John 3:22-26 • Come Full Circle
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let's stand this morning for the reading of God's Word, John chapter 3, John 3, verses 22 and following in Your Grace Bibles, that's page 888.
After this, Jesus and His disciples went into the Judean countryside, and He remained there with them and was baptizing.
John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salem because water was plentiful there and people were coming and being baptized, for John had not yet been put in prison.
Now discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification, and they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, he who is with you across the Jordan to whom you bore witness, look, he is baptizing and all are going to him."
John answered, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.
The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth, belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony.
Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true.
For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.
Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Let's pray together.
Father, would you help us to understand these words?
For unless you lift your hand from the page, we cannot really see them. We see the print.
We may even be able to make reason of the words, but they do not penetrate our hearts unless you are active by your Holy Spirit.
And so we pray for that supernatural work even now to open hearts and minds to what the Spirit of God would teach us. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Please be seated.
I am looking for someone with the guts not to fight back.
Some of you will recognize the line from the movie "42," a movie named for the Jersey number of Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
That line, "I'm looking for someone with the guts not to fight back," is the line that Hollywood recorded from the meeting that Jackie Robinson had from the general manager of the then Brooklyn Dodgers in which Branch Rickey, the general manager, said to him, "Listen, I'm looking for someone who's going to be able to tolerate the abuse that's going to come his way when we break this color barrier." And Jackie Robinson in the moment began to defend his manhood, say, "I can stand up to it. I can fight it." And that's when Branch Rickey said the famous line, "I'm looking for someone with the guts
not to fight back."
That would be harder.
Now that's what the movie recorded and what a lot of the secular histories will tell you even now, but that's not the whole story.
There is another story beneath and a few of you in the room will know that.
In that three-hour meeting that Branch Rickey had with Jackie Robinson, there was another subject that was mostly on the table.
The subject occurred, as the two of them, white general manager, black African American player, both believers, went through a book that was popular at the time known as The Life of Jesus.
And what the two of them explored was what would it take in that day and that age to do what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Turn the other cheek."
He was two believers who talked for those three hours trying to anticipate what it would mean to live out the love of Jesus. Now when Branch Rickey came out of the meeting, for those who did not really understand, stand all that was said, his wording was this, "Jackie's a Methodist, I'm a Methodist, and God's a Methodist, so we're in this together." But that was just set away that the world would understand what Branch Rickey and what Jackie Robinson understood was that there was a mission now to live out the love of Jesus against great opposition where it would be terribly difficult to do. Perhaps the one who tells that story the best is Lee Fund. Lee Fund was a pitcher who joined the league at the same time that Jackie Robinson did and became his roommate and traveling companion at various times. Lee Fund was a pitcher, didn't last a long time in the major leagues, but he lasted a long time as the basketball coach at Wheaton College.
And later in life what he said was this, "Jackie Robinson showed me what it was to show the world the love of Jesus."
That's really what Jackie Robinson was more about, yes, breaking the color barrier, yes, standing up for people, changing a nation for the better, but more than anything, displaying the love of Jesus.
Now when I say that, I expect some of you to feel, "Well, that's just kind of a soft and sentimental way of talking about somebody who actually expressed much strength." But what you must recognize, it's what Jackie Robinson believed was his strength, not just his ability to stand up to a beanball or the curses or the invective nor the antagonism that came his way. What he believed gave him the strength was the deep and profound commitment that he was going to be exhibiting the love of Jesus to those who hated him the most.
What you may not recognize is John the Baptist is also displaying to us what it means to stand for the love of Jesus when life throws you the curve balls that make it seem as though he's not present with you or helping you at all. After all, if you look at this John the Baptist, the one who had the great privilege of saying, "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," well, that in itself is a noble sentiment. What happened next was not very fun at all. What John the Baptist begins to display for us is the problem of living nobly for Jesus. The problem gets on display in the very first verse that I was reading to you, verse 22 of John 3.
After this, the preceding account, "Jesus and His disciples went in the Judean countryside and He remained there with them and was baptizing." John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salem because water was plentiful there.
