Belief and Unbelief Among the Jews | John 12:37-50

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Welcome morning friends. Morning wasn’t that just a beautiful song and we’ll touch on that in just a minute. If you’re visiting real, welcome to you. If you’re watching online, real welcome to you. And let’s start here. It was October 15th, 2008. I stepped foot on the shores of America for the first time I came to see the love of my life.

I was one of 4 million. English people that came that year, but my journey felt different. I’d arrived here with this grand purpose and so together we began to explore this country that is America. And for the first time I ate in an American restaurant it was this one Panera Bread. That was the grand choice that we made.

And I remember this moment distinctly because it taught me that things were different here. That I’d been navigating different language, figuring things out as I went. I was on a journey. I was like a pilgrim. And so I remember this moment where I looked up at the board with all of this array of sandwiches and I saw one that I liked.

And so I said, I’m gonna take this. And then the lady looked at me and said these incredible words. She said, do you want bread with that or do you want chips? And I said, chips. As an Englishman, that’s a game changer. An Englishman, you put chips alongside sandwiches. And you got a meal. It’s not just a sandwich, it’s something special.

And so I had this moment where I said, I’ll take the chips and everything in me was just a bit of excitement. You meet your love of your life, that’s one thing. But to have chips with sandwiches, that’s another thing altogether. And then she handed me these. And in my heart, everything just sank. When you’re from England, chips don’t look like that.

Chips look like this. They’re these beautiful bits of fried potato that get thrown into a packet of paper with, oh, salt and vinegar and the whole thing. Just almost like it bonds together. It’s reasons like this, that the British are known worldwide is the greatest chefs, the culinary expert, the ones that could teach us all, everything.

And I remember thinking as she handed me this packet of crisps. That word you keep using chips, it does not mean what you think. It means that’s the wisdom right of in nego montoya, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. We’re gonna read a passage from scripture and this passage will keep using a specific word.

It’s the word believe. But I have a problem with that word. It gets used an awful lot in church. We read it over and over again, hear it over and over again. But I wonder whether that word means what we think it means. Let’s jump into this passage. This passage is the last time that Jesus will speak to the crowds.

After this, he’s gonna retreat back. He’ll only talk to his disciples. And then in the final week of his life, he’ll have conversations with Pilate, the Roman procurator. He’ll have conversations with the chief priests, but the crowds, the masses. This is the last conversation, the last words I’m gonna read, the power, the last part of what we looked at last week, just so we’ve got some continuity.

This is Jesus speaker. Whoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servant also will be, my father will honor the one who serves me. Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? Father saved me from this hour. No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. We looked at that prayer of surrender, a sense of, okay, have your will.

Then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. The crowd that was there heard it and said it at. Thundered others said an angel had spoken to him. That may seem a strange confusion to us, but in the ancient world, thunder was considered at times the voice of God. Here it seems as a group of people that hear something specific, another group of people that hear something just simply ordinary and perhaps out of place.

Jesus said, this voice was for your benefit, not mine. This voice is so that you might have this sense of certainty about this mission, that there might be some kind of weight to it. This is this voice to push you over the edge, finally, perhaps into belief. And then Jesus says what all this means in verse 31.

Now is the time for judgment on this world. Now the prince of this world will be driven out. Jesus gives this vision of a world that looks as it should work. He says There is a source to all of the brokenness that we see. There’s a battle going on, and that victory is about to be won. What he’s talking about is not an earthly thing.

In the end, it’s actually this big heavenly picture where he says the thing that’s about to take place is going to reverberate across history. Everything will be different ’cause of what happens now and then he adds this phrase and it’s strange, confusing, difficult to navigate. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people.

To myself, the Greek word in the text, behind the text is this word hoop. So it does mean lifted up, honored, glorified, even. It means to stand out, to be made special. But over his life in ministry, over his teaching, Jesus has suggested that his death will also be called a lifting up. He’s talking about his crucifixion.

And if we weren’t sure of that, if we were doubting that was what it was about, John gives us this little bit of commentary. He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. Jesus is talking about crucifixion as a lifting up, a way of him being honored, a way of him being glorified.

