0:02 be glorified. You should be honored. You're so good. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. All right. If this works, you guys still see a courthouse. All 0:22 right. Is it O or FF? Which one? Nobody laughed at that joke. Are you guys Are you guys paying attention? Is it O or FF? Thank you. 0:41 All right. Does it Does I think I might be too far from the receiver, so I'm just gonna I'll just give you a signal when the we're ready for the slides. Does that work? All right. Go ahead and go to the next slide. All right. You're 0:51 pointing at something. All right. Here's the slide. So, I want to start with this. Um I'm going to read it. I'm gonna actually read it in the Living Bible. I was encouraged what by brother Zach and he read to us from the Living Bible 1:03 almost two chapters on Wednesday night. So, I'm gonna read to you from the Living Bible. You can close your eyes and do it as a prayer if you want. Um, if you don't if you trust me that I'm reading from the actual Bible, but if 1:16 you could, I want you to really listen, tune your hearts to what I'm about to say. This is in Psalm 139:es 1-4. Oh Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit 1:35 or stand, when far away, you know my every thought. You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. every moment. 1:55 You know where I am. You know what I'm going to say before I even say it. Amen. If you've never prayed that prayer or something like that to your heavenly father, I'd encourage you to. He knows 2:12 everything about you. He's not caught off guard by technology issues or uh location changes or anything. He knows every detail of your life. And I want to hammer that home. Uh I want to hammer that home this morning or this 2:29 afternoon. Right? He knows everything about you and he loves you. And I'm happy to uh happy to share that with you this morning. Next slide. A little bit about my testimony. I think most of you know this, but if you don't, 2:44 I was in the United States Air Force. I was active duty for nearly 14 years. And I had a wonderful plan for my life. My plan was to be a mechanic, you know, uh to work on planes for 20 years, retire, and I had a financial plan set up that I 3:00 would never have to work for money again. At 41, I could retire. And I was in the process of executing it perfectly. As I was moving up in rank, I was saving more and more money. So that should give me plenty by the time I 3:12 retire. That was my plan. God had a different plan. If you look in that second picture, you see a guy in a suit with some scales and some paperwork. Whenever I left the active duty military, God decided God decided that I 3:26 needed a career change. And so I went from being a filthy mechanic to being somebody that worked in an office and had to dress up and had to dress nice. And I went from, you know, hearing, you know, one people talk one way all day 3:45 every day to hearing people talk another way all day every day. And just so many things uh that I learned from this experience. And I was supposed to retire at 41. And right now, as I stand before you, I'm 51. And I don't know when I'm 4:00 going to be able to financially retire. God's ways are better. But he had a plan for my life. And some of that plan is what I want to share with you today. Go to the next slide, please. When I read my Bible now, from my time 4:14 of being a legal assistant, that just means I helped out lawyers. I went from being a mechanic in the Air Force to helping out people like attorneys and lawyers and people that do court cases and stuff like that. All I did was help 4:26 them out. I literally would proofread documents and and type up things and like very, you know, pretty simple work. And if I didn't know how to do it, I would ask for their help. And you know, I was the helper, but I'd often need 4:37 their help. But I came across this verse and it just from my time of being a lawyer's helper, it jumps out at me now. I never caught this. And I'm not even going to tell you the context of where you'll find it or what's going on in the 4:51 I don't want you to know because that's probably why we missed it, right? Jesus says to his disciples, the question was asked, "What about us? What's going to happen for all of us that have left everything and followed you? Jesus says, 5:07 I say to you that you who have followed me, notice this, in the regeneration, like after your body is new in the world to come, when the Son of Man sits upon his glorious throne, you also shall set 5:24 sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. I used to read that so fast. Now I go, "Wait a minute. What is Jesus trying to tell us about what we call heaven?" And suddenly as I meditate on this, I go, "Wait a minute. If this is the case, 5:42 I'm not obviously he's picked 12 to be on the throne. I I don't believe I'm one of them, but as a citizen of that government, I need to know how it works." And suddenly Matthew 6:33 takes on a new weight for me. Right? If you 5:57 don't if you're not familiar with Ma Matthew 6:33, it's the one that says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things that everybody on earth seeks for." I'll I'll take care of that. But that's not your 6:12 priority, Josh. Josh, your priority is to learn how things will work in eternity. You need to understand the laws that govern it. And it's not even laws like we think of laws. It's more principles. It's more hearts. It's more 6:27 Uh, it's more. It's more. And so that is my job during the rest of my time on this earth. I want to discover how the kingdom of God works. And so now when I read my Bible, can you go to the next slide? When I read my Bible now, I see a courtroom. 