I'm so glad that you are here. We have made it. This is the end of our short little series,

Counterfeit Christ. Thank you for hanging with us as we went through this.

Again, very grateful for Pastor Skip, just for the opportunity to spend several weeks really going in depth.

And like we talked about in week one, Jesus warns us about the problem of fake Christ.

Matthew 24 says this, and Jesus answered and said to him,

said to them, take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ and will deceive many. We want the real Jesus.

We do not want the Jesus of popular opinion.

We do not want a Jesus that's based on tradition.

We want the real thing.

And the way that we spot counterfeits is you spend time with the real thing.

And we have found the real thing in Scripture, right?

We talked about week one that Jesus is not a self-help guru.

He's not here trying to offer you tips and tricks how to live your best life.

He's not your insurance policy, where eternal life doesn't just kick in when you're in heaven,

that the benefits of eternal life start now,

that he wants you to live life to the full now. Last week we talked about that Jesus also doesn't need your vote. And that's good news, because he is Lord whether you want him to be or not.

But another piece of that good news is that his kingdom, the kingdom of which we are a part,

and we're going to talk a lot about tonight, is not a kingdom that works like any other kingdom in human history.

Which is why I've saved this message for last.

Why? Because I believe that this fake Jesus is more common than all of the others.

Because I see it across the week in counseling appointments and phone calls and small groups, if funerals even. I see it on Sunday mornings.

People are very convinced by this counterfeit Christ, and I believe that this is the most

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