It’s not just honored, it’s not just glorified. It’s this figurative idea of on the cross. Isn’t that unusual? If we look at it as though we were looking at it for the first time, Jesus is saying the worst thing that has ever happened is also the greatest thing that has ever happened. The thing that looks like humiliation is actually an honoring the cross.

This thing that we talk about maybe just once a year. For some of us, this thing that we see as a focal point of Good Friday is this moment in history where everything changes, where God is honored in the strangest of ways, the cross is both the place of Jesus’ greatest humiliation, and the moment his saving glory is most displayed.

Jesus says that this moment in history that takes place will start to draw people to him. It will capture their attention in a different way or together the crowd as we may be used to now. We’ve been through this book for a while now. Every time Jesus says something like this, there’s someone who’s there ready to push back on how he sees things.

The crowd spoke up. We have heard from the law that the Messiah will remain forever. Yeah, last week we looked at this big procession into this city of Jerusalem. This crowd follows Jesus in the crowd gathers this city of maybe a hundred thousand people, becomes a city of about 1 million people during a festival time, and suddenly this crowd is following Jesus into Jerusalem.

So remember how they see things to them. Nothing’s changed. They haven’t heard Jesus teaching. To his followers. They don’t know that Jesus doesn’t see himself as this king. They’re still where the disciples were last week. They’re still in this place where this could be good for us. There could be this moment where Jesus takes over becomes king.

We get freedom. We get our country back. We get all sorts of things we’ve hoped for years. They’re still there hoping this thing happens. We’ve heard that you’re supposed to stage Jesus. We’ve heard that the country should be different now. Jesus, we’ve heard that this is the thing we’ve been waiting for Jesus.

So how can you say the son of man must be lifted up? The crowd is still not clued in to what the real message is. How can you say the son of man must be lifted up? Who is this son of man to? To them, Jesus is still talking about two different people. Him this ruling King and some other son of man figure that he’s gonna go through all of these awful things.

They have no idea. Those two are the same person. Then Jesus told them, 34, you are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light before darkness over takes you. It goes back to this metaphor, this idea of light and darkness, and says that you can see clearly. Now, there’ll be a time where you won’t.

You can see me clearly. Now. There’ll be a time that you won’t. Have ever any of you done that thing where you’re trying to walk through a space that’s intentionally dark? Perhaps you walk into a bedroom where someone else is sleeping. This happens to me a lot. I’m trying to navigate this landscape of darkness, and so what I’ll do at times is I’ll flash a light on and I’ll try and memorize every potential tripping hazard.

Which, because of where I leave stuff, there are many. And so I’ll have this moment of light where I’ll try and take a mental picture of everything that I need to see and then I’ll shut the light off so I don’t wake anyone up and I’ll tread tread. It usually ends as badly as you’re imagining, but that’s the sort of thing Jesus he’s talking about.

He’s saying, make sure you take a good look at me. Because there’ll come a time where it’s much harder to see the light will go and the darkness will seem like it’s overtaking everything. Who, whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. Perhaps it’s like the memory test that maybe you did as a kid.

My, my parents would grab a tray of objects and they’d say, okay, take a quick look at them. We’re gonna take them away and I’m gonna ask you what was there in front of you? This is the kind of thing Jesus is preparing his disciples for, but on a much more important level. The light now is fading and he says it will seem for a while, like the darkness shines.

Appreciate the light while you’re in it. Believe in the light, while you have the light so that you may become children of light. Jesus is making this invite that he’s made over and over again. And remember now for the last time, he’s saying, step into this kingdom of light. Move from where you are into the thing that I am doing.

Believe in the light when he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them. There’s one more phrase that John throws in, and the chronology is uncertain ’cause it seems like he’s still speaking to the crowd. But it seems like for the most part, Jesus’ ministry to the masses is done. The next stage will be post-resurrection, when his disciples will begin to share the message, and John gives us more commentary that we’ll move through fairly quick.

Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. Doesn’t that feel like it’s the wrong way round? Think about an amazing event that takes place, something unusual, something that comes out of nowhere. Who are the people that believe? The people that saw, right?

Maybe you hear from them that this incredible spectacle took place and you doubt because you didn’t see. But the ones who claim like they saw, they’re the true believers. But here John says, there’s a group of people who have seen and will not believe. They will not move towards Jesus. They are decided about him.

