But first, we just want to say that we're just so honored that we're able to share our experiences from India and also represent the Eye Care team. This is the first year that we've gone and the fourth year that Burian has sent a team to India. And personally, Vince and I decided to go because we wanted to serve God using our Eye Care skills so that hopefully we could be useful to the team.

And I'll be a little bit honest, there's a little bit of pride involved because this year there were five Eye Care professionals going. And because of that, I was just really ready to rock it with this rock star team. But as we were preparing for the trip, and especially during the trip, there was definitely a turning point where my mind shifted in what our goals were trying to achieve.

Because it no longer was really about seeing as many patients as possible, but more in utilizing the Eye Care to reach the many lost souls. And I learned that with the medical care that we provided there, along with VBS and wound care, that this would then serve as an avenue for the Indian pastors to share the gospel in an otherwise hostile environment.

On a regular basis, these pastors who are there, they live there and they would travel to these villages that are sometimes one or two hours away and try to spread the gospel, not knowing whether or not they would receive the word at all. And sometimes they would get rejected or they would get beat or chased away.

And then, so with our presence there providing the medical care, they were offered an in. They were offered an opportunity to be able to share that gospel. So by providing this medical care, the villagers were then intrigued, they were curious, they would ask, "Why would these people who live in the comfortable U.S.

come all the way here to help us?" And the pastors would be very, they would definitely mention this fact when they would talk about us and introduce us in the ceremony. And the pastors would then indicate the reason why they're here. They would leave their comfortable homes because they're here to share the word of God.

They're here because they love God and they desire for you to know him too, because he's worthy and because he's our one true Lord of all things. So on the eight days that we were gone, we actually spent only four of the days visiting four different villages. Every day it took about one to two hours to travel every day.

And by the way, I just have to say the driving in India is just absolute madness. There's no organization. Literally if there were two lanes, one going and one incoming, the cars would just go over to the incoming traffic all the time to try to pass the car in front.

And then so a lot of times you see like head-on traffic until the very last minute and then they would switch over. I felt like I was going to die like all the time, but it was pretty exciting. So I guess that was fun. When we get to the village, they'd be waiting for us.

There'd be a ceremony. They'd introduce all of us. We would sing Indian praise songs. We would just clap along because we didn't understand Telugu. And then because we often were outside or in an area where it wasn't in an enclosed space, it was like we were proclaiming the word for all to hear.

Like everyone could hear us. Because it was a small village, like literally everyone would be able to hear us singing and talking and proclaiming God's name. And then the longer we were there, more and more people would show up because they wanted to see what was going on. They wanted some medical care and they would be able to hear the word.

The actual medical camp actually lasted about four hours. And while our goal was to see as many people as possible, we hoped that our presence and our demeanor, despite our language barrier, would show that we're here out of love and that we decided to help them. We were giving them glasses, eyedrops, and sunglasses.

And we would smile. We would do the namaste gesture. And we hoped that in doing so that their hearts would be softened to hear the message of the gospel. And then so that the Indian pastors who visit these villages every day and sometimes new villages, they would be able to preach the word to them.

They would accept it and then one day proclaim God as their Lord and Savior. Thanks honey. One funny story about the introductions. So you know, Pastor Sake, he didn't know all of our names. And so James Hong, he had to give him a list. And for the couples, he wrote both on the same line.

So he wrote Connie and Vince. Well, you saw in the picture, in the video, they gave a lei and then we stood up proudly. And then he's all, okay, introducing Brother Connie and his wife. What? He got it on the third day though. Like Connie said, we wanted to use the skills, the skills that seemed essential to the trip.

You know, eye care was like the rock star medical part that was going to be able to bring as many people as possible. And we were pridefully thinking, you know, we want to try to provide the best medical care possible, the absolute, you know, best they can get so that they can, you know, be as healthy as possible.

And this was going on in our planning stages. And after reflecting, after praying, after receiving prayer, we realized that, you know, the medical part was, like Connie said, just an avenue. We're actually just going so that they would somehow have a softening of their hearts to the gospel so that the pastors could have an avenue to proclaim the gospel to them and to share the gospel.

And make no mistake, you know, we weren't the primary evangelistic people there. The pastors really do all the work. Our purpose on the trip, like I said, was to provide that avenue. And through that purpose, we were able to see almost 700 people. What was truly amazing about the trip was that God was evident everywhere.

In an area so dark to the gospel, it was clear to see God at work. As Connie was explaining, we were, you know, singing in open air. It was just a tent, and the village is really small, so everyone around could hear. And as we were singing, as we were giving testimonies, I looked around, and outside the tent, you can see people with kind of hardened faces, kind of like, "What are you trying to do here?" But as they came through, you know, as they received their medical care, went through VBS, having gotten glasses, I felt like I saw an inkling of a softening in their hearts just through the softening of their faces.

You had a Muslim woman take off her face cover. You had, you know, parents bringing their kids. You had older people who are sometimes the hardest to have a change of heart just show just a tremendous amount of gratitude, even though we were Christians there. This was our purpose of being there, that softening of their hearts, that inkling of a softening of their hearts so that, you know, the pastors could have that way to really show them who God is, show them who the truth is.

