Andy Stanley - Ninety Part 5: Greater Indeed

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
When you grow up in a religious home, where you
grow up in a religious environment like I did, it's
easy to love your religion more than you do the
people for whom the religion was given. And then if
you're not careful, you end up hurting people with the
religion that was given for people. And then you wonder
why people don't want to get involved in your religion,

(00:24):
and round and round and round it goes. In fact,
some of you, that's the reason you gave up on religion,
or you gave up on church, is because you ran
into some church people who seem to love their church
and love their religion more than they loved you. And
that was just kind of odd, wasn't it. That was
just kind of odd. We're in a journey with the
life of Jesus from the moment he stepped onto the
pages of history as an adult until the time that
he gave his life as a sacrifice for sin. And

(00:47):
the most important thing about this series in terms of
tracking along with Jesus is I want you to understand
and I wish the world to understand that Jesus came
to introduce something new. He did not come to show up.
He did not show up to content in you something old.
It wasn't version two point zero of something. He didn't
come to complete the book, so you know, we'd have
a whole Bible. Jesus came to earth. God sent his

(01:09):
son to this planet to do something brand new in
the world for the world. He came to establish a
brand new covenant or a brand new contract or arrangement
between God and all of mankind. He came to give
us a brand new command that we'll talk about in
a few weeks that would be the governing ethic for
his brand new movement called the Church. Now where we

(01:30):
left off last time on this journey with Jesus, he
had just revealed for the first time what his upside
down agenda for his kingdom would look like. We call
it the Sermon on the Mouth, but it's a sermon
that Jesus gave many, many, many times. In fact, this
was probably the core content of his message whenever people
gather to hear him teach. And in this message, he
began to contrast himself with the laws of the land

(01:51):
and the laws of that era, and he began to
say things like you have heard it said, but I say,
you have been taught but I say, you've heard since childhood.
But I say, in his audio realized, wait a minute,
you're contrasting yourself with Moses the lawgiver. You're contrasting yourself
with Moses the covenant maker. It was Moses that came
down from Mount Sinai with God's code for our conduct.
Moses is our guide, Moses is our lawgiver. I mean,

(02:14):
you can't stand in contrast to Moses. You can explain
what Moses taught, but you can't take away from it.
And Jesus felt the tension in his audience, perhaps as
he felt every time he taught this content, and so
he made this statement that we looked at last week.
He said, now, I want to be clear, don't think
that I've come to abolish. I've not come to abolish
the law or the prophets. And the law are the prophets?
Or the Law and the prophets is what first century

(02:36):
second century Jews called their scripture their Bible. They didn't
have a Bible that had Jewish scriptures, and it was
referred to as the Law and the Prophets. It was
essentially everything in your English Old Testament from Genesis all
the way through Malachi, and Jesus said, I've not come
to abolish it. I've not come to abolish them, but
there is something that's about to happen. You are not
imagining things. Change is coming. What you feel, the tension

(02:59):
you feel Israel. I've not come to edit them. I've
not come to say that they're wrong, but i have
come to fulfill them. If God's arrangement with Israel, ancient
Israel was an assignment, Jesus said, I've come to complete it.
If his arrangement with ancient Israel was a math problem,
Jesus said, I've come to solve it. If it was

(03:20):
a plane, he said, I've come to land it. And
even though it was disturbing, and even though there was
so much contrast, and even this was even though this
was so different, even though it was so new. The
text says that when Jesus finished, When Jesus finished saying
these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching because
he taught this one who had authority and not as
their teachers of the law. But this surface yet another

(03:43):
issue that launches us into our discussion today. How much
authority did Jesus really have? I mean, did he really
have authority? Did he really have the authority to replace
everything Moses had put in place? Did he really have
the authority to replace everything Solomon when he had the
temple built put in play? Was he really the person
they'd been waiting for all these centuries who would actually

(04:05):
bring something brand new into the world. Soon after this,
Jesus has a very interesting conversation with some other Pharisees.
Here's how it began. The text tells as Matthew tells
us that at that time, this is a few days later,
Jesus and his guys they're going through the grainfields on
the Sabbath. They moved from city to city, town to town,
and on this particular day they're walking through some grainfields
on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they begin

(04:27):
to pick some of the heads of grain and eat them. Now,
everywhere Jesus went there was a crowd, And everywhere Jesus
went there was a group of pharisees or sadducees trying
to trap Jesus and separate him from the crowd. And
when the Pharisees who were walking along with Jesus saw this,
they said, look, aha, gotcha caughtya. We see what you're doing.
Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.