6:47 And in a courtroom, you have all these things going on. And they all work together. And the goal of the all these parties working together is is justice or righteousness. Lord, how does that work in heaven? And there's so many 7:04 attributes to each one of these, right? At the top, you got the judge, right? You got the judge sitting up there. Everything we're facing the judge. There's there's flags on each side of the judge. In this, I had to change the picture. One's the United 7:15 States. I had to change the state from another lesser state than Texas. So, that's a Texas flag. AI let me do that. I'm not going to tell you what the state is, but I think you can figure it out. All right. And then there's a 7:26 prosecutor. On the left side at that table, there's the prosecutor. He's the guy that brings the charges in the case. And then on the other table, you have that guy that's the accused. He's the one that's been charged with the crime. 7:39 Obviously, he's part of the case. And then next to him, you got his attorney, his lawyer, right? Hopefully, his his advocate. And then you got a jury. You see the box of 12 people. Well, that's the jury. They're going to make a decision, 7:53 usually guilty or not guilty. And if guilty, what's the punishment? And then on the other side, you have a gallery. That's people that are just there. Either sometimes if it's a high-profile case, that may be reporters. 8:06 Very often, it's family of both the victim and the accused. And you have this big world spinning together. And it's a hectic world. I used to work in this. I did this for a decade. I did it part time. when I do my reserve time, but I also did it as a 8:22 civilian for about three years. And so to even touch on this, I want to look at each separately. I planned for this to be a a series if it's the Lord's will. I don't know which one which role I'm going to next, but I have to pull it 8:34 apart. But I want you to keep this picture in mind. Go to the next slide, please. I want you to have this picture in mind. The awesomeness of a courtroom, the awesomeness of a throne and a judge. And if you've ever been to prison and 8:51 you've ever gone through this, I'm pretty sure you will never forget it. People that are in prison remember details about their time in a courtroom. I hope you've never experienced that, but I want to talk about it. I want to 9:04 kind of take a piece, but you have to understand when I take one piece, you have to understand the way that everything else interacts with each piece that I separate. That's why I have to give you kind of an overview before 9:14 we go into the details. And so I had like seven things that I could start with. What what do I want to start with? And I wasn't sure. I don't know which one should we go with first. And I think you know which one it is, right? Because 9:24 it was colored in green if you were paying attention. Go to the next slide, please. The witness. When I was a parallegal or legal assistant, the worst part of the job, it was a consensus from everybody I talked to. The worst part of the job was 9:41 witnesses. Witnesses were what made the job miserable, right? When I would talk to people that did this full-time. I only did it part-time, but I would ask them about this job because I'm trying to learn this job. I It was a new job. 9:53 Remember, I had been a mechanic for a decade and a half. Now, I come into this world like, "Hey, how does this work? What do you guys do? What's the worst part of this? What's the best part of this?" Worst part of it was witnesses. 10:04 What do you mean, Josh? Why what's so bad about being a witness? Or what's so bad about dealing with witnesses? Well, first of all, in the Air Force, you're representing the federal government. And here's what's interesting. You have to make sure that 10:20 both sides witnesses make it to the trial. In other words, I'm on the prosecution side, but it was my job to make sure the defense's witnesses show up. In other words, you're a travel agent from some from somebody that doesn't really want to travel. Can you 10:39 imagine that? You guys have traveled somewhere and probably used a travel agent before and they're very nice, very helpful, you know, getting you giving you your options, telling you, "Hey, when can you fly out? Do you need a 10:49 hotel?" Blah, blah, blah. Everything that a travel agent does. Imagine doing it for somebody that doesn't want to even travel, right? This is all over the US. All right. Now, why don't they want to travel? Josh, why are you saying that 11:02 it's such a headache to be a legal assistant and get those witnesses there? Let me help you out. Uh, the prosecution calls its first witness, Zimry Maguire, to the stand. 