While we were in India, we had daily devotionals reading 1 Peter, and one verse that kept standing out to me was 1 Peter verses 2 and 3. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

To do what these pastors are doing on a daily basis, that milk must have tasted really good. They risk their safety, sacrifice comfortable living, give up good education for their children, get ridiculed and sometimes beaten, all to share the gospel to the lost. The goodness of God, when you know the taste, is what makes it worth it.

My prayer is that we are all constantly reminded of the goodness of God because it's knowing this that makes us obedient. It's feeling his presence that makes us proclaim his name. I also want to share a few thoughts of some of the team members in I-Care. Diane Hong shared, "One patient that stood out to me was a desperate mother who heard the word medical and brought her severely sick and malnourished eight-month-old son.

She came for her son and she knew there was nothing we can do, but she waited in line an hour just to receive prayer, the only thing that she could rely on. Pastor Peter prayed for her and for her son, and that was one memory that reminded me why we were there, to open up opportunities to minister to the locals there, to offer hope and prayer, and to demonstrate the love of Christ." Anna Yang, "Our discomfort during the trip pales in comparison to the discomfort of the pastors we face, the pastors face daily.

What a privilege it is to partner alongside these pastors, even for a short week, and to see what an encouragement our presence alone is to them and the joy they have to daily persevere." Jenny Mao, "When going through the villages, we could offer I-Care, but compassion didn't come because they are poor.

It was because they didn't know the gospel. The most important thing was singing praise and giving testimonies. We provided an avenue to proclaim the truth in an otherwise hostile environment. We feel rebuked, or I feel rebuked, because my life here is not like in India. We should live proclaiming the gospel.

There is so much work to do." Sam Kim from Crosslife, "One of the highlights for the trip was the times that we were able to listen to and proclaim the gospel to the locals through the testimonies of the pastors and of our teammates. I was convicted by the gospel's power to transform the lives of the local pastors through the legacy of Pastor Matthew's faithfulness in preaching the gospel." Pastor Matthew, he's Pastor Sake's dad.

We all noticed the same thing, that God is working in India, that God has his servants in place there, and that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. I'm truly thankful that Connie and I and our whole team had the privilege to serve God this past week in India, but let us not forget that for his kingdom, there's still much work to do.

Thank you. I just want to first thank everyone who prayed for the India mission trip team, as well as specifically for the ones who prayed for me to stay focused and to be used, because this trip meant so much to me. But I must first especially thank Esther, because she made it possible for me to go.

With little or no help, it must have been so hard to be a single mom for so long, both before and during the mission trip. So thank you so much. It must have been so hard. It truly was a family mission trip. We all had to do something to make it happen.

In short, our journey started in 2017 with Covenant Keepers. We did a book called You and Me Forever by Francis and Lisa Chan. That's when God revealed to me that I had a marriage-centered marriage instead of a God-centered marriage. Not that good marriage isn't good. It's not that five loving languages and supporting each other and trying to keep a good family is bad.

But in the midst of the daily grind of daily life, providing for our family, I had to admit that God wasn't in the priority. And that was a hard reality. So when India Mission Trip opportunity came up, we answered the call. I wish I could say otherwise, but it wasn't the love for India or even the love for missions that drew us.

It was a simple, small step of obedience and faith that we took. We want and we pray for our children to be mighty warriors for Christ and for the kingdom. But first I must model it at home. I want to be like Elijah who rained down the fire from heaven.

I want to be like great men of faith in the Bible. But sometimes I look at my life and I look at the Bible and there's a chasm of a difference. I feel like I'm reading a fairy tale story. India was the first step towards that. In India, we took the gospel to the gates of Hades.

Even with the language barrier, with our eyes and with our service and our obedience, we brought the gospel. I ask you continually to pray for me to stay sober-minded after a mountaintop experience, to live for Christ in the midst of a daily grind. In doing so, I encourage you to answer God's call in your own life, where you're at, with whom you're with.

Elder Joe once put it best, he said, "Sunday service is like a pep rally for all of us believers to get together, to encourage one another and to spur each other on for the week ahead." So it's my privilege and honor to lead this pep rally today, to encourage you to take the gospel from where you're at, with who you're with, to the gates of Hades, to kick it open, to reach deep inside, to the clutches of death, rip out from its throat, to souls for God, the ones that we call our mother and father, our brothers and sisters, our coworkers and our neighbors, our friends, our casual acquaintances.

Thank you. I'm going to be preaching the part two of the "I Am Statements of Christ," and I'm going to just kind of give you updates on my version. Again, thank you, Lee, for sharing your heart. We had a team of 15, four optometrists and one eye doctor, optometrists, and we had nurses and we had VBS team and one strong security guard who kept people at bay.

