I like these little cards. You know, when I kind of, I always find a little card, or I'm given one, and actually they have such great information, and this one gives us our sermon series. So if you're visiting today, we're right smack in the middle of this, and that little green piece in there, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil is right where we are. And that in itself is a huge study, the nature of evil, the concept of how we wind up in temptation.
What I'm gonna do today is start where that kind of jumps with and talk about if the Lord is not leading us into temptation, where actually is he leading us. And it actually comes from the same part of the Word of God that this prayer that Jesus taught us to pray comes from, called the Beatitudes. So in a minute, we're gonna go there. My wife, she couldn't be here today, she's got a little bit of fever in the middle of the night, so she's staying home, and I'm sure she's praying, she wishes she could be here because she loves Mendom Hill's Community Church.
But she loves to fix things, and there are very few people that I know in the world, besides professionals, who can fix things like she fixes things. She loves to do it. And one of her specialties is to find something on the side of the road, maybe a piece of discarded furniture, and then bring it home, imagine what our garage looks like, and fix it up. And so she got in her mind to try a new finish, and I'm starting to look at YouTube to figure out how to do that with her.
And it's kind of a stainy polishing, shellacke kind of thing, but it involves a pumice stone in a rag, maybe some of you know what that is, but you take a pumice stone, or the debris of it, which is really volcanic rock, and you put it in a sack, a little bag of fabric, and you take this thing, and you actually go across the grain of this wood. And I'm watching YouTube, and in the middle of this, the person who's teaching us how to do it says this, when I hear the screeching, I know it's working. And I kind of stepped back and said, that's kind of like the world. It's kind of like that big evil one.
We're talking today about lead us not a notation God, and delivers from evil. But the guy behind evil is this guy, the enemy, the devil, and the world system with it. And I have to believe in his interest in trying to rip our lives apart, he takes whatever he can take, and crosses the grain of our life. And I think when he hears the screeching, he knows it's working.
Think about the screeching on your soul. Just living in this world today, living in this complex society, turning on the news from all over the world in 10 minutes, give us 10 minutes, we'll give you the world, or eight minutes, whatever it is from 10 tens, and you find out all the stuff. And it all kind of sits on our soul. My wife went to the dentist, and she found out she was kind of grinding her teeth at night.
And so the dentist said, what do you do right before you go to bed? And she goes, why watch the news? I said, well, you better stop watching the news, because it's tensing you up. You think about all the things that screech against our soul.
Your soul and my soul are some of the most vulnerable things that need to be not only just salvaged, but need to be built up in a world that's not telling us to do that. Whether it's at work or whether it's on media, there's always something like that stone that rips across the grain of our lives. And when I hear the screeching, I know it's working. Some of you are students.
The enemy can discourage you and unfocus you and blur you and take you out of the game and out of the play. When he hears the screeching on your soul, he knows it's working. Relationships, marriages. When the enemy hears the screeching on our marriages, he knows it's working.
The weird thing about evil, evil doesn't always look really evil. It doesn't look bad. Sometimes evil can look very beautiful. Not in a person, but beautiful in the sense of the things that are apparently there to give us some kind of hope and satisfaction outside of a world of God can sometimes look so enticing.
But at the end, when the enemy hears the screeching, he knows it's working. I sat down with a guy the other day, awesome guy. His uncle in New York City taught him as a young kid about teenager, how to do drugs. He shot heroin for 10 years.
He goes, I don't know what happened to this 10 years. I got out of it. And I'm thinking to myself, that was like the worst uncle you could ever have. That guy, the uncle's gone now.
But he's now a preacher, a wonderful guy. And he says, I thought it looked so good. But when I got into it, it was so bad. And when the enemy hears the screeching, he knows it's working.
Somebody asks this morning. As I ask myself, where's the screeching on our soul? Maybe it's tainting the view of who God is. Maybe it's accentuating that feeling of loneliness that you may have.
Maybe it's returning you to thoughts about who you are and what you did that are no longer at all true. Maybe it's to scour your identity. And instead of it being in reality, under the adoption of Christ, there's some other things that turn into your mind. You say, what help is there?
