Gospel (Matthew 16:16)

Welcome remnants to remnant worship and praise night. I hope you guys are really holding onto the praise we just sang, and at this time I hope you’re firmly rooted in Gods word, because this is Gods greatest blessing for you. Today we are going to talk about something very simple. And the reason is because we have to be bound to Gods word. Today we’re going to be talking about the gospel, and in order word us to talk about the gospel, we actually need Gods word with us. 

So I hope you have your bibles with you if the remnants need a bible maybe they could get some help getting a bible. I hope you all have your bibles with the verse we are going to look at will me Matt 16:16 and if you don’t have to look that up that’s great because it is verse everyone knows and it is on our website. If you are not sure where to look at Matt 16;16 today is the day you can receive that blessing. Have you found it? The remnants are still flipping through bibles.

Let’s read it together, Matthew 16:16. Why is this the gospel? We say that Matthew 16:16 is the gospel that Jesus is the Christ, and I don’t know if you guys noticed but I started playing this game with the remnants. And if you guys want to play you guys can listen to. But I must want you that if you start playing this game you can never stop for the rest of your life. So if you don’t want to play this game with the remnants, then close your ears right now. But the game goes like this, when you remember that Jesus is the church, you have to say put lous that Jesus is the Christ. And that means you win the game, is t that such a fun game? So what will happen sometimes is that the remnants will say out of nowhere that Jesus is the Christ. And then I’ll remember that we are playing this game, so then I’ll also say Jesus is the Christ. So this is a fun game to play with the remnants. 

We aren’t here for remnant night just to play games. During one of the messages last week we heard about making sure we are asking the right questions. Right now when I talk to the remnants they have a lot of questions. It is always according to their interest. Some of the remnants ask about things like music some compose song on YouTube and ask what I think about it. Other remnants are Interested in doing money and doing business. They were asking me how to open a bank account and how to get this account verified. There are other remnants who are really interested in computers. He asked me, “if we buy this monitor with this specification will it make the picture really pretty?” Will it help me beat all the other people in this other game. 

They always ask these questions according to their talents. So it is important to ask questions and remnants as you go through school. I hope you ask questions as well. Sometimes it is kind of backwards where it is your parents who will ask you for a ration when you get home. They will be like, “How school is and you will say, “It is fine ” because you don’t really want to talk to your parents. I want to challenge the remnants maybe if your parents don’t ask you then maybe you ask the questions you had at school, maybe the teachers said something you don’t understand, maybe something strange happened to you, or maybe you saw a fight with a couple of people. You need to ask these questions to your parents. Because as you ask these questions, you’ll get deeper in knowledge, and God is going to work through those question. 

And in order for us to grow spiritually, there’s a particular spatula question we have to start with. I think you all know this question. Why are people unhappy. Do you guys know? Why are people unhappy? Maybe before talking about other people, let’s talk about yourself. Right now for the remnants I want you to think back to your past week. And of course there are times when you are really happy, and there may have been times that were very difficult. Maybe there was a problem you couldn’t solve. Maybe someone said something very mean to you. Maybe your brother was being very annoying. Why are people unhappy? Before we ask this question there’s another question you have to hold onto. Am I happy? You need to ask yourself that. If you ask the wrong question you’ll get the wrong answer, and if you get the wrong answer you’ll go in the wrong direction. 

Carlos,are you happy? Are you happy? Most people when they come across this question they say, “Yes I want to be happy.” And sometimes people say, “Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m not.” That’s normal. But fundamentally nobody is going to be happy all the time. Then why is it that people are unhappy? We don’t have a lot of time so I’ll just give you the answer. Remnants you have your bible, what does Romans 3:23 say? Romans is in the New Testament. So you know what it says? Let’s read it together, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In other words, people fall short of God. A lot of people live with some sort of goal they think,  “If I reach this goal, I’ll be happy.” “If I make this much money, get than kind of job, get marry, then I’ll be happy.” But do you know what’s more important then people’s goals? There’s God who is so far above all of that. But I can never reach that. So that’s why I, not really happy. Remnants I hope you understand. No matter how many people you beat in that video game, no matter what your high score is, no matter how much money you make, there’s always going to be something that’s lacking and missing. And what’s missing is that people are separated from God. 