And so it was, you know, it's always great. And people ask, like, what's the highlight of the mission trip? For me, it's always the same. It's always being able to spend time with my brothers and sisters, to labor together, to enjoy true fellowship. And, you know, every time I go to mission trips, it kind of reminded me of how our church used to be when it was a lot smaller, to be able to interact with everyone every day and to pray for each other, enjoy each other's company, and to be able to do that on a day in and day out basis and laboring together, even though we're fatigued, seeing everybody just working so hard to do the best that they can is such an encouragement.

I think we looked at the number of people that we saw. I think last year we may have seen maybe about 300, 350, and we thought that was a huge number. And this year, they broke the record. They did almost double that, 600 to 650 people that they saw.

And it wasn't because we saw everybody. Every day, the crowd that we had to say no to is increasing at the end of the day, so we always have to leave because we don't want to leave after the sun goes down. And it was, again, such an encouraging experience.

And, you know, when I think about India, you know, people ask, like, why do you have a heart for India? And it's not because I have a heart for India or for China or any other place. It just happened that God opened the door. And you know, I was asked to go years ago, about seven years ago, to go and teach a pastoral training out in Bangalore.

And I went there, and I didn't come back with a heart for India. I came back with the realization that the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. And there's a lot of work to be done. I didn't know. I thought that the greatest unreached people, concentration of people groups was in the Middle East, and I found out that it was actually in India.

And that there's, even though there are a lot of people doing ministry, but the persecution is rising, so a lot more people are being cautious. And so as a result of that, I came back with, again, with a knowledge that there is a tremendous amount of need and not enough being done over there, in comparison to where you and I live, where it almost seems like churches are competing with each other to gain more people to come to their church instead of the church down the street, where there are parts of the world right now where there's not even a single pastor, a single person or Christian being represented in some of these villages.

And so really, it was because the door has been opened. And Apostle Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 16, 9, where he writes his letter and he said he's going to spend more time in Macedonia because the Lord opened the door for him to do ministry. And so heart is something that God gives you in obedience.

We don't follow our heart because our heart is very deceptive. If we go where we want to go and not go where we don't want to go, you'll end up right at home building a comfortable safety net and do whatever is comfortable. So we kind of make this boundary of what God wants in my life based upon what is comfortable to me.

And the next thing you know, you find your life living in disobedience. And so India is not because God gave me a heart, it's because he opened the door. But I also come back, as I shared with the team, the realization that this door may not be open permanently.

When we went, part of the reason why we were safe is because now that this was our fourth year doing this medical camp, they've already heard about what we've done in the previous years. And so the village leaders who are Hindus are actually asking us to come to their village.

And you could see when you start the beginning of the day, we have all of us in a room and you have the Christians, the pastors, and a lot of the village people and the leader of the village, who many of them are Hindus, will sit there. And once the singing starts and the gospel and the testimony begins, you can begin to see the discomfort in some people.

And some people will just literally just get up and walk out. They'll grab their wives and their kids. So you can see the discomfort. And they're just kind of examining what are these people doing here. But once the medical camp starts, even the people who left, for whatever the reason, they'll start coming back.

And they'll make lines and literally begging us to see them. And even at the very end of the camp, we had four reporters who came and asked if they can take pictures and write about us in their newspaper. Because a lot of these villages haven't had a foreigner in their village for over 30, 40 years.

So it's a very strange sight to see foreigners coming in there doing what we're doing. So they want to write about it because over there, it's a very big event. And the leaders, some of the pastors that I talked to said that the very first year that we went, the way that they prepared for these camps is if we were doing the camp on Monday at a particular village, the pastors would go the night before and they would walk around with drums and they would beat and just tell people announcing that there's a medical camp coming next day, so make sure you guys come.

So each village we went to, there was a large number of people already waiting for us. They said that they can't do public campaigns anymore because they're not well received. So that's the way that they would do evangelism. They would go and drum up support and say, "Hey, we're having this event, come," and they would just publicly preach the gospel.

And they said they stopped doing that because the village leaders won't allow it anymore. So the way they do evangelism now is they would find if there's a Christian in the village, they would go to their homes and then ask them to invite their non-Christian Hindu friends to come and they would share the gospel inside the house.

So inside the house they can do it, but they can't do public events. So the fact that we're having this public event and having hundreds and hundreds of people show up, again, this is a very rare happening in that village, and the fact that we're sharing the gospel. And I think about the eye care and the wound care that we do, and probably the most offensive part of what we do is the VBS.

One because it is just direct gospel sharing with these children, singing songs and having them present the gospel through the different beads, and the fact that they're doing it with their children. And so a lot of times the parents are sitting there and watching, and they're hearing the gospel being presented through the VBS, and yet they'll sit there through the whole day because they're trying to get into the medical camp.

And so a lot of work is being done, but at the same time I realize that this door may not be open permanently. That because we're garnering a lot of attention and we ask the reporters not to take the pictures, not to write about us, for obvious reasons. We don't want the unwanted attention of people reading it and then the radical Hindus figuring out what we're doing and then coming and causing problems for us.

So we try to ask them not to do this, but I have a feeling that they're going to do that anyway because it was such a big event for them. So I'm not sure how long the door is going to be open and how much time we have and opportunity to do exactly what we're doing, not that our support for the pastors there is going to stop anytime soon, but the specific thing of going there.

