Please find below the notes from the Elder's Prayer this past Sunday.

How do we know that Jesus tells the truth…? That’s what my oldest son asked me Friday afternoon while he and I were working together. How can we believe that what Jesus says is truth and not a lie?

Well, I thought, this is an important question. How can we know that what Jesus said is true? The Bible says he spoke the truth. Other men said of him that he spoke truth. Jesus seemed to be good and kind - he healed people, he made food for people, he gave them sight, restored their speech, made them walk, he brought dead people back to life…

I wanted to know what my son was thinking, so I asked him, “what did Jesus say about himself?” And he quoted this to me, “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”.

And that is the answer! Jesus proves his veracity because he lives! He proves he is truthful, because there is no body in a grave! He rose from the dead. He didn’t just come in the spirit and then quietly disappear. He came in the flesh, he died in the flesh, and his body of flesh came back to life and he walked around in a body of flesh just to prove that what he said he is, HE IS! All of what he said can be considered truth, because he claimed to be life, and then he did the ultimate: he conquered death with his life. And he did this out of love for his followers, out of love for us, and for the glory and love of his Father.

In him is life. And the life is the light of men. (John 1:4)

I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. (John 14:6)

I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also. (John 14:2,3)

Jesus’ resurrection proves that he is life. Do you believe him...? He that believes in who Jesus said he is has life, and he that does not believe him will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36)

(Prayer)

Our Lord and our God, how grateful we are that you died for us. And it is by your wounds, your blood that we are healed, saved from our sins, bought back from the condition of death to eternal life. We are redeemed by your death. And now we live because you live!

As the conviction of the disciples was cemented by seeing your very resurrected, physical body, let our own conviction, our faith in you, be strengthened by our observation of your resurrected form revealed in Scripture. And may our faith give us hope to stand in the face of opposition, to give us hope when there is doubt and discouragement, and to give us a reminder that there is forgiveness when we sin.

There is therefore now no condemnation from sin for those who are identified with the resurrected Christ Jesus.

Make us more like you, forgiving, redeeming, loving of others in their faults. But also make us confident to graciously give the truth of this gospel: that Jesus is God, he is alive, he saves us from sin, and he gives us newness of life to obedience to his word and to our mutual Father.

We pray all these things in the name of the living Jesus, Amen.