And people were coming and being baptized, but with Jesus.
Now, here's the big picture. You just have to kind of think of the geography. What John is losing is space.
He's losing his own space where he first met Jesus and made that great declaration, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." That was on the east of the Jordan where John, remember, was baptizing lots of people who were coming out of Jerusalem.
Now John has moved to the west side of the Jordan and he's still conducting his ministry. And now who shows up in the west side of the Jordan?
It's Jesus again. "Hey, I gave you your space and what happens?
You've come into my space again."
It's a simple message that if Jesus is Lord of somebody's life, He demands all the space.
He doesn't say, "Listen, I'll just stay in this corner." And we may want that at times. We may say, "Lord, you can have my family and you can have my spiritual life, but the business world is real world and there I need to function in my way." And Jesus says, "No, listen, there is no corner of your life in which I do not declare, I am Lord. I need that corner too." And some of us may say, "Well, listen, in my academic career and the work that I'm doing in college, but listen, when it comes to my dating life, I kind of need to be in the real world and I kind of need to operate that worry and I need to think about myself." And Jesus said, "No, listen, that's mine too."
There is no corner of your life that you cannot say, that you are able to say, "Jesus, you don't get here." I mean, I don't mean to be silly about it, but it's kind of like if you've taken a great Dane into your life, you know, and you think to yourself, you know, it's okay if the great Dane sleeps on one corner of the bed and he's saying, "No, it's all mine."
Jesus is saying it's all mine.
And John isn't just losing space, he is losing significance. Do you remember?
Verse 26, there's a discussion that has arisen and some of the disciples of John come to him and they say to him, "Rabbi, he who is with you across the Jordan to whom you bore witness," look, he's baptizing and all are going to him. Now when John was east of the Jordan, remember who was coming to him?
The priests and the teachers of the law are coming out of Jerusalem to John the Baptist. He's remember in the camel hair and eating the locusts and living in the desert and still he's get all these people coming to you of patronage to him. And it's not just the priest and the scribes, it's the Pharisees, the highest of the religious rulers. They're coming to pay homage to this one who is crying in the wilderness. And not only do the Pharisees come, ultimately Jesus comes to John.
He's got lots of people paying attention. He is surely significant in his desert location.
But that is not the end of the story. I mean to really read verse 26 properly, you have to assume the tone of a six-year-old whose older brother has just taken his place at the window on the trip to grandma's house.
You have to read it this way, verse 26, "Rabbi, he was with you across the Jordan to whom you bore witness." Look, he's baptizing and all are going to him.
I mean the disciples are saying, "John, we hitched our wagon to you.
You're the one who's supposed to be significant. You're the one who had the standing." And of course if we are with you, we have standing. But now everybody's going to him.
Did we get on the wrong bus? I mean we thought you were going to be the path to greatness and power and reputation, and now everybody's going the other way.
And of course it's not just loss of significance.
Ultimately what John is losing is his very dreams.
"Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." This is the long-expected Messiah. This is the one who is going to free us from our oppression.
But what after all happens to John? I slowed down when I read that parenthetical verse 24. I'll read it to you now again. The reason that people were coming and being baptized was John had not yet been put in prison.
Hey, if it's the Messiah, he's supposed to give feet to the lame and eyes to the blind and heal those who are sick and free those who are in prison.
But then John languishes in prison in all the things that he thinks will be fulfilled in not in his release, but in his death.
What happened to my dreams?
This is not the way I expected it to work out, Jesus.
For Jackie Robinson, things were similar, Eric Metaxas, the historian, says, "Jackie believed that God had chosen him for this noble purpose when he signed the contract with the Dodgers. He believed he was on the verge of a dream come true, but he had no idea of the stress ahead.
If it were a divine plan to break the back of racism, then the nation had to see bigotry for all the true ugliness and despicable it truly was.
So Jackie's job was to endure the worst evil on the most public stage so that no one could any longer hide from it or stomach it.
But on him, that is Jackie Robinson, the pain and stress of this purpose were so great that his wife would not even tell him they were expecting a child because she believed he was so close to breaking that he could not take one more pressure in his life.