(04:51):
We've got you. Somebody take a picture. Oh, we don't
do that yet. Somebody do a quick sketch. We don't
do that either. Okay, well, somebody document this because Jesus
and his guys they're violating the Sabbath. And Jesus say stop,
stops and says okay. Well. Wall waits for the crowd
to come closer. He says, look, you know as well
as I do, we're not breaking the Sabbath. There's nothing
into the law that says you can't break grains of

(05:11):
head off, you know, the weed when you're hungry, you
know that. And he throws it right back at him.
He says, besides your priest, they work on the Sabbath.
It was their version of the preacher works on Sunday.
You know. Sometimes I meet people they say I can't
come to church. I work on Sunday. I always say
me too. Anyway, So so he throws it right back
at him. He says, look, the priest work on Sunday.
So they kind of have this little spitting match, you know.

(05:31):
And finally Jesus rears back and gives them like a
big overarching principle. He says, look, look, you're so concerned
about breaking the Sabbath. You've got it all wrong. The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
This is a big idea. The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath. In other words, Okay, couples
don't have children, so there will be someone to play

(05:54):
with the toys. That's not a great illustration, is that
I think it is? But anyway, I thought the point
is this, you've got it all backwards. God, God is
is not more concerned about the Sabbath than he is
for people. God created the Sabbath for people. You think
this is what he was saying to them. You think
God loves his law more than he loves his people.

(06:18):
Because they did, they did what many religious people do.
They fell in love with their religion to the neglect
of the people for whom the religion was created, into
whom the religion was given. They prioritize law over people.
This is the essence of legalism. This is the essence
of why so many people, especially in previous generations, just
walked away from the church. Legalism always prioritizes a view

(06:43):
over a you. In fact, you may have left the
church because somebody in the church you grew up in
prioritized the Bible over your divorced mother or your gay brother.
And throughout the Gospels, part of the new that Jesus
introduced was this that when people, whenever people use the
law of God to dishonor people made in the image

(07:05):
of God, oh my goodness, Jesus was quick. He was
quick to remind them that they were on the wrong
side of God. So this conversation goes back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth, and finally he brings
it to an end and he lands this statement that
we looked at last week. That's the hinge point for
where we're going today. And he says, look, look, you're
so concerned about the Sabbath, You're so concerned about the law,

(07:27):
You're so concerned about the Temple. Let me give you
a little information. Lean in, guys, don't let this get out.
I tell you, I tell you something greater than the
Temple is here now. To compare yourself to the Temple.
To declare yourself greater than the temple is either arrogance,

(07:49):
its ignorance, or its insanity, but it certainly blasphemy. Nothing
was greater than the Temple, and certainly no individual person
was greater than the Temple. In fact, to say that
you're greater than the Temple is a threat to the Temple,
and a threat to the Temple is actually a threat
to the nation. The Jewish population in the first century
of Jerusalem, in fact, in the previous centuries and in

(08:10):
centuries to follow, they would die in order to protect
that sacred piece of real estate about thirty seven acres,
where that housed the law of God, where God dwelt,
the epicenter of their worship, the epicenter of their whole world.
Nothing was greater than the Temple. And if you threatened
the Temple, you threatened the nation. Illustration of this Seven

(08:31):
years after Jesus said this, in the year forty, the
citizens of Jerusalem got wind of a plot. The emperor,
Emperor Caligula, was going to send a statue that has
actually shipped a statue of himself to the coast, and
they were going to cart this temple of this statue
of Caligula to the temple. And they were going to
place it inside the temple walls. It was as if

(08:53):
he was picking a fight with the Jews. And Petronius,
the governor of Syria at the time, was given the
assignment of going to the with his legions and taking
this statue and accompanying it south to the city of
Jerusalem and placing this statue of the emperor inside the
walls at the temple. And when he arrived at the
port city in order to take possession of the statue,

(09:14):
he was met with thousands and thousands and thousands of Jews,
and when he threatened violence, instead of fighting back, they
went to their knees, and they pulled down their cloaks,
and they said, we are willing to die. They exposed
their necks to Roman blades, said we will die before
we allow you to desecrate our temple. Petronius eventually made

(09:35):
his way to Tiberius. When he got to Tiberius, there
were larger crowds. In fact, first century Jewish historian Josepha
says this. He says, the Jewish people they threw themselves
down upon their faces, and they stretched out their throats
and said we were ready to be slain. And they
did this for forty days, farmers went on strike. The
economy was in jeopardy. Petronius did not know what to do.