11:28 Stand here. Turn and face the gallery. Please raise your right hand. Zimry Maguire, do you swear that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God. Okay, Zimry, let me remind you that 11:48 you're under oath. What is the biggest secret you've ever kept from your parents? You can have a seat. She did good. Zimmer did a good job. Give her a round of applause. 12:09 Okay. So, now imagine you're that witness. Imagine you just told a room full of people you will tell the whole truth. Nothing but the truth. For those of you that have a conscience a sensitive conscience, oh boy. Right. You're going 12:24 to it's going to be exhausting by the time you're done. And and by the way, by the time you get here, you've already been grilled by both the prosecution and the defense. This is not the first time that you're you're talking in front of 12:36 people. And so you've got to get and often the reason we're calling a w a witness is because they have information that both sides one side probably wants and the other side doesn't. So whenever you subject yourself to this, you're going 12:51 to get cross-examined. What does cross-examined mean? It means that both sets of attorneys and maybe more than one attorney on each side are going to get to ask you questions um until they're done. Some want want to get certain information out, some want 13:07 to get other information out, and I guarantee you, you will be exhausted. Imagine I call you up here brother sister and I have a chance just like Zamry to ask you you know those deep dark personal questions and I ask you 13:22 under oath because very often it's their father or their child or somebody that they're very close to that's being com or being charged with a very serious crime. Can you imagine the emotions that come out? So I have to get witnesses 13:38 here that don't want to be here. very very very tough job and if they don't want to come sometimes they don't you know you're going to ask me questions that I know if I answer truthfully that might put my brother behind into prison 13:51 for a very very long time so they say no I'm not I don't want to come so then you got to go through all the hassle of getting a subpoena which is a legal order that says oh no you will come the judge says you have to come what if I 14:05 don't come well then you go to jail okay I'll come so this is our witness. I remember one time I had to go get the other side's witness. I'm on the prosecution side. I had to go pick him up at an airport. Airport was two hours away. 14:19 Two hours away. I pick him up at the airport. Uh this man's son was about to go to prison. I was on the team that was whose job it was to send him there. And you know when you talk about awkward, I know kids love the word awkward. 14:33 Two hours of awkward car ride back to that military base. I still remember the conversations we had and I remember how on edge I was. This is what witnesses do. It's very tough. Let's go to the next slide. But in our Bible, when I start thinking 14:50 about witnesses, it doesn't take me very long after the gospels to come to witness. And we talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit. And we talk about being anointed with the Holy Spirit's power. Why? One verse tells us what Jesus is doing. 15:08 He tells them that they will receive power from the Holy Spirit. Well, why is that, Lord? He tells them, he tells them exactly why they're going to receive power. He says, "You shall be my Are you guys It's hard for me to hear up 15:26 here. You You shall be my >> witnesses." You need power to be a witness. You do. You need power of the Holy Spirit to be an effective witness for the Lord. And he says, "My boundaries 15:43 are going to explode. You will be witnesses in Judea and Samaria and all even the remotest parts of the earth. I'm going to expand that in our generation because I believe it in God intends it to expand it. You will be a witness at your workplace. You will 16:00 be a witness at home in your living room. You will be a witness in your kitchen. You will be a witness. You will be a witness to both demons and angels when you are at your computer debating on whether to click on that site. What 16:14 you choose to do, what you choose to do will be your testimony. And you think you're alone, but you got the heavenly hosts watching what you do. You will be a witness. And you will need power to be a witness that glorifies the Lord. 16:33 So you would come to it right away. Okay, Lord, I see my weakness. I I thought I was a good witness. I I tell people about Jesus. People know I'm a Christian. I'm a pretty good witness. Are you, Josh? How effective are you? The more I think 16:50 about this, the more I go, Lord, I need your help. I need your help. All right, let's continue in Acts. Go to the next slide, please. You guys are familiar with the story, I think, right? Same chapter, same chapter that told us that 17:03 we would need power from the Holy Spirit to be our