Well, this is where when we read in that beautiful prayer, lead us not in temptation with the deliverance from evil, the first piece of it recognizes that God doesn't lead us into temptation. He doesn't say to some wild animal over there, hey, come on over here. Just play with the little animal. You'll love it.
That's not who he is. But in that prayer, we're asking God to keep us from even the glimpses of what evil can be within our lives. And then flat out, he comes out and just says this, but deliverance from evil. The reason we need to be delivered from evil is because evil is in places and in beauty that sometimes is hard to recognize.
But when the screeching is heard, then the enemy in the world knows it's working. You know, I can find in my own life enough evil as a human being. I don't even need the enemy. It's like me.
It's like the human condition. It's like the fall. It's what happened when all of a sudden that sin-nature became a part of us. And it's like, as Paul said in Romans, he said, it's like the things I want to do, I don't do it, the things I don't want to do, I do.
It's like, I don't even need that voice of the evil when they come and show me. It's like this thing that just says look and experience and God's trying to hide good stuff from you. And that's why there's the wonder of this and the wonder of that. And it's all lies because the devil's the father lies.
But when he hears the screeching, he knows it's working. But where does God really lead us? Well, I want to take us to the beauty of our loving Jesus. And in Matthew, in the beginning of this whole section of which is where he taught us to pray is found, we see the most amazing monumental pieces in the Sermon on the Mount.
And I'd like to read that with you. And the slides will be up here a little bit. And I want you to hear this, because this is where God is leading you and leading me. I don't know about you, but in a complex world, I like to keep it simple.
Like how do you follow after God? And keep it simple and keep it practical? Well, one day we read, one day, and Jesus was in this huge service in a crowd and there were people being healed and wondrous things were happening, things that people never seen in their entire life. And then Jesus says, and the word says this, and seeing the crowds, he went up on a mountain.
And when he sat down, his disciples came to him. I don't know if there are any more profound words than that. Let me put it together for you. And when Jesus, I'm gonna hop down here.
And when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and he sat down, and his disciples came out of the crowd and sat with him. Women and men came out of the crowd and sat with him. And when they sat with him, he began to teach them this most amazing passage that follows. You notice that he didn't give this to the crowd.
He loved the crowd. He brought healing to the crowd. He touched the crowd in their deepest, most profound ways. But then at a point, he just kind of picked up and he went off and he sat down and his disciples.
That's what means people who decided, I wanna be a follower. I don't wanna just be part of the crowd. I wanna be a follower. And they came to him and he began to teach them.
And when I read this, I also noticed that back in the old covenant at one point, this is so important. God said in the old covenant that to the children of Israel, I made known my deeds. Listen, but to Moses, I made known my ways. You know, sometimes even in churches or American culture and Christ, we don't even get to see his deeds.
Thus we're looking. Men, Hills Community, Church, you do. But then there's a deeper step that God gave to Moses. Not just the deeds, which are wonders in themselves, but the very ways that God does what he does.
You know, if you know somebody you're in a relationship or you're in marriage or you got kids or you got parents, after a while you know how they operate, don't you? You know how they kinda shake out. And so it's one thing for me to read a book about Janine. It's another thing to actually know Janine.
And so what Moses saw, or what I would compare it to, is I just don't know the deans of Janine, but I know the ways of Janine. I can almost anticipate what she will do in a situation and move there to help before she even asks for it. That's knowing somebody's ways. And it's a beautiful thought that coming out of the crowd and coming into a place where you're gonna say, I'm gonna follow hard, I'm gonna follow Jesus.
I wanna know what it means to be a follower here in a complex society. And all of a sudden Jesus lays out this most amazing teaching. And I think this will change your thoughts about this, hopefully for your rest of your life. The Beatitudes, you've heard them.
Let me read them really quickly. We don't have to go through each slide right now. This is what Jesus said. He opened up his mouth to the women and men there, and he opened his mouth and he taught them saying this.
He said, blessed, blessed are you? Blessed are you, the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
This just doesn't even make sense in the natural. How can the meek or the meek, meek, this isn't really weakness, but how do the meek inherit the earth? Something's happening here that's very, very deep. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
They'll be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, they'll see God. Blessed are the peacemakers.
