Have you ever heard someone use the name of our Lord in vain? You ever heard someone say, Jesus, and then they say, Christ, and they say it very loud, they say it in public like they're cursing. Who's ever heard somebody say that before? I mean, as somebody who actually knows who that is, that is so jarring whenever you hear that. And I just want to go say to that person, like, hey, Christ is not his last name. Like I don't think you know who you're talking about. And so today, we are actually going to learn what it means that Jesus is the Christ. And so, I invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to Acts chapter 17. And when we're going through the book of acts as a church, we're starting in chapter 17. And in this chapter, we're going to see Paul and Silas as they go from city to city, telling the good news of Jesus, they're going to go to Thessalonica. That's what we're going to study together right now. Next week, if you come back, they'll be in Berea, if you've heard about the Bereans. And then in two weeks, they'll be in Athens, which is a famous story of Paul at the Areopagus with the philosopher's; that's what's on the cover of your bulletin there. And so, we're going to be seeing how Paul continues to go from city to city, telling people who Jesus is, and there is going to be a strong reaction here in Thessalonica in Acts 17, verses 1 to 9. And so, if you're watching this on the front lawn, online, if you're here in the room, I'm going to ask if we would all stand up for the public reading of Scripture. And let's give this text our full and undivided attention. This is Acts 17:1-9. Please follow along as I read. This is the word of God.
“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
That's the reading of Scripture, please go ahead and have your seat. And so, if you've been with us through the book of Acts, we've now seen this happen a few times where Paul goes into a city, goes to the synagogue where the Jews and some of the Gentiles would be getting together to read the Scriptures in the Hebrew Bible. And he takes those Scriptures that they're reading, and he uses them to preach that Jesus is the Christ. Like if you turn back to Acts 13, we went through a whole sermon that Paul did in a synagogue; maybe you remember we had a sermon, Paul, the guest preacher, and we saw how he started with what they were reading from the Law or the Prophets or the Writings, and he took them straight from there to Jesus, and that they needed to have faith in Jesus Christ to be right with God. So, we’ve got to go through a whole sermon in Acts 13. Well here in Acts 17, if you flip back, we just get a summary of his message. We don't get the full sermon, but we get that he was there on three different Sabbaths, three different Saturdays, he goes to the synagogue, and verse 3 summarizes the whole experience. He's explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” So, his message, if you summarized it in one statement, “Jesus is the Christ, he's the one who suffered, he died on the cross. And he rose from the dead on the third day.” That is the gospel message. That's what he's preaching. You got to know who Jesus is. And you’ve got to know what Jesus did for you. And when you believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus as the Christ, you will be saved. That's your whole life, right? There is that good news. That's what he's preaching.
And so, what does it mean that Jesus is the Christ? Because I'm not just thinking it's the people out there using it as a swear word, using his name as a swear word that don't know. I wonder how many of us could explain and prove from the Scriptures, like Paul does, that Jesus is the Christ. So, I want to make sure we all really understand a little bit of the depth of the meaning of what Paul is saying here. And so, we have a handout if you want to take some notes and follow along.
We'll start with just the Greek word Christos. That's your first blank there. That's what the word Christ is a Greek word. So, if you have the Bible hopefully there with you. Well, we have part of the Bible written in Greek, we often call that the New Testament. And then part of the Bible is written in Hebrew. And we often call that the Old Testament. In fact, everybody, go to Matthew chapter 1, so you can see the breakdown between the two. So, from the writing of Matthew, chapter 1, it's all Greek. And that's where it would be Christos, or as we say it in English, Christ. So, it's an interesting word because we don't really translate it. We just take the Greek word and we put it in English letters. When you say that Jesus is the Christ, Christ is a Greek word that you are using.
And the Greek word Christ comes from the Hebrew word, Messiah. That's your next blank there. So, if you’ve got your Bible, from Matthew one, here's me holding up my Bible from Matthew 1. This part that I'm holding up, the part to the right, that's Greek, that's where they would say Christ. They say Christ over five hundred times. Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, Jesus, the Christ over five hundred times, the word Christ is used in this part. Now, this is what Paul actually has. He has the Hebrew Scriptures. So, let's just make that very clear. When he's in this synagogue in Thessalonica, and he's proving to them the gospel of Jesus, that Jesus is the Christ who died and rose again, he doesn't have this part of the Bible. he doesn't have the Greek Bible. The only part that he's using to prove to them that Jesus is the Christ is this part what we call the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible that they broke into three different books, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. He's preaching the gospel to them just from what we call the Old Testament.
I see some of my brothers and sisters here today. Some of you are here at church. You've been coming to this church now for years. If I handed you just this part of the Scripture, because that's all Paul had, just the Hebrew part, could you show me Jesus in what we call the Old Testament? Could you explain and prove to me that he is the Christ? That's what Paul's doing. And what it really means is Anointed One. So, when we hear the phrase, or the word Christ, or we hear Messiah. But if you translated it, he's saying that Jesus is the one the one that God anointed, that there is one that God has chosen, that God has set apart, and God has put his anointing on this one. And this is the one that all human history is building up to. This is the one that all of our souls are longing for. That's what it means that you're the Christ, you are the Anointed One of God. That's the meaning. Okay?
So, really, when somebody says Jesus Christ, they're saying, Jesus is the one, or Jesus is God's Anointed One, that's what Christ really means. And this title of Christ, or in Hebrew, Messiah, which is used thirty-nine times in the Hebrew Bible, the title or the legend of the Christ among the Jewish people, it was around way before he was ever a baby in a manger, way, before they ever called his name Jesus. No, the title of Christ came first before he ever got the name Jesus. Okay? The Jews, they were waiting one, an Anointed One, to come from God. The Jews were very much anticipating that a Messiah was coming, and they were always talking about it, they looked at it in the Scripture a little bit over here, a little bit over there, like could this be a prophecy of the Messiah? Is that a picture of the Messiah? And so the legend of the Messiah was strong in the Jewish community. And even they understand it in Thessalonica.