(09:58):
It was a stalemate. This would not simply be armed conflict.
This would be genocide. So we wrote a letter to
the emperor asking for advice, knowing that his failure to
deliver the image of the Emperor to the temple would
cost him not only his job, it would probably cost
him his life. But he did not know what to do.

(10:18):
And then, in a twist of providence or fate, while
the letter was on its way to Rome, Roman senators
conspired with the Roman Probatorian guard and they had Caligula assassinated.
The crisis was averted. I tell you, something greater than
the temple is here. This was impossible. There was nothing

(10:40):
greater than the temple. Besides, this was the second temple.
This was Herod's temple. The first temple, Solomon's Temple, had
been destroyed around five eighty six BC. Later, the people
were expelled from the city. Jews were thrown out of
the city. The Babylonians cart it off the treasure from
the temple and cart it off some of the best
and the brightest people from the city as well. In fact,
they took the fab four Shadrack and Meshak of Ben

(11:01):
to go and Daniel some years later. Some years later,
the Persian emperor allowed the people to return to the city.
Cyrus the Great said, you can go back to your city,
and you can rebuild your temple, but you can't build
it as big as you built it the first time.
I want a little Ecano temple. Okay. I want you
to feel good about yourselves, but I don't want you
feeling too good about yourselves. In fact, some people were
there in the audience when they opened up you Ecano

(11:23):
temple who remembered per Solomon's temple, and the text tells
us that they wept because it was knocked near as
grand and as glorious as the original temple. Then twenty
years twenty years before Jesus is born, twenty years before
Jesus is born, Herod the Great goes to the Jews
in the city of Jerusalem. He says, I would like
to rebuild your temple to its former glory. I would

(11:45):
like to build you a magnificent temple. And they went
back and forth and negotiated back and forth, and finally
they gave him permission. So twenty years before Jesus shows up,
the temple is rebuilt, and it is extraordinary. Here's a
model of what the temple looked like in those days.
These walls, some places were over one hundred feet high.
This is a about thirty seven acres of stone that

(12:06):
was cut stone in order to present to prepare the
context for the temple structure itself. The temple structure itself
about sixty feet high. But the thing that made this
so magnificent, the thing that made it an ancient wonder
of the architectural world, was this that the entire temple
built on this plaza was made out of cut stone.
Some of these stones were eleven by sixteen by like

(12:28):
forty four feet long. Some of the stones in this
building weighs over five hundred tons. This was an area
where earthquakes were frequent. Harod built an earthquake proof temple
for the Jews, something greater than the temple Jesus, I

(12:49):
don't think so. So one afternoon, Jesus and his guys
are in the temple on the temple plaza, and they're leaving,
and they go down probably the southern stairs, and they're
walking back, and as they're leaving, one of jesus guys
turns and he looks over his shoulder, you know, looking
at the temple, and he says, look, stop, teacher, come here,
come here, Look teacher, What massive stones, what magnificent buildings.

(13:12):
As many times as they'd been there, it was one
of those things that you see, you see it over
and over and over, and every time you see it,
you you just can't get over whatever it is you're seeing.
And this was one of those things. I mean, the
size of the stones, the foundation stones for the temple.
Every time they saw it, it's like, how in the
world did they carve stone this large? How in the
world did they transport it to this mouth, How in

(13:32):
the world did they get it up here? It was
just overwhelming, And so they pause once more to marvel
at this extraordinary, extraordinary building. Jesus stops and he looks
back with him, and what comes next should make you
sit up straight. And what follows if you're not a

(13:53):
follower of Jesus for whatever reason, you had a bad
church experience or something about six day creation or how
they get all the animals on the art, you know,
I understand those challenges I just want you to lock
in for just one minute, because I bet you haven't
heard this before. In fact, what I'm about to say
is so extraordinary. I would love for you to fact

(14:14):
check me, because what happens next, what happens next, It
really is epic. Jesus says, guys, you see all these
great buildings. You see all these great buildings, replied Jesus, sure,
not one stone, not one stone, these fabulous stones that