witnesses. Tells us a story about how to replace a disciple. And I think you're familiar with this story. Uh they're like, "Oh man, we lost Judas, right? He's not going to sit on one of 17:17 those 12 thrones, obviously, right? We got to figure out who's a replacement. How do we decide who should replace Judas?" And I the more I meditate on this, the more fascinating I find it, right? They come up with two guys. 17:34 They say, "We need we need people, whoever's going to replace Judas needs to have been with us from the time that Jesus was baptized by John until the time that he was resurrected and ascended into heaven." That's who 17:51 will replace him. And the whole purpose of replacing this guy is so that that guy can be a Okay, you guys did better that time. So that he can be a witness. In other words, those 12, the purpose that the Lord had them for them were to be 18:08 powerful witnesses. And I would say based on all of human history, they did a pretty good job. I don't think it was these 12 ordinary men that did it. I think it was the power of the Holy Spirit. So they had to they had to 18:21 experience things. And what's interesting like where did these guys come from? Apparently they were there the whole time, but we don't hear about them anywhere in scripture. And as far as I know, we don't see them come up again in the 18:35 Bible. I remember one of their names. The guy that got picked, I remember his name. His name was Matias, right? He got selected. The other guy didn't. Who's the other guy? Um, Bella, right? Here's why I get confused. He had 18:51 three names. You guys can you guys got Bibles? Check me out and everything. It says he was this name, but he was really called this name. And then sometimes they would call him this guy. Oh. Oh. Well, that's probably why I don't remember. You're 19:03 confusing me with so many names. When I see him in heaven, I'll ask him all, "Why'd you have so many names?" It'd be kind of like this, you know? Say, "Hey, Josh, don't you have another elder in Austin CFC?" I do. And they say, "What's 19:15 his name?" His name is Raju. But nobody calls him Raju, or very few do. They call him David. And really, nobody calls him David. They call him brother. Something like that, right? But he doesn't get picked. You know, I tried to 19:28 look up some church history on both these guys, and apparently they were both witnesses. They were both witnesses, but we really don't know much about them except that the the calling for which they were they were called, they were to 19:43 go into all the world and glorify the Lord. Very interesting. Go to the next slide, please. I drew this picture. I drew I say I drew it. We We use AI and we're like, look at how talented I suddenly became. This is a AI photo. You can now 19:59 tell, hey, here's what I need. I need a witness. But I want to create a witness like what I saw when I was a parallegal. I was a legal assistant because I want I want my brothers and sisters to understand the problem with witnesses 20:12 because I remember I told them it was a hard job. I told them how hard it was to get them there. Now I'm going to tell them how hard it is to get them to start stop talking to you heard me right to stop talking. We would interview the witnesses before 20:27 long before they went to, you know, took the stand and we would be like, "Hey, here's what we're going to ask you. What are you going to say?" And they'll say blah blah blah. and he'll say, "No, that's not what you're going to say. 20:37 You're going to say this." In other words, say the same thing. We weren't tell we weren't telling them to lie. We were saying like, "If you say it like that, here's what they're going to hear." And it happens, right? Can you 20:48 imagine if I said, "Did you see the way Zimmer looked at me?" She was like, "Wait, wait, Dad. You didn't What are you doing now? You're going rogue, Dad. Right? I don't know what to do now." Often that's how witnesses start. It is 21:00 intimidating being in the courtroom, but once they get to talking, it's kind of like, you know, brothers and sisters sometimes they say, "How long do you want me to share?" "Okay, share for three minutes." And they're like, "Okay, 21:09 I'm nervous. I only think I got like a minute and a half of material, but I'll go." And then they're like, "Well, let me tell you." And suddenly you're like, "Hey, we're at 15." Right? Once they get up here and get comfortable, they relax. 