And ultimately that’s what makes people unhappy. It’s because they can’t meet God. So this is the second question you need to ask. Why can’t I meet God? Maybe before you ask this question you need to ask another question first. Is God real? You know before you talk about meeting someone, does God even exist? Remnants, do your friends ever ask this question? Maybe you guys don’t have any friends, well that’s normal. But if you have friends, do they ask you, “Does God exist?” There’s so many people in my high school and college, especially in college, “I don’t think God even exist.” Do you think about this question, about the problem of evil? Like “If there’s a loving God why are there problems in the world, if God is all powerful why did he make Satan and make us suffer? God must be really mean.” Have you had people like that? Do you ever think about that yourself? “If God is real, why did he give my parents so many problems?” Do you ask questions like that? Because if you have the answer to that, you can overcome, but if you never have that answer, you’ll be scarred. 

Every time your parents do something wrong, “Aw dang it, my parents suck.” Every time your parents make a mistake, “Aw dang it, why are my parents like that?” And ultimately it means you’re not happy. 

It is precisely at this point you ask this question. Am I happy?That is why whenever I hang out with you guys I ask you, “Are you okay?” It pushes you into this question and when you start with this question you can get the right answer. The question of whether God exists or not Something you can’t think of and  answer for but this will never satisfy you. Especially in today’s world it’s all about relative truth and everyone says the world is what you make of it. It is even to extend for people can say,” I don’t think President Biden isn’t real then they will say things like have you ever met him? How do you know if he’s real?” People will doubt and ask you these kinds of questions.

Do you guys think President Biden is real? Actually what you think doesn’t matter but if you met him face-to-face or shook his hand, you will be like “wow I met him” it’s really different right? I hope that you will have that blessing but why can’t I meet God ultimately it’s because there is no way let’s look at Acts 4:12. The Bible has the answer why we can’t meet him. Have we found Acts 4:12? “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Salvation is found in no one else, meaning there are so many things that people are trying but they can’t meet  God because salvation is only through Jesus Christ. So, without believing in Jesus Christ if I look in this world, I will make this conclusion. Remnants have you come to the conclusion, the reason why people can’t meet God is because there is no way for them and because they have no way, they’re stuck.

Have you guys ever been to a prison? When I was a kid sometimes my parents would put me into a playpen and I was pretty well behaved. I would just sit in there but my siblings were less well behaved, they didn’t want to stay in the playpen. So they climbed against the wall and it would tip over and they would be so happy because they were finally free. My parents saw these babies were getting a little too big, so they strapped down the legs of the playpen so the babies were trying to get out of the playpen but they couldn’t break out anymore so they became really frustrated and start crying.

Remnants I hope you haven’t experienced this in real life, where you find yourself in a situation where you really want to break free from but you can’t break out of it. And no matter how much you cry, and yell you can’t solve this situation. But even if you do face that kind of situation, you just have to ask this question. Am I happy? Am I okay? If I have the answer to that, no matter what happens I’ll be fine. 

So right now most people have no way to meet God. And if you really believe this there’s a question that follows, How can I meet God? I remember going into a evangelism field with Pastor Park before I went to Ethiopia. We went to a Macdonald’s somewhere in the middle of Hollywood. And we were talking about the spiritual environment in that region, Hollywood is a pretty dark place. I don’t know if you guys ever had the blessing of going out to evangelism camps with Pastor Park but sometimes it can get really boring. Like without any sort of spiritual understanding I just went there. And we would just sit in Mc Donald’s for like hours. We didn’t even order anything we’re just sitting there, like what’re we doing? I got so bored there was a interesting looking person and I told Pastor Park, I’m going to go evangelize to that guy. And he was like, okay. So I sit down and I talk to this guy, he says he’s a doctor. And at that time, I was like, “Do you want to hear the gospel?” So I started explaining the way of salvation to him, “Humans were created to be with God and because of sin Satan and separation, we became separated from God, so people have all these different kind of problems, and the biggest problem is that they can’t meet God, so they try a bunch of different things. Some people try religion.” And when I said that, he said, “No, actually religion does work, you can meet God through religion.” And I was super confused because when I shared the way of salvation to somebody, it’s usually in the church and nobody asked any questions, nobody challenged how much I understood the way of salvation. And he started talking about taking this drug called Iowaska. So apparently if you go into the jungle in South America , you can meet with the natives living in the region. It’s some sort of thing they have to grind up and they drink it. And this doctor was telling me, it only works when you add snake blood to it. And so when he said that he was like, “I need to go back there.” 

