Introduction:
How Can I Know Jesus is Legit? (John 7:1-24):
- NOT by forcing Jesus to Perform s. (John 7:1-9)
- NOT by adopting popular Opinions s. (John 7:10-13)
- NOT by looking for Excuses to not believe. (John 7:14-24)
- BUT by Desiring and Doing, God's Will. (John 7:17)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Hey, Harvest Bible Chapel, we are so excited to worship the risen Savior with you this morning.
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We're also excited to be getting back into our series in the Gospel of John called "Knowing About Jesus." Actually, not "Knowing About Jesus," it's "Knowing Jesus." Open up your Bibles with me, please, to the Gospel according to John, and we will be picking up where we left off before Resurrection Sunday.
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We'll be in John 7.
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While you're turning there, I've got to tell you this story.
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At my old church one day, I was standing outside in between the church building and the office building, and a man walked in off the street and just came up to me while I was standing by the church.
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This is a true story.
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It doesn't sound like it, but it's true.
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But this man came up to me, and he said, "I need some paper." And I said, "Well, I can help you out with that.
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Come on in, I'll get you some paper." He goes, "No, no, no, no." He goes, "I need you to give me $50 to go buy paper." And I said, "Why in the world do you need $50 paper?" And he said, "Because I have some very important documents that need mailed to the White House, and they have to go on special paper." It would cost $50." And I said, "Well, I'm not really in a position to give you $50 for paper.
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I'd be glad to give you paper, but I can't give you $50 for paper." He said, "Furthermore, I'm about to become very famous." And I said, "You are? Why?" He said, "Because I discovered a hidden song in the Bible about the tribes of Israel.
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I'm the only person in history and I discovered the hidden song.
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And I said, "I didn't know there was a hidden song in the Bible." And he just started belting it out.
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He said, "Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Ishaqar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, Benjamin..." And I'm standing on the sidewalk with this guy singing at me, I'm thinking to myself, "He's making a lot of really big claims.
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He's discovering hidden things in the Bible.
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He's got some important governmental business requiring very expensive paper.
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He's making a lot of really big claims." And you know, when you make a big claim, you better be able to back it up.
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And the bigger the claim, the bigger the proof that you need to back it up.
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For example, if you came over to my house and I made a claim to you, and I said, "I'm a musician." You would say, "Can you back that claim up?" And I'd pull out a guitar and play you a little something, you know, "dee-lee-dee-lee-dee-ee." And you'd be like, "Oh, okay, you backed up your claim." But that wasn't a huge claim.
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If you came to my house and I said to you, "Hey, I am the Almighty God." That is the biggest claim, and you better have some big proof to back that up.
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Well, you know, Jesus Christ made some claims about Himself.
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Jesus said He was from Heaven. He said He was eternal.
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He said He was the Savior. Jesus said He was equal with God.
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Jesus said He had the power to give life.
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Jesus said He was the Judge of all.
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Jesus said He was sinless.
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Jesus said He had all authority.
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But you know one claim in particular that Jesus made that's absolutely staggering.
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We studied this back in John 5.
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Jesus said that He is the subject of the Old Testament.
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And in this day, the Old Testament was the only Bible they had.
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But Jesus said He was the subject of the Bible.
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Can you wrap your brain around a claim like that?
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and say, "Hey, this book that our nation sets its heart upon and bases its life upon, the nation of Israel, this book that we Israelites give our lives to understanding and knowing, this book... I'm the subject of that book.
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That book is all about me." That is a huge claim.
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I want you to think about something.
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For Jesus Christ to be true, the whole Bible must be true.
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I'm going to say that again.
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Wrap your brain around that.
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In order for Jesus to be true, all the claims that He made about Himself, all the claims that others made about Him, for Jesus to be true, The whole Bible must be true.
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That's exactly what this book claims.
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It's the living Word of God describing the person of Jesus Christ.
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But this morning, as we turn to God's Word, I want to ask you, have you ever wrestled with that?
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Wrestled with this.
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How do I know that this Book is true?
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How do I know any of it's true?
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How do I know all of it is true?
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Have you ever wrestled with that?
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I know that I did.
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I came to Christ when I was 20.
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And very shortly after coming to Christ, it was within months, after coming to Christ, I'm sitting on a plane heading to Thailand for a mission trip.
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I had no idea what I was doing.
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I remember sitting on that very long flight to Thailand, and I had my Bible on that little tray that comes on the back of the seat in front of you.
