Introduction:
Four Things Jesus Taught That You Absolutely Have to Get Right (John 12:44-50):
- He is the Only way to God. (John 12:44-45)
- He Changes you. (John 12:46)
Ephesians 4:18 - They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
- His Word will Judge you. (John 12:47-48)
Ephesians 8:11 - Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.
- He's giving a Command . (John 12:49-50)
- Divine Appeal
- Practical Appeal
- Fear Appeal
- Authority Appeal
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:58
John chapter 12, we're going to be picking up in verse 44, and I'd like you to just bow your heads with me Please and we're going to pray The Lord would open our hearts to receive what he has to say today father. We believe that the Bible is your word We believe that it transforms lives Father let us be faithful in our study and proclamation Application father let your spirit be at work to bring radical change to our lives through your word today We pray in Jesus name and all of God's people said amen John chapter 12 verse 44 we're gonna start we're going through a series Called knowing about Jesus. Actually, we're going through a series called knowing Jesus because that's what we're trying to do Move from knowing about Jesus to having a relationship with him Knowing him because that's what the Bible calls us to this is eternal life knowing Jesus Christ.
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Verse 44 says, "And Jesus cried out and said..." Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
01:04-01:14
We're going to stop there for a second, because we saw in verse 36, if you've been with us through this series, verse 36 says that Jesus hid Himself.
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He made His last public declaration, and then He went and hid Himself.
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Right? Remember that?
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So you're like, "Well, what's going on here?
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Did Jesus come out of His hiding spot?
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And just one more thing, actually, these verses, these sayings of Jesus that are coming here are really a summary of everything that Jesus taught to this point.
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In other words, John isn't writing a chronological biography of everything that happened to Jesus.
01:47-01:57
John is writing, "Here's who Jesus is, and here's why you need to believe in Him." And you see chapters 1-12 cover Jesus' public ministry.
01:58-02:07
And John here is wrapping that up, because once we get to chapter 13-17, that's sort of a behind-the-scenes with the disciples.
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So this passage that we're looking at today, you have to understand this, that this passage that we're looking at is John compiling Jesus' key public teachings and putting them as one last appeal.
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Does that make sense?
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Here's how I think of it.
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This will help you make sense of it.
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Do you remember when bands would put out "best of" albums?
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Do you remember that?
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Back when music was good, some of you old enough to remember that?
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You know, like "Best of Van Halen" or "Best of Ronnie Millsap" or whoever you like.
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Well, I hear some grumbling.
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Look, whoever you like, you get the concept, right?
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right? The bands would put out a best of, like, well, all the volume of material we put out, we're taking the best pieces and giving you like a concentrated dose of it on this album, right? That's sort of what John's doing here. We've had 12 chapters of Jesus and interactions and teachings and John here kind of wrapping this up, says, I'm going to give you a little, a best of the teachings of Jesus right here, live at Budokan. So you're You're going to see in this passage, it's the same themes that we've been reading and preaching for the last, how long have we been in this series now?
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Like a year and a half?
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It's the same themes like believing, like being sent by the Father, like light and darkness, like judgment, eternal life.
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And here John's saying, "Let me boil it down for you, the highlights of Jesus' teaching on your outline." Here's the heading, "Four Things Jesus Taught That You Absolutely Have to Get Right." I can't think of any other way to say it.
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But with everything that we've said and studied and taught and examined from the life of Jesus, you're like, okay, Jeff, that's a lot.
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Can you just give me the short version?
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Well, John has done that for us.
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Here's four things that Jesus taught that you absolutely have to get right.
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And we might have differing views on some things and that's okay.
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But I'm saying these things that John points out here, there's no wiggle room.
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These things are eternally important.
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And John wants to make sure before we launch into the next section of Jesus' life, he wants to make sure that you get this stuff right, because your eternity depends on this, right?
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So number one, jot this down, four things Jesus taught you absolutely have to get right.
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He's the only way to God.
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He is the only way to God.
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Look at verses 44 and 45.
