Introduction:
Who Is Your Father? (John 8:39-59)
Freedom Comes from Abiding in God's Word. (John 8:31-32)
- It doesn't matter what you day, it matters what you Do . (John 8:39-44)
The Devil and His Kids:
- Live in Lries .
- Destroy Lives .
- It doesn't matter what you day, it matters who you Hear (John 8:45-54)
John 10:27 - My sheep hear my voice...
- It doesn't matter what you day, it matters who you Know (John 8:55-59)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open your Bibles with me, please, to John 8.
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And for those of you, again, who are watching online and are not yet able to join us, we're saving your seat.
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And look forward to you being back with us live whenever you are comfortable doing so.
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John 8.
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We're going through this series called "Knowing Jesus," and today's message is "Knowing the I Am." And I'm going to give you the short version of the message, and I'm going to give you the long version of the message, and I'm going to give you the option, whichever one you like.
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If you want to leave after the short version, you can do that.
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If you want to stay for the long version, you can do that as well.
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Here's the short version of the sermon today. You ready?
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Jesus said that the way you live reveals if God is your Father, or if the devil is your Father.
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It doesn't matter what you say, it's how you live, according to Jesus.
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That's the short version.
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And if you need to go now, you are loved.
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But if you're like, "Man, I need to hear "a little bit more about this," here's the longer version.
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You ready?
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We all act like our fathers.
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Now look, I'm speaking primarily to guys here, I get that.
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Because with my wife present, I dare not say something like, "You ladies act just like your mother." I wouldn't say something like that unless it was a total compliment.
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But for the guys, especially here, I'm going to say it again.
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We act like our fathers.
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And you might want to deny that, but you'd be wrong.
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You're no exception.
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We act just like our fathers.
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Did you ever, guys, guys, did you ever catch yourself acting like your dad?
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If you're a show of hands, men especially, you ever caught yourself acting like your dad?
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I have.
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I've caught myself so many times saying things that I heard my father say, and I didn't realize it until it was just out of my mouth.
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Things like, and I know, Darren, you're gonna resonate with this.
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One thing our dad always said was, "Who left the lights on?
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"I don't work for Wes Penn." Remember that?
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He didn't, he was a banker.
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And I catch myself saying that, like, "Who's leaving the lights on?
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"I don't work for the power company." Something else I've heard my dad say that I hear him say again as it comes out of my mouth is when my teenage son tries to pull one over on me and I say, "How stupid do you think I am?" And it comes out of my mouth, I'm like, "That's what my dad said.
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"He added some other colorful language in there "that I try not to use." Or when someone says something spiteful or wicked, something my dad always said was, "Jeff, you need to consider the source." I'll confess to you, when I was a kid, I had no idea what that meant.
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But as an adult, I'm like, "I get that now. I get it. You've got to consider the source." I mean, my dad, I could go on and on and on.
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But my dad would sing stupid songs.
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My dad would take a chance on helping people.
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My dad would baby his dogs.
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And I find myself doing the same things.
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Because we act like our fathers.
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And this is a spiritual truth that Jesus is driving home in this passage.
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And it comes from verse 38 where we left off last time.
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Jesus said, "I speak of what I've seen with My Father, and you do what you heard from your Father." So Jesus said, "Hey, I'm talking about the things that I see from My Dad, you do what you learned from your dad.
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And what you're going to see in this whole passage we're looking at today is Jesus is saying this, when it comes to your spiritual parentage, it doesn't matter what you say.
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Okay?
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It doesn't matter what you say.
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Because what you're going to see in this passage is these men that Jesus was talking to, they said all the right things.
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We're good Jews and God is our Father.
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And they said all of the things that you would say in church.
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But their hearts were so far from God, and Jesus called them out on that.
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And as we open our hearts to the Word of God, maybe there's some of us sitting here or watching here or listening to this later that Jesus is going to call you out to.
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So, on your outline, who is your Father?
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Who is your Father?
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Number one, it doesn't matter what you say.
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It matters what you do.
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Look at v. 39.
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Again, in response to Jesus' statement in v. 38, they answered Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.
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But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.
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This is not what Abraham did.
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You are doing the works your father did.
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They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality.
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We have one Father, even God." Stop right there.
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Jesus called them out.
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They said, "Hey, Abraham's our father." And Jesus said, "Oh, you think you act like Abraham.
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Incorrect." Because do you know what Abraham did?