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I remember sitting there looking at my Bible thinking, "Do I really believe that this is the Word of God?
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Do I really believe that every word in this book is true?
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Do I really believe that?" Do you know why I was asking myself that?
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Because I felt, I believed, that God called me into ministry to give my life to teaching this Book.
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And if God called me to give my life to teaching this Book, I better be sure that I believe that this Book is true.
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That it is what God says it is.
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The same way, church, you are called by Jesus as a disciple to give your life to Him.
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Don't you want to be sure that you haven't given your life to a lie?
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And as we've gone through John, we've seen a plethora of objective statements about Jesus, right?
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Jesus is the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Bread of Life.
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We've seen all kinds of objective things about Jesus in the text.
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But what about subjectively?
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I mean, let's move away from the objective facts.
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Let's talk about the subjective aspect of this.
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Can you say, deep down, "It is settled in my heart.
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I am sure that Jesus Christ is God.
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I am sure that the Bible is true.
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I am sure that this is really reality." Do you have that 100% subjective confidence in the Word of God?
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Because the passage we're looking at today will tell you, once and for all, how you can know subjectively in your heart that Jesus, and really the whole Word of God, is legit.
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So on your outline, "How can I know Jesus is legit?" And Justin Katie isn't here right now to tell me if the kids are still using the word "legit." So, "I don't know." That was cool not too long ago, I think.
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It's short for "legitimate." How can I know Jesus is real?
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A reality that all of this in God's Word regarding Jesus is real.
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How can I know in my heart that Jesus is legit?
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Well, as we go through this text, first of all, we're going to be looking at some ways that don't work.
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Some ways that people try to use, or some things that people employ that do not result in confidence in Jesus.
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This is going to be pretty obvious in the text.
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So number one, how can I know Jesus is legit?
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Well, not by forcing Jesus to perform.
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Look at the first five verses.
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It says, "After this, Jesus went about in Galilee.
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He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him.
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Now the Jews' Feast of Booze was at hand, so his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing.
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For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly.
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If you do these things, show yourself to the world." not even his brothers believed in him.
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Let's stop there.
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Jesus was doing ministry in Galilee for about six or seven months because in Judea the Jews were trying to kill him.
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We saw that starting clear back in chapter 5, verse 18.
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And the other gospel accounts discuss what happened during this six or seven months in Galilee.
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John just kind of skips over that chunk of Jesus' ministry.
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It says that the Jews' feast of booths was at hand.
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What's the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles?
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Well, Leviticus 23.
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Israel was to hold three feasts.
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The Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles was one of those feasts.
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It lasted about a week, eight days.
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It was to remember Israel's time in the wilderness.
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That's why they had this festival.
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It was Israel's way of celebrating or commemorating that once upon a time they were wandering through the wilderness and they would actually build these little booths and stay in the streets or on the rooftops.
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It was almost like a mass camping trip.
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And it was to remember where God had brought them from, bringing them into the promised land.
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But here, Jesus' brothers address Him.
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Technically they're half-brothers, right?
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Because Mary and Joseph would have had children after Mary had Jesus, before her and Joseph came together.
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So these were, you could say, Jesus' half-brothers.
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And did you know Matthew 13.35 names them?
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There's James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas.
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And here John just kind of lumps, I don't know how many were here, and some of them came together, maybe it was all of them, but his brothers came to Jesus and they said, "Hey, we want you to go to the feast." Why? Why did his brothers want him to go to the feast?
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I found this to be extremely interesting, because do you know what we have here that we just read in these verses?
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Here we have four men who weren't the Messiah tell the real Messiah that they, who are not Messiahs, had the perfect game plan for being the Messiah.
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Their game plan was, "Hey, here's how you Messiah, bro.
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You get down there to the feast.
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You show them all.
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You show them what you've got.
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You show them!
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Mighty works. Come on, bro. Go show them.
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Why are you sneaking around Galilee?
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Why are you keeping it so private?
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Go show them what you've got.
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Verse 6, "Jesus said to them, 'My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.
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The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.
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You go up to the feast.
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I am not going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.' After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
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So Jesus said to his brothers, "You go. I'm not." No one forces Jesus' hand.
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No one tells Jesus what to do.
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He's on God the Father's schedule.
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Jesus will go to Jerusalem when and how the Father says.
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In some translations in verse 8, the word "yet" is added.
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"I am not yet going up to this feast." We're going to talk about that in just a couple of moments.
