 years by over 40 different authors, there are cross references. That means one thing kind of talks about another thing. It touches another point of the book. And some artists decided to put it together. So each line represents a chapter of the Bible, and then each arch represents where it touches. [00:10:50] There are over 63,000 cross references in the Bible. [00:10:57] Okay, that's cool if you're reading Harry Potter series, okay? Because it's one author connecting the books, right? So like, oh, I don't know anything about Harry Potter. So I don't know. [00:11:11] Dumbledore said this and Hermione said that. Is that right? [00:11:16] Okay, but when you have 40 authors across three continents over 1600 years, and then you have 63,000 cross references, something crazy is happening here. [00:11:32] You hear what I'm saying? [00:11:34] Like, this is only by the hand of God that you have this many books that touch this many points across 1600 years. [00:11:46] It's wild and it's fascinating and I love it. [00:11:51] Okay? So the story of the Bible, it does not start in Genesis. It starts at the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. [00:12:02] So out of breath. [00:12:05] The four books that tell about his life are the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Luke and John. And when you go in your Bible, it's kind of towards the middle end. You're gonna see this. [00:12:15] And it's the New Testament. And we're gonna kind of stick in the New Testament tonight. Cause there's too much to say, and I'm so excited. [00:12:22] Okay, so we're gonna start in these four books. Now, here's what you also need to know about history and literature. [00:12:33] That they have a process of looking at ancient literature and saying if it is authentic or if it's not. [00:12:45] They have a method of looking at it and saying this was from this time. They can date the papyrus. They can date things. [00:12:56] So when we look at these four Gospels and you look at the New Testament as a whole, you have to understand something. [00:13:04] This is unlike any other ancient literature ever in the history. [00:13:11] And here's why. Because there are more manuscripts that date early 1st century, early 2nd century, early 3rd century than any other thing in the world by thousands and thousands and thousands of copies. [00:13:27] And closer to the event of the date than any other ancient literature we have anything. [00:13:36] Thousands and thousands and thousands of copies. So often people will be like, why isn't there more proof of the Bible? And I'm like, people, how much more proof do you need? But here's the problem. We don't know what we don't know. Can I get an amen? [00:13:50] I'm not studying ancient literature and papyrus and scrolls. I have no idea. [00:13:56] And so when I was learning all these things, I was, like, so excited because you don't know what you don't know. And tonight we're gonna know. [00:14:06] Okay, thank you for the two people in the back who are excited with me. [00:14:11] There's no AC tonight. I'm excited and sweaty. [00:14:15] I'm spitting on all of you. [00:14:18] Okay, so let's take a look at these four accounts of Jesus life. [00:14:23] Now, in these four accounts of Jesus life, it's also wild that you would have four accounts, four stories, four books about someone's life in the ancient world. [00:14:38] It's crazy. It just didn't happen. [00:14:41] Lexi pointed out that Tiberius, emperor, king, he was royalty, and he had four accounts that were found in ancient literature. [00:14:55] So why would Jesus, a Jewish man, have four accounts of his life? [00:15:04] It was incredibly expensive. [00:15:08] Most of the ancient world was illiterate. [00:15:11] So why would there be four accounts of Jesus life? [00:15:16] It's because something happened. [00:15:18] And then we start. I want to start in Luke, because right off the rip, Luke tells us why he wrote, oh, I have a cool quote, but we're going to skip it for time's sake. [00:15:29] Luke 1:1. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us. [00:15:39] Keep going. [00:15:40] Just as those who, from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word had delivered them to us. [00:15:47] It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent, Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. [00:16:07] The book of Luke was written to a man named Theophilus. [00:16:14] Luke was a Greek doctor in the first century who fell in love with Jesus, who knew about him. He was not one of the disciples, but he had hung around some of them. He traveled with our man Paul, and he'd gone on missionaries. And now he's in his life and he has this friend who is probably a convert too, to Christianity. And he had heard a little bit about Jesus and he believed and it was like, enough. [00:16:43] But then Theophilus is like, man, I just wanna know more. My kids went on the mission trip last week, and when they got home, it was really cool. Cause I was like, I want to know all the details. Tell me everything. Because their lives had been so affected by what they did. Their lives had been so, like, encompassed in this moment. And they got to see God work so powerfully. And all I wanted to do was like, look at the pictures and hear all the stories. [00:17:11] And so Luke is saying, okay, he was a doctor. [00:17:15] This word orderly, account, I'm skipping stuff way back then. This