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When God spoke to Abraham, Abraham actually listened and believed what God said.
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Jesus said, "You have Abraham's blood, but you don't have his heart." Jesus said, "You're following your spiritual father." And in their response, they said, "Our spiritual father is God." Did you catch that?
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They said, "We're not illegitimate children." You know what that was about?
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That was an intentional dig.
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There was a rumor going around because Jesus was born of Mary, but not Joseph, right?
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Because conceived by the Holy Spirit.
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There was a rumor going around was an illegitimate child.
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And that was their way of sort of trying to slam them.
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Like, "Oh, we're not illegitimate!" Like you?
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And I love that they came at Him hard.
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And Jesus didn't even respond to that.
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Look at what He did say.
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Verse 42, "Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love Me.
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I came from God, and I am here.
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I came not of my own accord, but He sent me.
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Why do you not understand what I say?
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It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
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You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.
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He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in Him.
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When He lies, He speaks out of His own character, for He is a liar and the Father of lies." So Jesus here pulls back the veil, showing that there are spiritual realities, that there are invisible forces at work, that yes, there is a God who is alive and active in His people, but there's also a hater of humans behind the scenes, a murderer wants to destroy.
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Jesus called him the devil.
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And right now somebody's listening to this or watching this saying, oh, really, we're gonna talk about the devil?
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I don't really believe in that devil stuff.
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Hey, you know what?
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Jesus did, all right?
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So if I'm gonna go with what you believe about that or what Jesus believes about that, I'm going with Jesus, who's with me on that.
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Jesus talked about the devil like the devil is a real person, right?
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And the Bible talks about the devil like the devil is real and active.
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And I believe it. I believe it.
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And this is one of the most shocking things Jesus could have possibly said to His enemies.
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These were people that were like, "Hey, we love God. We're all about worshiping God.
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We're God's children." and Jesus said, "No, no, no. You're Satan's kids. You're the spawn of Satan is what you are." Specifically, let's talk about the devil and his kids. There's two things that Jesus points out that is true of the devil and it's true of the devil's kids because you act like your father. Right? You act like your father. And Jesus says, "Well, here's what the devil does and here's what his kids do." Letter A, they live in lies. Satan is a liar and His lies are not always obvious.
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That's how he works.
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It's deception, it's subtlety, it's taking the truth and twisting it.
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Satan makes you think that the lie is actually the truth.
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Satan was doing fake news before that was a popular thing to be talking about.
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And it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, right?
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You remember the Garden of Eden, the first question of the Bible?
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When Satan shows up to Eve, and he's like, "Did God really say?" Did God really say that?
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Casting doubt on the Word of God.
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That's how Satan works.
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He doesn't just come right out and say, "Hey, the Bible's wrong!" He starts with, "Hey, did God really say that?" I mean, let's think about that for a second.
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That's what he did to Eve.
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And then he just flat-out contradicted.
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He goes, "Oh, you're not going to die if you eat that fruit." And Eve's big sin, even before eating the fruit, was believing the lie.
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And Satan's lies continue.
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They continue.
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doesn't really mean what it says.
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You don't really need Jesus Christ to go to heaven because, come on, you're a good person.
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You're a good person.
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How could God let somebody like you go to hell?
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Because you're a good person.
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You don't need Jesus.
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You don't need to be one of those church people.
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Let's be honest, there's no hell.
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I mean, that's just something that the church made up to scare people.
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Those are all lies of the enemy.
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and He gets people to believe Him, and He gets people to propagate them.
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They're lies.
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He lies, He makes you believe the lie, He makes you promote the lie, and we've seen it from Genesis 3 until today.
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So, the devil and his kids, they live in lies, and letter B, they destroy lives.
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That's a characteristic of the devil, and that's a characteristic of the devil's kids.
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They destroy lives.
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Jesus said Satan is a murderer.
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You're like, "Well, I've never murdered anyone." Well, Jesus told us that murder was a heart thing, not just an action thing.
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Check out Matthew 5.21 sometime and following.
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Murder, Jesus said, is not just the act, it's a condition of the heart.
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And according to Jesus, listen closely, murder is hatred that causes you to destroy another life in any way or to any degree.
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I mean, yes, murder is the physical act, yes.
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But it's also words said in anger according to Jesus.
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Murder is also gossip, trying to destroy somebody's reputation.
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Murder is also racism.
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Murder is refusing to forgive someone.