And again, what we're doing is very effective. I feel like not a single minute, not a single dime is wasted in the work that we're doing out in India. But again, I don't know how long the Lord will keep this door open, but as long as it is open, we want to make sure that we take advantage of it and we live in obedience.

And again, I was talking to a few of our team members and what they shared was how when they first went, everybody looks the same. Anytime you go to a foreign place where you're not familiar, say, well, everybody kind of go to the villages and you just see the masses.

But now that we've been there four times, it's no longer the masses. You see the people. You see the story behind the people who are coming. And they're not just a group of people. They're not just Indians. They're people who have brothers and sisters and they have heartaches and they have a hard time feeding their children.

And we've met a lady who had a child born premature and it was in one of the pictures and the baby looked like it didn't have much to live and the mother has no hope. And there's nothing we could do there because it was an eye camp and wound care and the child's lung wasn't developed and wasn't eating and it was clear that the baby was in his last days of life and the mother came and asked for prayer.

And so we prayed for her. We prayed for the baby. And so we had several instances where we were able to sit down and talk with them and to pray for what's going on in their lives. And so it's no longer, to me, just these Indians out in the middle of nowhere, but these are people who have faces, the people that we've met.

And so God gives us a heart when we obey. We don't move because we have a heart. A heart will follow if we submit to God. The text that we're looking at today, again, all the messages, if you listen carefully, they're all tied together to know who Christ truly is.

Obviously we're not there for humanitarian aid. Ultimately, getting people who don't see to see better is not the main reason why we went. Or children who need to learn about morality and to have a different code of ethics, Christian ethics instead of Hindu ethics. That is not why we're there.

We're there ultimately that that is an avenue, a vehicle to bring the gospel, to bring the message of Christ, to introduce them to Jesus. Because of our language barrier, obviously we're just giving a platform for the pastors to be able to preach boldly, which they do. But ultimately it is about the gospel.

It is not about the wound care. It is not about the eye care and all the other things. See the I Am statements of Jesus is taking a group of people who were coming to Christ in large numbers. If you remember the first I Am statement, Jesus says, "I am the bread of life." It reminded me a lot.

Every day when we had these groups of people, 200, 300, 400 people coming to these camps, and every second that you have, James had the toughest job out of all of us because basically he's doing crowd control all day long. Crowd control is not like here where you say, "Hey, you guys got to stand in line." They stand in line and every once in a while you have to remember.

Every second you don't push back and you don't do crowd control. You have dozens and dozens of people who are trying to break in, trying to go. If you turn away, they're sneaking in. Every time the door opens, they're peeking in. James and the security team has to constantly be there all day fighting to keep the crowd in control.

But can you imagine that Jesus and his 12 disciples, what kind of crowd followed Jesus? At the feeding of the 5,000, it's like 5,000 plus their family members, maybe 20,000 people and only 12 disciples and possibly a few of the women disciples were following them. They were so enamored with Christ.

Remember when Jesus was teaching in possibly Peter's house that they couldn't get to him through the front door. The only way that they can get to him is to go to the roof and break it open and put him down. So the scene that we experienced at the village is a small fraction of what I think was probably going on everywhere Jesus went.

They had thousands of people. We have hundreds. They have thousands of people. We had maybe about 20 or 30, including us and the pastors who were doing crowd control. But this is 12 disciples and a few women and thousands of people are knocking at his door. The people in the villages are desperate because a lot of them, the only medical attention they can get may be us.

It's no wonder that they're desperate and that why they're trying everything in their power to get in. But can you imagine people who haven't eaten, who can't see, can't walk, oppressed, seeing that Jesus is performing miracles and he's the only person that has any kind of solution for all of this.

And they're coming in thousands everywhere he went. So can you imagine how fatigued Jesus and the disciples were and why he was constantly trying to get away to get a break? It is to that crowd, these multitudes who are coming to Jesus at all costs, breaking through the door, fighting through the crowd just to get a glimpse of him, just to touch the fringe of his garment, hoping that healing will come.

That it is in this crowd that Jesus sees them and he sees the defect of their faith, that they're coming to him for the wrong reason. Understandably, if you're hungry, you want food. Understandably, if you're sick, you want to be healed. But in the context of all of this, they could have easily missed why Jesus came.

That is not the reason why Jesus came. He says he performed miracles in order that they would know him, that they would know him because the real reason why he came is to reconcile us to the author of life. So that was just an avenue, just like our medical camp was simply an avenue to bring Christ to them.

Everything that Jesus did, the feeding, the healing, his power, all of it was to bring people to himself. So these "I am" statements are a clarification of some of the misunderstandings that people had for the false reasons that many people were clamoring to get to Jesus. And Jesus says in these "I am" statements that you need to know who I am.

We talked about the first four the previous weeks, and then I want to look at the next three. And all three of these "I am" statements, the "I am the resurrection and life," "I am the way and the truth and the life," and then "I am divine," all three of these "I am" statements happen at the very, very tail end of Jesus' ministry.

