https://vimeo.com/403466729

Okay, it looks like we're ready to go here. Are you guys all ready? Hello, Austin. Amy, Amy on my left. It's Lindsay in the middle. Austin on the right. How are you guys today? Good. You enjoying your coronavirus quarantine? Hey, who do you miss? What do you miss the most while you're having to be in your house every day all day? When you get done with this quarantine, where are you going? Your house. You're coming to my house. Well, that's awesome. Why are you coming over here? See me or see the dogs? Huh? Don't we? Is that, where are you gonna go, Austin? Your house. You're my house too, and Amy? Your house. Yeah, wow, gee whiz. You guys obviously got the script right down. Well, let's talk about some of what we talked about last time. I'm gonna come back to that because this story that we talked about last week, we called it the Bible. How many books in the Bible? Do you remember? 66. 66, where'd it go? Somebody remembered. How many Old Testament books? Eight. Eight? Seven. Little more than that. There's 39 Old Testament books. There are 27 New Testament books. So this is, this is representing the Bible for us. The different storylines in the Bible, okay? Starts over here with the creation of the world, ends over here with the end of the world, okay? All this story, which we're gonna talk about in the weeks to come. Let's talk about this story that gets to right here. Who's this? Can you see this one? Jesus. No, so it's almost at the end, right? It's clear at the end of this thing. This is a story about Jesus and we wanna talk about him because you know what? Way at the beginning of that story with Adam, God and us, we were all good friends. We were hanging out together in the garden and then sin came into the world. And Adam and God got separated and God couldn't be with us like he used to because we were afraid of him. So God would show up and we'd be afraid and so we'd run and hide and over the course of time we drew further and further away from God. And so God was kind of like on a quarantine. And the first moment he could, lots of thousands of years of human history, God comes in the form of Jesus in the first place he comes is to this world. He wants to come here and be with us. Isn't that pretty special? That's pretty special. He wanted to know us. He wanted to come back and be our friend. He wanted us to be safe with him and the whole story of the Bible that we're gonna talk about in the weeks to come, this whole story gets us to this moment where Jesus comes into the world. Now last time I shared the scripture with you, John chapter one, we shared the first part of the story where it says in the beginning, the word already existed. The word was with God and the word was God. What was the in the beginning again? Do you remember? What was in the beginning? You write nothing, but that's referring to what? Creation, right? When God made everything. And the word, who does that refer to? Do you remember? The word. Some people think it refers to a book like the Bible, but what do we know that it means? What is the word? Well, here's the clue. Let me give you a clue in the second part of this verb. And second, it's a little bit further down. Verse 14, we come to this verse. It says, and the word became flesh. He became human. And he made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the Father full of grace and truth. So who's the word? That's almost always Jesus, right? When I ask you a question, it's like Jesus. Jesus is the word of God because God speaks his words to us. But oftentimes as we'll see when we read through the Old Testament, we don't understand who God is. We don't know what he means. And so God came in the form of Jesus to come and be with us. Austin, what's your favorite animal? A panda. A what? A panda. A panda. How would you like to spend an afternoon playing with a bunch of pandas? Would ya? Yeah. Well, that can be pretty mean, you know? Pandas, like they get around humans. They got real nasty claws. But what if you could become a panda? What if you could spend the afternoon with the pandas as a panda? Not a boy, but a panda. Not a boy pretending to be a panda, but a panda. Amy, what's your favorite animal? Dolphin. Dolphin, it's always a dolphin. How did I not know it would be a dolphin? How would you like to spend the afternoon with a bunch of dolphins as a dolphin? Yeah, so they're not afraid of you. They're not trying to run away because you're this mean, nasty human that might trap them in a net. You just get to be with them as they are. Can you imagine God getting to be with us just like us so we wouldn't know that it was God and we wouldn't be afraid. That's what God did when he came in the form of Jesus. Okay? Lindsay, what's your favorite animal? A turtle. A turtle? Would you like to be a turtle? Yeah. For an afternoon, just hang out with a bunch of turtles? Yeah. That sounds like a lazy afternoon. Bo-de-de-de-da-ta-ka-na-ka-walk-to-the-water. That's how turtles talk, you know? But so Jesus got to come 35 years maybe, something like that, he lived with us. And so I wanna tell you five things about the Gospels I want you to remember today. Can we do that? First one is this. There are four Gospels. There are four books about Jesus. We just got one here, but there's actually four books. Do you know what they are? Know any of them, their names? Bernie, is Bernie one of them? Kermit, Kermit. No, not Bernie, not Kermit. Who's one of them? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are four guys that wrote about Jesus. Now two of those, Matthew and John, actually were one of Jesus' disciples. They were with Jesus through his whole ministry time, when he got older, in his 30s. So they knew Jesus from that. How did Mark know Jesus? Mark wasn't there, but Mark is Peter's friend. Remember Peter, as you read the Gospels, Peter's one of Jesus' closest friends. Peter and Mark are friends. So Mark is telling us Peter's story. He's telling us things he heard Peter share about Jesus. And then Luke, who's Luke? Do you know who Luke is? He's a doctor. He's a doctor of medicine. But he's heard a lot of stories about Jesus. So what Luke does is he talks to as many people as he can find who were alive when Jesus was here. And so he writes the story of Jesus from a lot of people's difference perspective. So Matthew tells his story. John tells his story with Jesus. Mark tells Peter's story. And Luke tells a whole lot of people's story so that we could come to know who Jesus is. Is that right? Now, how many of you remember going to Shaver Lake last summer? Do y'all remember? And we don't have time for it today, but what if I could ask each of you, what did you remember about your time at Shaver Lake? What did you enjoy the most? Would I get three exactly different stories or would I get three different stories? I'd probably get different stories, right? You're gonna remember things that were special to you, Lindsay. Austin's gonna remember something different and Amy may remember something else. But that's what the gospel's like. Here are four different people sharing with us about Jesus so that we can understand who he is. Why is that important? Second thing. So the first thing are four gospels. The second thing is a big word. I'm gonna use a big word with you. Incarnation. Have you heard that word before? It's a big word. Incarnation. Have you heard of carnation? It's a flower, right? Do you know the flower carnation? Grandma often has them up on her counter. She likes carnations a lot. But this is nothing to do with flowers. The word incarnation means Jesus came inside humanity. He came, it's the word made flesh. The scripture I just read to you. Remember, he became like us so that we could know him like Austin could become a panda or Amy become a dolphin. So he could live with us and know us and we wouldn't have to be afraid of him. Now, Claire from Clovis, California, she asked me last week after we'd done this teaching, she said, how do we know Jesus is real? How do we know? Cause we can't see him, right? Austin, can you see Jesus? No, I can't see him. So just because something's invisible, does that mean it's not real? Austin, do me a favor. Get your book right there, that big Bible book in front of you. Jesus story about, hold it up to your, hold it up above the table. No, no, hold it up flat. Just hold it flat. Yeah, like this. Hold it up above the table. Hold it up above, up above the table. Okay? Up above the table. Farther, farther up by your head. Okay, now drop it. Now, why did it fall? With gravity? Can you see gravity? Now you can't see gravity, but you know what exists, right? Cause you dropped something. There you go. And it falls, that's gravity. Now we can't see Jesus now, but these guys did. These four guys got to see Jesus. He came here, God put Jesus into a human body. He was born from his mother. He lived on the earth as a little boy. He grew up to be a man. And as he grew up, he grew to know that he was God. He wasn't born a little baby going, wow, I'm God. That's pretty cool. He didn't know. He grew to discover that he was God. And Lindsay, when he was 12 years old, when he was your age, he went to the temple with his parents. And the parents, he got left there. They were on their way back to Nazareth and Jesus got left at the temple, 12-year-old boy. And when they came back to find him, he's sitting there talking with all the scholars, all the knowledgeable people about his father. And he said something pretty amazing. He said, and when his parents said, what are you doing here? Why aren't you with us and your family? He said, didn't you know I had to be about my father's business? Now he wasn't talking about Joseph's stuff, his earthly dad. He was talking about his