word account, that is used. It was used in a book by Lucian. Do we have a picture? Terribly hard to see. [00:17:31] Okay. Terribly hard to see. But this word account, it was actually written in another book. And this was how to write history. [00:17:41] So Luke is making a point here when he says, I want to write an orderly account. He's saying, I'm gonna tell you historical facts that happened. Okay, this word is important. This word account or narrative, he did it in an orderly fashion. And so he's talking to this man, Theophilus, and he's saying, I'm going to write you an account. [00:18:05] I'm gonna go to all the eyewitnesses who've experienced it, and I'm going to tell you everything I possibly can about Jesus. [00:18:15] And so Luke, we're going to point one more historical literature thing because it's fascinating. Luke 3. [00:18:22] In Luke 3:1 through 3, we could just pop up Luke 1 or 3:1. [00:18:29] Just keep it here. [00:18:30] So it's a lot of historical facts. Sometimes we read the Bible and we're like, boring sleep. Skip, skip, skip. [00:18:39] Nobody. [00:18:40] Come on, genealogies. You're like, snooze. Fast. Let's get to the good stuff. [00:18:46] Okay, so you would see this, and you might skip, skip, skip. But historians use this. [00:18:53] This is like a timestamp. Okay? Luke is saying, I want you to know who was in charge. Who were the leaders? Where were we? Where were we? And in Luke 31 through 3, there are 22 references to people, to places that can be proven in archeology, verified by archeology and by ancient literature sources outside of the bible. Just in three chapter or in three verses, you get 22 references that can be verified by archaeology and other ancient literature. [00:19:34] I don't even like history. And this is cool. [00:19:39] Are you guys following? Am I being boring? [00:19:41] Okay, let's keep going. [00:19:45] So Luke writes this book, but he also says in Luke 1 that he was not the only one writing down these accounts. He said many have undertaken to write these things down. Many. [00:19:59] Why so many? [00:20:02] Why? Why so Many? [00:20:04] In Luke 23, we get this picture after Jesus dies. [00:20:10] And in Luke 23:53, there, it's talking about a man named Joseph who goes to the cross who takes down Jesus body and he wraps it in a linen shroud and he lays him in a tomb. [00:20:23] You have to picture. [00:20:26] There was no the Bible. [00:20:29] There was no Christianity. The moment that Jesus died, everyone thought it was over. [00:20:38] Why did they lay him in a tomb? They thought he was dead. Because when people die, they stay dead. [00:20:46] Can you go to verse 55? [00:20:48] The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. [00:20:53] Did I. Did I give a 56? [00:20:57] Well, 56 says something about them bringing herbs and oils. [00:21:02] Why? Why were they going to bring herbs and oils to the tomb? Because the women that followed Jesus thought he was dead and they were going to prepare his body for death. [00:21:16] The story of Christianity looked like it was over. [00:21:21] There was no the Bible. [00:21:24] There were. There were men and women who were heartbroken, who had felt like the Roman Empire had won again, and the man that they thought was the Savior was dead. [00:21:38] And church. There would be no the Bible if the tomb stayed empty. [00:21:46] There would be no the Bible if it ended at the cross. [00:21:52] But it did not end at the cross. [00:21:55] And we get these stories of these men who were willing to take the time, like Luke, to write an orderly account, take the time to go all throughout and go to eyewitnesses. Some scholars believe Mary, the mother of Jesus was one of the eyewitnesses. And that's why we get such a beautiful story of Jesus birth. [00:22:18] You get Mark, the book Of Mark. I personally love Mark. I took some of you 20 somethings through it and I love it because it's action packed. And in the Book of Mark, what the author is not Mark. [00:22:34] But because, because it's an illiterate world. A lot of authors would need people to transcribe, to scribe, to write it for them. [00:22:48] Someone would dictate it and then they would write it. [00:22:52] There's a word for that and I'm just blanking. And so the Book of Mark is actually dictated by Peter. [00:23:01] And you can get this movement in the book because it's almost like a fisherman wrote it. It's almost like it's action based, it's fast paced, it's moving, it's grooving and you're getting all the main things. It's not in order, the stories are different, they're all over the place. And it's like Peter has his hands all over this book. [00:23:23] And then you get to Matthew and Matthew was one of Jesus disciples. [00:23:27] Matthew was a tax collector. So he was fanatical at what he did, he was good at what he did, but he was Jewish. [00:23:38] And so when you get to Matthew, you see that he is writing this letter to Jewish people to say that everything that you know about the Old Testament, he is the Messiah. [00:23:53] And when you're reading Matthew, Matthew will point to Old Testament literature time and time and time again. [00:24:02] Because he's trying to say to the Jewish people of that time, you missed it, you missed it. Jesus is the Messiah. [00:24:15] And Matthew had to get it out and he had to talk to his community, his Jewish community, and he had to write it. [00:24:22] And