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Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, "Believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
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"And whoever sees me, sees him who sent me." You know something that really fascinates me?
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Birds.
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Birds, what are you laughing at?
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Am I alone here?
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Anybody else?
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Anybody?
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Oh, you guys are like shy about it?
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I'm not shy about it.
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I love birds, okay?
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I could get like a giant bird tattooed on my arm.
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That's how much I love birds.
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Well, do you know every year billions of birds migrate?
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Did you know that?
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How do they know how to do that?
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I mean, I get lost going to Zillianopolis, but you have these birds that will fly halfway across the world and go exactly where they need to go without getting lost.
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How do they do that?
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Well, you know, I was reading about this a couple of weeks ago.
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Do you know how birds do that?
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Many ways, they use Earth's landmarks.
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They use rivers and mountains as landmarks, but they also use landmarks not on the earth, like the sun and the stars.
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And they found the birds are able to use polarized light, ultraviolet light.
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Birds can even use air pressure as a means of navigation.
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And they use low frequency sounds that we can't hear, but low frequency sounds that are made by the sea and the wind.
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They use all of these things as a GPS.
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But this absolutely blew my mind.
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They found that birds actually use the Earth's magnetic field in navigating.
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You know how they do that?
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They found that birds have small amounts of magnetic crystals in their heads.
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That's basically, according to scientists, a built-in compass.
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And birds use that, and a combination of all these things, to migrate every year.
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You're like, "Why are you telling me this?" I already explained to you that I like birds, but there's a reason I'm sharing this with you, and it's just simply this.
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Design demands a designer.
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You will never convince me that that bird evolved over millions or billions of years, all of these mechanisms, to have a more perfect GPS than anything that we have on our phones or in our cars.
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You will never convince me that that happened by accident.
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If you were walking through the woods and you saw a rock laying on the ground, you could make up a story about how that rock got there, about volcanoes erupting and the lava cooling and an earthquake and wind and rain.
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You could make up a conceivable story about how that rock got there.
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But if you were walking through the woods and you saw a watch laying on the ground, you couldn't make up a story about how that watch got there that didn't ultimately trace back to somebody had to create the watch.
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You with me?
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Every cell in your body is infinitely more intricate than a watch.
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Yet there are people that would have you believe that we are cosmic accidents.
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I mean, I could, if you're not into birds, I could tell you about the human eye and the millions of parts of the eye that has to be working in order for your eye to see it all.
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I could tell you about the mechanism of blood clotting that is absolutely astounding when you think, why doesn't the blood clot inside my body, which would instantly kill me, Why doesn't it clot until it's exposed and receives oxygen?
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I could talk to you about your immune system.
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I could talk to you about all of these processes, but ain't nobody got time for that.
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I just want to say, all of this design demands a designer.
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There has to be a creator.
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And when we look at all of this intricacy in design, it naturally leads us to think, we know this creator that's up there somewhere, what's he like?
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What's she like?
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What is it like?
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What are they like?
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And then we get to the words of Jesus and he says, "Whoever sees me, sees him who sent me." You want to know what God's like?
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This creator that made all this stuff, do you want to know what he's like?
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Jesus said, "Take a look at him." Now when he said, "Take a look," that's a bad paraphrase actually.
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That word "sees" in the Greek is better translated "study." Jesus said, "Just take a really close look at me.
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Study me, observe me, look hard at me.
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Do you wanna know what God's like?
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I'm here to show you exactly what he's like because seeing Jesus is seeing God and dealing with Jesus is dealing with God.
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Allah is not God.
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Shiva is not God.
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Mother nature is not God." And some people say, "Well, you know, man, I'm just really, I'm like really spiritual.
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Like when you go to church, no, I don't go to church.
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You read the Bible, no, I don't read the Bible.
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But I gotta tell you, man, I'm just really, really, I'm just like a spiritual person, you know, in my heart of hearts, down in my heart of hearts.
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I'm just a spiritual person.
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You ever heard somebody say that?
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I'm just really spiritual, not without Jesus you are.