Sure that this must be some kind of fabrication, some kind of trick, some kind of falsehood. This John says was to fill the word of Isaiah, the prophet Lord who has believed our message, and to whom is the arm of the Lord being revealed. John’s talking old language that we may not be up to speed with, but to the Jewish people means a lot.

For this reason, they could not believe because Isaiah says elsewhere, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so they can either see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts nor turn, and I would heal them. John says they can’t believe he goes back to these Old Testament prophets, but you sense there’s this part of him that’s almost challenging them, pushing them, giving them one more last opportunity to believe.

He says, Isaiah says this because he’s seen everything that’s happening. He was really talking about Jesus and everything that would happen to him, and this is the final verses we’ll read. Yet at the same time, many even amongst the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees, they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogues for they loved human praise.

More than praise from God. Chances is a whole group of people that saw believed, but could never put their hand up and say it because of their fears for what would happen to them. You get this sense. He’s not just talking about the people that this happened to years ago, but a whole crowd of people in his time, maybe 60 years later, that are doing the same thing.

And then these are these words of Jesus, these final words. Whoever believes in me does not believe only in me. But in the one who sent me, the one who looks at me, seeing the one who sent me, I am the image of God. He says, if you’re looking to see God, just look at me. I have come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

Believe believe that word is all over the place, right? We’ve been through this book now since September, and as Aaron has preached and I’ve preached, and Sean has preached, and other voices have come in over and over again, we’ve said to each other behind the scenes, John has one takeaway.

One big idea. One thing for you to remember, couple of years ago we did the sermon on the Mount. Matthew gives this teaching from Jesus over two chapters, three chapters, and he has the 30, 40 takeaways. Always something different to do. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. John is just one. Believe. Believe.

So here’s my question. What does John mean? By belief, what does he mean? Now, maybe believe, depending on where you are in a journey with Jesus is a loaded question, and maybe you feel like that gets talked about a lot and it feels like the one thing you can’t do. You’re trying to mentally ascent to some ideas.

Perhaps you’ve been in church and you’ve been told, unless you believe God made the world in six days. You don’t believe. Maybe there’s been some other standard that’s been set for you, and so internally there’s this conversation that says, I just can’t do that. That thing’s not for me. Whatever that faith thing is, you guys have, I just don’t have, that reminds me of the opening to Peter Pan, the JM Barry story about the legendary flying boy who says this, the moment you doubt whether you can fly.

You cease forever to be able to do it. I think at times the way belief is presented, it feels like that any doubt pulls you out of the sky, that you can’t continue to believe because of some doubt that feels internal, some honesty about how you see the world, about the questions that you have. I think that’s true sometimes, I think sometimes we make it harder for people to believe because of a standard we suggest might be there.

But other times it’s hard to believe just because we know what belief might cost us, and this is maybe the problem for this crowd listening to Jesus. This is Soren ard philosopher, 19th century. It’s so hard to believe. ’cause it’s so hard to obey. Believing in Jesus suggests we might actually have to live as Jesus lived, and that’s an awfully hard thing to do at times.

The way John uses belief is distinct. It’s different in Matthew, mark, and Luke, the other biographies of Jesus’ life. Belief is often a noun. It’s something you have. Something internal to you. When Paul, this first century writer writes about Jesus, he too uses a noun. And belief is something, a thing inside of you, but never in John.

Every time John uses the term belief or faith, have faith, it’s a verb. And John faith is a verb, a not a noun. It’s not something you have, it’s something you do. It’s a reliance, a trust, something John would say You have to choose, and John seems stuck between this message that comes over and over again because he’s really talking to two groups of people, two groups of people that could easily be in our group of people here.

He really wants you to start. Believing he wants to spark to life. This idea that Jesus really is who he says he is, and you can trust in him, but he really wants you to continue believing and he’s really aware that what got you where you are may not get you where you are going.

That this thing you are on is a journey, not an event. Have you ever maybe thought about belief like that? Maybe you grew up in church and at some point someone said, can you pray this prayer? And you put your hand up and said, yes. And you said, now I believe. But there was nothing beyond that. Maybe he had a moment in a service where he said, I really believe this stuff that Jesus did, but it didn’t carry on after that.