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In other words, all of the things that we try to do to destroy or hurt another person in any way or any degree, it's from a murderous heart.
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And if you intentionally try to hurt someone in any degree, in any way, that's from the devil.
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And when you do that, according to Jesus, you're Satan's kid.
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Okay?
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So when you're like, "You know what? I hate that guy! I hate that guy!" And my response is, "Okay, Satan Jr., because you're talking like your dad.
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It sounds like something your dad would say." Or if you're like, "You know what? A co-worker of mine, he can drop dead." "Okay, Satan Jr., you sound just like your dad when you talk that way." Or you say, "You know what? I am so sick of my neighbor. They can go to hell." Okay, Satan Jr., you sound just like your dad when you talk like that.
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All of the, "Hey, did you hear what so-and-so did?" And you're trying to hurt that person's reputation in somebody else's eyes.
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You're talking like your dad.
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Satan, when you say, "I'll never forgive that person.
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I don't care if I ever see that person again.
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That person is dead to me." You're talking like your dad.
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And your dad ain't God.
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Jesus points out here, it doesn't matter what you say because your heart shows up in your actions.
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And what you do reveals to whom you belong.
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And any claim you make about following Jesus - like I go to this church, or I'm a deacon, or I'm an elder, or I'm a worship leader, I work with the kids at the church - whatever.
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Any of those claims are completely empty.
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If your heart is full of murder, resentment, and spite, and hatred, You're acting like your dad.
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No matter what you say.
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So number two, it doesn't matter what you say, it matters who you hear.
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It matters who you hear.
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Look at verse 45.
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Jesus continues, He says, "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.
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Which one of you convicts Me of sin?
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If I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?
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Whoever is of God, here's the words of God, The reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God.
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Stop there.
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Because this is profound.
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Jesus says to a group of people that hate Him, "Which one of you convicts me of sin?" Now, if I stood before a bunch of people that hate me, and there are quite a few of those people, but if I stood in front of a group of my enemies and said, "Hey, full disclosure, have I ever done anything wrong in my life?
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Go ahead, let me know.
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I would say you better pack a lunch, and you better get comfortable, because they are going to have a list of ways that I have messed up.
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Wrong things that I've said, wrong things that I've done, horrible attitudes that I've had.
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They're gonna line up.
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Yeah, let me tell you, Jeff.
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I'm gonna tell you, I've seen you mess up plenty, especially from your enemies.
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Like, yeah, they got the list ready in their head, right?
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So now Jesus is standing before his enemies and he says, "Tell me what I've done wrong." Why did he say that?
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He's basically asking them, "Hey, is there something about me that's making you disregard the message?" Side note, this is bonus content, Easter egg on the DVD stuff, a whole other sermon for another time.
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but Jesus was showing us here that sin in your life allows people to justify disregarding your message.
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Again, that's a whole other sermon.
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But if you're wondering why the people at work aren't taking your invite to church, you're listening to you share the gospel, maybe it's because you're not living it.
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And they're like, "Oh, you want me to go to your church and be a hypocrite like you, huh? Pass." Sin in your life allows people to justify disregarding your message.
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But you see, when it comes to Jesus, His conduct and his words made it impossible for people to dismiss his message.
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His character was perfect.
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Like, what have I ever done wrong?
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And they're like, "Uh, uh, uh, well, uh, um, oh man." They came up empty, right?
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Verse 48, "The Jews answered him." I love this.
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Jesus is like, "What have I ever done wrong?" Here was their response.
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The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?
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You know what's going on here.
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This is what happens when you lose a debate, by the way.
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It starts intellectual, and then it gets emotional.
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But when someone's losing a debate, the next step is name-calling.
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That's what's happening here.
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They were losing this discussion, this argument, so they start calling them names.
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They're like, Jesus, who can convict me of sin?
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You don't hear me because you're not of God.
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And they're like, "You're a duty head, and you're a Samaritan, and you have a demon!" And that's what they were doing. They're just name-calling.
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They're like, "See, we know it." They were losing.
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Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.
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Yet I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.
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Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.' The Jews said to him, 'Now we know that you have a demon.
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Abraham died, as did the prophets.
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Yet you say, 'If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.' Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died, and the prophets died?
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Who do you make yourself out to be?' Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.
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It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say He is our God." Stop there.
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Jesus again promises that in Him, when you trust His Word, you will never see death.
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And if there's one thing that we've learned from this pandemic that we're going through, if there's one thing I think that we can all agree with, It's that people are scared to death of death.