Look at chapter 17. Go back to Acts 17, and look at verse 7. Even the enemies here, they understand what it means that Jesus is the Christ. Because they're saying that “Jason has received them.” This poor guy, Jason, who gets dragged into this mob, and he says, “they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king Jesus.” Like, these Jews who got jealous of everybody listening to Paul, and following after him, and they're stirring up the mob, like they understand what Paul is saying. Paul is saying that the one who has ultimate authority as king is not Caesar, leading the Roman Empire. No, it's Jesus, who is the Christ, he is the king, he is the Anointed One. They understand what's being said about Jesus being the Christ. So, we want to make sure that we understand, the people here at church, that you could explain to somebody what it means that Jesus is the Christ, and that you would even be able to understand it from the Hebrew Bible.
And let me just tell you, this is going to be a hard sermon to finish on time. Just warning everybody right now. Okay? Hasn't worked in our previous two services so far, because I'm trying to give you an idea of what it means that Jesus is the Christ, and I want to follow the trail of the anointing through the Hebrew Bible. And there is so much more than I could possibly say in one sermon. If you started going into some kind of Bible on the web, or maybe you've got a Bible app, and you start typing in anointed, or anoint, and you start tracing it through the Old Testament, through the Hebrew Scriptures, you'll start seeing, wow, all kinds of different people got anointed. Are you telling me that all the different anointings, all are just pictures leading up to Jesus Christ? Are you telling me that this whole book, from Genesis to Revelation, is really all about Jesus? And all of the prophets who got anointed, all of the priests who got anointed, all of the kings who got anointed, it was never really about them? They were just pictures of the real Anointed One who was to come. That's exactly what we're saying here today. It's always been Jesus from the very beginning. And a lot of us here in the room, still don't even realize how much this is the Jesus book, because everybody who gets anointed, and three different kinds of people got anointed in Israel, prophets, priests, and kings, and they're all just pictures of the Anointed One who is coming, who is Jesus.
Go with me to 1 Chronicles 16. If you know where Chronicles is, let's turn to 1 Chronicles 16. We're going to dare to go to a few places in the Scripture maybe a lot of people aren't turning to these days. But we want to get this idea that there's always been a plan among God's people from Abraham, throughout the history of the Jews, there was a plan for an Anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah, who would come. That's always been God's plan. It's always been the hope of humanity. And here in First Chronicles 16, everybody. Everybody there with me? Okay, so Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible is actually the last book of the Hebrew Bible. It's like their Revelation. And it's a review, particularly of King David because King David was, in their mind, the prototype of the real king, who was the real Anointed One of Israel, who was going to come. And so, Chronicles is their last book by like remembering King David will get us ready for the King who is going to come and deliver us, the Christ. And 1 Chronicles 16 is like a song that David wrote, you can see it in 1 Chronicles 16:8, it says, “Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!” Like, if you've been reading the Psalms with us, we just read that recently. So, we've been reading these great worship songs, some of them written by David, but in the middle of this worship, it gives this history. Look at 1 Chronicles 16:15-18. It says, “Remember his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel,” the whole nation now “as an everlasting covenant, saying ‘To you, I will give the land of Canaan, as your portion for an inheritance.’”
Now, I would imagine that history recap is something many of us have heard before. Who's heard of father Abraham of the Jews, Isaac, Jacob’s? Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, we know about that if you grew up going to church, but here's what I don't know if we know 1 Chronicles 16:19-22, “When you were few in number, of little account and sojourners in it, wandering from nation to nation from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, saying, ‘Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!’” Did you know that God referred to Abraham as one of his anointed ones? Have you ever thought of Abraham as a prophet of God? So, what it's saying here is, when Abraham first came to the land, it was just his family, just his household, and there are these nations worshipping other gods all around them. Any of those nations could have easily crushed Abraham or his son, Isaac, or Jacob, even with his twelve sons, they could have come and wiped them out. But God protected his… what does it say? there his anointed ones. And then Abraham, when we think about like one of the anointed ones, who's showing us a picture of Jesus, who ultimately is the Anointed One, that Abraham is a prophet? Did you ever think about that before? But the whole reason this family didn't get wiped out in the land of Canaan by the other nations is because God was protecting them, because he had chosen them, he had set them apart, he had put his anointing on them, and that they were actually prophets, speaking things. I mean, a prophet is someone who speaks the word of God, and prophets even tell you the future before it happens, to show you that they are speaking from a god. Do you know about the prophecies of Abraham? See, I don't hear a lot of people thinking that Abraham, by being one of the anointed ones, is some kind of picture of Jesus, and one of the ways he was a picture of Jesus is Abraham was a prophet.
Go with me to Genesis 22 and I'll show you a prophecy of Abraham. And Genesis 22 is the story where God tests Abraham, because he says, Genesis 22:2, “’Take Isaac your son, your only Son Isaac, whom you love, and’” go kill him, go offer him to me as a sacrifice. And so that's a test of Abraham's faith. And Isaac, Abraham had been waiting for Isaac his whole life. He didn't have Isaac till he was hundred years old. He finally had his son, his heir, God had promised he would make of him a great nation, he would give him the land of Canaan. Not till he's hundred, does he have his son, and now that he's got his one and only son whom he loves, God says, go and off for him as a sacrifice. I mean, even the way God says it is brutal, go and take your one and only son whom you love, and offer him as a sacrifice. And God tells, see, what you’ve got to understand about this is this whole story in Genesis 22 is a picture of the gospel, it's a picture of what God is going to do. Because God said to Abraham, kill your one and only son whom you love, and that's what God's going to do when he offers Jesus, his one and only son that he loves, as a sacrifice. This whole story is one of the best pictures of the Gospel we have in the Scripture. And even tells Abraham to go to Mount Moriah, which is this mountain where later there's going to be a city built on the top of this hill, and that city is going to be called Jerusalem, and Jesus is going to have his hands and feet nailed to a cross right outside of that city, on this same mountain that Abraham is supposed to sacrifice his son. So, here's God, setting up a picture, putting Abraham in this situation, go sacrifice your one and only son. Look at Genesis 22:4. It says, “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.” See, there are so many clues being dropped in here. Oh, so Abraham, he goes to the place God tells him. Guess how many days it takes him to get there? He gets there on the third day. I'm sure that's just pure coincidence, has nothing to do with Jesus. Pay no attention to the obvious hint dropped there in verse 4. Look at Genesis 22:5. This is a line I didn't understand for much of my life. It says, “Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.’” How many people does Abraham say are coming back from Mount Moriah? He and the boy. He says this before he goes up there. Does Abraham lift up then I am ready to kill my son? But does he say that he and the son are both coming back? Do you realize that when they both came back, the servants didn't know there was probably anything even weird that happened.