Lord, I'm trying to show the world your love. I'm trying to show the world you.
This is not what I expected to happen.
Because God seemingly takes this one who is wanting to live for Christ and takes away space and significance and ultimately dreams.
These are messages that we have to face that living for Christ may be no picnic.
Nobility doesn't come cheap. Heroism sometimes cost a lot.
And so we look at people around us at times who are trying to live with integrity for the Lord in the workplace and recognize that to do so may cost security and income and my family's future.
And there are young people who are trying to live for purity and recognizing that if I really live for purity, I'm going to face loneliness and ridicule and doubt, "Is this really what God is calling me to?"
If I resist even in the church cynicism and criticism and gossip, then I may be the one that people get critical of and gossip about.
Living for the Lord can be hugely costly, and we recognize as we begin to face all the things that God calls us to if truly living for Christ is this noble task to which He calls us. Why would we do it? I mean, if it really is going to cost so much, why would we do it? John teaches, "As He, along with all believers who will follow in His path, believe certain things profoundly."
The first is that in living for the Lord, we become vessels of the glory of God.
When John speaks in verse 27, he says it this way, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven." John is looking at those who are questioning, "Why are we having not to have the significance that we thought we were going to have?" And John says, "Listen, if you have significance, if you have career, if you have status, if you receive anything, it's only because God has poured it into you. You're just a vessel. Whatever you have in terms of your dignity before the world is God's provision, but ultimately that is so that you as a vessel might show the glory of God."
That can be tough because life itself can be hard and difficult and painful, and to be this vessel for the glory of God amidst the pain may be a path none of us would choose if we were choosing.
Kathy and I have a friend, her name is Martha Furman, and with a lot of difficulty in her own life, she chose to be a counselor to children who've experienced the worst that life can throw at them.
She has a camp every summer that she hosts called Camp Braveheart in which she ministers to children who have lost their parents.
Here's what she writes, "One of the most consistently impacting activities we do at Camp Braveheart involves each child breaking a flower pot.
When they break the pot, I tell them to think about something that makes them really angry at their situation.
After the children help each other pick up the pieces, then they take the pieces and they write on them things that bring them some degree of comfort."
A Bible verse, a pleasant memory.
"Then they glue the pot back together." And usually the pot won't go back together in its original state. There's still cracks in it, and often they have to piece the pot back in such a way that it doesn't even look like a pot anymore.
But at the end of the week, each child takes a candle and puts it in the middle of their pot and the light shining through, I tell them, represents the light of Christ that shines through our brokenness.
We would not choose it, but in a broken world where people need to know amidst their darkness and brokenness and difficulty, the light of Christ can still shine. It's often our lives, our brokenness, our darkness, out of which Christ must shine to truly make a difference. The nobility is not standing for Christ when everything just works out perfectly fine and happy. The nobility, the heroism is people who say, "In the darkness, I still trust Him. In the brokenness, I still believe my life can be the vessel out of which His glory is poured. People see there is hope in the worst of things because I believe in this Jesus who works above all things."
It reminds me so much when I read Martha's words about the pots that are broken and out of which the light still shines of 2 Corinthians 4, 6 and 7.
God made His light shine in darkness so that we might know the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Remember the next verse?
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, jars of clay, so that the world may know that the surpassing glory is from Him and not from us. It's in our brokenness that we continue to have joy and confidence and hope that ultimately people are saying, "Listen, there is something different in your life. There is something you have that I don't have. I could not face the brokenness with the wholeness of heart that you still have. What is it that you have?" And it's that light shining through the brokenness more than the light of people whose lives are just perfectly put together that makes a difference. I think of Martha who I mentioned to you, this Martha Fuhrman, and I recognize the reason she is able to be so effective with young people is her own life has known family difficulties of alcoholism and molestation and fracturing that are awful. And yet somehow she has found in the hope that Christ offers a light to give others who are in such hopeless situations as well.
It's what John was helping us to understand when he says, remember in verse 28, that he is a herald, not just a vessel. "You yourselves bear me witness," he says in verse 28, "that I said, I am not the Christ but I have been sent before Him. I profoundly believe that my purpose is not to be about me but to be about the one that I represent."