now there's still no the Bible. [00:24:26] But you're starting to get letters, accounts written down. You're starting to get a Matthew here and a Mark here. And then they would share it from church to church. You would have letters from Paul circulating and it would go from church to church to church. [00:24:44] And then you get the book of John. [00:24:47] If you've never read any part of the Bible, go to John. [00:24:53] John talks about who Jesus was in his Life in John 23. Can we pop that up? [00:25:04] We see why John wrote this book. Is it John 23? John 20? Yeah, John 20:30. [00:25:11] John tells us at the very end of his book why he wrote it. Why did he write it? He wrote it. [00:25:18] He says now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. Book. [00:25:27] He's not talking about this book. This book did not exist yet. Okay? He's not talking about this book he's talking about the book he's writing, he's talking about the book of John and he's saying, but these are written so that you may believe. [00:25:45] Believe what? [00:25:46] Some of you have walked away, or some of your friends have walked away, or there's some people in your life who've walked away from the Bible. Cause they're like, I just don't believe it. [00:25:55] I just can't believe it. But the question is, what, what don't you believe? Because there's a lot of other things in the Bible that are not the main event. [00:26:06] And listen, we cannot hinge our faith on other things except the main event. [00:26:13] If you tell me you do not believe in Jesus, I think you're wrong. But it's a good reason not to be a Christian, okay? If you tell me you don't believe in some of the other stuff, it's not a good reason. We have to base our faith on the main thing. And John is saying, here's what the main thing is, that you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. [00:26:41] Now, it's incredibly important to note that there's, it's not a lot of scholars don't believe that Jesus was a real man. [00:26:48] There's so much proof, so much ancient manuscripts, not just the Bible, but in other literature that talk about Jesus, that talk about this Christian movement, that the proof of Jesus is just known. [00:27:02] Now where they differ is if you have faith in him or not. If he was the son of God, but Jesus, no one really argues if he existed and if he was crucified. [00:27:12] It's like a known fact in the scholarly world. [00:27:16] And it's just interesting to me that you have these four books of the Bible. Shoot, I forgot something so important. [00:27:24] This is where I should use notes. Boys, we're gonna do it. Now, in the book of Matthew, you get genealogies. Remember I was like, snooze fest, boring, boring, boring. But here's what they do to study historians do to study ancient literature. They have an incredibly cool thing. So in the book of Matthew you get these, the list of the 12 apostles. [00:27:50] And in the list you get things like, first there was Simon, who was called Peter. They would have these like nicknames or these, these explaining of the name. [00:28:02] Now what they did, so fascinating, I'm not going to even bother telling you the word because I can't remember it. But they basically did a name study. Historians will use name studies. And so in every generation actually Every year or two, there are popular names in geographical locations. [00:28:24] So for example, when I was born, Sarah was like probably top three names of my, my year. [00:28:31] Jacob, my husband, was a super popular name. Mike was a super popular name. So when I went to school, I would be Sarah C. Or the tall Sarah or the good looking Sarah. [00:28:46] That was not my nickname, but we'll pretend. [00:28:49] Okay, so, but we would give disclaimers to the name, right? You guys get what I'm saying? Like there would be a nickname. [00:28:59] Okay, so what they did, these historians would say in what year, what names were the most popular. And it's an awesome way that you can verify if things are frauds, if things if ancient literature, if the author's not who they said they are. Okay, so what's very popular is they did this popularity name test and here's the book of Matthew that they did it. And you get every single person that has like a disclaimer or a nickname next to them. They are the most popular names. [00:29:34] Now the four gospels hold this proof thoroughly that the names, the locations, the plant life, everything that they talk about is within context of the history, the location and the time period. [00:29:51] Now there's other books of the Bible that you might have heard about that are like not included in scripture. And it's this big, like the book of Thomas has been missing and it's not included. And Christians and scholars for years are like, yeah, there's a reason it's not included. And there's books of like the Gospel of Mary. And I had a man come to me and he's like, I'm investigating these, I'm reading these. But they're known forgeries. Church, they're known forgeries. [00:30:20] What they did was they put their name, their words on someone who had credibility's name. [00:30:28] So the Gospel of Mary, someone else wrote it and said ridiculous things in it. It's wild. The Gospel of Thomas is wild. The Gospel of Barnabas, they're wild things. The Gospel of Judas. And through this testing, they're able to say, okay, this wasn't even close. Close. [00:30:45] In