(14:37):
we wonder how they even carved them, much less transported them,
much less got them to this place. Not one stone
here will be left on another. Everyone will be interesting
Greek term here it doesn't mean fall down. It means
exactly what it says in English. Every one of these
stones will be thrown down as into the valley below
the base of the walls of the plaza. And they

(15:04):
they just stare like like, okay, so is there a punchline?
I mean what I mean? And then Jesus was saying, look,
don't be too impressed. It's a teardown. Now. The problem
was this, Come on, we're with me. This is impossible.
You couldn't tear down Herod's temple. It's impossible. An earthquake

(15:26):
may topple a parapet An earthquake, may crack a foundation
here and there. You may lose a few bricks off
a building, you may have to repair a floor. But
even then earthquake couldn't throw all the stones of the
temple off the plaza into the valley below. There was
only one force in the world powerful enough to do that,
and that would be the Roman army. And the Roman

(15:46):
Army is not about to destroy Herod's temple. Herod is
a vassal king who works for Rome, and Herod's the
one that built the temple to keep the Jews quiet
and to keep them peaceful. I mean, Jesus, I mean,
you know, maybe we misunderstood, but this, this is a
This isn't just disturbing, this is impossible. In fact, if
this happened, this would be apocalyptic. This would be the end.

(16:08):
I mean, the end of the temple is the end
of the world as we know it, and we will
not feel fine. So they make their way down into
the valley and they make their way up to the
Mount of Olives. And his guys are so disturbed by this.
It's like you, we remember you saying you're greater than

(16:28):
the Temple. Okay, that was weird. I mean, you're greater
than the temple, and now you're telling us that this
building is going to somehow come tumbling down all the
way into the valley below. So later, as Jesus was
sitting on the Mount of Olives, they took a break
opposite the temple. With this panoramic view of the city
and the temple. You can visit the site. Peter, James,

(16:50):
John and Andrew went to him privately. They just had
to know. They just couldn't let that hang there. This
was much too big of a deal. And they said
to him, tell us when will these things happen? And

(17:12):
so he did. In fact, I would love for you today, tomorrow,
sometime soon. Find yourself a Bible. Download one on from
the internet. You know the YouTube. I mean you version Bible.
It's extraordinary online Bible. Dust off your grandmama's Bible. Find
yourself a Bible and go to Matthew Martin Luke chapter
twenty one, and read what Jesus says about the days

(17:34):
when this would happen. He said, when this takes place,
you will see an army surrounding the city. And when
you see the army surrounding the city. You'll know the
destruction of this city is about to happen. You should
leave the city, you should take everything with the city.
Woe unto the pregnant woman. Pray that your wife is
not pregnant in these days. Pray that there are no
nursing mothers in these days. Men will die by the steward.

(17:55):
They will pray for mercy, they will pray to die.
It will be so extraordinary when what I predicted takes place.
He wasn't apologetic, He didn't say, oh, I was speaking figuratively.
He wasn't really nostalgic. But when you read how he
described what would happen, clearly he was heartbroken and he

(18:15):
was disturbed, but he was not exaggerating. But if that
were to happen, the world as they knew it would
literally come to an end. And forty years later, that's
exactly what happened. After four years of battling with basically gangs,

(18:38):
Jewish gangs that had created an uprising against Rome, they
had one giant victory over a Roman legion and they thought, oh,
we can expel Rome. And their one victory gave them
the momentum they needed to begin raising armies all over
Galilee in Judea. The citizenry was scared to death. They
knew this probably would not end well. But the young,

(18:59):
the young men, like, this is our time. We can
rise up and we can conquer Rome. And Rome sent
in the tenth Legion and others, and they began to
herd the Jewish rebels from the Galilee all the way
down south, and eventually they rounded them all up in
the city of Jerusalem, and they built a wall stone
wall all the way around the city. By this time, Vespasian,
who started this war, had gone on to be emperor,

(19:19):
left his son Titus, and early as they began to
build siege works around the city, thousands and thousands and
thousands and thousands of Jewish people, pilgrims, because it was
a festival time, began to make their way toward the city.
And initially the Roman army said, no, you can't enter
the city, and Vespasian said, no, open the gates, allow
them to enter. Accompany them to the city. And once

(19:40):
they're all in seal it because their food supply, their
food supply will be depleted faster. And what happened in
the side of the city was horrible. They fought with
the Romans by day, they fought with each other by night.
The grain stores caught on fire during one of the
internal skirmishes. They were so sure that they were going