And that is said even more specifically in the next verses, verse 29, "The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. This joy of mine is now complete." We understand it. Listen, if you are the best man or if you are the bridesmaid, right, your job is not to bring glory to you.
Your job is to bring glory to the groom or to the bride.
And the bride in this situation is us.
We are the church of Jesus Christ and we are the people who need the groom. John's favorite way of talking about who Jesus is, the groom from heaven who is coming to wed himself to the people of the earth as his bride, the church itself, we who are broken and besmirched and messed up in so many ways. And John is saying, "My job has been to stand over here and cheer, to say, that's the Christ. He's the one who hope is in. He is the one that's your hope too and to actually have his joy complete in that one uniting with the people who so need him. And if we begin to see that as our purpose, I'm just a vessel to receive what God needs to pour into my life that I might show the bride, other people what it means to be married to the groom, to have his glory there, to have his care, his love, his affection, that that really becomes my purpose more than anything about me.
It's what John says so clearly in verse 30, the summary of it all, "He must increase,
but I must decrease."
Translation.
It's all about him.
Application.
It's not about me.
When do we need to live that?
An understanding that what we experience, what we are going through is all about him
and it's not about me.
Maybe in a hard marriage.
One of the dearest people in the world to Kathy and to me is a woman who through decades
was married to a hard and crusty police captain who wanted nothing to do with her faith, who wanted nothing to do with her children's faith, who made life miserable for them all.
Until the cancer in which he began to say, "If you were willing to live with me all of these years, to face the difficulty of me all these years with joy and hope, then I want that joy and hope in the difficulty that I'm now facing." And a wife who was willing to live with, I will tell you, hardness and heartache for so long because she said, "It's not about me." Even when those in the church were telling her, "Get out of there. You don't need to be in that marriage. You don't have to deal with this," that she was saying, "It's not about me.
It's about my life shining for him. It's about him."
It may happen in a difficult church situation. I mean, I think of what we are facing now as so much of what we face for our future is recognizing that to have a future, we have to be seriously thinking what it needs to reach to another generation, to reach to other cultures, to reach to different kinds of people, things that are not accustomed to. And one of the inspiring things to me over the last several weeks has been this midweek class that I've been teaching about talking about our culture and changes in churches and ways in which our culture has changed itself so that a minister, we have to think in new and different ways. And if you just were to come, what you would see is the predominant age of those who are coming is 60 and above.
As people are saying, "It's not about me.
I want to know what God is calling us to do. It may be uncomfortable for us. It may be difficult." I'll tell you honestly, I expected just because I'm the new pastor, we'd have kind of large numbers the first week and then they decline after that. It hasn't happened. As week after week, we've had 100-plus people coming to say, "What do we need to be thinking about? I mean, if it's not about us, but it's about Him, what do we need to be thinking about?" And the glory and the inspiration of people of God asking the real questions to be a people of faith.
And what would it look like not if you were just in a difficult marriage or a difficult church situation, but if life itself were throwing you the worst curveballs of all?
Because I was working on this sermon, I couldn't help but think of these truths as we got the email this week from Glenn and Brenda Venet.
And they were dealing with the reality of Brenda having the PET scan that revealed what nobody wanted to see or know about the spread and the difficulty of the cancer.
But at the end of that email with all of its descriptiveness of the challenge that's ahead, these wondrous words, we are so blessed to have a Savior to whom we can bring our troubles and rest in the assurance of His grace.
It's not about us. We would not have chosen this, we would not have wanted this, but this is not about us.
This is about the Lord.
And we want people to know in the worst of times, in the most difficult of situations, that there is still hope. And it may not be the hope of this life, but it is the hope that is eternal. It's the hope that you need. It's the hope that we have. And it gives us courage and nobility even in this awful time.
Because we're about Him.
And in this darkness, we want you to see the light of Him that is our light too.
Why would we make such choices?
Because of what He tells us about Himself.