21:20 The same thing happens in a courtroom. They get to talking and talking and talking. Brothers and sisters, my point here is that's not what you're called to. You're not called to talk about all the things that you don't know. And 21:34 we'll come to this in a little bit. You're to you're to talk about what the Lord has called you to talk about. And no more. I say that that should be a relief. You got a friend or a family member that needs the gospel, don't you? Every I 21:50 think all of us do. And I heard things like, "You know who? They they really need to talk to my pastor. No, they don't. They need to hear your testimony. It's not an educated person that we call as a witness. We call a witness for a 22:06 specific purpose. We have a case. We're trying to get righteousness done. You have a purpose. Do that purpose. That's it. Go to the next slide, please. There's a story in John nine. I hope you're familiar with it. I would 22:23 encourage you. This is I spent some time going through this and I had to sometimes when we prepare messages uh volumes volumes come out of it and we have to figure out when we get up here just like the runaway witness when do we stop 22:37 talking? How much do we say and how much do we not say? And this is a fascinating chapter. It's about a blind man. And you see the disciples coming to Jesus. And they say, "Hey, Lord, who sinned? 22:56 This guy's blind. He's been blind since he was born. Who sinned? Was it the parents? Was it him?" And I love this question. I'm challenged by this question, brothers and sisters. Here's my here's the challenge I get. Don't judge. 23:13 Do not judge. Don't assume it was sin in anybody else. Joshua, it may have been simply It may have been simply because God wanted to do something glorious and he hasn't done it yet. You slow down. I see that in the story. 23:32 And I see, you know, that also, you know, when you read Acts 18 with me, we read that together and you saw that you needed power to be a witness for the Lord Jesus. And I hope there was something that kind of stirred in you 23:45 that said, "Hey, I want to be a witness." I do. When I when I get to heaven, I want my testimony that you know that Lord, there was one time where you called me to the stand. I took the stand and I told the truth and you're 23:58 happy. I hope there's something in there. But what I see in this story is sometimes it costs you tremendously to be a witness of Christ. This guy had to be blind from the time he was born in order to be a witness for the Lord. 24:12 Not only that, if I read it right, it says he was a beggar. He was a beggar. Now, his parents come into the story and there's part of me, there's a side of me, maybe a critical side that says, "Mom and dad, this is your boy. 24:29 Why are you letting him beg? Why are you not taking care of him? I also understand better the I think the heart of the disciples question. Don't you? Why is he begging? Shouldn't his parents take care of him if he can't 24:43 take care of him for for himself? They're letting him just, you know, please all day. I see that the Lord the Lord's going to use us as a witness. He may have to take us through something very difficult. I don't know that I'm a for that 25:00 specifically. Lord, I want to be your witness. I think I pray for that. But I want to be I want to go through something difficult so I can be your witnesses. Maybe I hesitate a little bit, right? I want to be a witness, but at no 25:13 cost. Like I don't want to be blind. I don't want to be a blind beggar. Lord, don't do that to me. But then, you know, if it if it brings you honor, you know, if it's a good testimony for you, then then maybe. But then it gets into a testimony. This 25:28 guy is essentially called to the stand, right? Go to the next slide, please. I put here the questions that he's asked. There's actually more questions. I just put a few of them here. And I learn a lot through his testimony. 25:42 You know, I learned and it says like, you know, it says, I think in in Peter that, you know, we're supposed to have an answer when people start questioning us about the hope we have, right? We should be ready to answer some 25:53 questions. They're coming. But what kind of questions? What might they ask? I like this verse 10. They say, "How were your eyes opened?" And I love the story. You guys are checking your Bible, right? Don't don't trust it until you see it in your 26:09 scriptures. They ask the guy, this is this is just his friends and neighbors, by the way. We're not to the Pharisees yet. This is friends and neighbors. Like, "Hey, what happened to you? You know, you used to be blind. You used to 26:21 beg all the time. Now I see you walking around talking to people. what what is going on? And he tells the story. Well, this guy Jesus made some mud and he put it on my eyes and then he told me to go do something. I did what he told me to 26:33 do and now I see. And then they ask him another question. Remember, this sounds a lot like a cross-examination, doesn't it? Where somebody's asking witness questions. They say, "Well, where is Jesus? Where is he right now?" He's like, "I don't 26:49 know." Brothers and sisters, when you get challenged with things from non-Christians or even Christians and when you're put on the spot and they're asking you things like, "Hey, you know, what's the difference between Calvinism and Armenianism? Can you 27:02 explain that to me?" I don't know. You know, Josh, can you tell can you tell me like pre-millennial or or postmillennial or how all that works? How the esquetology works out? I even threw in a word there. You know, sometimes the 27:14 brother says, "I have to go, I don't know." And they go, "Well, then why are you an elder?" I go, "I don't know that either." I don't know. Don't be afraid of I don't know. This guy