That's a prophecy. See, I used to think that was just kind of like one of those lies you tell that it's okay because there's a surprise later. Anybody else ever told those lies before? Like, I'm telling you, we're going over here, and we're doing this, but I'm totally lying, because it's a birthday party, right? Well, I can't tell everybody, I'm going to sacrifice my son because you don't do that around here. Right? Servants are going to freak out, Isaac would be freaking out. So, it's just kind of one of those surprise lies, surprise, you're a sacrifice later on. Right? That's always what I thought this was. And then I realized one day that day, he is saying the future before it happens. He is speaking a word from the Lord. And how I'm sure that that's what he's doing is when it describes the faith of Abraham in Hebrews chapter 11. It says in Hebrews 11:19, “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead.” Like, he knew, even if he dropped that knife and killed his one and only son whom he loved as a sacrifice, that God could raise his son from the dead. That's why he said, both me and the boy are coming back. You're talking about a father who's sacrificing his one and only son and believes that there's going to be a resurrection. This is the gospel of the Christ in Genesis 22. This whole story is a picture for you and me to read thousands of years later, and be like, God knew what he was doing with Jesus from the very beginning. So, the legend of the Christ came way before with the gospel of Jesus, as we think about it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
So, if you're taking notes, let's get this down for point number one: The legend of the Christ came first. Before there was ever named Jesus. Before there was a baby in a manger, or a man on a cross, there was this legend of one who was coming. And it was prophesied by many different anointed ones. Throughout the history of Israel, there were different pictures like Abraham, different little glimpses of who the Anointed One would be. But when the real Anointed One, the Christ came, he would be more than any one of the prophets, or priests, or kings. No, he would be the actual one that could save us all from our sin. From the messed-up world that we're living in, he's the one who will come and make all things right, like our hearts really long for. So, here we see even with Father Abraham, who's one of the anointed ones, a prophet. Oh, look at that picture of the gospel of Jesus. Maybe that's one of the places Paul was using to prove and explain, hey, look, here's the gospel right here with our father Abraham. So, the anointed ones, there are so many different references.
In fact, on the back of the handout there, I given you three books about the Messiah, so you can go read whole books about from Genesis all the way through the Hebrew Bible, there are more references about the Christ, the Anointed One. Then you know of, I mean, I'm reading through these books all week long, and I'm finding things I'm like, wow, I didn't even know about this reference to Jesus, buried deep here in this book of the Bible that's not commonly read today. So, there are so many.
Let me just give you a brief introduction to Jesus being the Prophet, Priest and King . Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 18. In Deuteronomy 18, we have a prophecy about a prophet who is coming in Deuteronomy 18:15. And God's going to say this to Moses about a future prophet. So, Moses, he's the man who spoke for God in Israel, he wrote the first five books of the Bible. I don't know if you think of Moses being a prophet, but that's his legacy that he is the man who spoke for God. In fact, when Moses came down with the ten commandments, when the Israelites were all there at Mount Sinai there, Horeb, when they were there at that mountain, and it was, you know, lightning and thunder, there were earthquakes, the mountain seemed to be on fire with the holy presence of God. That was a day where God actually spoke to the people. A lot of people today are like, oh, I wish God would speak to me. Well, if you go and read in Exodus when God actually spoke to the people, everyone was freaked out and thought they were going to die. That's what it like, what it's like when God actually speaks. And the people are like, we can't handle the truth of God speaking to us. Moses, you speak to us because we're all going to die if God keeps speaking to us. And you'll see that here in Deuteronomy 18:15, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me.” So, here's Moses saying, God's going to raise up a prophet. Like I spoke to you from God? God will raise up somebody else who will speak from him. He's going to “raise up…a prophet like me from among you from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly,” when we got the ten commandments, “when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’”
People today were like, oh, I wish God would just speak to me. If you actually heard God speaking to you, you would feel like you are going to die. That's what happened. Deuteronomy 18:17-19, “And the Lord spoke to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you,” Moses “from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.’” You're right, Moses, the people were right. I shouldn't speak directly to the people. They can't handle it. So, I spoke through you, Moses, and I'm going to raise up a prophet like you. And when I speak through my prophet, people who listen to him, they're going to live, but if you don't listen to the one who speaks my words, I will judge you according to rejecting his word, I will require it of them. Listen to the Prophet and live, you don't listen to the Prophet, you're going to die. Who is the prophet that's going to speak for us the very words of God? What is his name? He's the Christ Jesus. Jesus is this prophet that God is saying, and the book or the writer of Hebrews says it in chapter 1, verse 1, hey, “Long ago…God spoke to us by the prophets,” but now he speaks to us through his son.
John chapter 1, verse 1, how does John refer to Jesus, he refers to him as the Word. Like, if you want God to speak to you, you know what you should do, you should go read everything Jesus said, because that's where you're finding the words of God. A lot of Bibles, they even put them in red letters, because they know there's something significant about what Jesus says when he came to fulfill the Law of Moses, and he came to clarify for us exactly what God expects from each and every one of us that we would repent and believe in the gospel. Like, if you listen to what Jesus says, you're going to live. You're going to have the best possible human experience, you're going to live life the way that God designed it to be lived here on this planet. And when you die, you will have an eternal life in the presence of God forevermore. And if you don't listen to what Jesus says, yeah, you're going to be held accountable for rejecting his commands, going your own way, it will be required of you on the last day. Your life could be summarized down to whether you listen to Jesus or not. That's what determines people's eternal destinies. God has already told us from the very beginning, from the law of Moses, hey, if you think Moses wrote down the law, let me tell you, I'm going to raise up like Moses, a prophet. And when he says something, it is the word of God. And if you listen to him, you will live.