father, God. And so Jesus was, for a time on earth, his life, he lived here. He grew up as a little boy. He was a carpenter. For three or four years, he went around and taught people about God. And he did miracles. He did some amazing things. Can you think some amazing things he did from the scriptures? Some of the Bible stories you've heard. But what do you think is amazing? He walked on water. He what? He walked on water. He walked on water. Can you do that? Go out in your pool and give a shot. See how long it works. What else did he do? Can you think of something else? He healed people. He did heal people. He did. He changed water into wine. So for a time, Jesus was visible among us. And that's the stories we get. So we get to know what this Jesus was like. And then we're gonna talk about this later. He dies on a cross and then he's resurrected again. So now Jesus alive again. He didn't just stay dead. Like some of the people you know and love who have died, we don't get to see them anymore until heaven, right? They're gone. But Jesus came back. He raised from the dead so that we could know him. And then after 40 days, he disappeared again. He went back to the father. So now we don't see him in the same way. But just because we don't see him doesn't mean he isn't real, right? Like Clarissa, how do we know Jesus is real? Well, it's not from our eyes because we don't get to see him. Look what I brought for you today. Brought some water. One of these waters is pure. It's pure water. You could drink it and one of them has poison in it. Okay, if you drink it, it'll make you sick and you wouldn't even like it. But how do you know which is which? What if I told you, Lindsay, it's this one. This is a good one. Drink this one. Would you trust me? You would, because I'm your grandpa and you know that I love you, right? I wouldn't lie to you. This is the bad one. But we can't tell because the poison is invisible. But we could see if we can make it visible, okay? So here's water. It's clear. Now give me the hands out of the way. There you go. Let's see if it's got poison in it. I'm gonna put some clear drops in there. Do you see anything? No, it's clear. But this other one, this has got some bad stuff in it. You know how we can tell? Watch this. Do you see something? Wow. See, before it was invisible, but we put some drops in it and we make it visible again. That's the incarnation. Jesus became visible. We could see him. Now we don't get to see him so we can read about him. That'll help us get to know him. But more than that, I wanna say this to Claire. Jesus wants to reveal himself in our hearts, not just in a book. He already knows you. He already loves you. He's already walking with you. But I told you last week, sometimes we kind of lose sight of that. We kind of forget that he's there and we kind of get about our own business instead of the father's business. The Gospels help us get back to the father's business, to see the invisible, to know that Jesus is with you. He loves you. He wants to speak to you and pour his life into you. And that's it. So at the end of his life, when Thomas saw him resurrected, Thomas was one of his disciples, saw him resurrected from the dead. He said, man, I'm not gonna believe unless I can touch the nail prints in your hands and touch the scar on your side. And Jesus said, go ahead and touch. Go ahead and see Thomas. I want you to know that I'm real. But then he said to you, blessed are you Thomas? Cause you've seen and believe, but even more blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. What are the drops that allow us to see what's real in our life? It's called trust. Like Lindsay said, grandpa, I trust you. If you told me this is the good water and I could drink it, I would drink it. That's cause you trust, right? So you don't have to see. And that's what Jesus wants us to learn how to follow him. Now, no, we can't see him in the same way, not with these eyes, but we can feel him in our heart. We can know him that way. And so he invites us to live with him. Third thing about the Gospels, I wanna, let me answer one more question for Claire. How do we know he's real? Two other things. One, people tell us he's real who were with him, right? But we also have things that tell us he's real like this right here. This I have been in the place where Jesus was this, see this little hole in the roof of this cave? This is a cave. This is where Jesus was imprisoned the night before he was crucified. It's under a house that Caiaphas lived in. Caiaphas was a high priest. He lived here. This is the hole that Jesus came through when they put him in prison the night before he was gonna be killed on a cross. I said, we'll talk to you more about that later on. So we know Jesus was here cause we can go to the places where Jesus lived. Your mommy went there with me. It's maybe someday I'll take you guys too. We