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But for now, Jesus is saying, "For now, I'm staying in Galilee.
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I'm staying.
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I'm not going to the feast with you guys." But again, the brothers had it all figured out for Jesus.
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He had his whole game plan on how he should do his ministry, but there was one problem.
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The problem was they didn't believe in Him.
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And church, people that don't believe often want Jesus to perform for them.
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Right?
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Come on, Jesus!
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If You're real, You need to prove Yourself by doing this for me.
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If You're really true, Jesus, You're going to give me that job that I asked for.
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If you're really true, Jesus, you're going to give me something that I want.
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You're going to make that person do this for me.
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If you're real, prove yourself to me.
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If you exist, show me." As if that's somehow going to prove that Jesus Christ is legitimate to you.
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You will never know that Jesus is legit.
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You will never experience who He is if you demand that He do your bidding.
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You don't know Jesus is legit by trying to force Him to perform.
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That's not how it works.
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That's sort of where the brothers were.
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And I would say if that's how you're trying to understand the truth about Jesus, by forcing Him to do something for you, you need to get educated "Which one of you is God, and which one of you is not?" So you don't know Jesus is legit by forcing Him to perform.
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Secondly, how can I know Jesus is legit?
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Well, it's not by adopting popular opinion.
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Look at verses 10-13.
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"But after His brothers had gone up to the feast, that He also went up, not publicly, but in private.
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The Jews were looking for Him at the feast, and saying, 'Where is He?' There was much muttering about Him among the people.
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While some said, "He's a good man!" Others said, "No! He is leading the people astray!" Yet, for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of Him.
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So eventually, it was the time for Jesus to go.
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But Jesus went privately.
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He didn't make the show, or the grand entrance, or the spectacle of Himself that his brothers wanted him to make.
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He didn't do that.
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Everybody was wondering where he was.
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Everybody had an opinion.
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People were afraid to give it.
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I think it's interesting, everybody had a very strong opinion about Jesus.
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Like, what's that like?
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I would say it's like our last two presidents.
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I don't want this to turn into a political thing.
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But I just want you to think about the current president and the former president.
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Whatever your opinion or feelings are on those two men, can you recognize that with both presidencies, everybody had a strong opinion on one side or the other.
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"He's the Savior! He's the devil!" And in the case of Jesus, same.
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Both sides. Very polarizing.
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But a big difference here, His opinions were all wrong.
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For example, some people said he was a good man.
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You're like, "Well, what's wrong with that?
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Wasn't Jesus good?" What that means is people just reduced him to being a good man.
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Like that's all he was.
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And that is an understatement.
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That's like saying Mario Lemieux was an okay hockey player.
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That is a severe underselling of who the person is to say that God Almighty - He's a good man.
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Some people said He was a deceiver.
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That Jesus was intentionally teaching things that weren't true because He wanted to mislead people.
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And I just want to say, you can't go with the crowd.
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We talked about this at the end of John 6, right?
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So I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, to a crowd.
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Biblical history has taught us - remember Noah's day?
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Social media has taught us today that crowds often hold strong, wrong opinions that others get caught up in despite any facts.
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You cannot go with the crowd's opinion.
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And you are never going to know Jesus is legit personally if all you ever do is listen to popular opinion.
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And if Jesus is who He says He is, you better take an honest assessment yourself.
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Now how can I know Jesus is legit?
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One more "not." Number three, "not" by looking for excuses to not believe.
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people like that? They look for excuses to not believe. Look at verses 14-18. It says, "About the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, 'How is it that this man has learning when he's never studied?' So Jesus answered them, 'My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me. If anyone's I know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.
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The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory.
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But the one who seeks the glory of Him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.
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Stop right there. Did you see it? Right out of the gate?
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People were looking for an excuse to not believe Jesus.
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Did you see it? Right out of the gate.
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They acknowledged his amazing teaching.
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Like, "This guy's teaching is incredible!" But immediately they attacked his education.
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Or lack of education.
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It's crazy.
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They're like, "Wow, this guy is speaking divine words of truth!
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But what kind of a degree do you think he has?
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Where do you think he went to rabbi school?
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Who do you think he studied under?
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to see some diplomas or some certification here. Like, what difference does it make if God's speaking to you? What diploma God has on His wall? It's foolishness, but they were looking for excuses to not believe. Look at verse 19. "Has not Moses"—again, this is There's still Jesus teaching. He says, "Has not Moses given you the law?