Let's get that down for the Prophet here: Listen and live. Okay? We should be hanging on every single word that Jesus Christ said. We, here at this church, it is our mission to make disciples and to teach those disciples to obey everything that Christ commanded. When you read the words of Jesus, you are hearing the voice of God. And the people knew that Jesus was a great prophet. he is the prophet here in Deuteronomy 18.
And it is amazing to me, how many people who say that they are Christians in Southern California, I hear misquoting Jesus all of the time. I mean, people are like, well, doesn't Jesus say, somewhere in the Bible, something like… and then they say something like, that's not what Jesus said. The Christians that I'm encountering in Southern California, they don't seem like a group of people that thinks we have the very words of God, and I'm hanging on every single one of them for my life. I mean, how do you treat the prophet that God sent? See one thing that we need to understand about Jesus being the Christ is, this isn't just some interesting Bible study about what the Messiah means in the Old Testament. No, like who Jesus is is still affecting every single one of us to this very day, and the words of Jesus are eternal life for your soul. Where else are you going to go and find life for your soul, other than the words of Jesus Christ? Are you living like that? Are you living like I've got a prophet who came from God, who gives me the words of God? I would love to hear more Christians today saying things like, I don't need God to speak to me because his son already came and told me what he wanted me to know, and I'm hanging on every word, every command of Jesus Christ. That's how I'm figuring out my life. We need a lot more people listening to the prophet that God sent, the Christ has come, has spoken, and it should be like you're saying whatever Jesus says, that's what I'm doing in my life. And it's like, people want some other word from God than the word that they actually got through Jesus Christ. No, you need to listen to the prophet that we really did get, the Christ himself. And if you listen to him, you will live. And if you don't listen to the words of Jesus, it will be required of you. That he is the one who speaks from God. So, all of the prophets throughout the history of Israel, who spoke the word of God, I mean, some great prophets, like Elijah, like Isaiah, like Jeremiah, I mean men who really said powerful things from God, no, they're just pictures of the real Anointed One, who's coming to be a prophet, Jesus.
Now another group that was anointed, in fact, above priests, you could write down Leviticus chapter 6, verse 19, in Leviticus 6:19, it talks about the high priest, Aaron, brother of Moses. He became the high priest of Israel because he was the head of the of the Levites. And the Levites were going to be priests. And there's a description there, where you're going to pour the oil out from the horn of oil on the head of the high priests, and there was a whole way of how you would anoint the priests. Okay? So priests were ones, at least the high priests, who got anointed. And everybody knew, okay, the priest is one of God's chosen ones, one of the ones that God has set apart. The priest stands in the gap between the sinners and the people of Israel and the holy God. Well, you can't just, as a sinner, go to a holy God. And so, the priest mediates between God and his people, the priest is the one who can usher the people into the very holy presence of God. And these priests, God chooses who's going to be the priests, and they are anointed as ones from God. And so, in Leviticus, it set up the whole sacrificial system in the tabernacle. There were going to be sacrifices, and the priests would oversee the sacrifices.
And a lot of people don't read Leviticus today. They think it's boring with all the offerings, people at church slandering Leviticus, all of the time. Well, we went through it as a church. And we actually found it to be a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ. We actually realized, hey, when it's describing all of these sacrifices, this is really profound. Because the sinner, the person who wants to come to God, they're in the tabernacle, they bring with them an animal, and sometimes it's a bird, sometimes it's a lamb, sometimes it's a bull. And let's say it's a lamb, well, they put the lamb there, and they put their hand on the head of the lamb, like this lamb represents me and my sin, because they understood very clearly in Leviticus how serious it's presented, how serious sin really is. The only way that anybody can be forgiven for their sin isn't… you can't just feel bad about it. You can't just pray a prayer about it. Blood has to be shed, like the wages of sin is… Like something is going to die because you sent. That's how serious it is. And so, you're bringing an animal that's going to die, and you're feeling then the weight of your sin, and you're acknowledging your sin by placing your hand on the head of that animal, that this animal represents my sin. And there must be bloodshed if I'm ever going to be forgiven for that sin, and then you would kill the animal and the blood would be shed right there. And that's a sacrifice taking your place, an animal substitute paying the penalty for your sin. This is a picture that God is trying to put in all of our minds through Leviticus. And then here comes the priest, and the priest gets some of the blood of the Lamb, and he takes it up to the altar there, representing the holy presence of God, and he pours the blood there on the altar, showing that because of the shedding of blood, your sin has now been atoned for; you have been forgiven. And you can now, even though you stand there acknowledging you're a sinner, you can now stand there right with God. And so, the priest intercedes. He takes the blood from the sacrifice that represents you, and he goes and pours it on the altar before the Lord. He's a mediator. Right?
Well turn with me in the Hebrews chapter 10, and you'll see that what this whole sacrifice and the whole picture of the priest was about, it was all a picture of Jesus being the Anointed One, who is our priest. This is Hebrews 10:11. And it summarizes Leviticus for us here. The whole book of Hebrews is saying, hey, here's how it worked in the Old Covenant with Moses, now let me show it to you fulfilled by Jesus in the New Covenant. So, let's go back to the tabernacle. Let's go back to those sacrifices, and the priests, they're the anointed priests. What was that picture really all about? Because it wasn't just about killing animals and blood and, and priests, the Levites? No, it was actually about this. Hebrews 10:11. “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.” Does killing an animal really take away your sin here? The answer is, no, that's just a picture of the sacrifice. So, think about that. All those animals getting killed, the priests doing all those sacrifices, all of that blood, it's all just a picture of what is really going to happen. Hebrews 10:12-14. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” All of the sacrifices in the history of Israel, like the tabernacle, and the temple, were all just a picture of one sacrifice, that Jesus would be the one who would offer himself as your substitute, and he would shed his blood, so your sin would be forgiven. Can I get an Amen from anybody?