"I am the resurrection and the life" happens the very last week before he enters into Jerusalem. So we're talking about two weeks before he is crucified on the cross. So every one of these statements are stated in the context of him telling and preparing his disciples for his departure.

So the fourth and the first "I am" statement that I'm going to be addressing today is the "I am the resurrection and the life." Again the context is in chapter 11. He says it in verse 25 and 26, and again in various places, where the context is Jesus has this personal relationship with his family, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.

And they are mentioned in other texts outside of this miracle. And we could tell that they were a prominent family just by the fact that they were already very well known in the Jewish community. And when Lazarus is buried, he's buried in a tomb very similar to Jesus' tomb, which was not a common man's tomb.

You have to be very wealthy to have a tomb carved into the side of the mountain very similar to what Jesus was buried in. This was a rich man's tomb. So Mary, Martha, and Lazarus was probably a very prominent family that Jesus was close to, maybe supported Jesus' ministry.

And so when Lazarus seems like his illness is very severe, they send messengers to go get Jesus, and Jesus responds in verse 4, chapter 11, says, "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it." Jesus is already aware of what's going to happen.

Even before they come and get him, he says, "No, this is not going to lead to death. It's going to lead to his glory." But he doesn't immediately move. He deliberately stays two days longer, it says in chapter 11, verse 6. He waits until he dies, and he's buried, and for four days he's buried, and he's already in the tomb where the body is starting to rot.

And he deliberately waits for that, and then he shows up after he dies in verse 21 through 26. Martha runs to Jesus and says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." In other words, we were waiting, anticipating, because they had a special connection to Jesus.

They weren't like the multitudes. They had access to him, and they thought that we're desperate and we go get you, that you would come running, but Jesus did not. And in disappointment, she's lost hope. If you came before he died, you could have done something, but now that he's dead, what's going to happen?

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." And even then, Martha did not clearly understand. He says, Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes me, though he die, yet shall he live.

And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" Jesus is saying to Martha and the crowd that was gathered together, "You are clinging to life." Understandably, because every human being, from the moment that you are born, you learn how to suck. You learn how to eat.

You learn how to sleep. We have a survival instinct. When danger is around, we avoid it like a plague. We want to live. Not only do we want to physically live, we want to feel alive. So we work hard to make money so that we can use that money so that we can live.

How many times do we say, you know, we work during the weekday and we live during the weekend? So we want to not only exist, but we want to feel alive. See, as long as Lazarus had breath in his body, there was hope. Like everybody else. It is in this context that Jesus warns them and he corrects them.

It is not the oxygen. It is not the physical body. It is not what you do. Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life." He didn't come to prolong Lazarus' life so that he wouldn't die as a young man, but if he is blessed by God, that he would die as an old man.

He didn't come so that somebody who couldn't see could see and live a normal life like anybody else did. He didn't come so that the poor, their stomach would be fed and they wouldn't experience hunger pains for a period, just like everybody else. That is not why he came.

Because in the end, the scripture says, "Inasmuch as it is appointed for all men to die once, after this comes judgment." He came to deliver us from that judgment. Not to deliver us from poverty, not to deliver us from illness, not to deliver us from illnesses or bad memories, but to deliver us from the judgment that is coming without the atonement for our sins.

He did everything he did, ultimately to bring them to himself. It wasn't a longer life, a better life, a comfortable life, that's why he came. He came to introduce us to himself. I am the resurrection and the life. Colossians 3, 4, it says, "When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." We may not fully experience this life that Jesus came to give us.

And that's why we eagerly anticipate his second coming. Not so that the good life that we have will be better when Christ comes. He says, "Your life that's hidden in Christ will appear and we will experience that glory when he comes." John 10, 10 says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy." Well who's the thief that he's talking about?

Anybody that is not Christ, anybody that does not introduce Christ, anybody who presents anything else but Jesus Christ as life is a thief. He has come to destroy life, to kill. And what is introduced to us as a form of life ultimately ends in death and condemnation. But Christ himself comes and he says to deny your life, to pick up your claws.

But at the end of that road is eternal life. He came to give life and to give this life abundantly. If you find life in anything else, that's what you will pursue. It doesn't matter what you confess on Sunday. It doesn't matter what your doctrinal statement is. If you find life in anything else outside of Christ, that's exactly what you are pursuing today.

If vacations, that's where you find life, then you'll put in all the work and make the sacrifices to get to your vacation, to get to travel, to get to eat. It's what you are pursuing. It's what you fantasize about with the spare time that you have. It is where you find life.

If you believe that Jesus Christ is life, that is what you will pursue. And you know as well as I do, you can come to church and not be pursuing Christ. And that is the strange thing about being a Christian in our generation, in this part of the world.

1 Peter 4, 12-13, Peter says, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." He's saying when these trials come, and we're talking about trials where it may end in their life. And Peter is telling them, "When this happens, don't think it's strange.