He was so wrapped up in this drug  and so addicted he thought he was meeting God. But actually when people are taking drugs and trying to be God and praying so much they can’t, no matter how much they study the Bible or pray it doesn’t matter. They can’t meet God, so how can I meet God?

 We Looked at his Bible verse earlier, do you guys remember this verse I hope at this point you have memorized this one too. Have you guys got it? John 14:6 so in the previous verse  there is Thomas Who asked,” how do we find if you don’t know the way”, so this is the answer let’s read it together “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.No one comes to the Father except through me.”  So how do we meet God? We have to believe in Jesus, that’s it. 

You don’t have to take some drugs, give money to church,or  you don’t need to memorize all these verses I keep telling you. You really just have to believe and that’s it. “Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life” the next time you aren’t happy, I hope you will begin to ask questions with this train of thought. Once you get here you have completed the introduction. 

I really hope you get here it’s not easy to believe in Jesus and if you think it’s easy it means you’re filled with yourself, probably. At the same time it’s not hard either it is neither easy nor hard. It is actually absolutely impossible. I can’t believe in God even if I wanted to and that’s why it’s hard but it’s also the easiest thing because what’s absolutely impossible for humans, is absolutely possible for God. Yet, people are so stubborn they look at this and ask, “Are you sure there is no other way?” They will ask especially people in America say, “they are spiritual but not religious” So you have to ask you, “why is Jesus Christ the only way?” We said we have to believe in Jesus. What exactly do you have to believe?  Do you remember the game we were playing? “Jesus is the Christ” it’s because Jesus is the Christ. That is why he is the only way, isn’t it such a fun game.

 1 John 3:8 It is towards the end of the Bible it’s a really important verse “The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” So this is were the definition of the Christ comes in. 

Of course you know Jesus is the Christ, you know he’s a true prophet, true priest and true king. You know this but you don’t believe it, actually I think you do believe it but you believe that you don’t believe. If you have this kind of doubt in your heart, you will ask this next question, “Are you sure? Are you sure Jesus is the Christ?” if I ask you some silly question like what is 2+2. He will say 2+2 is four. Do you know it’s very easy, you are very sure of it.  If you took an IQ test and they asked you 2 +2 you would think 100% that it’s 4. 

If you believe this is a Christ, are you still going to have problems, are you still going to get mad at your parents? Am I happy? Why is my teacher so annoying? Am I happy? Jesus it to Christ are you sure? Most people will say, “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” So then you have this question “Why don’t I have assurance?Why am I not sure?” if you know something you’re going to be really sure but if you see that there is a hurricane that will hit Florida and someone asks you, “are you sure?” Are you going to be sure?

If you see on the news that all the Palm Trees are swaying and there are big winds and flooding, then are you going to be sure? The more information you have about something, the more sure you’ll be. That is why God’s word is important. The more you spend with God’s word, the more you’ll know. So what’s my problem here? I don’t know. It’s because I don’t know I have this problem. What do I have to know? 1 John 5:11-13. This one is a little longer, it just says, “Whoever has the son has life.” If you have Jesus you have life. This is a great blessing God wants to give to you. Am I happy? I have the son. Sometimes kids may misunderstand, they think they have to have children so that they may have life. If I have a son then I have life. Don’t fall into that misconception. 

If you have Jesus Christ, you have life. Then you might be like, “Well, it doesn’t feel that way, because you don’t really know.” But what is that I don’t really know? That’s where this next question comes in. So I believe in God, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, now what? What else is there? What don’t I know? Then you can ask this question. How have I changed, now that I accepted Jesus Christ? What do you guys think? “Now that I believe in Jesus Christ, I’m going to make a lot of  money, now that I believe in Jesus Christ he’s going to protect me so that I won’t get corona virus, now that I believe in Jesus Christ, I can be the president, I can beat that person in that game.” How have I changed now that I believe in Jesus Christ? 1 Corinthians 2:10-14. It talks about the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit with you. That’s the greatest change. 

