[Applause] when you hear the word witness you might think of someone who sees something shocking or important and then shares their testimony with others the word witness is used like this in the Bible too but here’s what’s really fascinating this word actually helps us understand the entire storyline of Scripture in the Bible a witness is basically someone who sees something important or amazing in Hebrew this person is an aide and in Greek am Arthus and if this person begins to share what they’ve seen we call this bearing witness in Hebrew lewd and in Greek Martorell so in the story of Ruth when Boaz buys land from Naomi’s family he calls together witnesses to see the transaction so that if there’s a later dispute about the land they can bear witness about what they saw so that’s the basic meaning of the word witness now if we follow this idea throughout the Bible we learned that God wants a group of witnesses people who see and experience him to food or represent him to the world so beginning with the story of the Exodus the people of Israel witness yahweh as the powerful king of the nations when he rescues them from slavery then he appoints this one nation to bear witness or food to the rest of the nations about what they experienced he calls them a kingdom of priests or people who connect all other nations to Yahweh the true God and King but there’s a big problem the Israelites aren’t good witnesses in fact they start worshipping other gods so God raises up a chief witness Moses to food or bear witness to the people who are supposed to be the real witnesses when Moses meets with Yahweh on Mount Sinai he sees and experiences God face to face when he comes down he dudes he bears witness to the people about his experience he even writes a song as a witness so that they would never forget how God has cared for and rescued them but as the story goes on Israel does forget they failed to truly see God so they fail as his witnesses so God raises up prophets who are like Moses to to open their eyes to who their God really is like Isaiah he has a vision of God as the cosmic King and he sent to you to bear witness to the Israel of his day because they’re blind they’re corrupt and they don’t recognize God as their king so Isaiah says that one day God will raise up the ultimate chief witness a figure called the servant he will open the eyes of the blind so that they can truly see Yahweh and bear witness to the nation’s that their God is a king who will rescue the world and now when we turn to the story of Jesus we find him claiming to be that servant and witness spoken of by Isaiah he’s the ultimate witness or in Greek the martouf crowds of people witness him saying that he’s bringing God’s kingdom that it’s here right now through him they see Jesus healing people even restoring sight to the blind many recognize who he is and respond to his message but many others still refuse to truly see even the nation’s leaders won’t listen to him rather they kill Jesus for bearing witness to God’s kingdom that is for being a Marquess in fact this is where the word martyr comes from but then after Jesus’s death something amazing happens jesus’s friends see him alive from the dead and they recognize that he is the divine King Yahweh himself who has come to rescue the world after that Jesus sends them out to martyr echo that is to bear witness to the nation’s to open their eyes to this risen king who has conquered death and who offers freedom and rescue in the hope of a new creation and it’s this story about Jesus that’s been spread all around the world by faithful witnesses and to this day when someone hears the story of Jesus and experiences the love of God for all humanity the most natural thing to do is to simply bear witness you you