Jesus warned you, Paul warned you, every disciple warned you, that if you follow Christ, you're going to have to pick up your cross." So when the time comes when you actually have to pick up the cross, he said, "Do not think it's strange." Believers here who've been raised in the Western church, when we go to places like India, it's very strange.

Obviously, there are cultural things that are strange, because there's a lot of idol worships and you see temples everywhere you go. And so in that, it is strange. But a lot of times, what we see in Christianity is also very strange. To live your life where you're literally sacrificing, feeding your children to get the gospel out, walking into villages to share the gospel, and then living out in the streets sometimes because they wouldn't be hospitable to you, that's very strange.

To be worried about your neighbors coming into your house and beating you for having worship and not worshiping idols, it's very strange to us, because that's not what we experience. We admire it from a distance, but it's very strange to us. But let's be honest, that is not what's strange, because we are warned about that.

We were taught about that. All throughout church history, we see traces of that, examples of it. What is strange is the Christianity that you and I experience that has become normal in our generation. It has become normal to confess Christ as Lord and never consider what that lordship means.

That is very strange. It is very strange to say that our relationship with God has been restored and never pray. That's very strange. It's very strange to say that our friends and family members are going to be condemned to hell if their sins are not forgiven, and then not to be on our knees every day praying for their salvation and making every effort to get the gospel out.

That is very strange. It is very strange to have friendship centered on Christ where Christ's name never comes up in our conversations. That is very strange. What we experience, the Christianity that you and I have become accustomed to, what has become normal in our Western churches is very strange.

If Christ was to come and stand in our midst, I think he will recognize what he sees in India but he will not recognize what he sees here. What you and I experience is very strange. It is not consistent with the songs that we sing. It is not consistent with the doctrines that we profess.

Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life." I think about that lady that we met. The pastor introduced me to her. She was a young lady. I don't know how old she was, but she must have been no more than mid to late 20s, at most. She was very young.

She said that she wanted us to pray for her because she's having a really difficult time. Her and her husband became a Christian not too long ago, and she was three months pregnant with a child when they converted. Soon after, her husband, right after the conversion, has a heart attack and he dies.

And then not too long after that, her father also passes away. And so the village leaders took it upon themselves to use that to condemn Christianity and was condemning her and saying, "Look, it's because you converted from Hinduism that you're being punished by the gods, and that's why your husband died, and that's why your father died." So you have to understand that there is no government help for her.

She's living in a village where if her husband doesn't work, even if her husband worked, they'd barely survive, but not that the husband's gone, and she has a small child, and the father, who's also a provider, is gone. She's having a tough life. And on top of that, all her neighbors are mocking her for turning to Christ.

So the pastors told me that, again, they are barely scraping and surviving themselves, and what little money that they have, they're buying food for her so that she can survive. So we had an opportunity to talk to her and pray for her. But what would cause somebody like her to continue in her faith?

What would cause her to not turn to God and shake her fist at God? I trusted you. Because I became a Christian, look at the context that I'm in. What causes her to persevere? You see, this is what Jesus means, not only to Mary and Martha and Lazarus, but to us and to her.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. The only thing somebody in her context would cause her to persevere in her faith is because she believes that even in death there's life in Christ. Even if she can't eat, even if she's being mocked, even if her life becomes harder because she believed in Jesus, because the hope that we have in Jesus as a resurrection and life cannot be shaken, even in death.

That's what Jesus was saying to Martha. You're hoping that I can raise him from the dead and I will raise him from the dead, but you're going to miss the whole point if you think that that's why I came. I am the resurrection and the life. The only reason why we persevere in our faith, the only reason why we share the gospel in the context of persecution, why these men have such courage is because they have come to believe this.

Again, it is very strange to profess this and then believe this and not have it affect what you do with your money, not have it affect what you do with your free time, that our life doesn't look any different other than the fact that we're active at church. It's very strange.

Jesus says in Acts 4.12, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name other than the one given among men by which we must be saved." Salvation is in Christ and Christ alone. We can feed them, but if we don't bring them to Christ, we've missed the point.

We can give them eye care and cause them to see. We can get people who may die and pray for them and bring new life into them, and if they do not meet Christ, we've missed the whole point. Jesus is the resurrection and life. The other two "I am" statements basically is the same thing.

The main point of what Jesus is saying is what he says, "I am the resurrection and life." The other is to continue to emphasize and point to that. He says, "I am the way and the truth and the life," chapter 14, verse 6. You know, what's interesting is that this is a verse that I memorized as a young child.

I remember going to a VBS when I was about third or fourth grade, and the VBS t-shirt had that verse on it. I had no idea what it meant. I just remember seeing it on the t-shirt and riding in the back seat, and one of my brothers would have that on the back of his shirt, and I just, "I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me." I had no idea what that meant until I became a Christian. I think a lot of people in the church, even as a Christian, don't fully understand what this means. He's saying, you know what's interesting, the grammar here, that each one of these words, he doesn't say, "I am a way, I am a truth, I am a life." He says, "I am the." There's a definite article "the" in front of each of these statements for the purpose of emphasis.