can actually be in the place Jesus was. But now, as I said, he reveals us in our hearts. And we know he's real because our world is changed by his presence. When I listen to him, when I follow him, when he shows me what's real in the world, I get to live better than when Wayne just is about his own business doing his own things. And you get to learn that too. And part of the way we connect with that is by reading and by praying. Saying, Jesus, and this is a prayer. I want you to pray. First time when I was about 10 years old, Austin, close to your age, Jesus, if you're real, would you show yourself to me? I want to see you. And not with these eyes, but I want to hear you in my heart. I want to recognize your fingerprints when you do things in my life, okay? Does that make sense? Third thing, Jesus taught about the things Jesus taught about all the time. He taught about the kingdom of God. That's the first Matthew, Mark, and Luke talk about the kingdom of God. God's kingdom, which used to be out there somewhere, lives in us. He's with us now. He can teach us how to live in God's kingdom, not just the world we live in that we see with these eyes or feel with these hands. The other thing John talks about is eternal life. The same thing as the kingdom of God. God's life comes here to us. And I've been living my whole life learning how to live by the way Jesus wants me to live, not by just doing all the things that Wayne wants to do. We'll talk more about that next week probably. Fourth thing when you read the gospels, watch how Jesus treats people. That's important. Watch how he treats people who are broken and hurting. He loved them. He'd go rescue them. He tells a story about a bunch of sheep that were lost and the shepherd, he's like a shepherd of the sheep. He goes out to find the lost sheep and bring them home. And when you watch Jesus treat his followers, there's a woman who's at a well and she's very lonely. She's been divorced five times and no one wants to be her friend. Jesus comes to be her friend. And we learn how to live by watching the way Jesus lived. And finally, I wanna say this about the gospels. If this is all you read in the Bible till you're 18, that would be a great thing. Don't worry about what all these, I'll tell you the story so you'll understand this story. Oh, there they all fell down. But what I want you to do is just begin to read some stories about Jesus. Listen to some things that he said. Ask, how is this true in my life? And I'm gonna give you an example from my own life. There's a in John chapter 12, Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross and die. And is he getting ready to go? We said, what should I say, Father, save me from this hour? And if you were gonna die on a cross, wouldn't you ask God to save you from that? Oh, please, God save me from this. And we could pray that about this pandemic. Oh, God save us from this pandemic, make it in today. And if God ends it today, that would be awesome. But what if God doesn't end it today? The second thing Jesus said, I could pray Father, save me. And that's usually what we like to pray. God get me out of this, get me out of a tight spot, get me out of something as difficult. Jesus said this, but Father, I'm gonna pray, glorify your name. God, do you be magnified? What do you wanna do with my life? And Jesus needed to die. We'll talk about this down the road. Jesus needed to die so that you and I could know him and know his father. So yeah, Jesus wanted to be saved from dying, but Jesus knew for the glory of God, for God to have his way and to do even better than I know to do, then God does that. When I read a passage like that, then I think about the coronavirus and I'm sitting here, do I pray God save us from this virus? I do, I pray he saves you from it. I pray he saves me. I pray he stops it in the world. But sometimes things like this in the world happen and God's not stopping it, but God wants to be glorified through it. So instead of trying to get him to change it, I'm gonna say God, what's the best thing Wayne can do to glorify you during this time? And one of the things that I put on my heart was I could talk to you guys about the most important thing in my life, Jesus and the Bible. And we could share that with a whole lot of other people. I think over 200 people listened to this last time and saw you because they want to learn too about how it is that this Jesus is real and makes himself known. So I hope you learn to enjoy the Gospels. We'll talk more about the story later on. This is how Jesus made himself known in the world so that we could be his kids, so that we could follow him. And the more you get to know him in the book, the easier it's gonna be to recognize him in your heart. And that's the most important place you need to know him. Make sense? Okay kids, thanks. I hope it's been fun for you. Thanks kids, bye-bye.