When you have the Holy Spirit in you, then it is finished, it really is. But if I don’t know what’s going to happen to me? “My parents still suck.” “I’m still poor.” “Nothings working.” Am I happy? Jesus is the Christ. If you follow this train of thought, you’ll reach the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is important. Now that you know about the Holy Spirit, what are you going to ask? What’s this Holy Spirit? What is the Holy Spirit? Do you guys know? Have you met the holy spirit and shook his hand? What is the Holy Spirit doing? Do you guys know the benediction?  It says like, “Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It talks about the four things the Holy Spirit is doing. The filling, the working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit. That’s what the Holy Spirit  is doing. You need to remember that. When you remember that then you’ll be answer this next question. 

It’s talking about how you can start. Up until now we haven’t really gone anywhere. Now that I have the Holy Spirit, how do I start? how do I go? You have to go with that benediction. Filling, working, guidance of the Holy Spirit. You can look at the Bible verse later. Wherever God guides you, you’ll be protected by God. So wherever you go I hope you’ll enjoy the blessing of God being with you. And when you do that and you go out into the world, you’re still going to have problems, and if you’re still not sure you’re going to ask this question. Why are things still hard? God is with me but why is my life still difficult? And then I might tell you, “Don’t worry, the Holy Spirit is going to be with you in power.” And then you hear things like Acts 1:8, “But you’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” You’ll have this power that comes upon you. Then you’ll ask this question. When is God’s power and authority revealed? During the Healing Message we talked about the power of prayer changing the world. Do you believe that prayer can actually change the world? Have you seen the world change because you prayed? The word from Acts 1:8 has that been fulfilled in your life? When is God’s power revealed in your life? Matthew 12:18-20, how does it begin? Jesus said, “All power and authority has been given to me.”

So even things are hard you need to understand that God is still in control. And when is God’s power revealed? When you use it. You have to use it. Let’s say you have a million dollars, and you’re super super hungry, and you’re like, “Man I wish I can have this food.” You have a million dollars, “But if I go to Mc Donalds I want to eat burgers, or I can go to this other place and get chicken, or I can get boba, oh I’m so hungry right now.” Because you have a million dollars you can actually go, you can go to all those places and order all the foods you actually want. “Oh why are things so hard, when is God’s power and authority revealed?” Do you guys pray? That’s what it means to use it. 

But you’ll have this question. How do I use it? How do I use the power of the Holy Spirit? That’s why this next one isn’t actually a question. It says that prayer is a spiritual science. Do you guys know what science is? It means you can study cause and effect. It means that when you pray somethings going to happen and you just have to wait for it to happen. But the posture and attitude with what you pray is important. I think we covered this in the healing message, so you can refer to that message as well, but you can also take a look at Luke 11:5-13 and Luke 18:1-8. God ultimately promised that he will give it to you. It says that “Who of you would give your son a snake when they’re hungry?” And then Jesus says, “If you then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.” So you just pray for that, you pray like a persistent widow. You recognize that there are no one else that can help me, it is only God that can help me. And when you pray like that and wieldthat power you’ll see God’s power. 

And you might ask another question. Does prayer work? Does it really work? I prayed for an A on my test and I got a B. I don’t think prayer works. Have you guys prayed like that? I prayed that God would give me a new game but God didn’t give it to me. There’s a prayer we need to begin with. Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? If you’re not sure you have to start with that prayer. If you believe in Jesus Christ do you have the Holy Spirit? If you don’t know you can pray towards that. 

And you’ll ask another question. Why am I healed when I pray? It’s not some kind of mystical thing. This is something God promised to us. God promised to heal you, God promised to give you the grace to believe that’s why you’re healed. Ultimately it’s not about you. But it’s that God said so. And when I hold onto that as my covenant, everything is finished. 

The conclusion is that God said so. If God says something, are my thoughts important? All these other questions that I have, are they important? Actually they are because you will see how they are connected to what God said. That’s when everything will make sense, so I hope that you can really organize your questions, especially the remnants as you’re living your life and still have these questions, don’t shove them under the rug. Really think about it. As a prayer about these questions in your heart, God promised he will answer you, so may you see that Jesus is the Christ the answer to all life’s problems.

Let us pray, Father God we thank you. We thank you for giving us your word of Jesus Christ, so they may be the remnants to save the age. In the name of Jesus Christ of pray. Amen