So, the whole point of these sacrifices is to give us a picture of Jesus. And then it says this, here's the result of all of this. Hebrews 10:19. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence” since we can “enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,” our sin has been forgiven, we're right with God by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, who is the one who brings us in the blood into the presence of the Holy God. Who is our great priest? His name is Jesus, he is the Christ, that's who it is. Okay, Jesus can now bring you into the presence of God. He is both sacrificed, a high priest, and he will mediate between you and God, he will intercede on your behalf. Anyone here could pray to the Holy God in heaven because Jesus is your mediator. And he will say, hey, my blood has been shed for them, they are one of my people and God will hear your prayers because Jesus is your priest. You have better access to God through Jesus than anybody else has ever had in human history. Because you can go to heaven, we can gather together and worship him right now, or anytime you want, you can go and pray, and the God on the throne of grace in Heaven will hear you and help you in your time of need, because Jesus is a great priest, bringing you into the presence of God. So, this idea of priests, like priests that sounds like old Israel, or priests that sounds like other religions, let me just tell you, there is only one priest that's actually bringing anybody to God, and his name is Jesus Christ.
You meet a man walking around telling you he's a priest, do not believe him. he cannot mediate for your sin. His blood isn't bringing you into the presence of God. There are all kinds of groups out there saying that they've got priests, we don't need any other priests. We have the one the Anointed One, the Christ and every other priest is standing in the way of Jesus Christ. I mean, you do not want to be a man who called himself a priest on planet earth on the day of judgment before Jesus, where you were an opposer of Jesus in front of other people. I'm telling you how many people are deceived by fake priests who are not bringing them to God. It is heartbreaking what is happening all over the planet. As men go around in fancy costumes and robes, acting like they can really get you somewhere to be right with God. Jesus has already paid it all. He's the one Way, the one Truth, the one Life that will lead you to Jesus Christ. And if anybody here has ever been in God's presence, if you've ever prayed, and he heard you, if you've ever really worshipped God from your heart and spirit and truth, the only reason that a person like you could ever get in the presence of a holy God is because Jesus is a great priest over the house of God, and he has brought you into the presence of God.
And so then, why would we have a priest? And when the blood has already been shed, the sacrifice has already been offered once for all time, you have unlimited access to the holy place of God. Why would we not go there? Why would we not pray? You're too busy to go into the holy presence of God? People too busy to come here and worship a God when a priest sacrificed himself, and now intercedes for us, so God will actually acknowledge us as one of his people? I mean, it says in Hebrews 10:22, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” I can stand before God and know that I'm right with him, because I have Jesus as my priest, my Anointed One, my Christ. Like if you're acting like, well, Christ is some old thing, how do you ever go to God? Like every single time you go before God, that's only because Jesus is the Christ. He is the real anointed priest.
So, let's make sure we get that down for Priest: You should come into the presence of God. You should be making the most of the access that you have. The Lamb of God has already died in your place, the blood has already been shed so, your sin could be forgiven. And in the name of Jesus, you can go before God, and he will hear your prayers, he will receive your worship. What an amazing thing, that you get to know God, and he would love you, and care for you, and answer your prayers and bless you, and God would be pleased when you worship him. And it's because of Jesus saying, yes, I'm interceding, I'm mediating. There's only one who can be a priest between God and us. And we’ve got to give all that glory to Jesus. He is your priest. These are things like the fact that he has spoken his Word as the prophet should get you reading the Scriptures all of the time to learn more about Jesus and what he said. And the fact that he is the priests should get you praying to God all of the time, because you have access to draw near in full assurance of faith.
See, this is relevant to your life every day that Jesus is the Christ, the Prophet, the Priest, and then the one that the Jews really got zeroed in on. I mean, the anticipation of the Jewish people for centuries is there is a king who is coming to reign. And in the mindset of the Jews, David was the clearest prototype of the Messiah. King David of Israel, that's what the Messiah is going to be like, a man after God's own heart, a man who wants to do God's will, a man who worships God, and is the king, and leads his people into the victory where the battle belongs to the Lord. When is that guy showing up? That's what the Jews were anticipating. A king is coming. When the king comes, he's going to make everything right. He's going to overthrow the evil oppressors. And he's going to restore justice to the poor and downtrodden. When's that king come in to save the day? That's what the Jews were waiting for. The fact that the Christ, that Word, the Messiah in the Jewish mindset, king might have been the first thing that they would have thought about
And next to King, write down 1 Samuel 16, where you could go and read about the anointing of David. Okay? When Israel started to have kings, Samuel was the last judge in the history of Israel. And then they anointed king Saul. So, to become a king of Israel, you got anointed. Samuel comes, he's got a horn filled with oil and in 1 Samuel 16, he pours that over David. And it's quite a story there in 1 Samuel 16, because here comes Samuel, and he's got the anointing oil, and he's going to the house of Jesse, and Jesse's got seven sons, they're laid out, and he's so confident that Samuel is going to choose one of his sons and anoint him to be the next king of Israel. And there are his seven sons. Maybe he thought his oldest son would be the one, and Samuel looks at all seven of these sons in the house of Jesse, and he says, the Lord's anointed is not before me. Like none of these guys is the one. See, there's one that God has chosen. See, there's one that God has set apart, and only that one gets the anointing oil. And he's like, Jesse, do you have any more sons? He's like, well, I’ve got my son David, but he's just a shepherd boy out there watching the sheep, and Samuel is like, bring him in. We're going to wait for him. And here he comes. Here he comes, and he's described as ruddy. He's described he's got some kind of gleam in his eyes. He's handsome. And here he comes. God has already called him a man after my own heart. And when David walks in, Samuel sees him, and God says, anoint him, he is the one. And they pour the anointing oil over the head. And David became a famous king in Israel. And David knew that even though he was the king, he was just a picture of the real king who was coming. And you can read this in a lot of David's Psalms. David writes that he, as the king, even has a lord. There's even an anointed one who reigns over him, who is coming. Like David, he got it, it was very clear to him, like I am just a picture of the real king who is coming.