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Not that we should ever be careless.
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But the reality is people are really scared.
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Like, really scared.
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The reality is there are some people that may never want to leave their homes again.
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Because they're scared to death of death.
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And to this I want you to look again at the words of Jesus.
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If anyone keeps My word, verse 51, "He will never see death." Yes, you will physically die. The Bible is clear about that.
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It's pointed on a man who wants to die.
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You will physically die, but Jesus was talking about eternal death.
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He was talking about the second death. He was talking about hell.
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Here's the thing, church.
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When you receive Jesus Christ, the gift of eternal life that He gives, that He provided through the cross, through the empty tomb, and you believe in Christ, when you leave the earth, it's not death.
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You have to think of it more in terms of changing addresses.
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You go from alive in Christ here to alive in Christ there.
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That's what death is for the Christian.
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They're just changing addresses.
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And their reaction to Jesus' statement, you catch that, they're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, who do you think you are, Paul? You know Abraham? He died.
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And you know all the prophets, they all died.
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And who do you think you are?
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And we read this and we're like, how could they possibly be so clueless?
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They're standing there talking to God face to face.
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How could they be so clueless?
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And I'm gonna show you exactly why they were so clueless.
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Look at verse 47.
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This is why they were clueless.
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Because Jesus said, whoever is of God, here's the words of God.
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The reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God.
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So Jesus was saying, "You perceive that I'm talking.
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You understand the language that's coming out of my mouth, but you can't hear the words." Because God's people hear God's Word.
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And if you are not one of God's people, you cannot hear God's Word.
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It's like God is on FM.
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But every unbeliever is tuned into AM.
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It's impossible for them to hear.
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And for some of you that are listening to this, even people that have been coming to this church, or watching us online, some of you don't believe.
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And for some of you, it doesn't make sense.
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The sermons just don't make sense.
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No matter who's speaking, no matter how we explain it, it just doesn't make sense.
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I just don't get it.
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And if that's you, you're unable to hear the Word of God.
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If you've tried reading your Bible, and it just is not making any sense to you at all.
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You're like, "I don't know why people get so fired up about this.
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This isn't speaking to me whatsoever." That's a very scary sign that you can't hear the Word.
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And Jesus said, "When that's the case, you are not of God." We're going to see this as we continue through John.
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Eventually when we get to John 10, Jesus said, John 10.27, He said, "My sheep, hear my voice." My sheep, hear my voice.
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You know what it's like?
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It's sort of like, I've never had sheep, okay?
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I've always wanted a goat.
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Don't have one yet, but I've never had sheep.
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But you know something I have had?
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Dogs.
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And I remember many years ago, I had this boxer.
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name was Brody. Early 2000s I would do camp up in Slippery Rock for little kids and I would take Brody with me and I remember Brody would be running with the kids and there'd be like a hundred kids around Brody they're all laughing, "Hey Brody!" and they're like just surrounding him and and just carrying on and just having a blast and I remember I was doing this as a test and I would be like 100, 200 yards away at the camp while all these kids were surrounding the dog and and I would just go "Brody come here!" and as soon as he heard my voice his ears perked up his head perked up and he saw me and he came running and the significant thing about that is he was so tuned into my voice that it didn't matter that there were a a hundred other voices in his ear, as soon as he heard my voice." It was like, "How I know that guy." And he came running.
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And you're like, "What's the point?" The point is this, that's how it is for people that can hear God.
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That's just how it is.
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Meaning, you are bombarded by hundreds of voices every day.
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The news telling you this.
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The radio telling you this.
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Your co-workers telling you this.
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Your neighbors.
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All of this information is coming.
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But when you are of God, when God speaks to you, you know it's His voice.
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You know it is.
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And your ears perk up and you come running.
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Like, that's God.
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That's God speaking.
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I know that's God speaking.
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Right now an unbeliever's hearing this like, well, that sounds like cuckoo stuff.
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But if you're a follower of Christ, you're nodding your head.
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You're like, I know exactly what you're talking about.
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when I hear the Word of God speaking.
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Can you hear?
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If you can't, I can't fix that.
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No preacher can fix that.
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And if you're feeling this conviction of, "Oh God, I can't hear Your voice, and now I'm starting to wonder, I'm starting to worry." My advice to you would be to get on your face and cry out to God, and say, "God, I want to know You!" But I don't know if I can hear You.