Who is this one who would let His light shine through us? He's the one who says, "I will make a difference every day." And the every day sometimes means that we are building in our understanding of who He is and what He must do. If you're after all asking the questions, "When do I start have to make… have to making these choices to live for Him? When is it necessary that I begin becoming this vessel?" And the answer is, "Right now."
I mean, you're not going to wait, you know, until the Nazis are at the door, the lions, you know, I mean, someday I'll be courageous.
Someday I'll act with nobility. I mean, it's being called for right now.
I mean, I love thinking about how it worked in Jackie Robinson's life. Yes, we know all the story of the great nobility when he was there before the world, but that's not where the heroism started.
I mean, it started with a youth pastor named Carl Downs, 25 years old, who saw this young black man on the streets who was his own worst enemy, angry, volatile, violent, brushes with the law.
And this youth pastor simply began to minister to Jackie Robinson and tell him about the love of Christ, which was more important than his defense of himself.
And Jackie Robinson became a believer, and there were huge costs almost immediately.
Jackie Robinson went to UCLA, and already his athletic ability was showing. He became a star four-sport athlete.
But because his father had abandoned his mother, it became necessary for Jackie Robinson to care for his family to leave college, to leave the acclaim, and work in menial tasks to take care of his mother and siblings. Nobility began early.
He had to give up the acclaim of being a four-sport athlete for the sake of his family.
Change of circumstances, he got back in college, and then he had to give up again. He had to give up sleep, because after bruising football games on Saturday, Carl Downs expected him to come to church and teach Sunday school on Sundays. So he had to get up and give up his sleep for the sake of young people like himself.
And he was living for the Lord when he went into the minor leagues, actually before that, the Negro leagues. And going into the Negro leagues as one who would not drink and would not play around with women, he was himself ostracized and ridiculed by his own black teammates in the Negro leagues.
Getting hated and thrown at and ridiculed was not new for Jackie Robinson when he finally made it to the major leagues.
Now, you know what he faced there.
But you should recognize that all that he faced was being prepared every step along the way as Jackie, step after step, was saying, "I'm a vessel.
God what do you need for me today? Help me to be in my brokenness, in my difficulty, what you need to be so others would see you."
What you may not recognize as I tell that story is it did not just begin with Jackie Robinson. As we were involved today in the blessing of the family, I hope you recognize, some of you know, that it was Jackie's mother Molly who actually began to tell him what it meant to be a child of God. When her husband abandoned them, she could have given in to bitterness, but instead she gave herself to making her child a better man and refused, refused to give in to bitterness or unforgiveness for the sake of her child. So that if you think of it long term, we became a better nation because a woman in obscurity refused to hate her husband before her children.
As God was building nobility into the system by someone who say, "My life is broken. My heart is broken, but I am going to show Jesus to the world."
And she did in ways she could never, never have anticipated.
The reason of, of course, is because what John is saying here about the nature of Jesus. This one that we say we will follow. Verse 31, "He who comes from above is above all." I mean, here is all the complexity and the difficulty and the fighting and the meandering and the difficulty and he's above it all.
Making what needs to happen happen. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. It becomes all the more important when you recognize that that phrase that we so often cite, "You must be born again," even said in the footnotes of some of your Bibles, that born again actually could just as easily be translated, "Be born from above."
And now John is saying, "Listen, if this Jesus is in your life, he is from above and he is now creating all things to work from an above perspective. He is doing what is necessary because he has eternal authority. He is from above and not only has he got eternal authority, he's got eternal truth.
Verse 32, "He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony." Remember, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless the Holy Spirit comes, you would not receive his testimony. But verse 33, "Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this."
God is true. Another phrase, you can take it to the bank, right?
You can put your name on this. God is true. And what he is saying is this one from above has eternal authority and he has the truth of the Word of God. And what's the consequence of that? Verse 34, "For whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure."
He is not limited by the things of this earth. He's not limited by what you see. He's not limited by what you feel. He's not limited by your brokenness. He's not limited by this world's darkness.
God has said, "I have sent one with eternal authority who has eternal truth to bring eternal life."
Those are the last words.