Where they shall be called the sons and daughters of God. Blessed are those that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you and others revile you, that never happens, does it? And persecute you and utter all kinds of evil, or there's that evil word, all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets. Here's the key to the beatitudes. It revolves around that first word, and that word is blessed.
The word blessed means to be so filled with joy, as to be noticed by another person. And it's not you or me making ourselves so happy as to be noticed, because it's in a mood and it's in a tense where the action is being put upon it, rather than it putting the action forth. So something happens where they are blessed, and that blessedness occurs because of what follows. I also know this, and every one of these is in the present tense.
Now what does that say? It tells me that all of this blessedness, all this joy in life is not something that's future tense, it's something for now. So instead of when I hear the screech, I know it's working, the Lord would be saying, and when I hear the joy in life, and when I see the beauty of my reflection in them, I know it's working. Imagine with me today we realize that the Lord himself has one thing operating in your life, and that is to bring your life such joy, satisfaction, comfort, peace, presence, anointing, upon that life is actually being noticed.
How many times you go somewhere, and somebody just lights up because you're there. So it doesn't happen very often, or it does happen, but sometimes hopefully it happens. Do you know when you walk into work, God walks in with you because God isn't you? Do you know when you walk wherever you walk into that grocery store and help that person?
The Holy Spirit walks in there with you. Yes, we can be life changers because the life changer is in us. And when we find that happening, we find that that is changing lives, but it's coming from the present tense blessings, and this is how it begins. Where does he begin when he talks to us?
He started off by saying this, he said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. What's that all about? Well, it's actually pretty simple. These people are poor, but they're not financially poor.
They're just poor in one thing. They admit they know that really they're spiritual poppers. They're bankrupt. They have nothing in themselves.
They don't have any cash in their spiritual IRA, but they realize, hey, Jesus, I don't have anything but you. I'm just flat out spiritually broke. And so they know that everything they have comes from God. And Jesus says, those people, when they get that awareness, something happens, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of poppers, who have become incredibly rich, because they've inherited the entire world when that time comes. Very different than what the world tells us. The world tells us to push our way, to challenge all those in front of us, never to admit our vulnerabilities and be transparent. When we show weakness, we are weak, but we're gonna see that's not the case.
And so we find out there's a blessedness there. But then to the second one, they move on in this blessedness, and blessed are those that mourn, for theirs is a comfort that will be theirs. Man, there's a lot to mourn about. Maybe we mourn about the Jets, they need to be mourned, the Mets, it's very difficult for me.
I bought a Mets sticker this year, because when they went pre-season 11 and 0, I said, this is the year for that water decal, Mets on my mini cooper, and I put it on there when it arrived from eBay, it was like a 60s vintage thing. And you know something, they went downhill ever since. And so there's a lot of mourning, but it's not that kind of mourning. It's not mourning for what's happening in the economy.
It's not mourning for what's happening in our IRAs. It's not mourning for the status of this or that. It's mourning because of realizing that in my soul, there's been a lot of screeching. And the enemy took that pumice, or took whatever it could take and ripped my soul.
You know, some of our souls have been ripped up since we were kids. Stuff happened to us. I know the figures went out of 4K from an alcoholic family, but got my hand on that. Family and drugs, we've got my hand on that.
One out of three, women, it's actually abused. They say one out of four men, probably one out of three. A lot of ripping, a lot of screeching. We didn't deserve it, they didn't, people didn't deserve it.
What happened? Our lives could be ripped up since we were a kid. We're a teenager. Stuff happened.
We can't forgive ourselves. We move on. We find Christ. But deep down, we really wonder, Lord, do you really love me?
Do you really accept me? Do you really have a plan for my life? I know the other person who's serving coffee, people back here at the desk, they got a plan, but I don't know about me. Maybe a morn.
I didn't treat that person right last week. I get angry a lot. Kind of, is there any change for me? The Lord says, oh, wait, wait, wait a second.
You know the path to happiness? Be real. Be real with me about your stuff, because I'll comfort everything you bring to me. And you will walk these streets with such a blessedness on the heels of your shoes as to be bringing the fragrance of Christ in those other places.
And he moves from there, and he talks about the third one, blessed are the gentle for they will inherit the earth. Man, I write in on 78 every day at office, the Newark. And I'm like, that's not a gentle highway. It's like people honking and greening around, and got people on those bikes going 110 miles an hour around, and they're kind of fun to watch.