And we're here in Hebrews chapter 10. Look back at Hebrews 10:12-13 there, because it says, “when Christ,” or when the one “had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins,” here's a famous line that David wrote, “he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.” So, the writer of Hebrews is breaking down Psalm 110, which is one of these psalms, where David writes about a Lord who actually has more authority than even him as the king.
So, let's go and turn to Psalm 110 together and let's see what David is trying to tell us about the real Anointed One, the real king of Israel, who is yet to come. Even from our perspective, in 2021, the king is still coming. And David was writing about Jesus 1000 BC, a thousand years before Jesus. David's confident that an Anointed King is coming, a Messiah. This is three thousand years ago David was writing this. I mean, you could just read all of David's Psalms and you could explain and prove to somebody that Jesus is the Christ who had to die for our sins, and rise again, just from the Psalms of David. Like if you go read Psalm 22, it's Jesus dying on a cross prophesied a thousand years beforehand. Go read Psalm 16. And David thinks he's going to be alive after death, because the Holy One, the Anointed One, won't stay dead. Go read Psalm 2, and you'll read about a King who reigns over all the other nations. Like throughout the Psalms, it tells us who the Christ is. Look at Psalm 110. It says, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” So that's the Lord. If you ever see LORD, capital letters, that's the word Yahweh. That's who we would think of as a God, the Father. And God, the Father, is saying… notice how David calls him, “My Lord,” my Adonai. Okay? So now he's referring to the Christ, the Anointed King. And so, Yahweh says to Jesus, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” And Yahweh is going to send forth from Zion, from his dwelling place, your mighty scepter, rule in the midst of your enemy. So, there is one sitting at the right hand of God, who is going to come and rule. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, this day of power that is coming, the day that he leads his forces into battle in “holy garments, from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” So, this we're calling a King who is coming to reign and rule. We're also calling him a Priest. So, you can see in David's mind, he's seeing the Anointed One, he's coming as King, he's coming as Priest. Psalms 110:5-7, “The Lord is at your right hand, he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgments among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore, he will lift up his head.” Who's the one who lifts up his head? It's the one who won the victory. It's the Conqueror who looks up and sees what has been conquered. There is a King coming and he will rule over the nations of this world, he will destroy the world leaders who ally against him. There is a Christ who is still yet to come, and he will reign on planet earth. That's what's going to happen. There is a King who is coming.
So, think about how relevant this idea of knowing that Jesus is the Christ is for us today because it tells us how history ends. Okay? How history ends is everybody, we'll be saying the name of Jesus Christ, but no one will be taking it in vain. Every tongue is going to confess that Jesus is the Christ, who is the Lord. And he has all authority. And the Bible is very clear about this, that when Jesus comes riding on the clouds with his army of angels with him, when the clouds are rolled back like a scroll, and here comes Jesus, like, every eye is going to see him, every knee is going to hit the floor, and every single tongue is going to be speaking the name of Jesus Christ, but they won't be saying it in vain. They're going to feel the full weight of the glory of God revealed upon them. I mean, this is what is going to happen. You can believe me now, or you're going to see it for yourself later, but this is where the whole story has been going the whole time.
So, 2021, it feels to us like we're really far in the story. Well, if you think of a movie with the little timeline at the bottom, and you can scroll through the whole movie, I don't know how close we are to the end yet. It seems like we're getting closer to the end to me every day. But I know that the climax, the best parts of the movie are still yet to come, I promise you that. And the whole world… see Jesus is King and all of the governing officials that think they're so powerful right now, and all of the nations that think they're so permanent and important right now, he is going to just overthrow them and establish his own kingdom. He is the Christ.
And see, this is what even the enemies understood. Even the enemies are out there saying they're going to overthrow Caesar. They're going to overthrow the Romans, they're saying there's another king, because they understood what Paul was saying in that synagogue in Thessalonica. He's saying, don’t be deceived. These people in charge, they're not really in charge. Make sure that you're living to obey the real King. Make sure that you acknowledge the authority of Jesus as Lord, he needs to call the shots in your life. he needs to be the one you obey his commands; he is the one who you are ready to live or die for. Because you're ready to say, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain because he's my King, and I'm riding or dying with him. That's what it means to believe that Jesus is the Christ, that you need to bow and confess before he comes.
Let's get that down for King: You need to bow and confess before he comes. Because he's coming. I promise you, the whole point of this book that we study together every Sunday is that Jesus Christ is going to get all of the praise and it's going to be for the glory of God. Human history ends with the revelation of Jesus. And if you want to be on the right side of history, believe in the Christ today. Like right now. It looks like Christian people are on the wrong side because Satan's running things, and the world's got an evil system that's leading people away into sin. And Christians seem like the outcasts, like we don't really fit in down here. When Jesus shows up, oh, everybody's going to wish they had believed in Christ before that day. Everybody will wish they were one of us on that day.
And so, we need to recognize what it means when Jesus is the Christ. In fact, turn with me to Matthew 16. Matthew 16:13. And there's so much more that I could be saying about Jesus being the Christ, but we're already running out of time. So, I mean, once you start really digging into all of the anointings that are pictures of Jesus as the Christ, wow, there are so many fascinating things for you to see in the Scripture. So, we've just briefly outlined Prophet ideas, Priest ideas, and King ideas, but maybe now we cannot use the name Christ in vain, but we can feel the full weight of what it means when you're calling Jesus, the Christ. Like Paul is in the synagogue, or like Peter says here in Matthew 16:13-14, Jesus takes his disciples away into the north in Israel, away from all the crowds, into Caesarea, Philippi, and he wants to have a meeting just with his disciples. And “he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’” Here's their answer. Well, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’” See people, everybody knows that Jesus is somebody, some people think John the Baptist rose from the dead, Elijah he was the most famous of out of all the Jewish prophets, maybe he's Jeremiah. He's definitely somebody speaking from God. But then he asks the most important question in Matthew 16:15. Jesus said to them, “’But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, “You are the…” what does he call him, everybody? “‘Christ’” Can you now see the full weight of you're looking at a man who is standing before him? And you're saying, you are the one who came from God? You are all the promises come true. You are all the prophecies fulfilled. All of the prophets, all of the priests, all of the kings, they're just a little picture of who you are. Can you imagine one man looking at another who's in the form of a man who's put on flesh like us and saying to him, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”? I mean, that must have been a moment where everybody there, the disciples of Jesus, they all felt like there was nothing taken in vain there. Everybody there is like, we are saying that we are in the presence of the one who is the hope of all of human history, who is the only one that we have any hope into to solve this mess we've got down here and to make things right. And we're saying here he is. And Jesus answered him in Matthew 16:17, “Blessed are you Simon bar-Jonah!” See, that's how they did names back then. It wasn't first name, last name, like us today. It's Simon bar, son of, Jonah. Hey, you're blessed Peter, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father, who is in heaven.”