Remember, verse 35, "The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." There's been this great contrast that has been set up.
John the Baptist is saying, "Listen, if you hook your wagon to Jesus, if your belief is in him, then you have eternal life." It's interesting, this present tense. Whoever believes in him has eternal life. I thought eternal life was something, you know, out there in the future. I thought it was pie in the sky, by and by. Our difficulty is we don't have the definition of eternal life until late in the book of John.
Just before his crucifixion, Jesus actually finally gives us the definition of what eternal life is, John 17 and verse 3. Jesus says this.
He says, "And this is eternal life that they know you." He's in prayer. And he's speaking of his people. This is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. What does it mean to have eternal life?
To know God and Jesus. Now, it's the biblical understanding what knowledge is. It's to have a relationship. It's to understand that regardless of what we have to walk through, whatever the brokenness, whatever the darkness, that eternal life means, we go through it with God.
That he's with us going through it. And that's not just waiting out there sometime to occur. That by believing in Jesus, by believing he has authority and his word is to help us, that right now we walk through whatever difficulty we have with Jesus, with God himself being with us. Listen, it is a fallen world. It is a difficult world. And God is not saying, "Right now, I will fix everything." No, listen, other people need to be saved and brought out of the darkness of this world. There needs to be the testimony of those who in their brokenness, in their hurt, in their darkness are saying, "I still know the light that shines, that gives me hope, that will ultimately make all things right. But for right now, he walks with me. And I hope because I know no matter what I must face, he walks with me right now." And that means heaven begins right now, regardless of what you have to face.
And the converse is also true.
That's why John will actually describe hell in the present tense. "Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God," he doesn't say, "will come upon him."
He says the wrath of God remains on him, as though it's already on you. Well, what would that wrath of God look like? It would look like you were walking through the darkness without God.
That you're just on your own. That all the hurt and all the pain and all the darkness, that you're just on your own. And that's hell right now.
And that's what the Bible is saying, you don't have to go through. That while we live in this broken and fallen world until Christ returns, that what God is saying is, "I'll be with you. I'll walk you through it. I'll be with you." And this we know, if God is with us, if Jesus, we can bear anything if we know he's with us, and that's what he's promising. The eternal one with eternal truth is promising us his eternal presence, and that's why heaven starts right now.
And if you don't know that, if you don't have God through what you're going through,
then the pain is hell right now.
Hard things mean being realistic.
And I don't know that I read anything more realistic recently than the account of Rick and Kay Warren. Remember Rick Warren, the purpose-driven life author and pastor?
Pastor of this year, Rick Warren, in 17 services, some preach personally and some by video, Rick Warren preached to 50,000 people this Easter.
His book, Purpose-Driven Life, has sold 36 million copies, all before his son, just a few months ago, took his own life.
A son suffering with mental illness since he was a little child ultimately took his own life.
And when the interviewer, secular from People Magazine, did the interview of the Warrens, the interview was bold enough to ask the question, "How do you deal with God, not miraculously healing your son?"
And Rick Warren, wonderful words, said this, he said, "You come to surrender.
You say this to yourself, I would rather walk with God and not have my questions answered,
and have my questions answered, and not walk with God."
If what we profoundly believe is that at least a little taste of heaven is starting right now, then we have to walk through life in the brokenness and the darkness and sometimes the curve balls that are coming right at us and say, "I don't understand this. I can't explain this. I don't have all my questions answered, but this I know.
God's with me in this, and He's going to be eternally with me regardless of what I have to face, and that's how I can stand up under it, because I know God is with me. He showed me that when He sent Jesus to be with me and by His Holy Spirit in my heart forever.
And I would rather believe that than have all my questions answered and not have God walk with me."
Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.
You don't have all your questions answered.
But this is the one from above who comes with eternal truth to tell you about eternal life, what he says.
It won't all be fixed now. It's a fallen world.
But I will be with you, and I will come again to make it all right.
But until that day, I'll be with you.
Apart from that is just hell.
He would not have you know that hell, but know the heaven that starts right now of walking with you through whatever you must walk, that His light would shine through you.