didn't know where Jesus was. So he said that if somebody asks you a 27:28 question you don't know, then tell them I don't know. Don't ever be afraid of them. But you welcome the questions. If there's something I know, you get it for free. I'll tell it to you. Next question. Now the Pharisees come into 27:43 play, right? What do you say about him? Who is this Jesus? By the way, the es in verse 15 already asked him the same questions he had been telling people. In other words, a witness has to tell their story over and over and over and over 27:58 and over again before they even get up here. If there was a crime that happened, investigators come to they go, "Hey, what happened? Hey, you saw that crime. You're a witness to that crime. Tell us what happened." And you tell the 28:10 story. And then another investigator comes up. Hey, what happened? You're like, "Man, I just told the last guy." Well, what happened was that they're like, "Okay." And then the attorneys, what what happened? What happened? The 28:21 police chief, the newspaper reports, "What happened? What happened? What happened?" They have told this story probably a hundred times. Brother, sister, do you get bored with your testimony? If you get bored with your testimony, 28:34 pray for an anointing of the Holy Spirit. Lord, I never want to get bored. You never have to dramatize your testimony. You never have to make it larger than it is. You keep it very simple and we'll come to that. I'm coming there. Went a 28:47 little ahead of myself. You don't know. You don't know. And then they ask the parents like these Pharisees are excellent attorneys. They go to mom and dad. They start they start just firing off questions. It's like they ask three 29:01 questions right here in verse 19 before they can even answer one of them, right? They say, "Uh, hey, is this your son? Is this your son? Was he born blind? And then how how does he see now? What? You know, like I'm picture mom and dad 29:17 just sitting there. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. They probably don't say that because they're afraid of the Pharisees. They say, "Yes, he is our son. Yes, he was born blind. I don't know the rest." 29:30 And our testimony can very often be just that. Here's what I know. Here's what I don't know. I don't know. You know, I don't We don't know exactly how. This may be a halftruth. I think it might have been kind of a halftruth 29:42 because they probably heard the story. But what happens in a courtroom is you're actually not allowed to tell other people's story. You can tell your story. You know, whenever uh verse Oh, I'm sorry. I I think I got 17 and 19. Back 29:55 to 17. Whenever they ask him his opinion, they said, "What what do you think about this guy Jesus that just just healed you? What do you think about him?" He says, "I believe he's a prophet sent from God." Right. The uh one of the guys in the 30:11 room may say, "Objection, your honor." And then the other attorney says, "Your honor, this man was there. He's allowed to give his opinion." And the judge says, "Sustained. Go ahead. Give your opinion. Your opinion is admissible in the court. What 30:25 do you think of this guy? I think he's a prophet. Nobody else could do this." So they they quiz him and they quiz the parents and then they come back to him. Remember, he's told this story multiple times. He's told all his friends, all 30:40 his neighbors. He's told the Pharisees, this Pharisee, that Pharisee, this other Pharisee. And they keep asking the same questions over and over and over again. And he actually has a pretty prophetic word. He's like, "Why do you keep asking 30:53 me this? You want to be his disciples?" And then they absolutely slam it. We have to be prepared for that as witnesses. Sometimes when we're honest and we tell the truth, people are not going to like what we say. And I've 31:07 discover I'm discovering this. I'm not saying I'm discovered. I'm discovering this that sometimes my life my my personal convictions challenge people so much that they they hate it and they just want to tear me down. Look 31:21 at Josh. He never you I never hear a bad word come out out of his mouth. And I think there are people that would love especially in my flight line days when I was a mechanic in the Air Force. I think there were people that would have loved 31:30 to hear it. Oh, he's now better than us. But my conviction, I could not speak that. Couldn't say the same things that I heard all day. I have to be different. And sometimes our testimonies will bring that hatred. And they got it. This guy 31:48 got it from those Pharisees. Go to the next slide, please. I love this. They start leading the question. I've actually had this happen to me recently. They start assuming that you agree with them. Right? The way they're saying something, 32:04 notice they did not ask a question, but it says, "Then he answered." You didn't ask a question, but I need to respond to that. What they said is, "We know this guy's a sinner." And what he's actually doing is he's diffusing an argument. I actually see a 32:22 lot of wisdom in this blind man. He says, "I don't know