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Because you can't reject the son and have the father.
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Because Jesus made it abundantly clear that they are a package deal.
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You don't come to God any other way except Jesus Christ.
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No one knows God apart from Jesus.
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And John wanted to make sure to circle back to that concept to say, you know something that Jesus consistently taught?
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He is the only way to God.
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But secondly, John this time, number two, he changes you.
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Something else about Jesus Christ that you absolutely have to get right, he changes you.
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Look at verse 46.
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He says, "I've come into the world as light "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." You're like, "Man, I think I've heard this sermon before." You probably have, because we've been going through this series, especially in chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter 12.
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Jesus has been talking about light and darkness.
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Darkness is our natural state.
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Like Ephesians 4 says, "Speaking of man in our natural state, "they are darkened in their understanding, "alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
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And you see, Jesus is the light, and he turns the light on to show the way things really are.
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I can't remember a time in history when there has been just so much blatant deception put right in front of us.
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Whether you wanna talk about politics or whether you wanna talk about the COVID pandemic, there is so much deception, it's darkness.
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and there are people stumbling around in it.
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And we get to watch it live on TV.
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And if it wasn't so tragic, it would almost be funny.
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Then with all of the issues that we're facing in our culture, all the hatred, with all the deception, sex trafficking, politicians blatantly groping and smelling children on camera.
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And what are we after?
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What's our culture targeting?
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Pepe Le Pew and Speedy Gonzales.
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I mean, can't you see how idiotic that is?
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That we have real problems?
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And this is what we're going at?
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Why?
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Every time I turn on the news, which I try to do less and less, we're just like, "Why?
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"What are you thinking?" And the answer is you're not thinking because you're just stumbling around in the dark.
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Exactly what Jesus was talking about all through this.
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Come into the light, get out of the dark.
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You don't know where you're going.
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You don't know what you're doing.
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Jesus shines the light to show us reality for what it really is.
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John reminds us here, look, the evidence of truly coming to Jesus Christ isn't becoming a church member.
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The evidence of coming to Jesus Christ isn't, well, you know, okay, I'm gonna try to do good, I'm gonna try to cuss less from now on.
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The evidence of coming to Jesus Christ, you want evidence, you wanna know how you know?
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Here's the evidence that you truly know Jesus Christ.
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It's this, He changes you.
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He changes you.
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I'm not deceived anymore, I see things how God sees them.
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I see people as God sees them.
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I see what's happening in the world the way God sees them.
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I see myself as God sees me.
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His wisdom and His Spirit light the way for me.
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He changes you, and you're like, well, how big of a change is it?
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It's like night and day, literally.
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It's night and day, it's light from darkness.
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It's the difference between midnight and noon on the beach.
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That's the difference when you come into the light of Jesus Christ.
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If the gospel is true, receiving Jesus means that your sin and shame are taken away from you.
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If the gospel is true, it means you are born again as a child of God, into his family, and nothing can ever change that.
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If the gospel is true, then God's Holy Spirit lives within you. And you have His fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are the attributes of God that are being manifested in you and through you as He's alive in you. And while you used to be stumbling around in the dark, when you come to know Jesus Christ, the lights come on. And if you haven't experienced radical life change, then you don't know Jesus Christ.
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Because when the God of the universe shows up, you're going to change.
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You can't stay the same.
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And that's what John is reminding us here.
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He goes, "You know something else?
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Jesus was pretty consistent about teaching that when you come to Him, you don't stay in the darkness anymore because you are a different person.
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You're coming into His light." Four things Jesus taught that you absolutely have to get right.
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Number three, His Word will judge you.
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Look at verses 47 and 48.
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It says, "If anyone hears My words and does not keep them, I do not judge him.
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For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
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The one who rejects Me and does not receive My words has a judge.
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The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day." Here's something you absolutely have to know.
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you stand and will stand condemned before God if you reject Jesus Christ.