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And God, You're going to have to wake something up in me.
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You're going to have to open my ears.
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God, you're going to have to do something so that I can hear your voice.
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If you pray that with sincerity, He'll open your ears up.
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Who's your Father? Number three, it doesn't matter what you say.
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It matters who you know.
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It's not what you know, it's who you know.
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You know, my dad told me that too.
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And that's true in the spiritual realm.
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It's not what you know, it's who you know.
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Let's pick up where we're at, verse 55.
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Sorry, my page blew and that really threw me off.
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Verse 55, Jesus goes on.
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He said, "As my Father glorifies me, of whom you say He is our God," verse 54, "but," verse 55, "you have not known Him, I know Him.
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If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you.
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But I do know Him, and I keep His word.
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Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.
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He saw it and was glad.
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Jesus said, "You say you know God, you don't know Him.
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It's just obvious you don't know Him." Jesus said, "But I do." Oh, and speaking of Abraham, well, this is a profound statement.
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Jesus said Abraham was looking forward to the day that Jesus would show up on the earth.
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You know, sometimes we read the Old Testament, we think, "Oh, those poor Old Testament people." It's like, "Oh man, I feel bad for people that lived in the Old Testament." Because where we live in history, we're so much more enlightened because Jesus was here and Jesus died and Jesus resurrected and the Holy Spirit came.
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We have the whole story.
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And those poor ignorant people in the Old Testament had no idea what was going on.
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And that doesn't seem to be true according to Jesus.
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Jesus said Abraham knew. Abraham knew what was coming.
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He said, "Abraham couldn't wait for the day that I showed up here on the earth." See, our faith is based on what God has done past tense in the Messiah.
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Their faith in the Old Testament, which was just as real, was based on what God would do in their future in the Messiah.
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That's another sermon for another time.
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Let's get back to this one, verse 57.
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So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Okay, so Jesus is talking about Abraham like he knows him, like he's chummy with him, like he knows all about Abraham.
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And they're like, "Whoa, whoa, you don't even look like you're fifty." Obviously they were being sarcastic.
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"You're not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Verse 58, "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, "Before Abraham was, I am." So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
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This is one of the clearest statements in the Bible, that Jesus is God, by the way.
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I've heard people say, "Well, the Bible doesn't say Jesus is God." That's interesting, because Jesus himself said that He was God.
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And here's one example.
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Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am." That "I am," that's the name that God gave, revealing himself. Exodus chapter 3, Moses was like, "Hey, what's your name?" And God's like, "My name is I Am. I Am who I Am." And it's funny because there are people that are like, "That's not what Jesus meant by that." I'm like, "Well, that's funny because that's how His audience here took it." Right? They knew exactly what He meant.
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Because their response was to pick up stones and try to stone Him.
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And I've got to be honest, if I was Jesus, I would have just vaporized them on the spot.
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Like, "Oh, you're going to stone me, huh?
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Cute. Ashes.
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I'm not Jesus." What did He do? He hid Himself and He left.
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Just walked out.
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The theme of our ministry year, my goal this whole year has been to take you from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus.
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These people in this passage, even way more than us, knew about God.
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They knew about the Scriptures.
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And they knew about Jesus face to face.
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And I think it's obvious when we get to the end of chapter 8 that it didn't do any of them a lick of good.
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And there are going to be people that will walk away from church for the same reason.
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There are going to be people, even people sitting here watching today, there are going to be people walk away from this church for the same reason.
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Because you know about Jesus, but you don't know Jesus.
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And if that's you, you're not going to stick.
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It was in the news last week.
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A lot of things were in the news last week, even since I had this prepared.
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It was in the news last week.
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Maybe you've heard of it.
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But another famous Christian musician walked away from the Lord.
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And I print out an article, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I do want to share part of this with you.
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Lead singer of Christian rock band, Hawk Nelson says he no longer believes in God.
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Says John Steingard, lead singer of the Christian rock band, Hawk Nelson, regretfully announced on Instagram last week that he no longer believes in God.
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And he goes on to say, you know, I got to be honest here and I'm just going to share.
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The article here says, "According to Steingard, he always had an inherent problem with evangelical Christian culture, even as a child growing up in a pastor's home, which then blossomed into a problem with the Bible itself as he grew into adulthood." He said, and this is a quote from him, "I remember being uncomfortable with certain things.
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Praying in public always felt like some kind of weird performance art.