But I don't want to be on that bike. It's not a gentle place. And we get to work. And we live in Jersey.
Jersey's not known to be the gentle state. We're the garden state. But we, in fact, I think we'd rise up and revolt if they called us the gentle state. Give that to Vermont or wherever we want to give it to.
But we're not feeling like gentle. We don't even like it. But the Lord just changes everything around and goes, guess what? There's going to be a huge surprise someday.
And those who think they had it are going to find out they didn't have it. And those who were gentle in life are going to wind up having the most amazing thing. They will inherit the very earth. I mean, it doesn't take big armies in this.
No, you just walk gentle. How do I walk gentle? What does that mean? I wear flip flops.
I soften up my head. What do I do? It's just instead of treating people badly. See how practical it is?
Instead of having the choice of honking or being bad, I just decide to treat people as I want to be treated. It's pretty simple. Jesus says, you live like that. I'm noticing.
I don't know if I told this story here. But I was in a grocery store. Never happened to me before. I'm in a grocery store.
And I don't give funds to everybody. But my heart was this guy who was obviously a homeless guy, about three people behind me. And I pulled out some money. He said, you can't sell it.
You pay by pound? And he had 12 leaves in it. I don't even know if it would register. And I'm like, that guy doesn't need money.
And so I took out $20. And I gave it to the cash register. I said, hey, I said, can you just pay that guy's groceries? And the guy said, we don't do that here.
OK. Put the 20 back in. And at that moment, the cash register stopped working. That register did not take in $1 for the rest of the day.
Hey, I didn't do it. It's like, the manager came over. Everybody came here. It was a big crisis.
That thing was deader than the door nail. And gee, I don't know what happened on that. But someone wasn't really excited. The Lord loves when we are gracious and being gentle to people.
Blessed are those who hunger in thirst for righteousness, where they shall be satisfied. What's this whole righteousness thing? I like to keep it simple. What's the first five letters?
Right. Let the monks be the monks. But you're hidden away somewhere. You can't really live the beatitudes.
It's for the streets. It's for the businesses. You know, he didn't say, now retreat and go nowhere. He said, now go into all the world and make disciples.
And so here we find this piece of, how do I live right? And I think that's the key. It's just trying in every situation to do the right thing rather than the wrong thing. The right thing is to greet people when you see them if they're making contact with you.
The right thing is to give to those who are needy. The right thing is if you have two jackets and someone doesn't have a jacket, you give a jacket. You by the way, whatever you give, don't worry. You can't out give God.
It just comes back to you. And he loves to see that. And so I wake up in the morning and say, how do I live the right distance? I just do what's right today.
The best that I can. Lord says, I see that. I hear that. If you hunger in thirst for that to make a difference, to be a world changer and you can be a world changer.
One person at a time, just being right, has such an impact on people. The longer you work with God and walk with God, the further we probably forget the way it was. When I talk to people, and don't have a relationship with God yet, they tell me what's rolling in their life. I'm surprised and wanting them to come to Christ.
So that's what, that Jesus says, you'll be blessed. We go on and says, blessed are the mercy for all. For they will receive mercy. You know, maybe you didn't have mercy as a kid.
Maybe Dad was tough or Mom was tough. Maybe mercy wasn't at your school growing. Maybe you wonder why should I be merciful to someone else because I'm just showing weakness. You know, Jesus, at all the power at his disposal.
And yet he showed such mercy to people. He prayed for the people that put him on the cross, that execute him. He who created gravity, had gravity kill him. He who created the Ferris metals and iron had those metals used to kill him.
And in all of that suffering and pain, he had mercy. The thief on the cross, you know that story. Lord, just I wanna be with you. Today you'll be with me in paradise, mercy, mercy.
How many times in our life do we wish someone would have mercy with us? You ever been there? Like how about you get pulled over by our wonderful police and you're just saying, Lord, let it there be mercy. And you know you did something and maybe that happens, maybe it doesn't, but you just wish in that moment, I'm wrong, I just need some mercy.