the the Gospel of Judas, there's two names that hold true, and it's Jesus and Judas. And every other name in the Gospel of Judas is from like the 2nd and 3rd century Egypt. So Judas would have been long gone. And so they have ways of proving that these things are true. I had to say it because that's cool, right? That's good to know. It's good to know. [00:31:08] Okay, John. Back to John. Can we go to that last Person. John, I'm going to hate myself after watching this sermon. I'm going to be like, girl, you need to calm down. [00:31:19] Okay, we won't watch it. [00:31:24] Yeah, back to the other one. 31. [00:31:28] But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. That by believing you may have life in his name. [00:31:40] I have lived life kind of both ways. [00:31:44] When I was younger, I grew up and all the things. But listen, there was a whole section of my high school life that I lived in my own strength. [00:31:55] I lived in a broken identity. [00:32:00] I lived in a search for love and meaning that always fell flat. [00:32:06] But can I tell you I have lived in the goodness of God? [00:32:11] Can I tell you that I have lived my life connected to a savior who gives me an identity that is so much more whole, so much more beautiful, so much more worthy than anything the world has to offer? [00:32:27] Can I tell you that I've sought love in dumb places, but there is a lot love and a grace and a beauty that our Savior Jesus Christ gives us that nothing in all creation will ever fill. [00:32:42] And as I look at the story of these men's lives, of their account of what they experienced, of what they went through, why did they all write them? John was late in his life. Matthew, Mark and Luke already existed. Why? Why did he write them? [00:32:57] So that we may believe. [00:33:01] And that by believing, you may have life in his name, John wrote his book for you. [00:33:09] Now, what's wild is I don't know if he could ever have imagined something like this. [00:33:15] I don't know if he ever could have imagined. Because what was happening at the end of the first century is there was no the Bible. [00:33:23] There were one or two letters and you would have a town and your great grandfather or your grandfather, I had met Peter. And then you get a copy of the Book of Mark, and it's so valuable to you. [00:33:37] These men, their lives were constantly persecuted. This was not an easy task in the first, second, third century. It's not an easy task because what was happening is there was so much persecution going on. [00:33:51] By the time John wrote, peter is dead, Paul is dead, his brother is dead. And he's writing this book late in life, and he's looking around and it's not, oh, because things are so great that he's like, let's make up a story. [00:34:07] He's writing it because something happened in his life. [00:34:11] He met Jesus Christ and it changed everything for him. [00:34:16] He experienced him. He walked with him, he sat with him. He gave himself the nickname the One that Jesus loves, my man. [00:34:27] Because something had made a huge difference in his life, and it was Jesus Christ. [00:34:35] Now, there's copies of all these letters floating around. [00:34:39] Some cities might have all of them. They might have, like, all the gospels together. [00:34:45] Some might have some of Paul's letters, and some might have one gospel, and some. Some might have two gospels. [00:34:51] And Christianity is growing. [00:34:56] It's growing. [00:34:58] And it started with maybe hundreds, but now there's thousands and thousands and thousands of Christians, and there's still no the Bible. [00:35:07] There's letters being passed around. [00:35:10] There's no full book that you can go to. [00:35:14] And the Roman Empire was sketchy because here's what they believed. They believed that as long as you paid homage to Caesar and you made your grain offerings to the gods, they could care less what you believed in. [00:35:28] Okay? So as long as you paid homage, as long as you paid your grain offerings, they could care less. Go have your family gods do whatever you want. Because the Romans were extremely superstitious. [00:35:40] Anyone got an inhaler on them? [00:35:44] Give me my water. Okay, so they were super superstitious. [00:35:48] Super superstitious. Thanks, baby. And they would believe that if the rain came too much or if there was a famine, if there weren't something, that the gods were clearly unhappy. [00:36:03] And so what would happen is that if the gods were unhappy, they would say, why? Why are the gods unhappy? [00:36:10] And they would commonly blame the Christians. Here's where it gets good. [00:36:18] Sorry. If you heard me gulp. [00:36:22] They would commonly blame the Christians. Here is a quote from Tertullian. [00:36:29] And this is what he would say about the Romans when it came to the Christians. He said, if the Tiber floods the city of. [00:36:36] Or if the Nile refuses to rise, or if the sky withholds its rain, if there is an earthquake, a famine, a pestilence, at once the cry is raised Christians to the lion. [00:36:49] So if anything was disrupting their gods, they would blame it on the Christians. Now, this all kind of culminated in 303, when Diocletian, he was the emperor at the time, put out an edict. [00:37:04] And the edict banned any Christian letters, any Christian accounts, any Christian literature. That's the word