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Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?" The crowd answered, "You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?" I'm going to stop right there. Like, what's going on here?
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Well, there was a plot to kill Jesus, and Jesus pointed that out.
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But a lot of the people in the general population didn't know about that.
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So why did Jesus bring that up?
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You see, the general population, they might not have been aware of the plans to kill Jesus, but the general population would soon be screaming for His death.
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They're like, "You're insane! You have a demon!
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Who's trying to kill you?" Jesus knew, like, eventually it's going to be you.
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You want to kill me.
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That's your future.
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Let's pick up.
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Verse 21, "Jesus answered them, 'I did one work, and you all marvel at it.
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Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.
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If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me?
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Because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well?
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Stop there.
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Jesus said, "I did one work, and you marvel at it." What work was that?
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That's back in chapter 5, verse 9.
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This is talking about healing the man that was lame by the pool.
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The man who was lame for 38 years.
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Some people look for an excuse to not believe.
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Jesus healed a man who was lame for almost four decades.
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Did you see the reaction?
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The people were like, "Yeah, that was pretty awesome, but we have a little problem with what you did, Jesus, because you healed him on the Sabbath, and you know it's kind of illegal to do that stuff on the Sabbath." Which actually isn't true.
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According to the Old Testament, it's illegal to work on the Sabbath, but Jesus didn't do anything that violated Mosaic law.
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But Jesus gives an absolutely beautiful and ironclad irrefutable argument for healing this man on the Sabbath.
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Just to paraphrase Jesus' argument, He was saying this.
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We're saying circumcision is part of the Mosaic law, right?
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Well really it dates back to Abraham, Genesis 17, but technically we're focusing on the law, the Mosaic law, Moses, specifically the Sabbath law here.
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Jesus says, "I want you to think about something.
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Circumcision was always done eight days after the baby was born, right?
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That was the law.
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Male baby born, eight days later, circumcision.
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We got that.
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That's how it is, right?
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But if the baby was born on a Friday, he still needs to be circumcised eight days later, but eight days later would be on the Sabbath if he was born on a Friday.
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Jesus and the law allows that, right?
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Why would the Mosaic law allow a baby to be circumcised on the eighth day if the eighth days of Sabbath. Why? Because the Sabbath law was set aside for something that they deemed more important, which was the sign of the covenant. Jesus says, "Everybody knows that's wrong. I mean, everybody's on board with that. Everybody knows that's okay." I healed an entire man on the Sabbath and you're furious. Jesus is saying, "So why Why is circumcision okay?
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The healing is not.
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Verse 24, the thesis of the whole passage, Jesus said, "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." Come on people, use your head.
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Think about things before you start protesting based on how they look.
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Some people don't want to discover, they won't discover that Jesus is legit because they're They're always looking for some objection.
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They're always looking to nitpick.
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I don't want to believe, so let me find a reason not to.
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Many years ago, in the letters to the editor, in the Butler Eagle, there were some letters being submitted, this huge debate between creation and evolution, and there were people saying, "Well, if you believe in creation, "you don't believe in science." And at that point, I couldn't stay silent anymore.
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Do you have any idea how many branches of science were founded by Christians and it started from understanding God's Word?
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It's a list longer than your arm. You can look that up yourself.
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So many branches of science started by Christians.
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So I sent a letter in, giving that perspective, and it was printed.
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Well, there was a lady that reached out to me, furious.
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This lady was an atheist.
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Furious, so furious that she came to my office.
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And we had some very lively discussions.
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We talked about creation, we talked about Noah and the ark, She talked about all kinds of things, Bible and science, and I couldn't convince her of the truth of God's Word.
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So she left, but she made a parting shot when she left.
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She said, "Jesus is a liar." "Oh?" I was not aware.
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Like, why do you say that?
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because the Bible tells us he lied.
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Like where?
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She goes, "I don't know, but it's in there." I said, "Well, if you're raising the point, you have the burden of proof, right?" "I don't know." Well, sometime later she mailed me a letter and said John 7 says that Jesus lied.
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He told his brothers that he was not going to the feast, and then he went to the feast.
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Jesus is a liar.
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So she said, "See? Jesus lied. He lied." Well, let's just ignore the facts that the text itself gives, because Jesus wasn't lying.
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Verse 8 has the word "yet" in a lot of ancient manuscripts.
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The fact that Jesus actually went at a later time, not with the brothers, not how the brothers wanted Him to go.
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Jesus went to the feast when and how He wanted to.