John is convinced that belief is not a one time thing that you do. It’s not a thing that you have, it’s a continual thing that you and I do every single day To John Faith is a journey, not just an event. It’s a thing that continues to happen, not just a thing that happened to you once. Now the idea that faith is a journey.

The belief is a journey is not a new idea. There’s been books written about faith as a journey, the pilgrims Progress written back in the 17th century, imagining a man on his journey to the cross, and then on to resurrection theories like the Critical Journey, which says faith is a slow process where you’re hit by a wall in the end and have to get over it to continue on the journey.

People have taken pilgrimages. They’ve gone on journeys to get somewhere representing their faith this year. For those of you are less connected to South you may not know that this year we lost a couple of incredible people to death. Zoe Zabe, who was a part of this community for the last few years that lived this incredible journey where she continued to believe that God would work in her, would heal her.

And Jan Costas, a friend who would sit on the front row always late, always at the front row. Some of you could learn something from Jan.

This is Jan on the Camino the Pilgrim Trail across northern Spain making this journey as she processes what God is doing in her. That idea is not new. Faith is a journey. So for a second, think. About a journey and all the challenges that it brings up all the ways that you might experience a journey.

After meeting Laura, the love of my life, I got to travel with her on a honeymoon to Greece. We went out to a place that she loves, a place that I’d studied that I love, and a friend of ours had said, I can lend you a place to stay. He said, my company’s actually building some brand new villas right now.

You’ll be the first people to stay in them. Just get on a plane, find your way there. You can have the best time. About two weeks before the honeymoon, he called me and said, I’m sorry, my business partner lied to me. There are no villas, but trust me, I have a plan. And so he said, I found another villa. You can stay in.

Just get there. Everything will be fine. Laura and I made our long way from over here where we got married all the way across to Greece and then out to this tiny island of Catalonia. We got a car, got on a ferry, got off a ferry, drove to a different part of town, and finally ended up in this place where we were supposed to stay in this luxury villa.

There was no person to meet us as we’d been promised. There was no key left under the mat as we’d promised, and it began to have this feeling of, what have I done to my wife? We finally got into the villa. One bedroom didn’t have a bathroom that worked. The other bedroom smelt bad. There were no pans to cook in.

Laura began to think, what have I done by trusting this man to take me across the world? Journeys are easy to start, but as you continue the journey things happen that make you question whether you can continue. At all. Couple of ideas for you around that. This is Al a de Botone who writes about travel.

Memory of traveling in this respect is similar to anticipation, thinking about traveling an instrument of simplification and selection. We think about traveling and everything’s so easy. We plan where we’ll go, what it will look like. It’s all in our head. When we get back, we tend to remember only the good things, but when we’re there.

Traveling can be an awful experience. This is Anthony Bourdain. Chef travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart, but that’s okay. The journey changes you. It should change you. The start of faith might be defined by a word, and it’s this word, simplicity.

Perhaps you remember a moment as a child where you put your hand up and said yes to Jesus? I started following Jesus as a teenager. I did that with a whole bunch of other teenagers who were excited about what we were doing. We believed that together, we changed the world, and everything felt so simple then.

Faith felt somewhat transactional. It felt like I was living in a story where if I said yes to God, then secretly he would give me everything I ever hoped I would get. I would live a good life. He would reward me with a good life. In return, I would do certain things. Perhaps I wouldn’t sleep around and he would give me a beautiful wife.

I would do certain things and he would give me a successful career. Faith as a teenager feels transaction like, feels like if you do the right thing, everything works out fine. And that’s where belief begins in. John, let me take you back to the beginning. We’re gonna do this brief survey and grab these ideas as we see them.

This is Jesus meeting a man called Nathaniel who would become his disciple. When Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said of him, here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. How do you know me? Nathaniel asked. Jesus answered, I saw you while you were under the fig tree before Philip called you.

Then Nathan fan declared Rabbi, are you the son? You are the son of God, the king of Israel. Jesus said, you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that. Simple, right? It begins so easily and feels at the beginning of John. We have what faith should look like for all time, and yet we know for Nathaniel.