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Emotional cries such as, 'Holy Spirit, come fill this place,' I always felt clunky and awkward leaving my lips.
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A youth conference I attended encouraged every team to sign a pledge that they would date Jesus for a year.
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It felt manipulative and unsettling to me.
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I didn't sign it.
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Despite those concerns in his youth, he still ended up pursuing music and genuinely found some peace with the band Hawk Nelson.
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However, as time grew on, Steingart increasingly had trouble with the concept of evil.
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Now these quotes I'm going to read, these are again from him, but these were his reasons for walking away from God.
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He said, by the way, somebody contact him and tell him about Q&A day on June 14th, because we can answer all of these because God's word has the answer for all of these, but I want you to listen to his questions, his objections.
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He says, "If God is all loving and all powerful, why is there evil in the world?
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Can you not do anything about it?
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Does he choose not to?
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He's the evil in the world as a result of his desire to give us free will.
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Okay then, what about famine and disease and floods and all the suffering that isn't caused by humans in our free will?
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If God is loving, why does He send people to hell?
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He then attacked what He felt were contradictions between the Old and New Testaments.
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He says, why does God seem so blanked off in the Old Testament, and then all of a sudden, He's a loving Father in the New Testament.
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Why does He say not to kill, then instruct Israel to turn around and kill men and women and children?
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Take the promised land.
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Why does God let Job suffer horrible things just to win a bet with Satan?
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Why does He tell Abraham to kill his son?
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And then basically say, "Just kidding, that was a test." If God can do anything, can't you forgive without someone dying?
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I mean, my parents taught me to forgive people.
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Nobody dies in that scenario.
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His words.
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And look, I'm not trying to pile on.
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I'm not casting judgment.
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I don't think God's story with him is done yet, to be honest with you.
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The reason I shared that with you today is maybe you read that and had the same reaction that I did.
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We're like, "How does that happen?" I mean, growing up in the church, and your dad is a pastor.
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Now look, I don't know this guy personally.
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I don't know his dad.
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I don't know his church.
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But I know how these things can happen.
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Your faith, your personal faith, if it's built on felt needs, or emotion, or sentimentality, or "I'm part of a hip church culture," your foundation is sand.
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And the reason I shared this is because by this man's own words, by his own words, he knew the right things to say.
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He knew the motions to go through.
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He knew what was expected from his job.
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But when it came to the very heart of God revealed in the Word of God, Steingart by his own admission says, "I just don't understand it at all." Because he saw the words on the page, but he didn't know the heart of the One who wrote them.
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And again, I'm not pointing fingers at him, and point their fingers at us.
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Because like him, you too can become an expert on singing about Jesus, on talking about Jesus, on knowing about Jesus, with ever really knowing Jesus.
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As I close, if the worship team would make their way forward, you know, sometimes we have this tendency that there are these very serious, hardcore, Bible-reading Christians.
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And then on the other hand, you have these really nasty, evil unbelievers.
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But we have this big, meaty middle of churchgoers who aren't really fired up about Jesus, but they aren't pagan either, so they're probably saved.
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But you know, the Bible doesn't make distinctions like that.
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Do you realize in the Bible when it talks about who belongs to Christ and who doesn't, it's always black and white.
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You're either dead or you're alive.
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You're either a slave or you're free.
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You're either lost or you're found.
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And Jesus made the distinction crystal clear in this passage when He said, "You either belong to God or you belong to the devil." What about you?
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Is God your Father?
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Is God your Father? It doesn't matter what you say.
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It matters what you do.
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It matters who you hear.
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It matters who you know.
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Which Father does your life imitate?
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, we thank You for these very uncomfortable words of Jesus.
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And they are uncomfortable to our sinful flesh, Father, because there's something even in our flesh that wants to say, "That's hard.
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That's coming in too hot, Jesus.
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And it's truth.
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I pray, Father, just as the words of Jesus challenged the religion for show that these men had, I pray that the words of Jesus would challenge the religion for show that we can be just as guilty of.
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Open our ears, Father.
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Let us hear.
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Let us believe.
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Let us live.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 8:39-59
What are some ways you’ve seen yourself acting like your father?
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Read John 8:47. If someone can’t hear God, how can they truly come to Christ? Is there any way to change someone who is unable to hear God?
Explain John 8:56. How did Abraham “see” Jesus’ day? What does this say about how people were saved BEFORE Jesus came to the earth?
Breakout
Pray for one another.