See, when these people are saying, and maybe it was some of us at one point in our life, when we're saying the name Jesus Christ, like it's a swear word or a curse, see, we're blind to seeing who Jesus really is. And the only reason that any of us could really see Jesus as the Christ is because God, the Father revealed it to us; he opened our eyes to see, otherwise we'd probably be right there using his name in vain too. And Peter, do you realize what you just said, and do you realize how blessed you are? Do you realize that all of the prophets, or all of the people throughout all the ages of human history, they wish they knew what you know right now, Peter; how blessed you are that God revealed to you the Christ. And then he says this in Matthew 16:18, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So, he's doing a word play here in the Greek because the name Peter means rock, or stone. And he said, yeah, you're Peter, and on this rock, I'm going to build my church, and the devil and all the demons can't stop it. Hades, the place of death can't stop it. Like, I'm going to build my Church on the rock. And a lot of people have misinterpreted this verse to think that Peter is the rock he's going to build the church on, like, Peter is the first pope, we're building the church, or Peter is the leader of the apostles, which become the beginning of the church. But that's not what it's saying. And if you read it in Greek, it would be so clear because, yes, he's doing word play. Peter means rock, he's going to build the church on a rock. But the rock that he uses as the foundation, as the cornerstone to build the church, is in the feminine form. You wouldn’t use the feminine form in the Greek to refer to a man Peter. No, the feminine form is referring not to Peter, but to the answer that Peter gave. Now, what is the rock that Jesus is going to build his Church on? It's the revelation, you are the Christ. See, when God opens your eyes to really see who Jesus is, that Jesus is the Christ, you get built on that sheer Foundation. And you become the Church of Jesus Christ. And once Jesus builds you into the church, the whole work that Jesus is doing to build his church, all across planet earth, no one can stop Jesus. No one can even rival him because he is the one. And Jesus is building his church.
And the question is, are you being built as a part of it? See, you're not with Jesus, because you go to church. You're not with Jesus because you claim to believe in him. You're with Jesus, if he's building you on the solid rock, that he is the Christ. So, you have to be built to be the church, like he is the Christ. And when he opens your eyes to see it, and he saves you through faith, well, then you now are being built up as the Church of Jesus. So, the way that you should think about, am I a Christian? Am I a part of the church? Is Jesus building your life? Are you being built up on the sheer foundation of Jesus? Jesus Christ. If the answer to that is, yes, then you are the church and Jesus is doing his work in you. And so that's why we're having this Foundations class, if you could open your bulletin, you'll see it there. It starts next Sunday after this service at one o'clock, if you want to stick around next Sunday, we're going to have lunch together, everybody who wants to come to this class, and this is for anybody who's new to our church, anybody here, you're like, hey, am I really being built? Is my life being built on the rock of who Jesus is? Do I really know that Jesus is the Christ? Have I really been saved to be one of his people in the church? If you have any question about that, please come to our Foundations class next Sunday at one o'clock. And we want to make sure that everybody here that you are being built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. And then if you're being built, we want to come together as the church and build up one another. We want Jesus to do his work here in Huntington Beach, to build the church, because we want more people to see who Jesus really is, that he is the one Prophet, Priest, and King that everyone will worship. And so, we want you to be a part of the church that Jesus is building. And if you're new to our church, we want you to come to the Foundations class too. And you're saying, well, I'm already on the foundation. He's already built up my life. I've been a Christian for a long time. Great. And we want to identify you as someone that Jesus could use to build up our church. Like you're either being built up as a new Christian, or you should be one of the builders, that Jesus is working through you to build others up. Like you can't just say I'm in the church because you sit here on Sundays, you're either being built up or you're building others up, or you're not a part of what Jesus is building. That's how it works. I just did, I preached it.
We should be saying live that right now, I think, okay, let's just cut to the chase, because we're running out of time. All right. We've been doing this now for seven years. Seven years, we've been doing this here in Huntington Beach, we just became seven years old the other day. September 7, 2014 was the first day of this church. We're in second grade now to everybody. Okay? That's where this church is at; barely made it through first grade, they passed us; we're in second grade. All right? We've seen so many people come and go through this building. And then we've seen people that Jesus is actually building. Which one are you? Not everybody here is the church. It's so clear. You can see Jesus is doing something in that person's life, that person, they're the church. You can see Jesus is using people in this room to build up one another. And they're maturing, they're growing. Like they're more mature than they've ever been, and they're grabbing other people, and bringing them with them, like Jesus is using them to build up his church. And then there are people who are here, and they're passing through. You need to be on the foundation of the Christ. And if you are the foundation, if you're standing on that foundation, and you know who Jesus really is, and you believe in him, and you say, you're my king, you're my Lord, I'm living my life for you. I'm living to do what you tell me. Jesus will build your life, and it will be clear to the other people around you that he is at work building the church in you. Can you say that here today? Because this idea, we’ll go to church, and then everybody will go watch football, right? This whole idea that we're living in right now, like you can just casually kind of cruise in and out of church whenever you kind of want to these days, the way we do it today.