Just like we said, no, he's not a friend. He is the friend. He's the most important friend. And so Jesus is saying, "I am the way." There is no other way. There is no, "I tried Jesus on Sunday, it doesn't work, so I'm going to try something else." I am the way.

If he doesn't work, you have no other hope. He's not saying he is a truth among many truths. He's the best truth. He says, "I am the truth." If the truth of Christ doesn't work, you have no other truth. I am the life. If you don't find life in Christ and you try to find life in any other way, you are without hope because he is the life.

That's what he means when he says, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life." Now you may have understood that theologically, but do you really believe this? Do you really believe this? How many people in our generation actually believe this? Because if we believe this, it would change us radically.

If he's the way, the truth, and the life, how can we spend all of our lives pursuing something else and only pursuing him over the weekend? That's very strange. He's telling his disciples that he's going to depart and where I am going, you cannot come. He's very aware that because he's going to the cross, many people are going to abandon him.

He says to Peter and his disciples that where I'm going, you cannot come. Peter said to him, "Lord, why can I not follow you? I will lay down my life for you." Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times." Jesus knew very well that even his closest companion, Peter, is not going to understand what Jesus was doing, even though he made it very clear to him that every minute that he spent with his disciples, he was preparing him for the cross, but he knew that when he went to the cross, that they would deny him.

They're going to fail miserably. As a result of that, many, many, these multitudes were fighting through the crowds to get to him, no longer would follow him as a result of that. Jesus is preparing his disciples for this, for this mass turning from Jesus, going back to their old life, and he's telling them, "You may not understand what I'm doing.

In time, it will be revealed to you. As I go to the cross, you may be confused because what you thought isn't going to happen." It is in that context that Jesus is preparing them. Even if everybody falls away, there is no other way. When the multitudes turn from me and turn back to their old life, I am the way.

I am the truth. I am the life. No one can come to the Father but through me. If you want to be restored to the author of life, Jesus is the only one. If you want the truth, Jesus is the only truth. If you're lost and looking for the right way, Jesus is the only way.

First Timothy 2.5, "For there is one God, there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Pastor Matthew, he's the guy who started this whole ministry out in India, and every single pastor who gave a testimony shared about how Pastor Matthew brought the gospel to them.

This is why I was intrigued and went to India to meet them in the first place, because the whole time I was talking to his son, Pastor Sake, he would never talk about himself. He would always talk about his father, his father's testimony, how he came to Christ and how he persevered.

He told me as a young child, his memory of his childhood is not good because he remembers sleeping out in the streets. He remembers going to villages and being chased out. As a young child, they had four children, but when he converted, he had his oldest son, Pastor Isaac, and the second one, Pastor Sake.

After that, he had his third son, Pastor David, and then a daughter who was also married to a pastor. A couple years ago, I had an opportunity to interview Pastor Matthew, and I asked him, "Tell me a little bit about your testimony." Typically, you would hear, whenever you hear about this great man, at least when I heard from the other pastors, how he was persecuted and he went out and did this crazy work.

As a result of that, he has this network of pastors evangelizing to areas that never heard the gospel. But I was so encouraged by his testimony because he shared with me that at an earlier part of his ministry, he said he wanted to die. I said, "That's a strange thing to hear from a man who's been so strong in his faith, and everybody's just completely dependent on this man, even all the pastors.

They're leaning on his faith for him to say that at one point, he just wanted to die." He's out there proclaiming the gospel and promising life in the name of Jesus, and he's confessing honestly that at one point, he wanted to end his life. He said the reason why is because he saw his children and his wife suffering.

At times, many, many times, he couldn't feed his kids because he would walk into a village, and just like the New Testament, if they blessed him, they would give him some food, and they would sleep at his house, and then the next day, they would go on doing the ministry.

Exactly. So this is a man who just read the Bible and just applied it directly. Exactly what it says. If they didn't receive him, he would shake off the dust and go to the next town. But a lot of times, he would be there late at night, and no one would welcome him to their house, no one would feed them, and it was too late to walk out because it takes anywhere from an hour to two hours to come in and out of these villages.

He said they would just go into the fields, and him and his two young children would just sleep, and they would go hungry until they go to the next village, and somebody opens their house and gives them food to eat. That's what his ministry was like. So he had thoughts that maybe if I just disappeared, that this burden would be lifted from my family, my wife and my children could have a normal life.

And he said, "Yeah, they were difficult periods." You know, the first thought that we may have is, "Why don't you just stop it then? If it was so hard, why do it?" The majority of the Christians don't do what he's doing. All you have to do is just stop.

Go get a job. Make money like everybody else and feed your kids. Evangelize on the weekend when it's convenient, after everything is taken care of. Why take your family to the point where he wants to end his life to take the burden off of himself and his family? The answer is pretty clear.

He believed that Jesus was the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through him. It would be easier for him to take his life than to deny what he believed. It was easier for him to just disappear than to deny the truth that radically changed him.

The love of Christ was compelling him to preach the gospel, even as his family suffered. The only reason why he continued is because he was so convinced of this truth. What you and I experience and practice today is strange. We're trying very hard not to make it strange, but it is strange.