Maybe you needed it work and needed at home, wherever you needed it. And one of the best ways to receive mercy is to start giving mercy. Because the Lord says this, blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. And it's an interesting thing when I choose to be a mercy person, it's like I get mercy back.
You say, well, how does that work? It works because of God's kingdom. He like puts it on people, be merciful today. David needs a lot of mercy.
So it happens that how we treat people, it comes right back at us. You know, the word says, don't judge people, you'll be judged. You ever notice that the most judgeful person it works is also the person nobody likes? The reason is because everybody's judging.
Why are they judging? Because they're judging. It's a spiritual principle, you can't get away from it. So by being merciful, you get mercy.
And so we receive blessed are the pure and hard for, they shall see God. How do you see God? Well, Boohibu says we can see him in life sometimes. I can see him in people.
I can see him in answers to prayer. I can see him doing things because he's teaching me his ways, not just his deeds. And so the word says if I just seek out this being pure, that doesn't mean being perfect. I can't be perfect.
But if I just want to figure out, you know, how to be Dave, what does it mean to be pure? It means to be Dave and not to be a fake. I can be a fake. I don't want to be a fake.
I want to be Dave. Because you're not going to be blessed by a fake. You can be Dave. And as I know you, I don't want a fake you.
I don't want you. Because you've got something to give. And when it's all layered up with the fake, the veneers, I don't know who you really are. You don't know who I really am.
When I get to know you and you get to know me. Because I've decided I'm not going to be fake. I'm going to try to be transparent and vulnerable. Good things happen.
Jesus wasn't fake. He was real. And so when I see that, I find out that someday I'm going to be to see God. Like if you think he's just a little guy, he's got a beard.
He's sitting on a rocking chair. On a patio. He's just because he's old. He's been around a long time.
He kind of nods off the sleeves sometimes. Big surprise. That's not what's going to happen. It's going to be the most, not only the most awesome thing you've ever seen.
We'll see. Scripture says, if your eyes have thought about it, it's not big enough. It's so big that the entire universe, which is not infinite, but is finite, in all of its galaxies, is contained within who God is. God is not just some little speck in that universe.
It will absolutely blow your mind and my mind. And that day is right ahead of us. It's worth it. Blessed you'll be.
Listen to the peacemakers, where they should be called, the sons and the daughters of God. What, is this world need peace or what? How do you become a peacemaker? You just decide in your heart.
You've got two people, and they're having a fight. And you figure out, how can I make peace? How do I make peace be side between cultures? How do I make peace in societies that have ripped to pieces various segments of society?
I can't do that with everybody, but I can do my part. I can go one to one with people and do whatever I need to do to bring peace. The Lord says this, you're blessed for a peacemaker. You're going to find out you're going to be not only satisfied.
You're going to be called the sons and the daughters of God. I had a family. For some reason, the marriage is just coming unglued. That happens.
If you're there, it's not the end of the world. It could be the beginning of a new chapter. And this couple was there. And I showed up on Sunday night.
And the guy said, well, I'm glad you're here, but we're done. We're just absolutely done. And I went, OK. And I had some kind of a thing, like, well, I stole her from a guy.
And because of that, God will never bless you. God got in on it, but in a different way. So God will never bless our marriage, even though we have a five-year-old son, that because I took her none of those recressions when I did it, but I stole her from somebody. And then he said back, and he goes, you know something?
He goes, I'll tell you what. If our marriage stays together, it's going to be a miracle. I went, I said, that's the best news I've ever heard all night. He says, why?
I said, because you're going to give all the glory to God, and it's not going to be from you. I said, that God hasn't stepped up to the plate. I didn't know where else to go on that, but I just decided at that moment, hey, can I just pray for you both? I was sitting there.
You know, we're young, we're probably 35 years old. And they said, yeah. And as I stand here today, I don't know what happened. I just prayed something like this.
Dear Lord, I ask you now to touch blah and blah and fill them full of hope and change the trajectory. And I felt a change in the atmosphere of that room, almost as if the air con went another three degrees in here, and we got hit with it. So I'm not knowing what's going on, but I felt that in my spirit. And so I said, I don't have anything to lose.
And so as I said, amen. I said to the husband, I said, you know something? I said, the weirdest thing happened to me when I prayed. I felt the atmosphere in my soul change.