I was looking for. [00:37:18] If you had Christian literature, it was to be burned, that all the churches and all the places of worship were shut down. It was illegal to band together. It was illegal to meet together as Christians. And the worst thing is, if you did not turn or you were caught with Christian literature, if you did not turn it in and they caught you with it, they would kill your wife, your Daughter, your son, and then you, in that order. [00:37:53] Most of us don't know the story. [00:37:56] The only reason these very valuable and precious accounts of the stories in the life of God, of the stories of the early church exist, were because men and women in that third century were willing to die so that we could have what we have today. [00:38:20] They were willing to give their life to protect something that they thought was so valuable, something that the world needed to know. They were willing to give their life. And hundreds and hundreds of men and women were killed and they were persecuted so that the letters of John, the letters of Matthew and Mark and Luke, and all the letters that Paul wrote so that they could keep them protected. [00:38:54] And in about 324, Constantine the Great came and he eased the persecution and he gave back the churches to some of the churches. He allowed for the very first time, scholars to openly work on these and start gathering them together. Because here's what I want you to know. This still did not exist. But from the very beginning, all of those letters that are in here, every book of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, those books were considered valuable. [00:39:28] They were considered inspired. [00:39:31] They were considered the Word from God. [00:39:35] They were considered scripture from the very, very beginning. [00:39:41] And when Constantine gave that relief and took away the edict for the very first time, scholars were able to gather the book together. [00:39:50] They were able to get all the pieces in the parts. And it started. And we'll maybe talk about it another time, but here's the coolest part about that story. [00:40:01] Christians were to declare Caesar is Lord. [00:40:07] That's what Caesar wanted. [00:40:09] But you know what the Christians did? [00:40:11] They had a mantra and they claimed it from Scripture. [00:40:17] It wasn't Caesar is Lord. They claimed Jesus is Lord. [00:40:22] And the mantra would go through the Christians. And during this persecution, Christianity grew and it grew and it grew. And by the time Constantine is in charge, guess what? [00:40:33] The very same place that Jesus is crucified, the very same place that people are losing their life now, they are believing that Jesus is Lord. [00:40:45] And the Roman Empire, the Christianity became the belief that is a work that only God could do. [00:40:54] And listen, as I think about their life, I think we need some men and women in this generation that declare Jesus is Lord. [00:41:04] We need some men and women who walk into their homes and they declare, my worldview is Jesus is Lord. [00:41:11] We need some men and women who walk into their college campuses and say, we are going to make a difference. Because today we declare Jesus is Lord. [00:41:21] I need men and women in this church who are willing to take us through stand for something that matters. Because although we are not persecuted, there is a world out there who is hurting. [00:41:33] There are people who are trying to find their identity in the wrong places, who are broken and lost, just like I was. And God wants to bring them into his loving hands. [00:41:43] And he needs representatives. And so tonight I ask, will you declare that Jesus is Lord? [00:41:51] Will you let him be the Lord of your life? And will you take him back boldly wherever you go? [00:41:57] Will you take him lovingly and compassionately and make a difference in people's lives, show them the goodness of who God is? Because while I love, I love the history, I love the archeology, I love all that, what happens is that is not what comforts me at the end of the night. [00:42:15] It's the Holy Spirit. [00:42:17] It's the Holy Spirit working in me. It's me seeking him. It's me trusting him. And it's me giving my life, heart, soul and mind fully to him. [00:42:26] Because Jesus is Lord. [00:42:30] Let's pray. [00:42:32] Dear Heavenly Father, I pray whatever mess I just made, you got it. [00:42:37] I pray that your goodness will speak through something of what I said. [00:42:42] I pray. I pray that you will give the men and women who are watching online, who are listening in this room the confidence because your Holy Spirit is at work inside of them. [00:42:55] I pray that you help us to read and to understand and to seek, Father. But I pray, most importantly, we seek you above all because you are the Lord of our life. [00:43:06] And I pray for those who are doubting or having trouble. I pray, Father, that you whisper to their heart. I pray that you guide their mind, their soul. I thank you that they're here tonight. But I pray that it continues, Father, that through the amazingly awesome people in this church, or through Wesley Huff or through Andy Stanley or whatever, wherever, I just pray that you work because you are real and you are good and you are our God. [00:43:33] And I love you and I trust in you and I hope in you. In your mighty son's name, we pray. Amen.