about all that. I I can't agree with you here. I can't I can't just nod and go, "Yeah, you're probably right. You're wrong." So, I'm not even going to get into that. And 32:36 there are times we need such wisdom, brothers and sisters, as witnesses to say, "I'm not even going to get into that." But here's what I know. I was blind and now I see. I can't tell you everything about the Bible, and I 32:50 can't tell you how everything about how God works. I can't tell you a lot of things. Here's what I know. Believing in Jesus changed my life. I never realized how selfish I was until that encounter and I'm changing now. 33:10 That's my testimony. Well, Josh, can you explain all these other things? I can't. I'm a witness of one thing. One thing. Jesus changed my life. He changed my heart. That's it. Don't be afraid of being a witness, brother or sister. Focus on the one 33:26 thing you do know about him. And if you don't know anything about him, please talk to one of us soon. We would love to tell you about Jesus. When I say us, I'm not talking just elders. I'm telling the person to your left and your right would 33:41 probably love to talk about him. They probably have their own testimony. They would probably love to witness. This is kind of a safe environment to witness, isn't it? I hope so. This is your family. So, if you don't know him enough to say 33:55 anything about him. Then listen to other people and then in prayer go, "Lord, I heard this. I heard what Josh read and I think it was Psalm 139. I can't remember. I'll go ask him later. I I heard that, but that's not my testimony. 34:09 I don't know that." So, you make everything you hear in a testimony of prayer. But you're surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Listen to them. And brothers and sisters, I say that on a challen as a challenge. On Friday nights, we have a 34:23 prophecy time, a testimony time. I'm not going to subpoena anybody and get you up here and ask you questions about your life and testimony or what you've witnessed, but we give you the opportunity to do it. We said, come up, 34:36 share, tell us what happened last week. If the Lord has given you freedom to share it with us, then come voluntarily be a witness. Volunteer to be a witness. Don't Don't worry if it doesn't line up perfectly with doctrine. forget it. If 34:53 it's true and you know it to be true, then share it. I don't remember ever correcting anybody's testimony ever. I don't think I ever corrected it. Now, maybe I corrected something that a verse or something that was maybe out of 35:03 context, maybe. But I don't correct testimonies. That's your testimony. If you're telling the truth, who am I to question it? Be a witness. Most Friday nights, we offer that opportunity. Go to the next slide, please. It's my favorite witness or one 35:20 of my favorite. I got a lot of favorite witnesses in this. You ever think of this woman as a witness? I love this story. I love this story. I think I love this story. So, the the reason I love it the most is it starts with a woman that made a mess of her 35:33 life. That's me. That is me. I'm telling you, I can't I'm not going to give you the details. It's not profitable at all to tell you any details of my past that I'm thinking of. But when I read this scripture, oh, I can't wait to meet this woman in 35:50 heaven and tell her, you encouraged me so much by your testimony. By the way, you're you saw the way that Jesus told you everything you ever did, right? The way you acknowledge the truth. When Jesus shined that light in 36:07 your heart, you said, "That's the truth, Lord. You know everything I've ever done, and you exposed it in me. I was trying to hide the fact that I was a five fiv five time divorced woman shacking up with a guy who wasn't I wasn't even supposed to 36:22 be in a relationship with. You knew it. And Lord, when it made me uncomfortable and I changed the subject and we started talking about worship, you didn't you didn't embarrass me and keep talking about that. You just exposed it and then 36:34 you moved me forward and you introduced me to worship. Thank you. And her testimony. What is her testimony? Our testimony is so simple, brothers. Brothers and sisters, I hope this is your testimony. Very simple. The 36:53 Lord Jesus, just like we read in Psalm 139, he knows everything about me. He knows what I'm embarrassed to tell other people. He told me everything I've ever done. And and here's what's interesting. There are Samaritans in that town that they 37:12 go, "You know what? really struck us about you your testimony. In your testimony, you said that this man Jesus told you everything, all the things that you've done. And that really, you know, we believed what you said simply by that. 37:28 In other words, sometimes your honesty will be the most powerful tool that you have to witness for Jesus Christ because that's her case. That's it. That's that was her whole testimony. And notice after verse 39, 37:44 we go to verse 42. Your testimony led me to Jesus, but now I've heard Jesus. And then she just disappears. That is our goal. That is the goal of our testimony. We don't brag in our testimonies. We don't uh exaggerate in 38:02 our testimonies. Our goal of sharing what God has shown us, exposed in us, is so that they will go see Jesus and come back and maybe say, "I don't need to hear Josh's testimony anymore. I've spoken with the Lord directly." 