And I said, I'm going to take a gamble that you felt that too. Stepping out of the boat. And he goes, yeah, what was that? And I went, well, I said, I think it was God.
And I was like, I could get him on my cell phone today. He sat and he looked at me within 20 seconds. He said, what am I doing? I don't want to divorce you.
Boom, the whole thing changed. She goes, well, I never wanted to divorce you. And he said, I'm so sorry, honey. Big hugs, married today.
God blessed them with a business that has probably $500,000 in annual income. Everything is life, and as a boy just grew up. And I'm like, what did I do? I didn't do anything but pray.
But the Lord used that moment to bring peace into a family. Do you know that you can be a world changer? You can be a life changer in Christ. Because that same God is in you.
Blessed, because they'll call you, the sons and the daughters of God. Oh, hey, very simply, blessed are you, who have been persecuted for the sacred righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say, all kind of evil against you because of me. I'm like, I've already got people who persecute me because of who David is.
Sometimes we do something silly. And what happens is people don't like it. And they might want to be a persecuted and sacred. No, David, you were being persecuted because you were being David.
There's a big difference between being persecuted because you did something silly because you're David and being persecuted for the cause of Christ. Sometimes when you go into a situation and you live the beatitudes through his power, people aren't going to like it. How do I know that? Because he said this, they did the same thing to me.
What did they do to Jesus? The guy who loved, the guy who accepted people, the guy who took lives that were fractured and put him back together, this guy, what did they do? They hung him on a cross and killed him. They didn't want anything to do with that.
The guy healed this guy, Gatorines, who was demonized. Hung on a chain, awful for tourism. Changed the whole trajectory of that town. And they got rid of Jesus.
They didn't want him. Scripture says that you and I have this fragrance on us. And I'm going to close with this. We have this fragrance on us.
It's called the fragrance of Christ. Jesus is the high priest. I don't know if you know this, but he's a high priest. And back in the Old Testament, they had this guy Aaron.
And he was anointed with this oil and fragrance. And in the Old Testament says, don't ever make this at home. If you make this at home, you're bad. And you will die.
This is only for one thing. It goes on the high priest. It's a very special fragrance. You could smell the high priest before you ever saw him.
And then you go into the New Testament. Christ is our high priest. And then the word of God says it's a you and I have the fragrance of Christ upon us. You know what perfume that is?
That's the high priest perfume. And it shakes off on you and me. And then it says right there, to those who are being saved, it is the fragrance of life. But to those who are perishing, it's the fragrance of death.
So do you ever wonder why it? Try to keep it practical. You ever wonder why you go into a situation, just as a guy or gal, just wanted to promote peace and love. People react against you.
It's because they don't smell the fragrance of life. They're smelling death because they're not in Christ yet. But to others that are seeking God, when you walk into their life, hope walks into their life, too. So where does God lead us?
Where do we go with this? Lord, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. Deliver us from the scorching and the scraping, which the enemy says, I know it's working if I hear it. Realize the Lord is leading us up on that mountain.
Your life, my life. All I have to do, whatever age I am, step out of the crowd. Step out of the crowd and go up and sit with Jesus. And let him speak through your life.
Because you know what he's gonna say? He's gonna say he's proud of you. He's gonna tell you he loves you. He's gonna tell you that he's for you.
He's gonna tell you that he's changed your identity. He's gonna tell you no matter what limitations you've placed on yourself, those ceilings don't count because God's now in your life. He's gonna tell you that his plans for your life would be greater than your plan for your life if you wrote it out yourself. Because he loves you.
He's not gonna lead you into temptation. But he's gonna flat out delivery from evil. Amen? Let's ask the band to come up if they would.
And I just wanna as we pray, just take a moment. Let's just like calm and steal our hearts. God's here in the room. He's powerful.
He's wonderful. Where's the scraping? Where's the scorching? Where's the sound?
How is the enemy trying to attack your life? Do you see the area? Ask the Lord right now to deliver you from whatever that evil is. Ask him.
Believe me, he is listening to every word right now. He's able to move on your heart right now. And then picture yourself getting up out of the crowd. Go step out on the mountain because Jesus is there and he welcomes you.
Has his disciple.