And for his other followers, it doesn’t stay there. Faith begins simply and then gets challenged in early faith, in simplicity, you might say these words speak to our experience, gratitude. This deep feeling of assurance that the God of the universe loves us, this sense of excitement of jubilation, even this very spiritual word, this idea that the world is in front of us and God is behind us and everything will be well, it feels in those moments.

Why can’t I stay here forever? And yet faith. By God’s design interacts with a world that is not an easy place to believe in. And as we continue on this journey. We meet a couple of things that seem designed to pull us away from faith now. Now, don’t hear me wrong. There’s some elements of simplicity which are essential for faith and which you may follow Jesus for an incredibly long time and still maintain.

In fact, simplicity looks at times like really advanced years, long followers of Jesus look like. But it is not quite the same. It’s just a little bit different. Here are two ideas, two different things, and I don’t want to confuse you or just get lost in some complex word but two words that seem to occur in our journey.

The first is complexity. The first is perplexity. Now let me define them really quickly. The first is this idea. It’s what happens inside. You continue to follow Jesus and you begin to learn new things. You begin to ask questions. You begin to experience life following Jesus in the world, and perhaps a couple of things happen in that experience.

You fail. You do something that you convinced you would never do. As a follower of Jesus, you sin and you don’t know what to do with that. Suddenly you start to wonder whether you can ever follow this Jesus journey as well as you thought. Perhaps the other idea is that you ask questions that you don’t have easy answers to.

The teaching of Jesus just seems too hard like it did for some of the disciples in John chapter six. I hearing it, many of his disciples said, this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it? Jesus starts telling them about the cross and what it will cost him, and they back away. They say It’s too much. It’s just too difficult.

From this time, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. Jesus asks his 12 disciples a question. Do not you? Do you not want to leave as well, do you? Jesus asked the 12, and they give an answer, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know you are the holy one of God.

When you begin a life of faith and have moments of failure of struggle, a temptation is to say, I’m not gonna keep going. I’m going to stop. When you experience those internal processes, those questions attempt and tation is to say, I’m going to stop. Perhaps I don’t believe after all, and yet it seems that the design is, we continue on the journey we choose to trust, continue to journey forward.

In the second season of complexity you might say, some of these words resonate. Knowledge you keep growing, but that creates some questions. And then there’s that old lurking failure of moments of sin, which leave you feeling disappointed, leave you feeling like a failure. That’s complexity. And it always seems to occur in the journey no matter how good we think we are.

But then there’s this other question, perplexity. The things that happen outside, the challenges that happen outside, and you see it in John, but I’m not gonna show you yet. I’m gonna show you it in Mark’s biography of Jesus’ life. A teacher I brought you, my son, says A man who comes to Jesus with a sick child who is possessed by a spirit who has robbed him of speech.

Whenever it seizes him, it throws into the ground. He foams at the mouth, nashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. I ask your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. The question of a man who has a sick child who desperately needs healing, an honest plea, a desperate sense that something is not right with the world.

Jesus gives him an answer if you can. Jesus said anything is possible for one who believes maybe for you. It’s not that a sick child, but maybe it’s the perplexity of seeing the world. The way it is. Maybe you look at the way Christians ask and act and start to ask questions about whether they’re really different to anybody else.

Maybe you see the wars that spring up in all sorts of places. Maybe you get caught up in the political landscape. Maybe it’s something. That’s on the outside that makes you start to wonder whether you can put your hand up and say yes to this thing at all. Complexity and perplexity are different, but they’re twins.

They operate together and in perplexity, the words might be these uncertainty and anger. Why it’s this desperate need that God might act, but an uncertainty about how you. Deal with it if he doesn’t respond the way you need him to respond. At its core, this word is fear. Some anonymous person once said, fear is the root of all as spiritual struggles.

It’s the thing that we’re always trying to overcome. Not doubt, but fear. Here’s the thing about these two experiences. On one hand they are flaws in the system. We talk a lot here about that genesis story, that old first story of man and a woman being created and living in a garden with God, and they’re supposed to be in that place, a perfect relationship.