What he is doing is not strange. It is a reasonable response to the tremendous mercy he has received. Third and finally, he says, "I am divine." He says this in the context in the last "I am" statements to prepare his disciples because they were living in fear. If Jesus actually carries out what he said he was going to do, he says, "I am going to leave and where I go, you cannot come," and they're freaking out.

How can I not come? As long as Jesus was with them, when the enemies came to beat him and to kill him, they were safe. But Jesus deliberately walks into Jerusalem, the epicenter of the enemies. For the last three years, we're trying to kill him, and Jesus was walking right in.

Now Jesus says, not only is he walking in, taking his disciples to the lion's den, he said, "I am going to leave you." To these disciples who are in fear and trembling, hoping that maybe they misunderstood, Jesus says, "I am the true vine and you are the branches, and you cannot bear any fruit unless you abide in me." The word "abide" here is a key Christian word, just like the word "love," that we have to make sure that we don't add meaning to this, that we understand it exactly as Jesus said it, because basically what he is saying here with the "I am" statement, or that he is divine, is that the key to your Christian life, the key to bearing any fruit, is this, abiding in Christ.

It is not technology, it is not money, it is not organization, it is not your gifting, it is not your prior success. Whatever you've been successful in, you cannot apply to Christianity. Because you will ruin it, because it is filled with your personal pride, and you get the glory.

So much of what we try to apply to Christianity ultimately results in saying, "You are so smart, you're a genius." Everything about Christianity is to bring us to the point to recognize that we are utterly dependent upon him. So the most important, the most powerful thing that God ever leads us to is to recognize our weakness and to cling to him with all our might.

And that's why he says, "If you abide in me, my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish, it shall be done for you." That's where the power is. Power is not in your past experience, power is not in your past success, power is not in your gifting or education or your money.

The power is when we abide in Christ, that he gives us full access to himself, that we can pray. That's where the power is. And until we mature to the point where prayer is not something we sprinkle upon what we do, but we saturate and devote ourselves to prayer, you have not matured.

Prayer is our tangible way to acknowledge that the power is in him, not us. And that's why he says, "You have to abide." Because our primary problem is not persecution here. Persecution actually is very sanctifying for the church. I asked one of the pastors years ago, I said, "Now the persecution is increasing, how does it affect your ministry in the church?" And he said, "It's actually been very good.

Because it purifies the church. The nominal Christians will not turn to Christ. Pastors who are coming in for any other reason other than being convicted by the gospel will not pastor." So it has purified the church, so the fellowship is sweeter, the gathering, the singing, all that they do has become pure.

So he said, "It's actually been good for us." See, that is not our problem. Our problem where you and I live, the Christianity that you and I experience, is that we have a tendency to drift, to forget, to marginalize Christ where we see him sprinkled in various places in our life, where we call him Lord, but the Lordship is not practiced.

He is important, but not important enough to sacrifice everything. We love him because of the good things he's given us, but we question him when things are no longer good. Our idea of blessing from God is no different than the health and wealth gospel preachers. We praise him for the goodness, we question him when trials and difficulty and illnesses come into our lives.

If you want to bear fruit, he says, you must abide in me. John chapter 6, verse 56, Jesus says, "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks of my blood abides in me and I in him." And it is in the present tense, meaning he who continues to feed, he who continues to drink of my blood, he will be mine, he abides in me.

It is not enough that years ago that your sins were justified. The church is filled with people who claim justification at some point in their life and is no longer connected to Christ. I'm not sure what trials and difficulties and anxieties that you live with on a day-to-day basis, but if you're not abiding in Christ, that's your biggest problem.

Not your marriage, not your children, not your job, not your health. Even if cancer has been diagnosed and you may only have a few years to live, your biggest problem if you're not abiding in Christ is that, because Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

He is the vine. He is the bread. He is the living water. He is the light. He is the good shepherd. He is the door. He is. He who comes to God must first believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Everything about who we are and why we are gathered together is to come to Christ.

This is why he was crucified on the cross. This is why he established the church. This is why we have fellowship. This is why we go to India and China and wherever else he calls us to. As a pastor of Bering Community Church, my ultimate goal is not to get you to India.

My ultimate goal is not to get you to China. My ultimate goal is not to get you to your neighbors either. My ultimate goal is to see Christ in you, that every single one of you would see the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and fall so deeply in love with him that this love will compel you to India.

It will compel you to your neighbors, to China. I am the resurrection and the life. I pray with all my heart that we would come to this conviction that no matter what we sacrifice that it wouldn't seem like sacrifice in light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. Let's have the praise team come up. Let's take some time again to pray and to invite the Lord genuinely. Invite the Lord genuinely into our lives. Maybe you have been justified, assuming that you are all Christians. But when you examine your life, can you honestly confess that Jesus is your life?

Can you honestly confess that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that is what other people see in you, that I don't understand you outside of the gospel message of Jesus Christ? Let's take some time to pray before God that Christ, the true Christ of the scriptures may be established in us.

So let's take time to pray as our worship team leads us.