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Well, hang on a second, hang on. Verse 47, Jesus very clearly said, "I do not judge." But you're making it sound like Jesus is coming to judge. So which is it? Is Jesus the judge or not? And the answer is no. And yes, because the first time Jesus Christ came, He came to save. But the next time Jesus Christ comes, it will be to judge. A few years ago I was at a Pittsburgh Penguins game and we were playing the Flyers. Yeah, so you can imagine how surly some of the people in the stands were, especially the man who sat right in front of me that used some very colorful language that I wouldn't use in a sermon. Can I just put it that way, do you know what I'm saying? I mean, I don't like the Flyers. I've made that publicly clear. I do not like the Philadelphia Flyers. This guy, it sounded like he had a personal vendetta against every player on the Flyers team. The way he was yelling and the kinds of things he was yelling. It was pretty obnoxious the language he was using. I'm trying to tell us, I'm trying to tell a story here in a church-appropriate way, but so he's using this colorful language and this really jacked dude sitting in another section comes up to him. And let's just say this really jacked dude explained the inappropriateness of the particular verbiage of said man, and this jacked dude explained the course of action he would like this man to take, because then he explained what might happen if he had to return to this section. And I'm thinking, you know, this jacked dude, he kind of reminds me of Jesus, because the first time he came was to present a clear view of what the problem was, and a solution to the problem, but the next time back isn't going to be pretty. And that's exactly like Jesus Christ. God is so gracious. He's so gracious in the fact that judgment doesn't happen to us the moment we don't believe or the first time we sin, isn't God so gracious to not judge us on the spot like we deserve?
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The first time you have a lustful thought or make an angry comment like, "Poof, vaporized hell forever," that's what we deserve.
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But Jesus says, "No, no, no, I didn't come to judge.
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I came to save." You know, Ecclesiastes 8:11 says this.
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I want you to really absorb this verse and think about it.
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It says, "Because the sentence against an evil deed "is not executed speedily, "the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." Now, this is certainly true from a human level, but you're going to see there's a principle here that's also true when it comes to man's interaction with God.
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Let me explain.
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What Solomon is pointing out here is just imagine If somebody in our culture murders someone, and that same day they committed murder, they are tried, found guilty, and executed all in the same day.
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You think that would have an effect on potential murderers if they saw that on TV?
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This guy lost his mind and committed murder at 9 a.m.
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and by noon we were watching him executed.
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Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way because there's arrests and there's imprisonment and there's hearings and there's appeals, there's more hearings, and it's this long drawn out process.
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And Solomon's point is the delay makes potential criminals think, yeah, it's really not that bad.
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I mean, that guy got arrested and over time you just sort of forget about what happened to that guy.
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And because the judgment isn't executed on the spot, you think you have time to get away with it yourself.
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Like, where are you going with this?
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See, the problem is people take advantage of God's patience.
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That because God doesn't send us to hell instantly when we sin, we start to think, you know what, maybe people don't really go to hell.
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Maybe there is no hell.
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Maybe I'll get away with it.
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Maybe, maybe, listen, God delaying judgment is meant to give people a chance to repent, not get judgment out of my mind.
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God's like, look, the only reason I'm waiting is I'm giving more people time.
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But Jesus reminds us here that judgment comes eventually.
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Even if it doesn't come immediately, it will come.
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You're like, well, who does judgment come for?
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Who?
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Who gets judged?
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Well, look at verse 48.
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Jesus said, "The one who rejects me "and does not receive my words." Now that word rejects, when we hear rejects, we think of some like violent reaction.
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Do you know what that word rejects?
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literally means? It literally means render null and void. You don't have to start a hate campaign against Jesus to reject Jesus. You don't have to go on CNN and mock Jesus to fall into the category of rejecting Jesus. Do you know what you have to do to reject Jesus? The answer is nothing. Just consider Him nothing. Jesus has zero impact on my life. Jesus is a non-factor. That's exactly he's saying here. That's what it means to reject him. And I'm going to tell you, rejecting the Son is blaspheming the Father. Like, well, how is it such an emotional thing? How did it turn into blasphemy, rejecting Jesus? Well, let's put it in earthly terms. Let's say hypothetically, if I could sacrifice my Son to save the world, well, first of all, I wouldn't do it. If saving all you meant sacrificing my son, you're all toast. You are loved, but you are toast.