(20:01):
to expel the Romans they began fighting each other for
who would be king of Israel. And on August sixth,
eighty seventy, the second Wall was breached. The tenth Legion
went into the city and killed just about everything they
could that couldn't be sold into slavery. They burned everything

(20:23):
that would burn in the temple, and then they literally
fact checked me. They literally dragged every single stone used
to build the temple off the ledge of the plaza
and dumped it into the valley below to say this
is the end of Judaism. In fact, today you can

(20:44):
go to the southwestern corner of the temple and see
some of those stones for yourself. It was never rebuilt
on that day. Ancient Judaism died, never to be resurrected,
just as Jesus predicted. This is what it looks like today.

(21:05):
You've seen pictures like this Dome of the Rock. Around
seven hundred AD eighty seven hundred, the Muslims came and
built the Dome of the Rock. It was a place
where people cook. Jewish people and Muslim people could take
a pilgrimage to see where Abraham sacrificed, either Ishmael or Isaac,
depending on which religion you embraced. They built a mosque.

(21:26):
They alocked a mosque around seven hundred. It wasn't the size.
Then earthquake destroyed it. They rebuilt it. Another earthquake destroyed it.
Then they built it to this size. Ten ninety nine,
the Crusades retook the city. They turned the mosque into
a church. Eighty eight years later, Solidin came retook the
city for the Muslims and turned it back into a mosca.

(21:49):
Rabbinic Judaism was born, but ancient Sini Judaism was never resurrected.
Just as Jesus predicted, not one stone will be left
on another, everyone will be thrown down. Now I'm going
to depart from the storyline for just a minute because
what I want to explain next is a little bit complicated,
but it is oh so important. The group of men

(22:12):
who followed Jesus apostles after the Peter was martyred, Paul
was martyred, Andrew was martyred. They say Matthew was martyred.
When all of jesus first century original followers died, the
next group of people that stepped into leadership in the
church are called the church fathers. And the church fathers
were quick to do exactly what I'm doing today. The
church fathers were quick to say, Aha, it happened just

(22:35):
as Jesus predicted. Jesus is who Jesus claims he is.
How in the world could someone predict something so you know, epic,
so cataclysmic, so so easy to verify. Jesus must be
who Jesus. They did exactly what I'm saying. They're saying,
Jesus said it, and it happened. Jesus predicted it, and
it happened. But the gospel writers, the writer of Matthew,
the writer of Mark, the writer of Luke, the writer

(22:56):
of John, don't do that. And the question we have
to wrestle to the ground, especially if you're a skeptic
of this, how could they resist, How could they resist
editorializing on such an extraordinary, extraordinary phenomenon, How could they resist,
you know, adding to their text something like this. And
so it came about just as Jesus said it would,
Because if you read the gospels carefully, they do this

(23:16):
all the time. Throughout the Gospels, they'll say Jesus said.
But the disiples didn't understand it at the time. They
remembered it later later they understood. They constantly editorialized because
they were looking back on the life of Jesus, writing
about what he said, what he did, and then they
would interpret what he said and what he did because
they were on the other side of the crucifixion and
the resurrection. So why in the world with Matthew and

(23:37):
why wouldn't Mark, and why wouldn't Luke and why wouldn't John?
How could they resist saying and oh, my goodness, it
happened just as he said it would, especially when you
read the detail he gives in Luke chapter twenty one
and in Matthew and Mark. So why not leverage this,
why not see say see there I told you so,

(23:57):
and here's the answer. And this should make you set
up straighter, this should make you fall on your face
and declared Jesus as your lord. Because when the Gospel
of Mark, who was written, the temple was still standing.
That's why Mark didn't say it when the Gospel of
Matthew was written, the temple was still saying, that's why
Matthew didn't say, And sure enough it happened. When Matthew

(24:20):
was written, gave he included Jesus' prediction, but he didn't
include the fulfillment of the prediction because it hadn't happened yet.
When the Gospel of Luke was written, Luke who said,
I have thoroughly investigated all these things so that you
would have an orderly account of what the life of
Jesus looked like, what he taught, and what he did.
When the Gospel of Luke was written, the temple was

(24:40):
still standing. And my friends, here's the problem. When you
were in school, or if you were to go back
to school, or when you begin to read information to
the contrary the reason you were told and the reason
I was told in school that the Gospels were written
by not eyewitnesses, but people who arete many generations afterwards,
is this very prediction. Because if Jesus predicted the fall
of Jerusalem with the detail that he gives us, and