Everything’s supposed to be as it is. It’s supposed to be good. You’re supposed to know God intimately, face to face. You’re supposed to live without the problems of sin and sickness. So in one sense, these things sound like flaws. But in the world that God has created this new Jesus world, they are not flaws.

They are the system. God doesn’t shelter us from those things. He doesn’t do what I believed in simplicity, which is to guarantee that everything would be easy, that everything, if I lived the right way, would end up exactly as I wanted it to be. We face those things and they’re not supposed to help us step back.

They’re supposed to help us step deeper into relationship with God. We’re not supposed to be afraid of them. We’re supposed to go through them. When faith is a journey, whatever we face, our work is simple. We keep moving towards Jesus. We keep moving towards Jesus. And that’s what the man in the short story in Mark does.

This is his response to Jesus Immediately. The boy’s father exclaimed, I do believe, help me overcome my disbelief, my unbelief. Do you feel that? Have you ever sat there? Have you sat in a situation where you’re trying to hold on to faith? And you’ve had to praise something like God, I believe, but help me in the midst of this experience to continue to walk towards you.

Let me offer some translations. Then I believe, help me with my doubts is how the message translates it. I choose to trust. Help me to trust more. It might be another translation. If you struggle with belief as an idea, just keep translating belief to trust. Keep asking that question. Will I choose to trust the God of the universe in this situation to journey with me?

I think that our journey of faith is this. It’s a move from fear to trust. We fear that we cannot deal with the situation, and God says, trust me, we feel that he doesn’t have his hand on what happens in the world and we’re asked to trust him. Each one of these things though hard, though painful, is designed to help us to trust.

A couple of ideas. This is Benedict Gelle Catholic theologian, we who believe in divine providence in life after death, in salvation and resurrection. We of all people when faced with catastrophe, must go on with courage, faith, and hope. Whatever the story he says, we continue to journey towards and with Jesus.

Jesus himself navigated this path. Let’s go back to that prayer at the beginning. Now my soul is troubled and what shall I say, father, save me from this hour. No, it was for this very reason I came into this hour. Father, glorify your name. This seems to be John’s version of Jesus Prayer in Gethsemane, in Matthew, mark, and Luke.

And then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me. And going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And Jesus has this moment navigating the same things we navigate.

That’s how he describes his mission, to experience all the things that we experience, and he makes a step that most of us will never make. He comes out the other side in this place called Harmony. Have you ever seen some of the old pictures? Of Jesus, the old drawings or old icons back from history, look at some of them here.

They have something in common,

even perhaps this one on the crust. Where’s the expression? A, we expect in our modern world a sense of expression, a smile, a frown, sadness, and there’s nothing. It’s this calm sense, almost emotionless. It’s not that these painters didn’t know how to put emotion into their painting, but they wanted to capture an idea, and it’s this harmony, surrender.

To in the midst of all the things we experience, all the things that we are fighting against internally to continue on a journey with Jesus, all the things we are fighting against externally to continue on a journey with Jesus, but he paints a picture of a place we might get to where we say, God, I surrender, may your will be done.

I choose to leave the outcome not to me. But to you, this is CS Lewis. I know now, Lord, why you ought to no answer. You yourself are the answer before your face. Questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Colossians one Corinthians TH 13, three. Now these three remain faith, hope, and love in the greatest of these is love Tim Keller.

The Christian faith is not a negotiation, but a surrender. And our greatest motive for surrendering to him cannot be for what he will do in us. It must be for love for what he did for us and this final place. In the face of all the things that we fight against, inside, all the things that we see in the world that feel like they’re broken.

We say to this God who gave himself for us, I trust you. I hand it to you. I don’t know what your life looks like now. Trust might seem like an impossibility in what you’re going through, but the story of Jesus is designed to do one thing, is to be bigger than everything that we’ll face. Whatever we face, the promises, what resurrection promises, new life promises, God at the world, work in the world with us.

Faith has a start. It’s not just an event. It’s a journey that you are on. Whatever place you find yourself, keep trusting, keep walking towards Jesus. Jesus. This book that asks so much of us, it asks us in the midst of our circumstances to believe, to trust you wherever we are, whatever is going on. Help us to keep journeying towards you.

Jesus. Amen.