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But let's just say hypothetically, we're going to pretend for a second. We're going to pretend that my son comes to me, Cade comes to me and he says, "Dad, I love you. And Dad, I love those people. So I am willing to die for them." And I say, "Okay, Cade, I will let you die so that they might be saved." And he goes through with it. And I come to to you and I say, "You know, my son died "so that you could be saved." And you say to me, "Your son doesn't mean anything to me.
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"Your son means nothing to me." How do you think I'm gonna react to that?
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You're like, "Probably worse than the jacked guy "at the penguin game." And you would be right.
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I'd be like, "Seriously, my son doesn't mean anything to you?
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"Do you know what he did?
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"Do you know what he did for you?
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"Because he loves you?" And you're just like, "He doesn't mean anything to me." You better rethink that.
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You better rethink that real quick, because you're going to have to deal with a father much bigger and more vicious than this father if you reject his son.
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Rejecting Jesus results in judgment.
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How are we judged?
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Well, Jesus points out the final judge is the word that we have not received.
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The words of Jesus that we know, the words of Jesus that we ignored.
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In other words, Jesus pointed out, again, John reminds us of Jesus' consistent teaching that people who are condemned are self-condemned.
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Did you see that?
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Jesus said, "The word that I have spoken," verse 48, "The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day." If you go to court because you violated the law, you understand the law testifies against you.
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The law says, "This is illegal," and you did that illegal thing, you have no defense.
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You're standing in court saying, "Yeah, that's what the law says, and I'm guilty of breaking it." And it's the same with your judgment before God if you don't receive Jesus Christ.
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That someday the story's going to play out something like this, that you're standing before God and he says, "I see here that you ignored my gospel, the call to come to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin and eternal life." And your response is, "I did.
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I did ignore your gospel, you're right." And God's going to say, "And you heard a sermon on March 21st from John chapter 12 verses 44 through 50 from that preacher that looks like a goat." And you're going to say, "I distinctly remember that one." And God's going to say, "Well, then you have no defense.
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You're condemned by God's Word.
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And you can be forgiven of any sin.
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Any sin can be forgiven because of Jesus Christ.
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But there is one sin.
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There is exactly one sin that cannot and will not ever be forgiven, and that's rejecting Jesus Christ.
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There's no forgiveness for that.
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God doesn't have a plan B. God's not in heaven going, "Oh, they don't want my son.
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Let me see if I can come up with something else that they might want instead." If you reject Jesus, you're condemned already on death row awaiting eternal execution.
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His word will judge you.
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Okay, here's the last track on our "Best Of" album.
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about Jesus teaching, things that Jesus taught, you absolutely have to get right.
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Number four, write this down, he's giving a command.
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He's giving a command.
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Look at verses 49 and 50.
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Jesus said, "For I have not spoken on my own authority, "but the Father who sent me "has himself given me a commandment, "what to say and what to speak, "and I know that his commandment is eternal life.
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"What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me." Here's the authority piece, right?
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knowing his authority.
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The most crucial issue that anyone will ever face is who's in charge of your life.
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So believing in Jesus Christ all the way, wholeheart, dying to yourself, all that stuff we talked about a couple of weeks ago, I need to remind you that it's not a suggestion, it's a command.
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The gospel is a command.
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So often we kind of sugarcoat it, don't we?
25:06-25:15
Like, you know, please invite Jesus into your heart, or I'd like to make a suggestion to you, I'd like to share Jesus with you.
25:15-25:18
And we just sort of water it down a bit.
25:18-25:22
But the gospel isn't a suggestion, it's a command.
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God commands you to believe.
25:25-25:27
God now commands all men everywhere to repent.
25:28-25:36
And Jesus here, John reminds us, Jesus repeatedly pointed out that the gospel doesn't have a human source.