(25:03):
it was not written in after the fact, my friends,
it is indisputable evidence that Jesus is worth following Matthew
didn't include it because it hadn't happened yet. Markn didn't
include it because it hadn't happened yet. Luke didn't include
it because it happened. It didn't happen yet. But my friends,
it happened just as Jesus said it would. It is

(25:25):
the most verifiable prophecy ever given anywhere by anybody. Not
one stone, not one stone will be left on another.
Everyone will be thrown down. And it looks as if
the only reason Jesus stopped to share this with his

(25:48):
guys was because they marveled at the temple, because they
ask him. And when you read it, Jesus isn't happy
about it. Jesus isn't lefal Jesus isn't vindictive. Jesus isn't
see there when this happens, everybody can know I'm who
I claim to be. There's none of that. His heart

(26:08):
was broken because these were his people and they would
suffer in a way that is unimaginable to our modern senses.
But Jesus was clear. The days of temple sacrifice, the
days of animal sacrifice, the days of God's covenant with
the nation of Israel is coming to an end, and

(26:32):
it will be replaced by something new, by something improved,
by something universal, and by something portable. Twenty years later,
twenty years later, while the temple is still standing, twenty
years after Jesus gave this prediction, the apostle, Paul, the Apostle, Paul,

(26:56):
the ex temple loving Christian, persecuting Fair, writes to ex
Pagans in Corinth who had their own temple experience, and
he writes them these astounding words that again we miss
because we've never been temple people. But here's what he said.
He said, do you know or do you not know?

(27:16):
Because they didn't know? Do you not know that your
bodies this was a game changer, that your bodies, your
physical bodies, are temples. Something's changed, something new has come.
That your physical bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit,
the very spirit that inhabited the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem.

(27:37):
That building that he could have said, that is still
standing is no longer inhabited by the Holy Spirit, because
the Holy Spirit has left the building and inhabits the
hearts of men and inhabits the hearts of women. You've
been inhabited by the Holy Spirit, who is in you
whom you have received from God. You are not your own.
The significance is lost on us, but it is loaded

(27:58):
with implications for century Pagans and first century Jewish people.
And here are the implications that sacred. With the arrival
of Jesus, sacred has been commuted. There are no more
sacred objects, there is no more sacred geography, there are
no more sacred sites. There are only sacred individuals, sacred people.

(28:24):
The message of the Gospel, the message of Jesus, the
new that he came to introduce, not for a group
of people, but for the world. Is this that you
are seated beside sacred, that you are raising sacred, You
married sacred, you hire, and you work for sacred. The

(28:45):
stage was set with Jesus. The stage was set for
the upending of all society. The seeds were sown for
the end of slavery. The seeds were sown for dignity
for all mankind, but more importantly, for all womankind as well.
Because there is an inextricable link. There's an inextricable link
between the message of Jesus and human freedom. Because there

(29:09):
is a link between the message of Jesus between human
dignity and the cross, the price he paid to declare
the worth of every single person who has ever walked
the planet. There's an inextricable link between the teachings of
Jesus and your value, your worth. You're intrinsic, not a sign,

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your intrinsic dignity. I tell you. He said, something greater
than the Temple is here, and it was something greater
than the temple had come to the world for the world.

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And then as he predicted, the temple came down, along
with eventually temples all over the Roman Empire, for the
light and the love of God had been released and
manifest to the world for the world. And here's where

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this intersects with you. And here's where this intersects with you.
And here's where this intersects with me. That Jesus' original
invitation still stands, and as it stood before the temple
came down, how much more powerful now that the temple
has come down. Before the resurrection, this extent, this invitation
was extended, How much more significant is it that it's

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extended to us today after the resurrection. And the invitation
is simply this, It's follow me, follow me, follow me,
and you will find life that is truly life. Follow me,
and you will find abundant life. Follow me and you
will find meaning and life. Follow me and you will
find fearless life. Follow me and you will find life
placed within the bookends of eternity. And you'll never be

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the same, and you'll never see the same again. And
follow me not because of faith, Follow me because I
have demonstrated myself faithful. And follow me because I have
given you more than enough evidence to know that I

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am he who your heavenly Father sinned to pay for
your sins and to establish a relationship with your heavenly Father.
Follow me. Why wouldn't you do that? Why would you
resist that? Why would you fear that