See, that's not what happened in Thessalonica. Go back to Acts 17 and look at the response. When you say that Jesus is the Christ in the synagogue, no one goes home the same. Nobody here is just like, how was synagogue today? Oh, just another day at synagogue. You know what time is the Rams Game on? Nobody's saying that? No, when he goes in there, they only had three services there in the synagogue, and the whole city is in a mob uproar by the end of it. They're saying, these troublemakers are flipping the script on our whole city. These guys are trying to change the way the whole world works. They're saying Caesar is not in charge. They're saying Jesus is the one. I mean, everybody understood like what they're saying here, like everybody's got to pick a side. Whose side are you on? The side of the nations or the side of the King? Which side are you on? There's no casual lukewarm in the middle, go home and be the same. That's not what happens here. Now some of the people are persuaded. Look at Acts 17:4, “some of them,” meaning some of the Jews, even some of the Jews “were persuaded” and a great many of the devout Greeks, like a lot of Gentiles also believed in Jesus as the Christ, and not “a few of the leading women,” I mean, women who were in the nobility, maybe women who were married to the leaders of the city, like they're all saying, Jesus is the King, we're going to follow him as our Lord. And then these other Jews, they're so jealous of everybody going after Paul, and believing in Jesus, that they start a mob and they're like, no, Caesar is in charge, and they're hoping for like a showdown. I mean, do you realize that everybody here, you are either on the right side of history, and when the clouds are rolled back like a scroll, you'll be saying, it is well with my soul, or you will see Jesus come in, and you'll know right away, I'm not ready. I didn't bow the knee. I didn't confess with my mouth that he is Lord. And it'll be too late. Like, when Jesus is preached as the Christ, people respond.
Let's make sure we get that down for number two: You need to respond to the preaching of the Christ. You need to be persuaded and be built up as the church, or you need to acknowledge here today that if Jesus came back as King, you're not in his kingdom, you would actually be an enemy of the Christ. And if there's one thing I would pray and wish for every single one of you is I do not want you to be an enemy of the Christ. I don't want you to be among the church and to miss the glory of being the Church of Jesus Christ. And so, we’ve got to all make sure that we have responded by saying, that's my Christ. That's my King. That's my Priest. That's my Prophet. Yeah, he is the Anointed One that God sent for me. I believe that Jesus is the Christ. And you don't really get it here in Acts 17 because it just says, like, a great many or some of them, or not a few of them.
Could you write down on your notes there 1 Thessalonians 1 and 2. And this is a little bit of homework for everybody to do before we go to our fellowship groups or to do before you come to the Foundations class next week. Read 1 Thessalonians 1 and 2, because it's Paul writing about how they became the church and how they responded when they heard him say that Jesus is the Christ who died for our sins and rose again, because they had such a powerful response. Like Paul knew when he was speaking to them, he was speaking to them with power. And when they heard it, they heard it not like it was Paul's idea, but like it was the Word of God. And it says in 1 Thessalonians 1:8, that the “word of the Lord sounded forth” in Thessalonica, that the gospel rang out among these people, that these people not only believed who Jesus was, but everybody in the country knew that they believed who Jesus was that the word of their faith in Jesus spread everywhere, and everywhere that Paul went, people are like, wow, can you believe what happened in Thessalonica? Wow, those people really heard the Word of the Lord, and it echoed from them. It's like we threw a rock into water, and there were all these ripple effects just spreading out from there. Wow, look what happens when Jesus is the Christ, and his name is exalted. Look what happened at Thessalonica, the word of the Lord, it sounded forth. And we said that seven years ago, right here in Huntington Beach, down the street at Marina High School, we said, from this moment forward, we're going to be the church here in Huntington Beach, be one of the churches here in Huntington Beach, and we're going to preach that Jesus is the Christ. And on that rock, we will see Jesus build his church. We've been saying it ever since. And I'm just going to ask here today, if you have been saved by Jesus, if he has built your life on the revelation that he is the Christ over the last seven years here at this church, will you stand up right now? If you've been saved by Jesus over the last seven years here at this church, this is what Jesus is building, everybody. This is what he's building here in Huntington Beach. (Applause!)
Hey, thank you, thank you so much, please praise the Lord for saving you. Let me just tell you, we're just getting started here in Huntington Beach. The best days of this church are ahead of us. And I can tell you that because we have more people who know that Jesus is the Christ than we've ever had here at this church. And if we're really trusting in Jesus, if we're really ready to carry his name, and exalt him and give him the glory, and we're all here to worship Jesus, we're going to see him build his Church in a powerful way. Okay? So I want to make sure that you're a part of the church that Jesus is building, and you have to know the full weight of what it means. You have to know that Jesus is the Christ. Let me pray.
Father in heaven, we just confess what's going on down here these days where people are using the name of your son, the name of the Anointed One. They're using it as some kind of a swear word when they're angry. And even farther in the churches, many people would say they believe in Jesus, but they could not explain to you what it means that he is the Christ. There are even people going to church would think it's his last name. They wouldn't know that it's the ancient prophecy of an anointed one shown to us through prophets, and priests and kings. That all of human history has been building up to the revelation of Jesus Christ, that he is the one. God, I pray that we would know that here at this church. Father, I'm asking you to reveal it to people, to open their eyes, to see it that by whatever authority by whatever name, by whatever reason, they're living their life, if it's not Jesus, then they need to switch sides. They need to see that a King is coming. They need to bow the knee; they need to confess that he is the Lord. And so, Father, we ask that the promise of Jesus that he said to Peter and the disciples, when they knew that he was the Christ, we ask for that promise to happen here in Huntington Beach, that Jesus would build his Church on the revelation of who he is, and that nothing would be able to stop him. And we thank you for all of those beautiful souls that stood up. And that happened, three services. So many people that have been saved by Jesus. You have been building your church. And we pray that more people would come to know you for who you really are. More people would come and join us in the worship of you. And that we would be more bold to say, hey, I know who you're talking about. And I'm not sure you know who he really is, that Jesus is Christ. he is the one we're all longing for, though many of us may not know it. He is the one who will come and make all things right. And so let the name of Jesus as the Christ be known here today. And let his church be built. We pray this, Father, please build our lives on the sure foundation, the solid rock that Jesus is the Christ.