25:36-25:40
In other words, Jesus was like, Look, this isn't stuff that I'm just like making up.
25:41-25:47
This is stuff that my father told me in heaven, and I came to earth to communicate the message to you.
25:48-25:50
I'm relaying a message from heaven.
25:50-25:52
Oh, and what does God in heaven say?
25:52-25:54
He's commanding you to believe in me.
25:54-25:56
That's those are his words.
25:56-25:57
The gospel is a command.
25:58-25:59
Does that seem harsh to you?
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It's not really harsh when you know what's at stake.
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I mean, if you think about it, it's no more harsh than a mother commanding her son not to play on the street.
26:08-26:12
It's no more harsh than a doctor commanding his patient to take a life-saving medicine.
26:13-26:17
So the command, it's not a harsh restriction, it's eternal life.
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Knowing Jesus Christ is eternal life.
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And God commands it.
26:21-26:22
So what do we have here?
26:23-26:36
Really, in this compilation, as John sums up the public teaching of ministry, it's kind of interesting how he's giving one last appeal to the gospel, but he's giving four angles.
26:36-26:39
I love that because it kind of hits everybody, doesn't it?
26:40-26:42
He's giving four angles, four appeals.
26:43-26:44
Think about it.
26:44-26:46
The first one is the divine appeal.
26:46-26:48
Like, would you like to know who the Creator is?
26:49-26:50
Then look closely at Jesus Christ.
26:50-26:51
That's the divine appeal.
26:52-26:53
Then he takes us to the practical appeal.
26:54-26:55
Like, hey, is your life a mess?
26:56-27:00
Are you living in a dark place right now?
27:00-27:04
Come to the light because when you come to Jesus, the lights are on, man.
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He changes you.
27:05-27:06
That's the practical appeal.
27:07-27:08
Then he gives the fear appeal.
27:09-27:10
Hey, have you thought about eternity?
27:11-27:14
Because rejecting Jesus Christ will condemn you before God.
27:15-27:15
That's the fear appeal.
27:16-27:17
And then he gives the authority appeal.
27:18-27:19
Like, hey, pal, this isn't a suggestion.
27:20-27:22
The King of the universe commands this.
27:22-27:24
You need to know Jesus Christ.
27:24-27:25
Let's pray.
27:25-27:28
Father in heaven, we thank you.
27:29-27:40
I guess just the beauty of your word, that sometimes we can get so caught up in a lot There have been a lot of details and people that we've met and interactions and teachings and rejection.
27:41-27:46
And there have been so many things happen in this first section of John.
27:46-27:48
And I just thank you just for the beauty of your word, God.
27:48-27:49
You just kind of summed it up for us.
27:50-27:54
Right here, everything we need to know about Jesus teaching.
27:54-27:57
But Father, you haven't called us to just know about it.
27:57-27:58
You've called us to know it.
27:59-28:04
You haven't called us to just have an intellectual grasp, but to make this a very part of our lives.
28:05-28:17
So Father, I pray, especially for those who maybe at this point haven't received Jesus Christ, I pray that one of these appeals is something that you use to open their heart.
28:17-28:24
One of these appeals is something that gets attention so that people can come to know the love that you demonstrated through your Son.
28:24-28:30
And it is in the name of that Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that we pray, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 12:44-50
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why did Jesus repeatedly emphasize that He did not speak on His own initiative, but only spoke what the Father commanded (John 12:49-50)? What was He getting at by saying this?
How does Jesus being the light change you, specifically (John 12:46)?
We often speak of “sharing Jesus” or “inviting people to be saved”, but rarely do we think or speak of the Gospel as a command (John 12:49-50). Why do you think that is? How is the Gospel a command?
This passage gave 4 appeals: the Divine Appeal, the Practical Appeal, the Fear Appeal, and the Authority Appeal. Which one gets your attention the most? Which one brought you to Christ? Which one(s) do you think the church overuses? Under-uses?
Breakout
Pray for one another.