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In fact, I don't even see Jesus hanging out at the feast, I see Him going straight to the temple.
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So I have a lot of evidence in the text that Jesus didn't lie to them, but you know, we can't let the facts get in the way of a good objection.
29:16-29:20
And that was the objection to the Bible that she was going to hold on to.
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Because some people always look for an excuse to not believe.
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And if that's you, if you're always looking for an excuse, some sort of "the way this is worded, this can't be right." And if you're always looking for that excuse to not believe Jesus is legit, like these people, you're going to find one and you'll never come to really know Jesus.
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So how can I know Jesus is legit? Not by forcing him to perform, not by adopting popular opinions, and not by looking for excuses to not believe.
29:53-30:01
Number four, but how can I know Jesus is legit? But by desiring and doing God's will.
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Everything I shared to this point is the introduction. Now here's the sermon.
30:08-30:15
You will know Jesus is legit by desiring and doing the will of God.
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I want you to jump back up to verse 17.
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This should be highlighted and underlined in your Bible because this is one of the most profound verses in the entire New Testament, in my opinion.
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Jesus said, "If anyone's will is to do God's will, He will know whether the teaching is from God, or whether I am speaking on my own authority.
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Here it is.
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This is the subjective test to know that Jesus is legit.
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Here it is, listen, because this is the sermon, and unlike the introduction, this is very quick.
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The person who truly, deep down, desires to do the will of God, that person that says, "Whatever God wants from me, I will do it!" And that person seeks to live by the Word of God.
31:20-31:25
"If this is what God wants, I want to do God's will, I'm going to do it.
31:25-31:38
Just let me live by the Word of God." God, the person that does that, he or she will know that Jesus is God.
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His teaching is from God and the Bible is the Word of God.
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In other words, that person who does that will know that Jesus is legit.
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And I've got to tell you, this is opposite of what I would have expected the Bible to say.
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You see, we would think the Bible says this, "Only those who desire to know God's will can do God's will." That's not what it says.
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It says, "Only those who desire to do God's will can know God's will." Do you have a desire?
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A true desire to do God's will?
32:24-32:36
And Jesus here is saying, "Well, if you do what God says to do, then you will know." Repent. Turn from your sin.
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Cry out for His mercy.
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Believe in who Jesus is and what He's done.
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Love people how He says to.
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Do marriage and parenting God's way.
32:47-32:48
Be generous to the church.
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Give to the needy.
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Forgive your enemies.
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is to bless those who hate you.
32:57-32:58
Do it! Do those things!
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I want to do what God says, and this is what God says to do.
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Well, then do it!
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You do those things.
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You make your life about putting God's Word into practice in your life, and you will know - you will know internally, subjectively, that Jesus Christ is legit that God's Word is right.
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So have you ever struggled with this?
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Have you ever had a crisis of faith like I had very young?
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To say, "Is Jesus legit?" Well, if you expect Him on your terms, if you just listen to what everybody else says about Jesus, if you're always looking for reasons to not believe, You're never going to get there.
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But when you get to the place in your life that God's will is all you want to do, you'll see and you will know that Jesus is legit.
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Will you bow your heads in prayer with me please?
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Father in Heaven, this just isn't enough time to really come to grips with such a profound statement.
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Jesus taught us that when we want to do Your will, we will know that You are true.
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Father, so often we get that backwards.
34:45-34:49
We think if we can know Your truth, then we're going to want to do Your will or we'll know how to do Your will.
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And that's just not how it works.
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The desire has to be there first.
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And God, that has to come from You.
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We are lost. We are dead.
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We are so helpless.
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Father, I pray that we stop going with the crowd.
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We stop caring what other people think.
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I pray, Father, we stop looking for excuses to not believe.
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I pray we stop thinking that we tell You what to do, or we dictate the terms.
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Bring us to a place of humility, where we say, "Whatever God wants, that's all I want." Bring that transformation, with gratitude, Father, into our hearts.
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So we can walk in full confidence in knowing Jesus Christ.
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It's in His name that we pray.
35:51-35:51
Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 7:1-24
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Have you ever had a crisis of faith, wondering “Is this all real? Is the Bible true? Is Jesus legit?” How did you handle it?
State Jesus’ teaching in John 7:17 in your own words.
What are ways our culture has redefined sin (see John 7:7)?
Breakout
Pray for one another. And pray for our leaders (President, Governor) to make the right decisions in transitioning back to “normal”.