38:19 Amen. All right, next slide. Here's the recap. We focused on being a witness. We imagined the courtroom. And again, I I focused on, you know, the the oath taken, you know, when I had Zimmer get up and raise her right hand and swear 38:38 because this is so serious. I made her swear that she would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now, we don't do that, brothers and sisters. Our testimony, if we ever get called to a courtroom, should be something like this. When we 38:50 hear that, we go, "Oh, man. Of course, my yes is always my yes, and my no is always my no. This is for your sakes, but I always tell the truth. That's in the sermon on the mount, chapter 5. And so, we want to be witnesses and we need 39:05 power. Remember Acts 18. We need power to be witnesses for the Lord. And then we looked at the Matias and we looked at the other guy with three names. I think the names are Joseph, Barabus, and Justice. I only know that because I 39:21 just read it. Otherwise, I'll forget probably in a moment, right? I'll just be like that guy with three names that didn't get selected. That's who he is to me, right? But he he's a nobody, but church history records that he was 39:32 actually a witness for the Lord, too. The Lord I don't care if my name is known. I want my test testimony to be used for your good. Then we looked at the Bible and one of the things we look about at those uh at that replacement 39:44 for Judas is that the Lord had to orchestrate the timing of their life. In other words, he put them in this place. Now they were they were part of the 70 that were sent out, right? You can read about that in Luke. The Lord sent 70 disciples 40:01 out two by two. You remember that? They were they were part of that 70. But here's the question. Lord, why didn't the 68 why didn't they qualify? Why didn't the 68 qualify? Why did it come down to two? The Lord controls 40:16 everything about us. That's why we can't glory in being a witness. The Lord put us at that place and that time. That's why I know this. That's it. Right. And then from the blind man, we recognize that sometimes very difficult 40:30 things are what pull us to the witness stand. But very often it's the the hard things. Richard Wormbbrand, for example. You guys know that name? You don't know the name? I encourage you to go look up that name and then come back and tell me if 40:45 you didn't know, come tell me why why did how did he become a witness? What did he have to go through to be a witness for the Lord? A lot of the names that we use, you know, you hear them thrown around in Christianity. Elizabeth 40:57 Elliott, what about her? Why is she a witness? She was at the right place at the right time, wasn't she? Very difficult time. But why do people read her books now? Why do people listen to her? And so that should humble us. If the Lord decides to 41:14 use a witness, our only testimony is like, Lord, you put me there at that time and the difficult things. I did not I'm sorry, Lord. I complained about all the difficulty you put me through. This is my honest testimony. Sorry I'm such a 41:29 complainer. I want to change because I recognize these hard and difficult things you take me through. You use them later on and it gives me a a chance to say a few words for you because of what I went through. So we learn that 41:43 difficulty. So first one's circumstance, second one's difficulty, and then finally we're all we're all qualified. Every one of us, every one of us can be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, you show me when and where. I'm 41:59 yours. You pick. You're not disqualified. No matter how big a mess you've made in your life, her testimony of saving, it sounds like she saved the entire town by the word of her testimony. Does that not encourage you, brothers 42:13 and sisters? It encourages me. Even those of us that have made a mess and be a powerful witness and change lives and have an impact on this world as we're witnesses in this world and maybe as we're witnesses in the world to come. 42:29 The more uh again, I could have gone longer as I read this stuff and I started seeing more and more about witnesses. But that's where I want to stop today. Um, keep me in prayer. I don't know what's next, but I want us to 42:41 continue thinking about the the courtroom and thinking about seeking his righteousness and considering these things. It's one of the most humbling things that I went through was that that career change. And I'm telling you, I 42:53 would sit there wanting to crawl out of my own skin because I would watch guys that were on trial for things that I had done. The Lord made me go and he made me go through that because uh you had something in mind for me 43:11 later. I'm in the process of discovering what that is. I want to be a witness for the Lord Jesus. He's worthy. God bless you.
